Based on what I have heard in the community, what I heard at the recent BOE, and what I have seen in the way of researched dollars and statistics from OASD administration, I would make several suggestions. I do not think the entire scenario needs to be scrapped. We, historically, have given up too often and too quickly on ideas only to have to go back and reinvent the wheel instead of building on what we have already proposed.
Considering the new scenario is addressing academics and not just facilities, I feel it does not address the freshman failure rate at all that we have heard so much about over the last several years. And considering the capacity issues with the High schools, I would consider K-4, 5-9, 10-12 or K-5, 6-9, 10-12. The possibility exists of doing more than one configuration at different school groups. One set of High school feeders (elem, Mid) could be a K-3, 4-8/9, another might be K-5, 6-8/9 depending on how many section, whether SAGE or not, and capacity of available buildings.
We definitely need to do more with the boundaries. Cherry-picking, for any reason, is unacceptable and a band-aid covering a much more serious problem for the future. I think we need to wipe the map clean of buildings except the high schools. Move the HS boundary southwest and southeast to avoid having it across the street from West. Move the boundary until the capacities of the two high schools are at the determined goal with room for growth. I have heard that a continuous boundary is more acceptable to the community that islands in the farthest reaches of the district.
Then we need to look at the middle schools and the capacity needed for each building and current programming. Draw the boundaries in sort of a circle around the schools until the optimal capacity is reached and all students are accounted for. Students in overlapping areas would have a choice as long as there is room in the desired building and it wouldn't cause a split class in the other building.
At that point we could do the same with the elementary schools. However, we need to determine which schools to close. I do not agree that the six identified are beyond repair or beyond their life expectancies. I also do not believe it is smart to remove the farthest north schools and farthest south schools leaving buildings we know cannot handle growth in those areas. If we are going to develop a facilities scenario, we need to pay attention to what the information actually tells us and not what some people want it to tell us.
We also need to get back to the educational standards and community values and goals we started with. Scenario 7 has deviated too far from what we set out to do. I look at scenario 7 and do not see the vision the BOE voted on.
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3 comments:
If we have 200 excess seats currently in our middle school how would you "fit" 9th graders in the middle schools? We are projected to have over 800 9th graders for the forseeable future --- where exactly would you put them in our middle schools?
Actually, according to the numbers I have gotten on enrollment and declining enrollment from CRT meetings we have room for the ninth grade which is not 800 students. There would be an overload of 88 students comparing the capacity of the five buildings compared to the population of 6 to 9th grades. Since scenario builders saw no problem building 100 plus classrooms, they should not balk at 4 classrooms added to Tipler. In addition, boundary changes need to be made across the district which is a sight better than closing six schools and cramming all of those kids into seven full buildings.
I would point out that those ninth graders currently "Fit" in the middle school now as eighth graders. You are adding the population of fifth graders to the mix. Those are the same fifth graders who would be there with Scneario 7. If we can fit two grades in the middle schools (4/5) with scenario 7, why can't we fit one grade (9) in the middle schools and leave the younger kids with the younger kids?
What numbers do you have for 9th graders in the district? In the enrollment projection book I have North is projected to have around 300 students and West is projected to have around 500. Any way I add the two you get about 800 9th graders. It was determined after the Jan. board meeting that a miscalculation was made and there are only 200 excess seats in our middle schools, so how you can say we would need only 100 seats at Perry Tipler is beyond me.
Are you saying that we should add on to the middle schools to accomodate the 9th graders while only closing Lincoln? Part of the reason to add on to elementary schools is because you would be closing 6 schools and saving in operating costs. Your proposal would just add classrooms at our middle schools without any opertaing savings except the closing of Lincoln (since in other blogs you have said that is the only school you would close). How would that be fiscally responsible? We would have 15 elementary buildings we would still have to repair and maintain, we would add classrooms at most of our middle schools (600 seats needed at 25 seats per class, would require 24 classrooms).
I also don't see how simply keeping Freshman in our middle schools addresses the freshman failure rate, which by the way has decreased dramatically since the high schools have taken steps to address it.
I find it hard to believe that someone who has served on the CRT from the beginning and studied all these scenarios doesn't understand how the 4th and 5th graders would fit into the middle schools. Yes 9th graders "fit as current 8th graders but then for the next school year you have to add the 100 to 150 "new" 6th graders that would be attending each middle school. The figure given was that the middle schools have 200 excess seats total across the district, do you have a more updated figure for excess seats in our middle schools? If not you would need to build classrooms for approximately 600 additonal students under your scenario. That doesn't take into account whether the middle schools would have enough lab space for those additonal students, unless you don't think it is important for students to have labs for science class?
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