Make a note to attend the next board meeting. The Plan for Excellence committee chairs will be making a presentation. . Of course I don’t know what else is on the agenda. I’ll try to fill you in as soon as I know. The PFE will be filling us in on what they have been up to. I can’t wait to see what cost savings are involved. Our district has managed to pass a new levy , go from a projected deficit in 2008, to requesting a release from fiscal watch. The preliminary draft didn’t have much cost cutting. I am curious how buildings and bussing reorganization went.
Let’s talk about those two things today. Buildings and bussing. Our bussing program really needs revamped. We have exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions, busses picking up one and two kids. Busses picking up open enrolled kids but denying our own kids a ride. I have had parents ask me why their child must walk on Graham Rd. while children a little further up Graham Rd. get a ride on a bus. I’ve also had parents ask me if Broad Blvd, State Road, Portage Trail, Tallmadge Road, Bailey, etc… are any less dangerous than the current exceptions of Kent Road and Graham Road east of Route 8.
I’ve heard so many building scenarios it’s mind boggling. I’ll put my two cents in and I’m sure everyone else will offer rebuttals here as well. While neighborhood schools have support in our community, it seems that grade level tracking has benefits that outweigh many other options. For those unfamiliar with this concept here is an example- one building houses K-2, another house 3&4, another 5&6, another 7&8, and then the HS. For one they out perform other school configurations academically. Teachers have an obvious advantage being "on the same page". You don’t have kids entering middle school from different elementary schools having learned different concepts. This configuration also seems to utilize building capacity most efficiently.
I’m sure the PFE has covered these concerns and more. I believe they have been working since last October. I will admit I am not as in the know about the PFE as some would like. Many of us were excluded from the steering committee based on the fact we were running for the board?! I was assigned to a sub committee called "Facilities and Resources" I attended the first of three meetings and discovered facilities had nothing to do with it. Unfortunately family business prevented me from attending the second and third meetings. But I am confident that the sub committees have found new and ingenious ways to save us bunches of money. I bet the building reorganization alone saves oodles. I doubt there is much that can be done to save money in the bussing department. Even if we bus in a more efficient manner we will still bus the same kids the same distances. And what efficiency saves, higher overhead at the new garage will eat up any meager savings we could have accomplished. I think building reorganization is where we will see the money savings.
Let’s get talking about the results you expect from the PFE. There has been a lot of time and money put into this. The board will be expected to approve some sort of resolution or recommendations from the PFE and I would like to know what Joe Taxpayer has to say about this.
I still think a survey of the entire community is the only way our district will truly know what is expected of us. The city of Orrville did one with surprising results. Yes the grape jelly capitol of the world. They learned things about their community that they’d never considered. They were able to rebuild their district around survey results and do it with the support and backing of the community. I know this city is capable of doing the same. But only if we include the stake holders.
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Please help me clarify some questions related to our school TRANSPORTATION systems.
1. Do the crossing guards have cell phones?
2. When the busses were purchased, did they use linear programming optimization software (costs about $100) to size the buses?
3. Do the car pools have or need a website to help them self-organize?
4. Could a car pool driver with a cell phone make a second trip to solve an unforeseen short term 'lack of ride' problem?
5. Do the students walk to designated pick up points in a neighborhood? Thus, a bus stops to pick up groups and not an individual.
6. We now have the ability to track the position of each bus with GPS. If we used this software then would it have a benefit?
7. Does a bus driver know exactly who is riding with him each day? Meaning, when a student is called in 'sick' then does the bus driver get this information before he is asked to pick up someone who is not going to ride?
Please allow me to ask some questions related to the term 'socialization'.
Let me propose a simple definition. Socialization means we form groups to satisfy needs.
Can we agree with the following statements?
1. It is a learning process.
2. It can be learned and applied in a formal structured environment or an informal non-structured situation.
3. It is influenced by our genetic predispositions. For example, a genetic sociopath is very sociable. But, the rest of the group is unlikely to be satisfied with the results of socializing with our sociopath.
The question becomes must we package our students into specific buildings to get 'socialization'?
It is nice to see a new topic!
As I learn more about it, I am also becoming a fan of grade level based buildings. I think that if our goal is to truly become an excellent district, over and above the State's definition of excellent, then we are going to have to have the courage to make some real changes. We've had the current configuration through at least 2 previous planning initiatives and we have yet to get to excellent. Maybe we need to really shake things up to achieve those lofty goals.
I can understand the concerns about the younger kids losing out on opportunties for socialization with older kids. At the same time, the Akron Beacon Journal recently had an article just recently about a program where CFHS kids went to DeWitt (my oldest participated in this too) and worked on writing projects with some of the kids there. I know that Newberry and Bolich used to have several programs where the kids from Bolich would come down and work on various projects with the kids at Newberry. Why couldn't we expand these inter-building programs? In some ways, I think there would be a greater benefit in the novelty of working with kids that you don't see everyday. I have also heard concerns that parents won't be as likely to get involved in these types of buildings, but in my experience, the parents that want and are able to get involved will do so regardless of where their kids attend school. With a broader based student population, I think you might even see more parental involvement because you are drawing from all areas of the community.
On the subject of transportation, I think that the second phase of the PFE is going to have to take a hard look at who exceptions in our transportation policy are being made for and why. The stakeholders may even need to weigh in on whether we want our tax dollars to continue to subsidize these exceptions. It is vitally important, if the district wants the full support of the entire community, that all students are getting fair and equitable access to services and funding.
Barry, I am trying to get a copy of the Orrville survey and I'm also doing some research into the process that they used. I'll try to have more information up on my blog in a day or two.
To: The kind leaders who are posting on this blog,
I am unsure if I understand what is meant by 'grade level ...'.
Relative to a survey, I think that we could prototype the survey on-line. I can help with this task by using www.tnl3000.org. The online prototype will be cheap and fast -- but limited to about 230 people -- via 'Help our School'. If that works then we could ask community members to jump on www.tnl3000.org and take the survey. Again this would be fast and cheap.
If the above works then we us the US Mail and spend over $3.00 per home to survey our community members. I doubt that we want to survey all of the 26,000 homes in our community with a 5 page survey.
Or, maybe we want to use the new phone calling service announced last week in the BOE.
We need to talk with a statistician to know the size of a valid representative sample.
I hope this useful.
Lou Schott www.tnl3000.org
All of our options for doing surveys have different cost/benefits. At the same time, more information is better than less. And, when we ask people for their opinion then we honor them by involving them.
I think that all of us have a lot to learn about both the process of doing a survey and the exact wording of a survey question.
Can we get started?
Lou Schott 330-923-9328
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