Virginia,
Thank you for your comments. I too would hope that the district could hold off a bit on it's space reduction considerations while it looks at school choices. During the district's Strategic Planning process, exploring educational choices and programs were given a high priority. Although some informal discussions have occured concerning choice, I would like to see more formalized and action oriented planning happen.
Polly Gower
>I was reading some material today from a website Randy Schenket recommended
>- www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0106gol.htm. The topic of the site is "Leadership
>In Education: Five Commonalties". In the piece, one of the leaders who was
>interviewed by the author, talks about the fallacy "of one size fits all" in
>speaking about schools. And went on to argue for "small schools of choice
>with high standards and dedicated staff."
>
>This quote got me to thinking about the citizens group that is currently
>meeting to recommend school closing/consolidating. While I know this thought
>may be coming in late in the process, I nevertheless was thinking that
>perhaps we might want to rethink or put off for making such a decision until
>we have considered the entire question of what education system our community
>wants. I say this thinking that if we try to make our decision based solely,
>or primarily, on budgetary concerns, we could be missing essential elements
>of the bigger picture. I realize budge concerns are real and definitely
>important, but I also wonder if the broader question, the entire system
>issue, must be taken into consideration when we are talking about building
>usage. Questions such as "What kind of schools do we want in our Community?"
>"Do we, should we, offer a choice or options of type of schools to parents
>and students?" Knowing that children learn in very different ways and the
>one size fits all has been proven to not work. It seems to me that these
>concerns be given the same consideration as the budgetary ones - because they
>are part of the whole interrelated system.
>
>Since I am not a part of group discussing this issue, I really am asking
>these questions with the hope of getting some input, answers, and facts from
>someone (or many) involved in the group. Are there discussions of such
>topics taking place in these meetings?
>
>Virginia Laken
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