Thoughts on School Facilities Direction

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895200797299787815.post-18709681750004678662008-03-01T09:27:00.004-06:002008-03-01T10:09:56.180-06:00Thoughts on School Facilities DirectionI was disappointed that Team 6 did not bring a recommendation to the board but rather a choice of two, but given the dynamics of the board I can see why they didn't bother. Once again the board majority had to compromise to move things forward --- I just hope they don't, once again, end up compromising with themselves because those they compromised for end up not supporting the plan because it isn't EXACTLY what they wanted. While the board majority clearly supported the K-3, 4-8 configuration (and contrary to what a NW poster thinks - no one "admitted" they were wrong in supporting K-3, 4-8) but also realized that to get the 6-1 vote administration was asking for, they would need to abandon the K-3 configuration because that was the only way to garner Mr. Traska and Mr. Becker's support. It was clear that Mr. Traska and Mr. Becker would not support a plan that was K-3 so the majority of the board, who actually preferred K-3 (because of the educational benefits for children) were willing to stay with the K-5 in order to get a 6-1 vote of the board for a referendum (of course it still remains to be seen if Mr. Traska and Mr. Becker will actually support any referendum and it appears the board is writing off getting Mr. Schneider's vote, since he said nothing at the meeting about what he would support and no one asked where he stood). Some are already putting their "conspiracy theory" out there as to how it was $40M then $60M then $75M then back to $40M so that $40M looks like a bargain. Well the reason the referendum figure is now slated for under $40 M is that, that is the dollar figure Mr. Becker said it had to stay below for him to support a referendum. It seems that to reach that figure, much of the equity will be eliminated or the board will try in 3 or so years to attempt another referendum, much like the Traeger and Jefferson referendums which were several years apart. I feel that staying with K-5 has already drastically reduced the equity for special needs students, while the K-5 plan is better than what we have currently the K-3 plan actually allowed nearly every school to have every special needs programs in their school. I spoke with Karen Lieuallen, Director of Special Education Services and At-Risk for the district and she explained that she has 10 programs that would need to go into Webster Middle school but only 4 rooms available (and that isn't even counting space for Speech/Language teachers, OT or PT rooms). There is not enough space in Merrill Middle for all the needed programs either so once again, it is OK to bus special needs students across town so they can receive needed services. This plan will also, from a special needs perspective, require some schools to house large populations of special needs students, while others have few or no special needs programs/students. I see this as a far cry from meeting the needs of all our students in an equitable manner. Some will say, well just make this work like K-3 but it is not possible due to the fact that under K-5 the number of special needs students will be too low in many of their "home schools" to efficiently and effectively provide those services there (unlike K-3 where only 2 schools would not have every special needs program) not to mention that under K-5 even when the student numbers warrant it, in the North side middle schools, there simply aren't enough classrooms to provide all needed services. It is too bad that a "belief" that K-3 is bad (based on nothing more than that is not the typical grade configuration) will have a negative affect on our special needs population. You know, we wouldn't have Middle Schools (6-8) and high schools (9-12) if the above so-called logic had been followed. Before the Middle School movement, the most common grade configuration in the country (at least for public schools) was Junior High (7-9) and Senior High (10-12) but somehow we were able to change that. In the end it will be interesting to see if in fact there are 6 votes for this plan (I predict no more than 5). I think that if, in the end, there are only 4 votes for any plan, the whole thing should be scrapped, go to referendum for the $14M in deferred maintenance and reconfigure schools however you need to, and close as many schools as possible to get the greatest savings in operational costs and give up on the idea of equity or reconstruction of schools like Oakwood and Shapiro. I guess we'll know in a couple weeks.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8895200797299787815-1870968175000467866?l=oshkoshstudents.blogspot.com'/></div>Questioningnoreply@blogger.com56