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Dr. David Hopson |
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September 3, 2007 As I indicated in a prior column, the school committee will be using the first ½ hour of each school committee meeting to work on a long-range plan for the district that builds upon past successes and prior work done with various constituent groups (i.e., Gateway 2015). The initial discussion will focus on the key issue of providing appropriate educational services within the budgetary constraints of the district. This one question has many facets such as: what are appropriate educational services; what should the school offer as opposed to parents or the community; and what are the budgetary constraints of the district (a combination of grants, local tax revenue and state aid is just one piece of this question). Defining “appropriate educational services” leads to another set of considerations: appropriate sizes of schools to deliver services in a cost-effective manner; mandated verses optional subject area offerings; setting performance benchmarks beyond MCAS and either providing additional services within the school day/year or mandating additional requirements for students failing to achieve those benchmarks; providing services for free or charging a fee for them (i.e., parking and athletics); and the key question throughout the country—teach to the mandated tests or teach to the idea of the ‘whole’ child? These issues are all closely tied together and change in one area impacts other areas. Another complicating factor is that there is no ‘correct’ answer that is unfailingly supported by research. Rather there are many answers that are supported by research, some of which are appropriate for Gateway while others aren’t. Thus the dilemma is to find what works best for the district, agree to that idea, and then work together towards implementing that solution. Our definition of agreement may not even be easy to reach. Do we use a simple majority as with many issues at town meetings, a 2/3rds majority as with many financial issues, or some other type of consensus? It also begs the question of whom are we polling—students, parents, community members, school staff, the school committee or some combination of these? While these may seem like insurmountable obstacles, I believe it will be a worthwhile and productive process that will result in an informed vision of what we’d like the district to be in the future. I think success will be built if we continually keep the focus on whatever is in the best interest of students—for, I hope, children are the reason for which we are all engaged in this entity we call education. As always, we welcome your input into this process through attendance at school committee meetings, by providing your comments through the postal service or through myopinion@grsd.org, or by sharing your thoughts with members of the school committee, administrators, or by participating in local school councils. ### |
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