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Committee to plan school changes
Group will come up with plan for neighborhood schools
Members of a special committee will help the Quincy School District decide how the two neighborhood schools will operate for the 2012-13 school year.
Earlier this summer, the Quincy School Board voted to change the configuration of Mountain View Elementary and Pioneer Elementary schools. Under the current format, Mountain View has all Quincy students in grades kindergarten and first grade and Pioneer has all Quincy students in second and third grades. The new format will create two neighborhood schools which will each have grades kindergarten through third grade, with the idea being that reducing the number of transitions for students will help them focus on their education and will also allow for more parental involvement.
It will now be the task of the reconfiguration committee to determine the best way to create the neighborhood schools, said school district superintendent Burton Dickerson during the school board meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 27. Some of the issues to be determined include how to divide the students, staffing, curriculum, transportation and preparing the facilities for the change. Committee members include parents, principals, district supervisors, classified employees, teachers, district representatives and school board members. Nik Bergman, principal of Pioneer Elementary, said the idea is to have a large committee and then form subcommittees that will look at the individual issues.
Committee members include parents Darci Kleyn, Brock Laughlin, Betsy Kennedy and Manuel Ramos; principals Bergman and Kathie Brown; district supervisors Rod McKnight, Tom Harris, Gus Winter, Karla Hartt and Chris Molitor; classified employees Connie Flippins, Greta Williams, Terri Wilson, David Day, Rita Luce and Michele Gonzalez; teachers Laurie Norton, Caitlin Walters, Sara Hauskins, Evie Wood, Susan Yaw, Bobbi Pierce, Leah Durfee-Wells, Chris Murren and Jamie Nash; district representatives Dickerson and Carole Carlton; and school board Tricia Lubach and Lisa Mickelson.
Lubach said she would like to see more parents included in the committee, perhaps parents who were not involved in the committee that was previously created to examine the neighborhood schools process.
“They might have a fresh perspective and have ideas that we haven’t considered,” Lubach said.
Concerned commented, on October 6, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.:
I am not convinced that by adding neighborhood schools it would fix any problems rather it would add more issues. My understanding is that people want to switch to neighborhood schools to encourage parent participation but how realistic is that idea. Location is not a deciding factor on whether or not parents get involved. I would like members of this commitee to explain further why a change is necessary. Neighborhood schools are located all over the country but their purpose is to integrate students of different races who are segrated by location in public schools. This is such a drastic change and considerable concideration needs to be taken into account before deciding anything. Is this really what is best for Quincy, I am not convinced it is.
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