Jeff Smith's Letter to the Williston School Board on 4/16/2008

Dear Fellow Williston Families,

Attached you will find a letter which has been sent to the Williston School Board, Williston School Administration and Guidance Counselors and will also be featured in this week's Williston Observer. It discusses Jeff's feelings about the lack of meaningful change to the school configuration plan for next year which was proposed at last week's school board meeting.

Jeff wrote this letter because feels passionate about the issue and wants to see options for the families of Williston. As a Middle School Guidance Counselor a Essex Middle School, Jeff has first hand knowledge of how Middle Schools can be better organized and run. He is hoping to garner some support for this important issue.

Please read this letter carefully. Whether you agree, partially agree or disagree with this letter, we urge you to let the School Board and Administration know how you feel!! Let's not let this opportunity for change slip through our fingers.

Thank you for your time. Please forward this on to other families who you think will be interested.

Jeff and Ann Smith

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Dear Williston Central School Board,

As a Williston tax payer and parent as well as an experienced Middle School Educator I am writing to express my concerns regarding the lack of meaningful change to the proposed Williston Upper House Configuration Plan.

Instead of listening to the voices of your consumers who clearly voiced great dissatisfaction with the current configuration you have chosen to continue to support an unorthodox 1970's type educational model that, to my knowledge, very few public school systems throughout the nation follow. If the Williston School District truly believes in “families as partners” then they should respect and honor the input of the community who entrust their child’s future to your hands.

Key issues regarding the lack of change include but are not exclusive of the following points:

• According to the Upper House Satisfaction Survey 52% of respondents felt students’ social needs were met; 39% felt they were not.
  
  
• 54% supported a change in the upper house structure (33% “strongly” supported this); 25% did not, and 21% didn’t know.
  
  
• According to School Board minutes from a June 29, 2007 retreat, Ms. Parks commented that “she didn’t think the staff understands the reality of the concern with the upper house structure. Board members felt there needs to be more understanding of what parents actually want.”
  
  
• This sentiment of dissatisfaction has existed for as long as I have been a resident of this town (1991) and has been repeatedly ignored by the school.
  
  
• What percentage of dissatisfaction will it take for the school to listen? Why is 54% dissatisfaction not enough to result in change?
  
  
• Why did Ray McNulty’s sole opinion regarding the results of the Configuration Survey hold more weight than what the community has repeatedly and clearly said it wants?

There are numerous inherent problems with the current house structure which include but are not limited to:

ACADEMIC CONCERNS:

• Although Williston has always valued the individual needs of children it is inconsistent and inappropriate to ask any child to be rendered the same teaching style in a subject area for four years, particularly if the teaching style does not mesh with the child’s learning style.
  
• A child who has a learning style which does not match the teaching style of a teacher or teachers in a house and is there for four years will NEVER recover those skills and is set up to struggle or fail.
  
  
• Williston’s NECAP scores are not where they should be given the socio-economic demographics of this town. We should be scoring at least as well or better than other schools of similar socio-economic backgrounds in Chittenden County, but we in fact are not!
  
  
• As an example, students have a full hour of all core subjects (math, language arts, social studies and science) every day for the entire school year in other Chittenden County My oldest son at WCS has an hour of science OR social studies 4 days a week, with just a half an hour on the fifth day AND this is for only half of the school year! This academic pitfall is due in great part to the inflexibility in scheduling inherent in the House system.
  
  
• With scheduling like this how are we meeting GLE’s (Grade Level Expectations) for our children in the core subject areas?
  
  
• How will our students meet minimum criteria in the upcoming 8^th grade NECAP Science exams if there is no time to cover the curriculum?

SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL/DEVELOPMENTAL CONCERNS:

• Despite some attempts to improve social opportunities within grades, a four year commitment to a house limits meaningful and consistent exposure to age and gender matched peers.
  
  
• The house system creates competition for house assignments which is unhealthy and unnecessary and creates fear, anxiety and stress for families of fourth graders who are about to be placed into a four year commitment which might not be a good match for their child’s learning style.
  
  
• Fifth/sixth graders and seventh/eighth graders are socially, academically, developmentally, emotionally and physically worlds apart with very different needs and concerns.
  
  
• Fifth graders (and sixth graders) are exposed to social, emotional and developmental information and experiences which they are not socially, emotionally and/or developmentally equipped to handle when grouped with seventh and eighth graders.
  
  
• The proposed “slow transition” for the fifth graders does not address the grouping problem. It simply postpones the inappropriate groupings this configuration creates.

SYSTEMIC CONCERNS:

• The current Williston Central School structure provides no options. It’s the House system or nothing. Multi-age or nothing. Four year commitment or nothing. If you don’t like it, sorry we have nothing else to offer.
• The attempt to appease the four year commitment issue by allowing families to move their child ONE time during their middle school years is not the way to repair this configuration problem:

o It is extremely unfair to the child who will feel singled out by such a move.

o This will create administrative nightmares if lots of changes are requested within a “weaker” house and there is nowhere for these children to go.

• If change occurred naturally for everyone on a more consistent basis (e.g. every 2 years) there would be less competition, less stress, less dissatisfaction, less risk of children being left behind, less social isolation, fewer scheduling limitations, more time for academics, less struggle to meet the wide age/academic variances of the students and it would FINALLY increase the satisfaction of your consumers in the Williston community.

This system of no options other than four year groupings is not working and a large portion of the community has said that it does not like it. Let’s not wait another year to see if we can get to 75% agreement on the part of educators, parents and students. We can get there now with options, diversity and progress and we owe it to our children.