Greetings Neighbors!
We were thrilled with the attendance and dialogue at Monday night's community forum! WOW!
We wish to extend a big THANK YOU to each of you who attended and made it such a wonderful, thought provoking and powerful night. Community dialogue/community involvement regarding reconfiguration has finally and officially begun! We have effectively started what the administration failed to do and now we need to keep the momentum going!
We counted 125+ people in attendance Monday evening and we got roughly 85 signatures on our petition with more coming in! We still need more signatures from spouses/partners, friends and neighbors who were not able to attend. More on that below. (Click "Read More" to continue)
We believe most everyone came out of the the forum agreeing that Williston's schools are NOT performing academically where they should be given our socio-economic status as compared to those schools most similar to us in Chittenden County. We are lacking consistent and accountable academic rigor across all house and grades. Each child deserves an outstanding education. It needs to work for all children.
It was also very clear that the house system is working and is very comfortable for some, but it is not working for many, many families. This system is not equitable and provides no choices and very limited flexibility to meet family requests. At the very least we need choices!
Our school has clearly failed hundreds to perhaps thousand(s) of students--past and present--in the areas of science and social studies. Williston's failure to meet state minimum REQUIREMENTS for hours of instruction in science and social studies is UNCONSCIONABLE and must change despite which configuration plan is adopted! We need and deserve accountability from our administration.
What next? We need more help!
If you are willing to volunteer to help garner more signatures on the petition, please respond to our email accound reconfig.williston.schools@gmail.com and we will send you a copy of the petition for circulation/canvasing in your neighborhood etc. If you know any of the organizing members of the campaign we will all have copies as well or you can request a copy via email.
We also need volunteers to help with the process of moving forward quickly! If you can volunteer in any capacity we'd love to hear from you. We are planning to meet with the administration in the next few days to discuss the meeting, the PowerPoint data and where we need to go from here.
We also need you to let the Administration know how you feel about what you learned Monday night. We need and deserve a say in the education of our children. This is imminent! Please write, meet with them or call as soon as possible.
Finally, we have posted the PowerPoint presentation on our blog: http://reconfigwilliston.blogspot.com It is on the right hand column under Documents--Click on "FORUM PRESENTATION (PowerPoint)."
Please encourage your friends, family and neighbors to read the presentation and become informed and help keep this campaign moving forward.
Thank you all!
With great respect-
Your Reconfiguration Team
Jeff, Ann , Abby, Jason, Sarah, Michelle, Nancy, Mary and Sandy
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
An Extraordinary Forum!
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4 comments:
I commend the group for putting on a very well organized and respectful forum. I have a few comments in relation to the letter above and the dialogue at the meeting.
I think the opportunity to change houses, if desired, should handle many of the negative comments I've heard and read about the 4 yr system. If the fit is not right, socially or academically, then there will be an alternative. That should also alleviate some of the parental anxiety over the "right" placement. In addition, it doesn't force students who are in a stable and successful place to undergo an undesired transition, sacrificing valuable learning time for "getting to know you" time.
I believe each house is intentionally designed differently to fit different learning styles and needs of students. Not all students will do well being graded with letter grades. For some, it is essential. However, every house should be held to achieving the same GLEs and standards. If that is not the case across all houses then that is something to insist upon with administration.
And lastly, student success doesn't necessarily come down to academic rigor. There are many things in middle school, other than pure academics, that make a student engaged, happy and successful.
I am an eighth grade student at WCS. I personally see nothing wrong with our current system. I've been here four years, and I've neither seen or heard anything about an 8th grader acting or influencing a 5th grader in a negative manner. Because I'm not connected to the School Board and I'm a student, I hear a lot of stuff. One is that they're going to separate houses by grade because of negative influences on 5th graders. However, there isn't much fact backing up this opinion.
1. Everyone exaggerates the truth. A 5th grader could come home and say they were "bullied" by an 8th grader when they really could've been ignored or not even heard. Everyone has the right to ignore people.
2. I know that my house is actually very good with 5th graders. It's common to see all grades talking to each other. They interact together, not always positively, but never negatively.
3. Just like adults used to be kids, 8th graders used to be 5th graders. Every other person who has passed through this school turned out to be fine. I admit, at first I was intimidated too. But this is apart of life. You're not going through your whole life with everything being as convenient as possible. Sometimes, you just have to accept things and adjust to get through it. 8th graders even help 5th graders with homework and with how to deal with being in middle school. Sometimes 5th graders feel better having an older friend that's there for them.
4. In high school, you WILL be around people that are older than you. High school isn't going to adjust to you either; you have to adjust to it.
If the community is really set on trying to reconfigure the system, I only suggest/ask you to have some members of the school board/parents of the community "shadow" the students for the day. Maybe put a person or two per house. Maybe they will understand that the system works now as it is.
I also agree with the first person, "student success doesn't necessarily come down to academic rigor. There are many things in middle school, other than pure academics, that make a student engaged, happy and successful."
These NECAP tests are kind of hard. I consider myself a good student, but everyone is different, and its this diversity that attracted some parents to allow their students to enroll here. Everyone has trouble in certain subjects or even has a bad day. Not everyone comprehends words and numbers like computers. This comprehension has nothing to do with how the houses are configured; it has to do with who you are and what life you lead.
Last but not least, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it..."
Is our school district really broken?
Hey Jeff;
I've been trying to find the NECAP data on the state website, so I can apply some significance testing to the differences between schools, but all I'm finding is summary data, not by-grade level data.
Where did you get the data for the presentation?
Thanks;
John Colt
Bravo to the eighth grade student who had the courage to post his/her comments. I only wish that the adults who are pushing for these changes would listen... it seems as though they are all patting themselves on the back because they are helping the kids but I'd wager that most of them haven't bothered to talk to any of the kids to see how they feel. Don't keep procliming to one and all that you are acting in their best interests because I think you'd be hard pressed to find a majority of students who agree with you!!!
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