The first community meeting concerning the new school assignment plan was held today.
The following information about the meeting comes courtesy of Brent Evans, Vice President of the Daniel Bagley Elementary School PTA (note, though, that we added the links). Thank you Brent!
I attended the first community meeting this morning at Eckstein. The
meeting was well attended. You may want to know about the process so
that if you choose to attend you know what to expect. Following is the
agenda for the meeting:-Presentation on the development of the attendance boundaries, the
proposed maps and implementation issues including the next steps (about
30 minutes)-Q&A (10 minutes)
-Small group discussions on three questions (about 25 minutes)
-Small group report out (15 minutes)
-Additional Q&A time permitting
The presentation is a high level overview [pdf] of what went into creating the
boundary maps and includes information about the plan. They are open to
questions and comments about the plan and the maps. If you have studied
the information on the website, much of this will be review. If you have
not had the time to do this, the information provided will get you up to
speed.During the presentation, note cards were handed out to anyone wishing to
ask a question or submit a comment. The cards are handed in, sorted into
commonalities and then used for the 10 minutes of questions in the
agenda. There is not an open floor question period. The same cards will
be used for the final question period at the end of the agenda. All the
questions and comments gathered will be kept, sorted, reviewed and
answered. The questions and answers will get posted to the website. The
comments will be posted as well.The small group discussions are to address three questions. What
questions or concerns do you have with the boundaries as proposed? What
do you feel was missed? What is it you like about the plan? One person
is assigned to record the conversation. Each group is asked to create
three points they want to make to the group.The “report out” follows the group discussion. Each group appoints a
speaker that gets to stand in a long line unless they are quick. Each
person gets one minute to report the three points. They will tap the
person on the shoulder when the minute is up. The reports actually range
from about 30 seconds to 90 seconds and there is a lot of repetition.
All of the papers used to record the discussion are retained by the
district and will be reviewed and used as input.We did not have time for more questions at the end.
The meeting is run very efficiently and they stick to the rules set.
This was the same process used for meetings on school closures.So that was the process and what you can expect.
Items I learned from attending that are factual in nature:-Boundaries and maps will not be changed from meeting to meeting. The
meeting between now and October 17th will be used as input. There is a
School Board planning meeting on November 3rd. On November 4th, map
changes will be introduced at the School Board meeting. There are then
two community meetings to receive feedback on November 5th and 7th. On
November 9th there is a School Board Hearing and on November 18th the
meeting for the vote takes place.-10% of the seats at high schools will be set aside for open choice so
it is a consistent % for each high school.-There is a lot of community concern about the sibling issue. They
continue to state that will be addressed once the maps are final.-All the data [PDF] they used is posted on the website
-Many comments on Greenlake area and high school assignments
-Many comments on boundaries breaking up communities instead of building
communitiesYou have nothing to lose by voicing your concerns so I encourage you to
use your voice even if you are not happy with the process. Volume
(meaning numbers) may make the difference on some important issues.
