Meeting Notes - 1/18/18
Notes taken by FFST member Ethan Smith:
The meeting started with reports from the Cabinet on comments from the two Community Forums last week. Approximately 200 people responded to the survey and the majority of them were not in favor of a dedicated middle school.
Dr. Bregy again complimented the FFST team on their hard work and we got down to business. We knew that tonight we had to vote on our recommendation and put together a presentation for the Board Meeting next week. I'll cut to the chase on the votes below, but first I want to say that we were not unanimous and those of us not in agreement were passionate in their opposition. If you go to the Board meeting on January 23rd, expect to hear from at least one of those people who cast the minority vote.
We voted on if we felt our current middle-school model within our K-8 schools is doing an adequate job educating our middle school (6th-8th grade) students. The vote was 19 to 0 that we are not.
We voted if we should keep four K-8 schools. We voted 19 to 0 that we should not.
We voted if we should make one recommendation to the School Board or if we should only present various options to them. The vote was 17 to 2 that we should make a presentation recommending one model moving forward.
Finally, we voted if our recommendation should be three K-5 schools and one middle school. We voted 17 to 2 that it will be.
Once the voting was done and dissenting opinions had been heard, we talked about what we might recommend to the Board moving forward. The FFST is going to recommend a "Slow, Steady and Studied" approach to implementing a middle school model. We discussed that a new "Transition Committee" should be created as early as this spring to work with all vested parties on making this change.
In addition to the FFST and the voice of our member with the minority opinion, Dr. Bregy himself will make his own recommendation to the Board of Education at its January 23rd meeting, as to how we should move forward as a district. The Board is expected to make its decision known at the Board Meeting on January 30th.
Dr. Bregy again complimented the FFST team on their hard work and we got down to business. We knew that tonight we had to vote on our recommendation and put together a presentation for the Board Meeting next week. I'll cut to the chase on the votes below, but first I want to say that we were not unanimous and those of us not in agreement were passionate in their opposition. If you go to the Board meeting on January 23rd, expect to hear from at least one of those people who cast the minority vote.
We voted on if we felt our current middle-school model within our K-8 schools is doing an adequate job educating our middle school (6th-8th grade) students. The vote was 19 to 0 that we are not.
We voted if we should keep four K-8 schools. We voted 19 to 0 that we should not.
We voted if we should make one recommendation to the School Board or if we should only present various options to them. The vote was 17 to 2 that we should make a presentation recommending one model moving forward.
Finally, we voted if our recommendation should be three K-5 schools and one middle school. We voted 17 to 2 that it will be.
Once the voting was done and dissenting opinions had been heard, we talked about what we might recommend to the Board moving forward. The FFST is going to recommend a "Slow, Steady and Studied" approach to implementing a middle school model. We discussed that a new "Transition Committee" should be created as early as this spring to work with all vested parties on making this change.
In addition to the FFST and the voice of our member with the minority opinion, Dr. Bregy himself will make his own recommendation to the Board of Education at its January 23rd meeting, as to how we should move forward as a district. The Board is expected to make its decision known at the Board Meeting on January 30th.