School Changes

[pepelect]

I want to encourage each and every one to involve themselves with this process.   Make a concerted effort to attend, speak, and be heard.   Every board member should be there if they want to hear what the community has to say.


There wasn't mention of food at this meeting.......There is going to be food isn't there?


I could put a couple hundred pork chops on sale?>>>##@!!!!!






Christmas... ( er..Holiday           I forgot we were taking about the nondenominational public school)  cookies baked by the FCCLA, FFA, or what ever abreviated student group that can cook would be appropriate for the season.


On the super position.....Why do we need a super for every district.   Why can't we share one?  They all have the same job in every district.  Some have many schools and some have only one.    This one currently has three.  Why can't we borrow one from the other districts in our area.  Ideally one of the Longton, Sedan which we already share special education  with.........


Why do we have to have an adverserial relationship with the administration and the public?   I have never seen in the 13 years since I moved back a honest request from the administration to the public except for the constant increase in mills.  If all you ask for is money than all you will get is money.    We all have the same problems here.  We need more people to provide more goods and services but we need more goods and services to provide people to come use our goods and services.  Declining enrollment, tightning budgets, and high input costs are straining the local as well as national economy. 

Let's cut the costs from the top down.    Call it trickle up economics.  Raise the lowest wages and lower the highest.  It will cost less to raise the teacher wages to a decent wage now that we have no top end.   We have a board that is perfectly capable of making the major decisions and leave the day to day to the staff.  I think the principles of all three schools can handle their jobs with board oversight.  If they can't we can find others.


Just an off the subject rant:/   Who was the idiot that drove through the yard in front of the school this time?   Didn't we spend a bizillion dollars on cameras for the doors but can't point one at the parking lot to catch the idiots in real time?   In times of economic downturn we don't need to spend useless hours cleaning up after uneducated citizens when we need to be concentrating on bigger things.  Find them.......Fine them.......make them eat cake.

[pepelect]

If we decide to build a new school.   It would be cool if we could include a lot of efficiency into the design. 

The biggest thing I would like to eliminate is the electric bill.   We should put in energy saving lighting control through out the entire building(s).  It is a school.  That has class times.   Every bell you get activity in the halls changing class rooms.   Why not put in motion sensors on the hall ways, commons areas, well pretty much every where.  Between classes classroom lights could dim to a energy saving level, hall lighting could be increased as traffic increases and empty rooms would shut down automatically.  HVAC and Electronics in each room could be addressed the same way.  Replace the big 400watt high bay light fixtures in the gym and other areas with new high output T5 fluorescents.  They put out better light, burn less power, are instant on/off, and are dimmable.  Do we really need every light in the entire building on all day?   Why?   The exterior lighting is another example of energy pork. Turn down the exterior lighting when no one is present.  Then if we have visitors good or bad up the light level. 

The current configuration of classrooms opens the north, west, and east sides of the building with small vertical windows two per room.   The VoAg, industrial arts, library, and other land locked rooms have no sunlight at all.   Why can't we move the VoAg area to a stand alone remote location closer to the Agriculture it represents?  Is a separate office for the district really needed.  This would give a new bank of class rooms complete southern exposure. 

We have class 9 months of the year and heat the majority of that time.   If we could use a method of heating water, air, even the floor for less than the half the current usage we could double the size of the building and not spend any more money than we do now on utility. 

Ground source heating would pay for itself in the life of the building.  There are two ways to do it. Drill vertical holes for every ton of heat needed or trench footage of pipe for the same effect.  The principle is the same you heat from the ground temperature of 56 that is a differential of 20 degrees.  You cool from 56 degrees.   The only thing moving is a pump to circulate the fluid.  You would need air handlers to keep fresh air moving but you could pay for a A300 engine size fans for what it takes to heat with gas/electric conventionally.   

Why do we have to start learning at the building door?   With remote distance learning why can't we teach in the bus?  Why does distance have to mean from one town to the next why can't it mean from the home to the school.  We live in a digital age.  We can send text messages at age 5 so why not teach what they already know.   Interpersonal relationships integrated with technology.   We ban cell phones for the distraction why not require them?  If every kid had a device of some kind you could communicate with every one at once.  I.T. would have to be reassessed.  Can you imagine the research papers our third graders could write from the seat of the bus?

I want a corporate partner.

If there was a service, product, manfacturing  entity that would team up with the school  we could greatly benifit both.  If you had an enterprise that provided jobs and the need of a perticular skill set you could fill that job and skill set with the students that you teach that skill to.   

An overgrown magnet school for the 21st  century.  Team up for a money making for profit exchange of dollars for skills and services. Go to school get a good job and live a long healthy life.   This would build a sense of community unmung the students who would stay with us after graduation.   

We do a pretty good job of graduating potential.   Some go off to college get a degree and have fulfilling careers elsewhere.  We don't do such a good job of providing a good job for them to return here.

[Catwoman]

All of these are really good ideas, Patrick.  Sure hope someone with clout is listening.  So, when do you start your campaign for school board member?

[pepelect]

 Is it broken?   Can we improve on it?  Are all teachers unionized or collective bargining?   Do we have local representatives?  Are they not active or do they just represent the teachers to the teachers and administration?  I have talked to a lot of teachers either on here or in person and I can't read them......I need hooked-on-educator.    Are they happy or sad.   They took a pay cut to save our school system.  Then we hired more middle management.   Maybe we needed more non teaching educational personel but what is the goal.... The big public meetings talked about cutting staff, combining class rooms, eliminating programs, and chopping days off the calendar. 

Maybe part of the problem is that the schools are isolated physically from the district office.   What if we moved the "office" to the central core of the district instead of the district office.  Maybe the school is isolated physically from the public.   Why don't we build a housing developement east and south of the school.  It would be small family homes with great neighbors.   The construction could be done in conjunction with the industrial arts, art, and VoAg classes.  Why not teach a trade while building a dream home.   If Jimmy Carter can rebuild slums with nothing surely we can find some left over clock money to start a development. 

Where did we conservation about becoming more efficient with what we already have take place??.....

Save a tree, pass out a couple dozen PDA's, laptops, palm pilots have come a long way baby!

Where is it written in stone that class has to have a white board with pretty little desks facing the same way towards the big desk with the teacher talking from behind it.    We have thousands of square feet of space lets utilize it all.....Why can't you have english class on the bleachers overlooking the football field?   Is there a law about where to have class outside?   Do we have 7 classes of lunch?   Is there a commons area ghost?    Why can't we partition the lunch room, commons, and part of the hall ways......The auditorium could be fitted with a drop down screen and remote learning program beamed down from geo syncronized satelite. 

Fire code smire code.  Didn't we  fire walk the halls in the grade school for years we can adjust..... We have keep entrances and exits clear but it could be done.   

I am still not convinced that if you drop the enrollment 200 students you need more building for resourceful teachers to have class.   If we taught 520 students with the buildings we have, why can't we stuff 148 grade school lockers in the back of the building.   Bleachers with tape that say algebra, trig, and pre-calc with a cool wireless big screen would produce more engineering students than the current method.   

The beauty of living where there is no established building codes is that we can build a structure any way we want to. 
We have to be more aggressive in the fact that a new school teaching system makes a lot of sense.     We have mastered the current requirements why not strive to set our own goals.   

If we became more energy efficient we spend more money on education.


If so many people care so much about the current system then why is no one saying anything?

[Catwoman]

Hmmmm.  Maybe that'd be because you've already said it all so eloquently...hard to improve on Perkfection! lol

[Rudy Taylor]

pepelect and perfection?

oxymoron.

:-)

[Catwoman]

Hey...who youes call'n a moron???

[D Whetstone]

Received notice today that there will be a Special Meeting of the West Elk School Board on Monday, November 24th to interview Superintendent candidates.

Just to reiterate facts from November 10 regular meeting:

It was stated that the notice for the opening of West Elk Superintendent would be done internally for the first two weeks.  We are still within that two-week period.

DW

[pepelect]

Doesn't that mean we are interviewing internal canidates? 


If it is not open up to outsiders yet then the already heres are still in play...   

[Mom70x7]

Is the meeting at 7:30 pm - normal School Board time?