School Changes

[pepelect]

How many square feet does each classroom have?
How many rooms are in Severy and Moline grade school?
How many square feet are used for every hour of every day?
Are the rooms full at 24 students or less?



What does it take to get a West Elk \ Moline\Howard alumni since there have not been any Howard/Moline/Severy/Grenola graduates since 1974? 


Lets lay out our school in a circle so the no one has to sit in the corner.

[pepelect]

How do you get more than 50 people from each of the communities involved in the future of the school district?   
Your tax dollars are being spent with out you giving your input as to how to go about doing it.

I would like to invite each and every taxpayer in the entire county to ask one question. 


Would you like to send your children out of the county to school? 

That is what is going to happen if we can't get together and start thinking for the good of the entire county not just one section of the populus.   

If we can't become more efficient and produce a better product the every other school in the area we will be absorbed by the larger schools.  If we could show that we can do more with less then they(state school board) have to look at little old Elk County as a community that will take care of its self.   We are educating children to such a high level with such minimal funding.   What would happen if the same system had a decent budget?

What is wrong with one school for the entire county?  One district for the entire county?  One goal of giving our kids the best education available in the state.   We are very good at teaching at west elk.  We have gotten caught up in the NCLB crap and forgot about the students that are not in danger of being left behind.....

We need a business program at WE.

We need a foreign language from K-12.   With emphasis on Chinese....They are going to be our employers.

We need to expand the Vo Ag to include agribusiness.....How about some accounting?  Marketing of ag products.   

Spend some of the special education budget on the gifted program....They are the brightest they should get the biggest piece of the pie.  If you can challenge them they will bring up the entire student body.

Our goal should be at least 10 Rhodes scholars by 2020.

[sixdogsmom]

You go Pep! You Rock!! 

[oldmom]

Just a question,  West Elk has 3 schools - Grade schools in Severy and Moline and the High School.  I was online looking to see if there were any teaching jobs open there and only found one in Longton??.  Is this because it is a resource teacher position and is considered Special Ed (with USD 282 in charge)?

[L Hendricks]

Effie - Call the district office 374-2113 - they would have all special ed jobs and regular ed jobs available... sometimes we aren't in the 21st century!...

[oldmom]

So this job is not part of USD 282?

[Mom70x7]

My understanding is:

Three districts - Longton, Sedan and West Elk - are in a Special Ed Co-op.

West Elk is the lead school for the co-op, so hiring is done through our District office and monies are run through our budget.

Special ed people (resource room teachers and paras) are hired for one of the three specific districts and typically do NOT switch from one district to another unless there are special circumstances and then it still goes through the respective boards.

[oldmom]

Thank you for the explanation, I was trying to figure out when Longton joined USD 282!

[Tobina+1]

I hope everyone who attended the EK Community Conversation on Monday night enjoyed the discussions and felt like their voice was heard.  The Conversation was very good, in my opinion, and very well designed and managed.  To those who didn't attend; you missed a great opportunity for your concerns to be heard in a positive, open-minded, and organized manner.  This wasn't the type of meeting where people just stood up and took the mic and complained.  This was positive conversation and positive ideas from "we the people".  Thanks to the 4 school board members who attended.  Although they, too, were there only as citizens and able to voice their own concerns and give their own ideas.  I also hope that the feeling of "anti-school board" was banished Monday night, too, as no one complained about the board, but only gave positive ideas for the future of our schools... and the future of all the communities that depend on the schools.
I also hope that this is not the LAST of these types of conversations regarding the schools.  Yes, there were probably 60-70 people who attended, but that is only a drop in the bucket of the people in this county who have an opinion, concerns, and kids (or future kids, or past kids) who attend the schools.
Thanks to EK Steering Committee for the great cookies and refreshments and for getting Terry to drive 360 miles one-way to guide this discussion.

[D Whetstone]

There were 90 people (minimum) confirmed in attendance at the Community Conversation.  If we want to have more conversations and I would agree that more are needed, citizens must encourage the School Board to do so.  Elk Konnected can only organize so many. Ultimately, the Board will have to do this as it is ultimately their decisions to make.  So, be encouraging to School Board members to continue the conversation.

Thanks for all who attended.  It was a very positive first step.

Stay with us as we grow,

David