Once upon a time, I argued against the idea of consolidating schools because I didn't believe that a Town full of four bedroom colonials would not once again support 4,000 students. BUT .... that was before hearing that it would cost somewhere well north of $30 million to fix or replace the Wing. It was also before the huge growth in Choice and Charter Schools. The reality is that students have already begun shifting from town to town -- based on programs offered, rather than how close the school is to their homes. Every Town no longer needs to maintain classroom space for every potential student.
Stockpiling empty seats and excess capacity is a luxury Towns can no longer afford. Consolidation is inevitable if Districts have any hope of providing a quality education in the future. (See interesting article on school regionalization)
That being said, it was good to see the CCT's article discussing the potential of closing down the Wing and shifting all 7th & 8th graders to a new wing at the High School (would we call it the "Wing wing" ?)-- a plan that would "only" cost $16 Million (let's call it $20 Million so we can avoid being "surprised" when the cost overruns start!).
This would likely start a chain reaction of consolidation across Town -- town offices from the Annex, Jan Sebastian, Oakcrest, the HSB, and the Back Table at the Taverna could all be shifted to some piece of the Wing -- even the School Administration could go there which would actually encourage consolidating the two major financial functions under the same roof. That would also allow the Town to liquidate some assets that are in miserable condition -- which they could not otherwise afford to repair or replace.
BUT .... those old buildings need to be sold. Nobody can pull a "Clark-Haddad" where six years after the decision to dump the building, folks are still sitting on their hands trying to get the guts to acknowledge that it is a crappy building that we can not afford to maintain -- and that it should be sold -- REGARDLESS of who went to kindergarten there!
We can deal with the Newly-renovated Town Hall later. I am sure the Hysterical Society, or the local Chamber of Commerce could fight over it --- maybe they could even build a Boardwalk from it -- or sell "free" spring water from the $325,000 faucet to pay the rent.
Buried deep in the story there was also an interesting point about the potential High School renovation displacing The Community School. I guess that's one way to solve the pool problem --- THAT uprising should be amusing!
22 comments:
Ridiculous to have 7th and 8th graders at the H.S. Survey sent out was pathetic. Administrators with no mediation/resolution skils, i.e., McGrath incident. Could go on and on why I'm doing everything in my power to not have my child go to SHS.
That being said. I for one have been saying for quite some time we need to sell off our multiple town buildings. Relocating everyone to the HTW is the most sensible solution.
However, until more than 200-300 people show up to town meeting the "hystericals" will always get to keep "their" buildings i.e., Clark Haddad.
This is especially sad since the board of selectman told the charter review committee they couldn't consider "doing away with" town meeting. Our form of government is archaic and desperately needs to be changed if this town is going to move forward in a sensisble fashion. So we may think logically to move everyone to HTW but then we will have more empty buildings falling down around town.
So if the library wants a new library, the old one is sold. If building dept./health dept./recreation dept./annex and town offices can all fit into the Wing, Jan Sebastian is sold, Annex gets sold and yest Town Hall gets sold or the space rented to artisans etc. Heck at this point Oak Crest gets sold, since leasing to work out. (You don't sell until the occupants are relocated.)
Maybe I just over simplify things. But when you have property that can be sold to help yourself out finanically don't you sell it?
The Truth Maker would ask brother Bob, How long do you think it will be, before we have an uprising here in Sandwich?
Has no one told you it is blaspheme to speak about closing buildings that are environmental disasters, waiting to happen?
Has no one told you it is blaspheme to talk about closing historical buildings that are completly unuseable?
Has no one told you it is blaspheme to even think about consoladating space inside of the present school buildings that now sit empty?
Has no one told you it is blaspheme to discuss the visions of the past, before discussing the vision of the future?
Has no one told you it is plaspheme to discuss the lack of oversite when it comes to economic development for our fair town?
Now you can fill in the other subjects that our good leaders here in Sandwich have left out of the long and short range plans of the future ,we are all waiting for to occur.
Stability.
I think people like stability. I think dramatic changes in direction unsettle and upset most folks.
If nothing else, the last 10 years in our school system evidence the power of stability to soothe and the carnage rapid and frequent change, regardless of whether it’s for the better or not, can bring.
Parents, students and taxpayers need stability and consistency. They’re getting neither.
This morning’s headlines heralding school closings and consolidations are not helpful.
Dr. Canfield is old. He is close to retirement. His plans and his visions will never be fulfilled by him. That’s a fact. His timeline is too long and his working years too short. So, for sure, there will be another Superintendent search and very likely another Superintendents’ vision to be imposed on Sandwich in the next 3 to 5 years. The result? More instability. More change.
I am quite sure that students and parents are fleeing our District because its unstable.
Folks dislike rapid and frequent change regardless of whether it’s for the better or not. Knowing is always better than not knowing.
Today’s headlines do nothing to move our School District forward.
Today’s headlines are merely a low cost/least cost capital repair and improvement plan masked as an academic restructuring plan.
Today’s headlines answer the question: What do we do with the Wing building NOT what’s the best academic model for Sandwich students? This radical change will not help our District.
What’s needed most today isn’t action but inaction.
What’s needed most today in our District is STABILTY.
For now, count me among those advocating for Doing Nothing.
Forestdale ... K-6
Oak Ridge .... 7, 8, 9
High School... 10, 11, 12
Wing School - Tear it down, or sell/donate it to a private business entity who can afford to fix it up. (i.e. a private school, ha ha).
H.T. Wing still has costs associated with it but of course without hundreds of kids it won't be as much. A few years ago a bogus consolidation committee spent months looking at this issue. The draft report said one thing and the teachers changed it to say, for God's sake don't do away with our k-8's. If the district ever gets to the point where the teachers aren't running the show maybe we will have a chance to get our schools back on track. As for the town. Not all selectmen think our form of government is working for us. We need a form of government that can progress strategically in a more timely fashion. Look at today's article and what it illustrates. Here we are looking at a new public safety building at $25 million roughly and boom a plan is out there to put almost $20 million into the High School. Who is driving this bus. Oh that's right is is the 2-3 hundred citizens who show up for the meeting leadership defers to. Change of form of government is not an immediate answer either. Strategic planning town wide would be helpful for the moment.
I know a little about education and the inner workings of the towns 4 schools. I just question if its a feasible plan to mix high school upperclassmen with eighth graders. Is this a good idea???
just keep the 8th graders away from the pool!
Take it one step further Bob...."Ding the Wing wing"
Well, no one thinks this was a bait and switch? Why were the repair costs for the Wing so incredibly high? Simple, they think we are so stupid that we will embrace the savings by giving them only 19 Million? C'mon guys. It was intentional. Ask for a gazillion in government...you will get tens of millions everytime. And....not one person has mentioned selling the Wing "TO A CHARTER SCHOOL GROUP"! Ha ha, that would be a hoot...all the parents would love to send the kids to a charter school. Just read the surveys! I can't stop laughing at this endless circle of pablum. Mr Canone is purely a politician and he is in bed with EVERYONE. How long can he last..really...before he is revealed to those wearing blinders.
Canone?
I think Greg is giving too much credit to the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight !
I like the break down in a previous post for how to distribute students in Forestdale, Oak Ridge and the High School. It is difficult to think that, with the Capital needs already present in the town that rebuilding the High School makes the cut for at least another decade. Though the STEM vision Dr. Canfield has sounds good it is not enough to bank on coming from someone so new to the community. Charter School For Wing that is a good idea, but maybe short sighted in terms of use the building could have to consolidated government services. I do think Sandwich could use one or more Charter Schools.
I just got a notice home from Wing about a book fair. It was full of punctuation, capitalization and spelling/ grammatical errors. It was from an adult. The place is fading fast.
Bobby -
Wow! That is 2 consecutive discussions that you have started where you actually make sense, propose logical recommendations, and where I agree with you completetly. It is amazing how clearly you think when you stop that nonsense of defending DMEJ and think like a true conservative. Kudos!
OMG I have lived here too long! Anon at 8:33 you are right...Peter Canone..OMG, I am going to start watching soap operas to clear my mind. Of course, I meant the NEW politician in town, er, the Superintendent of Schools that is.
Please don't get carried away throwing insults -- that book fair notice likely came from the PTA. :)
It doesn't matter -- if the PTA can't produce a coherent memo with correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation (which is what the students are expected to do) they should not be allowed to distribute notices that (should) embarrass the school.
I have seen some real doozies -- including a letter from teachers to parents outlining their expectation that students produce better quality composition work -- that has several errors in it.
7:18 -- interesting that you think I could be so right on those two posts but so wrong about MEJ.
This isn't going to become an MEJ thread -- but I will say she was no politician, but she was a damn dedicated and hard-working educator.
In addition to improving academic performance, the School Committee charged her with mandates to cut labor & operating costs and regain control of the Community School and school facilities which were benefiting non-students at the expense of students and taxpayers.
Her execution of these non-academic mandates helped ruffle many feathers of those determined to maintain their happy little status quo -- even if academic and financial status was sinking rapidly.
There seem to be 3 groups of people involved with any MEJ-related discussion -- (a) those that worked closely with her and supported her efforts, (b) those who had their feathers ruffled and hated her, and (c) those with absolutely no first-hand knowledge who relied on discussions with groups (a) and (b) for their opinions.
It will be interesting to see what happens next.
My kid recently had a simple homework assignment: a list of sentences with the instruction to underline the subject once, and the verb twice, in each. I checked his work before it went back to school, and he'd done it correctly.
He got it back "corrected" -- the teacher had x'd out the verb my son had properly identified and used a red pencil to twice underline an adjective instead.
Hard to "respect" that, SEA. Are you reading?
I agree whole heartedly with your summary of the MEJ issue. There was no forgiveness afforded her when it came to mistakes, She accomplished so much for the district. Too bad it is all in jeopardy now. Sadly she was tasked with three jobs. Hard working indeed, but sadly it lead to some very difficult exhaustion issues I'm sure especially after the bullies and cliques got hold of it. And let us not let municipal government off the hook. She is absolutely the wrong gender to effectively work with the town, let's be real. Then of course we have poor policy on both sides and a struggling government trying to grow since 1996 into what it needs to be. I hope she is vindicated somehow so she can find a job. What the town did to her is pathetic, but it wasn't the first time and sadly I don't think it will be the last time. It is that "small town thing." It is small town politics. It is a leadership issue.
The Truth Maker would respond to poster 1022 you have made some astute observations. We are with out a question, looking at some very serious leadership issues in our town of late.
The recent presentation by the Dr. Canfield to the Board of Selectmen is a prime example of both sides attempting to appear nice to each other, when in most cases, all of it is a charade. The Super loaded the gun and the Chair fired it.
When it comes to money in our budgets and how we make the presentation from the School districts point of view to the School Committee that is one thing and basically as I watched this presentation it was very appropriate for a school committee member , but not with the Board Of Selectmen in my opinion. I never heard what was the final number for this next years budget mentioned during the close to two hour presentation. The Chair of the Board of Selectmen asked a few prepared questions and shot the whole presentation in the foot.
Not only did he ask questions in regards to line items, he provided the answers to them as well.
If one obtains the budget sheets for the school district, some questions stand out and one very obvious one, is why does not the pool have its own line item, where all of the numbers can be placed that address every ones concerns in regards to this operation?
Every one in the union knows that money has been placed in this budget process for raises, but where is it stated as such?, what will the impact on the structual deficit be.
We speak about being transparent, as the mantra of trust, yet both sides are sandbagging each other by being politicaly empowered in not really being transparent to each other.
In the end the procces will define what the numbers will be and those numbers were allready fixed before the procees began, as was stated at the tri board meeting.
Politics aside, we will not see any significant changes from that meeting, even though some have used the political venue to provide us all with some rather startling speaches.
When programs we put in place that were needed, are now being destroyed for a 20'20 vision plan and Technology we put hard earned tax dollars to impliment are now being thrown aside, one begins to wonder where it all will end.
What ever happened to the $250,000 dollars we voted to buy books every year of the over ride go? No money in the budget for books or technology, one may ask why?
As long as we spend more and more money on salaries each year we take away from the actual needs to complete the educational experience of our children.
As long as we change our plans every year on what will be our goals and redue programs that work to give another super there way of doing business we will never grow as a school district.
Why even bother to have a any long or short range plans in place at all, if every time we get a new leadership person onboard, they decide to change the direction all ready in place.
We waste money, time and students to other schools, only in America. Then we wonder why we do not have enough cash to put on a great educational teaching experience for our children.
By the way does any one know the factual count of how many special needs children we have in our district?
TM, it is the same thing every single year. Every year. Budget talk only differs from the players. School Admin fight for every penny and when we ask questions the stone wall goes up. Every single year. It happened last year and the year before that. It will happen next year and the year after that. Teachers have picketed in the past, they are picketing now and will picket in the future. 30 years of this crap with 30 years to go. Nothing gets solved if we keep talking about the same tripe every day. Man this $#!t gets some kind of old
Moving kids in 7th and 8th grade to the H.S. has nothing to do with the crumbling Wing School and is not a new concept. We would (should) be doing this anyway based totally on declining enrollement.The # of kids leaving the district is highest in 8th grade. Once our little kids get a taste of HS in 8th grade they are less likely to leave the next year for charters etc. Research has proven this. They begin dating upperclass students, excel on the athletic field (often at the expense of our older kids competing for scholarships). When they and their families realize they are living in a fasade,they will do everything and anything to make things work with a crappy SHS template. Think hard Sandwich! My kids are going out - sooner rather than later for sure.
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