On the December "Start a new post," Annette Werner wrote:
"At a meeting on the North Side called by Board member Mark Brentley, community members expressed strong support for the idea of a one year moratorium on school closings to allow time for a city wide community planning process.
Concerns included North Side middle school students not in a magnet having no option other than Arsenal Middle School in Lawrenceville, and Oliver High School students not in a magnet having no option other than crossing a river to Langley."
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One idea raised was to split Oliver into a high school and a middle school taking in kids from Rooney (last week the administration proposed moving Rooney 6-8 students to Arsenal so Morrow 1-5 could use the Rooney building).
I pointed out that having 7 grades use one building was proving difficult at Reizenstein and that when Milliones was changed to house 7 grades a second gym was put in. It was agreed that as part of a planning process actual schedules would need to be done in advance to prove that reconfigurations are workable. The possibility of a second gym at Oliver was mentioned. Attendees also discusses a strong preference for a 6-8 and 9-12 format rather than a 6-12 for Oliver.
It is useful now to go back and look at the questions asked at the facilities "dialogue" last March and how they totally miss the issues we are now dealing with.
For example see question 5 from below, which asked whether people would rather adjust feeder patterns or pay higher property taxes. This simplistic question does not take into account results such as requiring North Side middle and high school residents not in a magnet to cross rivers to attend schools far from their homes (even though prior boards had acknowledged the importance of this issue). And it ignores alternatives such as splitting a building or closing off part of an underused building.
"I would rather adjust neighborhood school boundaries (feeder patterns) to ensure that school buildings have enough students attending to fill the school, rather than raise property taxes to maintain schools with empty seats. Please fill in only ONE box per row (Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree, Don't Know)".
For the full set of questions and PURE analysis go to https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=49258804305307213&postID=2843116635219538875
Annette, I would disagree with you about 7 grades sharing Reizenstein equating to difficulties. I think there are myriad other issues to be concerned with and while I abhor what happened to Schenley, this is faulty logic. On the contrary, there are relatively few problems and even less that one could deem as being major in nature.
It's hard not to see the board voting as being racial but it's safe to say that it was always that way. Unfortunately, Dr.Taylor and Mr.Brentley make sense, and their colleagues either are part of some panacea or substitute voting with logic in favor of voting along affiliation lines, damn the consequences.
That's sad. Education should be about the kids. This point has been forgotten over the past 4 years. Now, it's about money and publicity.
I guess eating lunch at 10 am and then having 4 1/2 hours of classes is not really a difficulty. Or having the senior high boys, the senior high girls, the middle school boys, the middle school girls, and gym classes all sharing one gym, I guess its ok if you don't mind gym classes being cancelled every time there is an afterschool event. Or that the boys' volleyball team has to do their off-season practice from 8-10 pm. Let's see, if practices end at 10 pm and you have to take 2 busses to get back to the West End and have to be back at school the next morning at 7:40, I guess that sleep doesn't matter. You probably won't have to waste time eating breakfast because you are going to be eating lunch at 10 am.
Hey, I'm not an expert on athletic scheduling- I was just noting that if one gym was sufficient for 7 grades then a second gym probably would not have been added to Milliones (especially not at a time of cutbacks and financial constraints).
From the PG, "Carnegie Board votes to keep branches open for a year":
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09348/1020959-455.stm
This approach makes a lot of sense for the schools as well.
From the article, this also sounds familiar:
"The board members also appointed a subcommittee to look into making its meetings public, after complaints that they conducted their meetings behind closed doors, resulting in the public being caught off-guard by the planned closings."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09348/1020959-455.stm#ixzz0ZirKNFVO
Anon, I for one could care less about any team's "non season" practices. Under PIAA guidelines, such practices are supposed to be optional on one hand and on the other, the teams that are in season need to come first.
I agree about the lunch situation. Horrible. Still, when one talks about 7 grades having difficulties in one building, they are usually referring to interaction problems. No such problems have been made note of.
Of course there are no interaction problems- the 3 groups (6-8, 9-10 and 11-12) are kept strictly separated. They might as well be in separate buildings.
Well anon, then I'd say that the other details, while problematic, pale in comparison to problems of interaction one sees at other schools or possibly at other schools. I don't hear the CAS community complaining about the school-within-a-school at Allderdice, and I see recipe for disaster should Westinghouse and Peabody be forced to merge.
Yeah, the gym is a problem at Schenley/IB. Yeah, the lunch situation is an inconvenience. Does any of it affect the students being able to achieve academically? No.
One alternative that has been mentioned to avoid merging Peabody and Westinghouse is for Peabody feeder students to be assigned to Allderdice. Some areas now assigned to Allderdice, like East Hills, might then be reassigned to Westinghouse.
observer, the day to day atmosphere in a school absolutely affects students ability to learn. Extracurriculars, lunch etc. certainly contribute to a students positive or negative perceptions of their educational experience.
One of the biggest challenges for an all-IB school is finding enough students who want to work that hard. Anything that can be done to attract those students, including extracurriculars, appealing schedules, and a convenient location should be seriously considered.
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