To get the school board’s attention, perhaps the budget should be treated as a referendum on schedule change and voted down.
by Donald J. Curry
The main point of NewCastleNOW.org’s April 18 editorial is that the Board of Education failed to ensure that the process leading to the administration’s, i.e., Mr. Selesnick’s, decision to revamp the Greeley schedule was inclusive. That is, all stakeholders – students, parents, teachers and the community – were not given the opportunity to be involved in investigating and evaluating whether changing to a block schedule would help (or hurt) the Greeley educational experience.
The Board’s April 25 response admits that “it is the responsibility of the board to ensure that decisions are the result of a thoughtful, deliberate, and inclusive process.” But the Board’s chronology of events makes it clear that the process was anything but inclusive. It wasn’t until the January 23, 2007 public Board of Education meeting that the Structure Study Group presented its “intention to research new schedule options,” and it wasn’t until December 2007 that any new schedule was presented to the community. What followed was the January 14, 2008 PTA meeting, where many parents expressed dismay that they had been left out of the process, only to be told by Mr. Selesnick that the “decision” to change the schedule had already been made and there would be no opportunity to revisit that decision.
Abdication of responsibility
The Board abdicates its responsibility by saying that all it needs to do is pose a “strategic question” and then defer to the administration’s “expert” decision without ensuring full involvement by the community in the decision making process.
The Board also engages in dangerous wishful thinking by proclaiming that after changing to a block schedule “the rich and challenging educational program offered at Greeley will remain the same – it will simply be configured differently.” The Board provides no evidence to support its assertion. And the Board ignores that a school district with comparable demographics – Scarsdale – evaluated changing to a block schedule and decided against it.
It may turn out that some courses, such as English or literature, may benefit from longer class periods, where a mix of activities during an extended class period can be used beneficially to enhance the students’ learning experience. But it may also be the case that other courses, such as mathematics, would not benefit from longer periods, because students’ attention spans are limited and the saturation point for absorbing new material is reached much more quickly. Even the Board recognizes that “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” That being the case, why is the Board rubber-stamping Mr. Selesnick’s decision to experiment with block scheduling without adequate study or community participation?
We still need more time to study this change before implementation
At this point, what we need is for this Board, or a newly elected Board, to allow more time for all stakeholders, namely, parents, teachers, students and community organizations, to provide input on this important question of how best to improve, if possible, the already high accomplishments of the Greeley educational experience. If adequate time is allowed for that to occur, it may well be that a different decision is reached, such as keeping the present successful schedule, or introducing block schedule for only selected courses where it seems best suited, to allow time for evaluation of the effects of block scheduling, before it is considered for implementation on a more widespread basis.
The April 18 editorial raises a valid point. Since the concerns expressed by the community at the January 14 PTA meeting were ignored, perhaps the only way to get the attention of the Board of Education on this important issue is to treat the budget as a referendum on schedule change and turn down the budget.
Donald J. Curry
Copyright 2008 NewCastleNOW.org