By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
After a summer’s worth of deliberation and public input, the Burlington Area School Board punted the narrow-down process of its facilities study to the district’s administrative team.
The School Board voted 4-3 at Monday night’s special meeting to allow the administrative team the final input on grade configurations in the district – an opportunity an ad hoc committee that included administrators had back in November 2015.
At that meeting, Board President Jim Bousman expressed disappointment in the administrative team not making a grade configuration recommendation.
“I was hoping we’d be able to drive this from the education aspect, not the facilities aspect,” Bousman said.
However, at the time and again Monday night, administrators said they were asked not to make a recommendation, simply to list the pros and cons.
Now the administrative team is expected to have a recommendation for grade configuration – meaning what grades are at the elementary school, middle school and high school levels – for the second of the three follow-up meetings Sept. 12.
BASD Superintendent Peter Smet said the administrative team would work with Nick Kent of Plunkett Raysich Architects in coming up with that guideline – one of several priorities identified at Monday night’s meeting.
“It is a group process,” Superintendent Peter Smet said. “There are some fits and starts in the group process.
“We’ll go back and work with Nick,” he added.
The nature of the grade configurations at the various district schools drew most of the conversation Monday night. While Board President Jim Bousman worked to get priorities in line to move forward with the planning process, the board hit a roadblock as to who should be making the recommendation regarding grade configurations.
The feedback received at the four listening sessions this summer was categorized as helpful and indicated a good turnout, but raised concerns about single-section grade schools (meaning smaller neighborhood schools with larger class sizes, versus two teachers with smaller classes) and reducing the number of transitions students needed to make.
There was also discussion on establishing a Montessori-only grade school, as that program is currently full with a waiting list.
The discussion came as a result of trying to figure out where to split grades. Currently, the district has four elementary schools that cover 4-year-old kindergarten through fourth grade, Dyer Intermediate for grades 5 and 6, Karcher Middle School for grades 7 and 8 and Burlington High School for grades 9 through 12.
Questions have been raised by district staff regarding the grade splits, due to the beginning of elective classes at the fifth-grade level
However, one of the key points coming out of the grade configuration study in November was reducing the number of transitions students need to make, because of the potential to set them back academically.
To that point, the board got stuck trying to decide where to make that break Monday night – and who should make the call.
School Board Member Phil Ketterhagen wanted to see pricing. He said the community is looking for that. Fellow Board Member Barry Schmaling agreed, saying whatever the board decided to do, the community would have to make a decision on whether it would pay for it.
Bousman asked the administrative team to make the grade configuration clearer, saying that it wasn’t the board’s place to make that call.
In response, Smet said research shows there isn’t “one right answer” when it comes to splitting up grades, and that the board was the “best gauge of the community.”
The board circled back and forth on the issue, with a clear divide on who should make the call. At one point, Ketterhagen asked, “If we’re afraid to make this decision, why are we on this board?” Board Member Todd Terry said he wasn’t afraid, but he wanted the administrative feedback.
Board Member Kevin Bird summed up a proposed split and how he wanted to proceed, to which Terry added, “I would like the administration to come back with what Kevin just did in six minutes.”
After close to an hour and a half, a motion was made to have the administrative team meet with Kent, and it passed by a 4-3 vote.
The board then added a few additional items from the administrative team’s list of priorities into the objectives being compiled to drive the planning process, including equal spaces and attention for special education at all schools.
There are two additional meetings scheduled to finish the planning process with Plunkett Raysich on Sept. 12 and Sept. 19.
The Sept. 12 meeting will be followed the regularly scheduled board meeting, at 7 p.m. The Sept. 19 meeting will be at 6:30 p.m.
The district will likely be looking at a referendum to pay for repairs and remodeling, given the current budget. That referendum is tentatively aimed for April.
-
-
-
-
-