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Issues Racial Balance The issue of racial balance for Manchester's elementary schools has been a long standing one. The last major attempt to balance the schools was when Manchester adopted the Voluntary School Choice program. The program sought to balance the schools by allowing them to develop their own "focus" and attempt to draw students from other town schools. Transportation was provided if a student moved from a Title I to a Non-Title I school or vice versa. It was a good plan. But it didn't work. Since then our schools have been partially balanced by a shell game - moving head start classrooms from one school to another, and also by making magnet schools out of Washington and Nathan Hale. These solutions are bandaids at best. The Manchester Public Schools, in conjunction with the Community Conversations initiative, have developed 3 plans to "fix" our unbalanced schools. The "Controlled Choice" plan would move children from one school to another based on their race. The recent Supreme Court decision places strong doubt on this option, as it has now declared that race cannot be a determining factor in racially balancing our schools. The "Sister Schools" plan would pair elementary schools, and turn them into K-2 and 3-5 grade schools. This plan adds a transition from one school to another, at a time when we have already added a transition from Bennet to Illing, and some would argue from the 9th grade wing at MHS to the high school proper. It also diminishes the notion of "neighborhood" schools in that each student would definitely go to a school outside their neighborhood at some point. The last one is "Redistricting". It is a classic approach, used by most school districts, most often to level the load of students at each school. This approach saves the neighborhood school concept for some students, but not for others. It can also be quite temporary, as people sometimes move to take advantage of the lines, and shifting demographics makes the approach's long term viability difficult to predict. Frankly, I'm not a fan of any of these options. Instead, I feel that Manchester should begin a conversation with the State Dept. of Education. It seems unfair to me that we need to turn our schools and our town upside down, when our schools are more balanced than many of our neighboring towns. Our most unbalanced schools are still at least either 20% minority or 30% white. Meanwhile, towns like Bolton, with a 6.7% minority enrollment seemingly have no work to do. Over time, our schools are far more likely to become more balanced by default, as demographic shifts are likely to help close the discrepancies. And while the problem won't "go away" on its own, it seems like a more measured approach would be less disruptive. Achievement Gap Manchester's record on the achievement gap is spotty at best. There has been no meaningful progress in closing the gap over the last 5 years. Some will argue that given demographic shifts in the town, this is progress. Poppycock! At the end of day, demographic shifts are what they are. The Manchester Public Schools, it's students, teachers, administrators, and parents need to work together to close this gap. Closing the achievement gap is something that impacts virtually every city and town in America. I will offer you no "magic bullet" in closing the gap. There are no simple solutions, nothing that will undoubtedly close the gap. As a Board of Education member, my job is to make sure that the Manchester Public Schools do what is required of it to close the achievement gap. I am committed to that. I support the Courageous Conversations initiative, and am glad that the Board itself is going through that process. If there is racism, overt or subtle, in our school system, it must be eradicated. All students can learn, and all students must be challenged to meet their full potential. However, this will not be enough to close the gap completely in my estimation. We need to capture kids imaginations, and we need to capture the support of our student's parents (see Parental Involvement). Parental Involvement I am a STRONG believer in parental involvement. Most of our student's parents are committed to their children's education. Most parents do the things that a parent must do in order for their children to succeed in school. However, some percentage do not. Parental Involvement means being a partner with your child and with the school system. It means helping your children with their homework, making sure they get a good night's sleep, ensuring that they come to school on time, every day. It means reading to them (in the early years), and making sure they read (in the later years). I've proposed a "Parental Report Card" initiative. The administration is currently reviewing my ideas, and hopefully you'll see a Board action later this year to adopt a voluntary, self assessment report card. This is a good start. But this does not go far enough. The Manchester Public Schools needs to know when a parent is failing a child. Heck, the parent needs to know that! For some parents, school is an intimidating place, a place where, perhaps, they themselves did not have an ideal experience. The Manchester Public Schools must reach out to parents like this and help them to do better. And it needs to measure that progress - the report card does this. Student success will always be a combination of three efforts: By the school, by the student, and by the parent. It is a three legged stool. Take away any one of the three legs, and students won't reach their full potential. We've always measured students in terms of grades. Now we measure schools in terms of student achievement. We must close the data loop and measure parental involvement as well. School Construction On the "Why I'm Running" page I devoted a lot of words to the efforts I've made on school construction. Suffice to say, it has been a cornerstone of my 6 years of service. I want to continue the success we've had in the past and carry that momentum forward into the future. I want to see Manchester approve a bond referendum to renovate Highland Park School. And in 2-3 more years, I'd like to see us continue that progress by renovating more elementary schools. I will also continue to monitor progress on building projects currently underway, notably the Bennet renovation. I look forward to that school coming on line next year.
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