At the third of four District 150 forums last night, over two-thirds of those in attendance expressed their preference for smaller, neighborhood schools.

About 44 people attended, including all the school board members and two city councilmen (Bob Manning and George Jacob).

Thirteen people in the audience spoke to the issue. Ten of those people, including three Kingman teachers, a Kingman parent, and several neighborhood activists stated they believed the district should not be building one “mega-school,” but that the East Bluff and North Valley should each have their own school, and that they should be neighborhood schools to which children and parents could walk.

The Kingman teachers pointed to data that achievement and test scores are better in smaller neighborhood schools than large consolidated schools. They also said that parental involvement is a large factor in educational success, and that without a neighborhood school, parental involvement would decline.

Steve Katlack, who has presented at each of the forums so far, pointed out to the board that their own Master Facilities Plan recommends building two schools, and asked why that had changed. The school board declined to answer.

At the end of the meeting, school board member Linda Butler thanked everyone for their comments, but added, “let’s not be divisive,” and asked that “more community spirit” be exhibited. I found that rather insulting of the audience, who were all there precisely because of their “community spirit,” and were only “be[ing] divisive” if that phrase is defined as “disagreeing with the school board.”

A couple of other quick notes about the evening:

• One of our two newly-christened “Deputy” Superintendents, Cindy Fischer, was there to explain Ken Hinton’s vision at the beginning of the evening.
• I talked to District Treasurer Guy Cahill after the meeting and asked him what will happen to the Health Life Safety (HLS) money the district has decided not to use for Harrison School (they’re going to use Public Building Commission money instead). He said it was his understanding that the HLS bonding authority is not tied to that particular project, but is given to the district in aggregate. So, it can be used for other schools that will be replaced instead.
• Cahill also explained that the HLS money is to replace an equal amount of square footage. So, for instance, say the total square footage of the four schools to be replaced is 320,000 (I don’t know what it really is, this is just a hypothetical number). The school district could build one 320,000-square-foot replacement school with HLS money or thirty-two 10,000-square-foot buildings. Those are two extreme examples, but the point is that the school district has flexibility regarding how many schools they choose to build.
• Three people spoke in favor of the Woodruff/Lincoln site for the new school building. Two of them own land near the site. One was a Chillicothe resident who owns a house near the site he stated he would be willing to sell to the school district. The other was developer Tim Tobin who stated he has a $2 million investment next to Woodruff.