For those of you who live in Lavon that will be impacted by the decision to restructure the two Elementary Schools and are interested in signing this petition to reverse the decision, please copy and paste the following link into your browser.
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/NeSmith/signatures/1
There is a Facebook page that has been created to keep you posted on any updates, meetings, communication, etc.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002142727766&sk=wall
1 comment:
I have to say that I'm in favor of the change to put K-2 at NeSmith and 3-5 at McClendon.
I went to K-4 in a school district that was structured similarly. I think it promotes a closer unity in the classes when the students are all together for 13 years. I know that I enjoyed that. I still have friends from those five years on Facebook. I don't know how many I would have met or not met had the elementary schools been split like NeSmith and McClendon are now.
Keeping entire classes together would promote more of a sense of community in Community ISD (you may groan now). I know there would be some inconveniences, but after speaking with one of the CMS assistant principals, it would allow the reduction of six teachers (one from each of K-5) on the CISD payroll. That would be a significant savings, most likely at least $300,000. That would go a long way towards closing the budget gap.
Under this plan, my family would have one child at each campus for one year. I know that there's been a massive population shift towards Lavon in the past decade with Grand Heritage and the other developments around the district, and that's why NeSmith was established (free land from GH didn't hurt either). The hard part is getting a good setup for education while keeping tax rates low. Unfortunately, due to the lack of commercial and industrial properties in CISD (the Garland power plant doesn't count, since it's owned by a government), the district is "land-poor," and property taxes are more difficult to come by than in other districts.
The school board and administration really are trying their best to make good from a bad situation. I'm not saying you should just lay down and take it, but take stock of the arguments on the other side.
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