9. Testimony of Eric Muench:
My wife and I live at ----.
We have 5 children. None of them are going to be involved with
this restructuring plan that you're putting out. But I have some
grand nephews and nieces that will be and I hoping that there'll
be some grandchildren that will be going to the Ketchikan schools
in the coming years. And I want to tell you that I'm here to
ask you to forget the restructuring plan as it is proposed right
now. It's a very poor plan. The planning itself has been very
poor. There's been no real public involvement up to this point.
There's been no opportunity for open public discussion of this
plan. In fact there has been an attempt by the Superintendent
and by the board to muzzle the public and keep the public comments
out of the news and out of general circulation. The reason this
plan is poor is it will be a big inconvenience to the parents
who have children in various schools that have to run from one
place to the other to pick them up and drop them off if that
is the necessity. There'll be a disruption to children's lives
changing schools about every two years and having to get use
to a completely new routine of bussing and the surroundings and
teachers and administration. There'll be no older brothers and
sisters to help the younger children along. They won't have the
opportunity to do that anymore. It'll be an end to neighborhood
schools. They will no longer exist as neighborhood schools. It
will be the end eventually of effective PTAs in the district
because there will be too much of a breakup of the schools the
parents have familiarity and loyalty with to maintain an effective
PTA at any one school. It will be the end of choice of schools
within the district as well as the end of the choice of teaching
styles within the district. It will mean increased bussing every
kid in his elementary career is going to have to be bussed from
one school to another. As against all those disadvantages, there's
been no research or consensus among education experts that there
is any value to restructuring. All we have on that is the say
so of the Superintendent and a few members of the board. And
I don't believe it. I don't believe that you people know what
you're talking about. In addition, it is unfair to single out
the Charter School as the one school within the city that is
not being restructured. What you are trying to do here in a not
very well hidden manner is to create a situation where more parents
send their children to the Charter School regardless whether
they believe in that form of schooling or not just because it
won't have the disruptions of continual changes of schools. If
you want to do restructuring, it ought to include the Charter
School. I think that you should completely do away with the plan
of advance you have under restructuring as it exists now and
start all over again. In fact, my suggestion would be to drop
it. I don't see anyway you can do it favorably. That's all I
have on restructuring. I'd like to say one more thing, this is
a poor building for a public meeting which a lot of people are
interested in. It's bad enough that most of them have to stand
out in the hallway, that it's hot, there's no circulation...there's
nothing we can do about that here tonight. But I would ask Mr.Johnson
to remove that sign. It's hard enough for people to see and hear
the people.. here on your desk without having a big unnecessary
sign in the row. Please have some respect for the members of
the public. Thank you.
10. Testimony of Cheri Davis:
I live at -----. In 1978 I was
elected to the Ketchikan School Board for the first time. I served
on the school board for ten and a half years and subsequently
served in the legislature on the HESS committee on various Governor's
boards and commissions and assorted committees of this board
and statewide committees to look at various issues involved in
education. I would guess that my participation in education was
over 20 years all totaled. And what I would like to say to you
in regards to the restructuring, which is not my main purpose
in being here tonight, is two things really. The first thing
is the idea interests me because during that entire time, every
single superintendent that I spoke to, every single educational
expert that I heard from in all those twenty something years
talked about the necessity of focusing on  those
very young children in the elementary grades, the K through 2nd
grade in particular and making sure that those kids had the very
very best hope of solid basics and all the help they needed at
that age group. And that if we could focus intensively on that
age group we could change a whole lot of the bad things that
happen later on in kid's educational careers. So in that sense
I think this sounds like a really sensible alternative to be
able to focus on that age group of kids. Another thing in regards
to that, I have two nieces one will be graduating with her bachelors
from [inaudible] University this spring. The other got her bachelors
a couple of years ago from [inaudible] in New York and is getting
her masters from Syracuse University in the spring. Both of those
young ladies attended school in Sitka many years ago under the
plan they have had all these years in which they have had the
lower grades separated from the upper grades. And I spend quite
a bit of time there. My sister is a teacher. She wasn't teaching
at the time her children were young. She was participating in
school programs and things, taking care of her kids. So I went
along and I saw how those schools operated a lot over those years.
I spent a lot of time up there and they seemed to work very well.
The parents seemed all very happy. The teachers seemed happy.
I guess what I see happening in Ketchikan is anytime there is
change, no matter what kind of change is proposed, this community
is just in a horrible confrontational mode. And what I would
like to see happen is the tone of the dialog lowered a little
bit because I know myself when I was sitting at a podium like
this and people were yelling at me and calling me names and accusing
me of things and questioning my integrity and my brains, that
was not the best way to get my attention or to get me to be able
to understand if there was something in what they were saying
that I might be able to pick up on and have a thought about and
change my thinking on. You don't get people's attention by doing
that and I have been hearing some disturbing things about some
of the meetings that have happened over the last couple of weeks
and I'm embarrassed for my community frankly that people behave
like that in public meetings.That's just not acceptable to me.
I would like to thank each and everyone of you for serving on
the school board. It's gotten to be a tougher and tougher and
tougher job in all these years. You have less, much less money
than we had. We had the luxury of enough money to be able to
do a lot of things you can't do anymore. And that makes people
unhappy and they take it out on you. And I admire you all very
much for doing what you're doing. And I would like to thank Mr.
Martin because I think it was a tough decision on your part to
come to this community given the state of our community and the
problems that we've had. And I've asked some of my friends frankly
in the state about you and I've heard nothing but great admiration
and people saying you're really lucky to get Harry Martin. I'd
like to keep Harry Martin for as long as he is willing to stay
here because we need a good superintendent in this town. School
board members may come and go, heavens knows you deserve to leave
if you get sick of it. But the superintendent hopefully will
be with us a long enough time to be able to establish some true
educational leadership which we have been lacking for some time.
This town needs a solid educational system, led by a solid educational
leader, and a board such as yourself, cause if we don't have
good schools, we might as well just kiss it good-bye and all
leave now. We've got economic problems that are disastrous potentially,
we're not going to attract more business and new industry and
small business and entrepreneurs to this town if our schools
aren't in good shape and producing kids that show they have some
solid skills when they get out. So in closing I would just like
to thank you all for your leadership and your willingness to
serve and thank you Mr. Martin for coming to Ketchikan and I
hope you hang in there. Thanks.
11. Testimony of Scott Brandt-Erichsen:
Hi. I live at ----. I'm speaking
tonight as a parent of some elementary school children who would
be affected by the restructuring if it occurs. I also wanted
to share some information related to my experiences having moved
to Ketchikan about five and a half years ago. The borough occasionally
finds it necessary to recruit employees from outside the community.
I was one of those employees when I came here about five and
a half years ago. When people are looking to move here one of
the first things that people who have children look at is what's
going on with the schools, are the schools there schools I want
my kids to go too? And that was one of the things that my family
looked at too. It's a significant decision and if there're not
schools in the location that I would want to send my kids too
it's not a location I would consider going. The decision of what
school your kids go to often drives other decisions associated
with moving like where you buy a house. Most communities, unlike
Ketchikan, have schools set up in neighborhood districts where
you have....if you live in a certain location you go to that
certain school. Within the city of Ketchikan, the choice where
you can go to any one of the three intown schools which I think
is a nice benefit. Because of that, my wife and I had a broader
selection from which we could choose to buy a house without worrying
about shifting the schools our kids went to. We would have had
an objection to buying a house within the attendance district
of the school that we selected if that's what we needed to do.
Now my family chose to place our kids at Valley Park. We chose
Valley Park because of the openness of the school and because
of the availability of multi-aged classrooms. We moved here from
Anchorage. In Anchorage, our oldest daughter, had most recently
attended the Montessori school program at Denali which had a
multi-age program where you had first to third grade in one class
and fourth to sixth grade in one class. She stayed with the same
teacher....actually she transferred there in her second grade
year there was a waiting list to get in, and she stayed with
the same teacher for two years. Then was with the same teacher
for fourth and part of fifth grade. One of the reasons why we
liked that was we felt the quality of the experience and the
connection she formed with the instructor were better and she
benefited from that relationship. It was less disruption. When
she went to the same teacher the second year, all of the expectations
of that teacher were known from the beginning and there was more
time available for her to concentrate on learning whatever subjects
they were working on. And we appreciated being able to choose
a school in Ketchikan with a similar organizational format. One
of the things that concerns me about the restructuring proposal
is that it seems like there's more to it than meets the eye.
If, as I'm given to understand, part of restructuring includes
doing away with multi-aged classes and instituting a curriculum
reform with a more back to basics approach. More of a rigid teaching
format. I'm quite concerned because there hasn't been a lot of
discussion about that as far as I am aware. Now I mentioned my
oldest child. In first grade she attended a school where she
had a more back to basics type approach. It was not a positive
environment. At the end of second grade when she took some reading
evaluations, she scored in the first stanine. I wasn't aware
that that was as easy to do as it apparently is but shifting
her to a school with the Montessori format and multi-age classroom.
When she went to Valley Park, by the time she finished sixth
grade at Valley Park, she was reading at high school level. So
the multi-age format and the program that Valley Park had was
a great benefit to her. Our second daughter who's a third grader
at Valley Park this year currently scores well above grade level
on the Gates tests. We're pleased with the education she's getting.
My point is not that all kids should have the program they have
at Valley Park but that different kids respond better to different
environments. The first grade teacher that my eldest daughter
had a negative experience with used more of a rote, memorization,
recital method, was not affective for her. Some other kids, Valley
Park is not a good environment for them. They have difficulty
concentrating, it's too noisy. Parents tend to know what environment
their kids would most likely succeed in and what suits their
child best. The one-size fits all approach or corralling all
the kindergarten through second grade kids in one school takes
this option away and as I understand it, what would be left is
a K-2 with a fairly back to basic type program and the Charter
School with a core knowledge program which I understand it is
a fairly back to basics sort of program. There would not be an
option like a multi-aged, some would call it more liberal more
holistic educational approach. I don't think it's right for everyone
but it's what my family selected and I appreciate it being available.
I think it would be a great loss both to my family and to the
community to have that option taken away. My family chose Valley
Park because it had that. Others over the last 25 years who have
chosen to go to Valley Park, chose it because of not in spite
of its more open approach. If we tear down the options, tear
down the uniqueness, narrow the options, we make it harder on
families to be as much a part of their school communities. I'm
left thinking there must be and probably are several [...] options.
What about summer school for the struggling readers. If the target
is 40 percent who don't reach the level that we want, how about
summer school for those students? There was suppose to be a reading
specialist hired, what about reading specialists? What about
before and after school sessions for struggling readers? Until
these alternatives are examined a rush into dictating a curriculum
that's more rigid and requiring all the children to go there
without stake holder buy in, which I think is essential, is likely
doomed to failure. [..]will be undermined, there may be changes
in leadership, or it may not be adequately planned out. I ask
that you reconsider the issue and not irrevocably commit significant
funds without looking at these alternatives and develop the community
support that is necessary to succeed. I've looked at many of
the web site references that you reach from the district's web
site and nearly all of them stress the importance of parents,
teachers, and the school leaders working in tandem for a change
to be successful. I think they have a good point that that cooperation
is essential for whatever change it is that you're looking at
to be successful. Thank you.
Comment
On Restructuring
Page 1 Page 2 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8
Sitnews E-Mail Sitnews
|