Just to give you a little perspective
of where I am coming from tonight I'm going to share some things
about myself. I am a single mom of 5 children. I totally understand
the stresses that families can have. When there is one parent
trying to meet the needs of all her children or his children.
In 
college I majored in in developmental
psych, psychology, I bring that understanding and perspective
tonight because I look at things in a difference way. I have
a teaching credential from the state of California, K-9, so I
have the perspective of an educator. I worked for the school
district. I was one of those traveling specialists in special
needs and served preschool through high school kids so I have
an inside view of the schools. I served in the hot seat that
you all are serving in tonight. And I've also had personal experience
with having siblings split between two elementary schools and
believe me, when parents say its tough, it is tough. It's tough
and you really work extra hard to meet the needs of your kids.
So I bring that perspective. And I am speaking more so tonight
from my professional work. For the last 3 years I've been the
PATCHWorks coordinator and I had the privilege of inheriting
the PATCH vision for children in this community. Every day of
my work it is my profession to study what creates healthy....healthy
and successful children and that's what we all are talking about.
So I'm with you on that, we all have that vision. So let me share
a little more tonight because I want you to think when you make
decisions, and it's not just the restructuring decision, it's
any decision that you make because you are powerful people in
the lives of children. The decisions you make carry a heavy impact.
You know that but I acknowledge that and I honor that. And so
when you make these decisions I want to give you a little bigger
perspective to look at from the kind of work I do in the health
field mode.
The first study I would like
to share with you is called 'The AD Health" or 'The Adolescence
Health Study.' Are you familiar with that one Bill? Have you
ever heard of that? This study was commissioned by Congress.
And it's been under the auspices of the National Institute of
Health. It's the biggest study ever undertaken in our country
on health, adolescence health. The first results were reported
in 1997. A big report in the Journal of American Medical Association.
A new set of findings just came out. It's a longitudinal study,
it's a powerful study. I want to share with you the two first
major findings because they are applicable to the decisions you're
making right now. They found out, the first findings found out
that the two biggest protective factors for kids against all
health risks, and we want healthy children not just educated
children, the two most protective factors against everything,
I'm talking eating disorders, depression, suicide, substance
abuse, I'm talking violence, I'm talking school failure. The
only thing that they didn't correlate with was teen pregnancy.
But the two most protective factors against all those other health
risks were, I bet you can tell me. What do you think? Family
connectedness and school connectedness. Now I think it's interesting,
I don't have time tonight to go into depth on what that means
but it's an unusual term to see the term connectedness in medical
reports and in medical studies. And it's very significant. And
so I want you to think about it as you are making these decisions
and you listen to parents talking about connectedness, it's real.
It's real in the lives of children. School connectedness, it's
real. We have lots of research.
The other thing I want to share
with you is 'The Asset Kid.' I call this the big picture....
because it is a big picture and I like good [inaudible] (Note:
A large poster of "The Asset Kid' was displayed for the
board members to view.) And I'm really rushing to get done here,
in my time frame. The Asset Kid, this, you talk about research,
I've been working with assets and I've come to respect them even
more and more. Again, I tell you that this was my major in college
and as a parent and in all my work I really have come to honor
this. This book is a compilation of three thousand studies. Three
thousand studies! It is a review of all our collective wisdom
on what is healthy for children. Over the last 50 years of studies
all over this country. It is the underpinning, the research base
for the developmental assets model. Here I want to share with
you about the Asset Kid here is we now know, the research shows
anyway, that there are 40 assets for healthy kids. I hope Al
you would look at it because I think you can appreciate this
too.
When we look at something like
a decision on restructuring what I......when I went home the
other night, Friday night, I went home and I've got to tell you
the God's honest truth I could not sleep that night because I'm
thinking about the health of children and the overall health
of children. And the things I heard that night......It's real
easy in the positions you're in to get really focused on the
intellectual development of children and sometimes we lose sight
of the whole child. Because that's your job. Your job is the
intellectual, academic performance of kids and that's what you
should be doing and I honor that. But what really jumped out
at me when Cindy Harvey presented this list of advantages and
disadvantages, and I'm the one who had that question or observation
Mr. Martin and by-the-way, I appreciate all you are doing. I'm
the one that observed that all the advantages seemed to benefit
the schools and staff and somewhat kids and all the disadvantages
really hit families and children. And one that isn't on this
list is like splitting siblings, the big support network for
kids. And that's my concern. Because this is the big picture
for kids. Because I know, the research shows that if we really
want successful on that means.... it means learning to read,
academic performance, you name it, it is directly correlated
to the more assets children have the more successful they will
be at school.
Let me share with you, if you
look at these 40 assets on the flip side of the Asset Kid there,
you can see there are some related to learning. The internal
assets, commitment to learning: Achievement, motivation, school
performance, homework, school bonding and reading for pleasure.
Many of the assets are directly related to learning. I figure
there may be ten. But that also tells me there are thirty other
assets that aren't necessarily related to learning.... Thank
you. (acknowledging time notification signal)....that are related
to the overall health of children. And what I want you to do
it to weigh it against the first set of assets on the external
asset side the support assets. What scares me here, and I don't
know that scare is the right term, what I'm concerned about here
is we are at risk of disrupting for many children, and many of
the children that you are concerned about, we are at risk of
disrupting their support networks. Family support; positive family
communications; other adult relationships, which by-the-way are
principals, teachers are huge in the lives of children; caring
neighborhoods, we'll be bussing kids out of neighborhoods; caring
school climate, we can do that in a K-2 configuration but parental
involvement in schooling.....what I'm looking at....thank you
I am almost done (time signal)......What I'm concerned about
and I want you to seriously think about not just restructuring,
is think about the entire, all the assets for kids. Think about
that support network too please. In any decision you make think
building it and strengthening it. Thank you.
