21. Testimony of Kim Stahl:
---PTA Council President

Good evening. I'm the president of the PTA Council of Ketchikan. I come before you tonight to present the results of the data that was collected regarding the issue of restructuring the intown elementary schools. This was accomplished through three separate collection times and the results of the petitions are as follows.

I'm not going to do the surveys, I'm going to give them to you. I wasn't planning on reading them anyway but I'm going to give you copies of all of them and you guys can have a look at them and anyway....

After the PTA workshop, from the signatures not the surveys, there were 3 yes and 71 no and 4 undecided (view the survey). After the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District's forum on 1/19, there were 3 yes, 77 no and 3 undecided. And after the survey that we did at Carrs' on 1/20 all day on Saturday, we had 6 yes, 121 no and 10 undecided. And I would like to mention that there were people from both sides of the issue manning our tables.

The survey indicated that there would be a loss of nearly 80 students from your district by imposing the restructuring. And the results of the survey, which I'm going to give you, clearly indicates the wishes of the community. They are overwhelmingly in opposition of restructuring.

The mission of the PTA is to help all the children and to be a voice for the parents. The parents want staff training and programs implemented that would improve academic achievement without moving children and teachers. We want what's best for all children too. And I hope you take these surveys seriously and give them the consideration they deserve.
Thank you.

Editor's Note: A request has been made for the results of the other PTA Council surveys referred to in this testimony. The results will be published online as soon as possible.

22. Testimony of Lisa Bezenek :

I live at ------. First I just want to, I forgot to write down the proverbs that I read this week because I need to give Sue Pickrell an apology for the other night. I'm passionate. I try to say things correctly and they don't always come out right. If you knew me, my heart is always in a good place and I don't ever......if the world ended tomorrow I want to go to heaven so I'm not going to have a grievance against anybody here including Mr. Johnson. I don't always agree with him. I pray a lot for him but, no offense, that's not a cut down either. It's just that we have a difference of opinion. So....anyway, I apologize to you. And I think I saw something about the signs about Hannah, so I want to publicly apologize to her cause......mainly I should say cause somebody told me that I was quoted on Kanoe as calling you people unprofessional. And I'll clarify it, that wasn't what I meant. Okay. It meant, the teachers I would like to hear from. So you all know that. You are an elected official.

So anyway back to what I am here for. I talked to Mr. Martin this week and I really have been trying to think of ways to make this community less dysfunctional cause ever since I moved here seven years ago...... Well the year before we moved here supposedly this was the awesome place to be so that's the only reason I said yes to move here to my husband. So I came and that was seven years ago. It seemed like to me that the school board and the teachers, it started to be this conflict and that's when this dysfunctional, not listening and fighting back and forth to me started. So maybe we can.....I'm going to challenge you for a change. We [inaudible] how the board does its business possibly we wouldn't have so many uphill battles because we all want every kid to read. I mean I go to school two days a week and help kids read and do spelling. So my goal is to help the children without parents there too. And that's a wonderful goal for all of us. So maybe an idea, and Mr. Martin thought it was a good idea so I thought I'd say it tonight. Implement new ways you do things. Maybe once a month you could meet with two parents from the PTA of every school. And they could gather information of what's happening discipline wise, curriculum wise, working with their children, etc. So you would constantly once a month be communicating with every school and hearing the parents. Now granted some of those parents like Ms. Pilcher said won't be there but the parents that are there know and they care about the kids that don't have parents there.

Then another idea would be to meet with a group of teachers monthly. Communicate this. You know, how are things going? You know this is what we think is going on and have the teachers input on what they're doing and their problems and maybe what they need. And counselors, meet with them and of course the administrators. You know, they should be doing their job and keeping track of the teachers that, you know, unfortunately there might be some teachers that aren't up to par. And that's their job. And you know, maybe we need to keep a better idea, focus on the administrators making sure some of those teachers are getting their credentials up to par.

And then my last idea would be, I can't always watch your school board meetings because.....well granted after the first couple of years I watched them I stopped. And then.....I couldn't sit for six hours and I would never even want to be on the school board. That's why I never ran because I'm not going to spend six hours, you know, arguing with people. And so.....maybe a quick outline of what you guys talked about could go to every school and then the school would send it home in their news note. This is what happened at the school board meeting. We get a note every week. So anyway, it's an idea. Thank you.

23. Testimony of Barbara Guenther

I live at ------. I'm a mother of four elementary school age children. I am not opposed to change. But I am for a sound process of parental, teacher and community input. I hear we parents are never happy with what the school board does. Well think about it for a moment. Maybe it's the way in which it's done! Little or no survey of parents; lack of communication with the public; no follow through; decisions made in private meetings; things forced at the community all at one time: direct instruction, ability grouping, restructuring. It's all at us at once. It's overwhelming. I mean one of them at a time. Change without input from the one that it directly affects causes anger, mistrust and fear of the unknown.

I called the school district and asked about the survey that went home. It couldn't be found. Houghtaling had supposedly sent something out. They didn't have a copy of it. Valley Park, Pt. Higgins, White Cliff were not surveyed. I don't get it. Communication! This affects everybody. Even though my kids are at Point Higgins. It will affect them.

I believe that parents should be surveyed to see what they would really like. A plan should be broad based. It should be well thought out and the opportunity for the public to share should be in that process.

I do believe that we do need to use a unity candle, peace, positive things. It's been divisive since we've been here for ten years. We can retire, my husband can retire in three years. We don't know what that will bring for us. Because this is not the community which we thought we were going to bring our kids to and raise. We like Ketchikan but right now with all this stuff right at us again and again, we don't have to stay here in three years.

So it would be nice if it could be positive. That sign right there 500 future readers is offensive to me. I have a child in the second stanine that can read and she's one of your 500. It should be taken down. That is advertisement here. Shall we put a sign here that says Charter School? I don't think so. She's in the second stanine and she can read. She is a third grader. She's reading the Boxcar Children. Maybe it's not at the level that she should be, she will get there. Things are moving along okay. That happened with my other two older children. They can read now very well. But in the second and third grade they were just okay. And I wasn't worried about it. And there are children that we should worry about and those can be identified. Those teachers can point them out. I can point them out when I sub in a class.

I'd like to end though with we need a positive thing. A positive thing would be getting parental support and input on this restructuring. That's just one component.

And I do have to take offense Mr. Johnson that that sign is there.

Note: Regarding District's Survey:
On Jan. 24, 2001, I contacted the district's administrative office and requested a copy of the district's survey that was supposedly done in the spring of 2000 to publish as information on this web site. I was informed that there was no district survey and that the administration was only aware of a survey that was conducted by Houghtaling. I contacted Houghtaling and requested a copy of the results. The acting principal was unable to locate the survey or results. She graciously called me the next day to say she had spoken with the principal and he also did not know where the Houghtaling survey and results could be found.
Dick Kauffman

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