We met last night at Parkland.  Dr. Ramage welcomed the committee and actively participated in the process.  The committee members introduced ourselves to each other and then we began working on the hard items.  Last night the focus was on identifying dilemmas and difficulties in the District and key questions to be answered to achieve success.

I was pleasantly surprised that the meeting remained fairly positive.  It did not become a unit 4 bashing session but instead was a productive and insightful look into issues at the District and with perception in the community about the District.  There was a breakdown of items into the areas of programming, facilities, and Community.  Not everything fit in those areas and we created a few new ones but generally the broad catagories worked.

We were broken in to small groups.  Our group talked a lot about responsibility.  Needing parents and community to step up (along with staff, teachers, and student), making sure leadership is in place that is willing to impliment change etc.  We also discussed the need for vocational programs and well rounded students and that schools need to be places where more than academic excellence happens (although that should happen to).  We talked about inequity of facilities and materials.  The issue of perception in the community versus reality in the schools was one all groups addressed as well.

Stress was put on the need for community members to serve on the working groups that will help to refine the goals and how to achieve them.  We also discussed the community forums (which will be next year) and the hope that great ideas come from those meetings.

We also discussed a fear of at least one committee member that this will turn into a “Big Small All” where  she believes we invested a lot of community time but nothing much came of the effort.  This was addressed both by our chair (Bruce Knight) and the facilitators.  Bruce indicated that Big Small All does and will show up in planning for our community but even so that the difference here is that one entity has responsibility for implimentation unlike with Big Small All - where no one entity had the responsibility to follow through with any of the goals.  The facilitators also indicated that they intend to create true goals (and not too many of them) to achieve and benchmarks to judge success. 

Copies of Unit 4’s stratetic plan (updated) were also given out.  You can get them at the website if you are interested.

Let me know if you want to serve on a working group (program, facilities, community-maybe more to come).

No Comments »

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  I did think that last night’s visioning meeting for Unit 4 was something that many people would be interested in so I am back to posting.  The meeting last night was well attended by the committee members and members of the community also attended.  School Board President Dave Tomlinson described the meeting as, “the begining of a great conversation”.  And admitted that, “the Board and staff realize we have a large task in our hands”. 

We also learned that unit 4 schools is the 3rd largest employer in the County, 9,300 students attend the schools, and 40% of those students are eligible for the free lunch program (meeting low income guidelines).  The cost of our schools currently is $3.70 per $100.00 of assessed valuation (down slightly).

We learned that the visioning committee will be delegating to the “working groups” to really formulate plans for how to achieve the goals articulated by the committee.  Additionally at least 10 public forums will be held to make sure we have community input in the process.

After the intro remarks the committee was told the ground rules:

1.  Actively participate

2. Use facts to inform decision making

3. Consider what is best for the entire community

4. Respect and consider other opinions

5.  Be time sensitive- allow time for all to participate

6.  Keep yourself updated on the developments of the process

Peter Fox then asked how the planners arrived at a 25 year timeline for our plan.  His comment prompted a discussion about how far out the planning should go.  We finally settled on 13 years- the amount of time one child spends in the school district. 

Next the committee was asked to define a vision of success for the schools, teachers, parents, students along with how to get to that vision.  The questions were more detailed than what I have written but I didn’t copy them down.  We discussed, wrote on sticky notes, and discussed more.  We came up with broad catagories for success and ideas and suggestions on how to get to the visions of success we had defined. 

Then, we were basically out of time.  We elected Bruce Knight, City of Champaign Planning Director as the chair of the committee.  We were left with homework to identify dilemmas and difficulties for unit 4 and for reaching the goals and to develop key questions to be answered to achieve success. 

We were also asked to start identifying community members who would be interested in being part of the working groups.  So, if you are interested in participating in this process please let me know.

No Comments »

Council will be discussing again the possibility of mandatory snow shoveling in Champaign.  The proposal is mandatory shoveling for university and downtown districts and voluntary for everywhere else.  I was a no vote on mandatory shoveling last time.  I don’t support it in the neighborhoods where I can’t imagine the City spending time giving out snow shoveling tickets to home owners.  I am willing to think about the university/business districts but will need to be persuaded that it is the right thing to do and that the business owners and customers want/need downtown and at the University to have a snow clearing ordinance.  Many Cities have mandatory requirements but the question is do they work? 

Please let me know what you think about this issue or come to Council Tuesday night to speak.

No Comments »