Education Summit Webpage

"It Takes a Village to Educate a Child"

Appendix 2b - Preplanning Input from Participants

1. Need a full time reading coordinator for early grades.
2. Need certified reading specialists in order to achieve highest possible reading ability.
3. Need a program for kids moving ahead of the others for all grades... "special ed program" for the fast learners.
4. Systems within the functioning of school (and the personnel that are in charge of the systems) that are cumbersome, ineffective and difficult to access.
5. Enough staffing to achieve the goals of such systems.
6. Space in future for extra students down the years.
7. Athletic fields- offer to Boldgett they can't refuse $$.
8. Auditorium.
9. Participants need to define the tough issues in education from a global perspective, and Shelburne specific.

1. Strong feelings about 1 type of education being right for children
2. This community's parents have highest level of education in VT
3. Need a goal of being the best for our students- providing different things for different students (according to their needs).

1. Victims of our own success
2. We need work on the reputation of our school, newspaper often writes about SCS negatively.
3. Inertia in the community; people are satisfied, sitting back and relaxing, people are tired.

1. Resources are not being used to full ability
2. Students and teachers not trained enough
3. Changing all the time

1. Assessment and performance standards in education.
2. Performance standards one of our toughest issues
3. How do you measure success?
4. Need more comfort in knowing what we promise our kids regarding performance.
5. How do "I" know my child has what they need?
6. Assessment on performance: student to self, student to student, school to school.
7. Indicators for each child.

1. A lot of people moved to Shelburne for the education- what will happen now?
2. We need to be financially responsible.
3. Be up-front about financial impact of strategy.
4. Wants vs. needs.
5. Financial impact on-class size, facility, curriculum
6. Shelburne has already provided a lot of resources for education

1. Class size

1. We're outgrowing our space/ infrastructure.
2. We are at capacity now.

1. Add enthusiasm accountability to quality, quantity and capacity.
2. How will we address the burn-out of passionate reform-minded teachers who have become demoralized by approached to their work that places them in the role of functionaries of clerks? This question gets at issues of training vs education and alienation vs connection.
3. Teacher performance and evaluations.
4. Consideration of adequate human resources to meet the special needs of our students.
5. How best to hire (with standard criteria), and utilize staff to meet the needs of children, teams, and the school.

1. We need to plan for our growing community. I'm not sure we are currently using all areas appropriately.
2. Facilities that are conducive to learning.
3. Space/facility considerations as the student population in Shelburne expands
4. Facilities that meet the needs of program, of privacy issues, one to one tutoring, etc.
5. Our school is at full capacity at the present time. Enrollment continues to climb. Where will these additional students be placed? Larger classes? There is no performance area for concerts, musical, etc. Presently, the gymnasiums are used which necessitates the canceling of physical education classes. Physical education classes outnumber the available space. Classes are being taught in the cafeteria, which is a limited area.

1. Need consistent implementation of rigorous curriculum across all teams. ...all children should have the benefit of being exposed to certain topics. (VT Frameworks at the very least) ...should be room for expanded/in-depth exposure for children capable of more intensive study. ...examine our school's standardized test results to guide us in developing a rigorous curriculum.
2. A clearly defined and integrated curriculum that prepares a student for their next level of study.
3. We need a common base line curriculum which is vertically and horizontally integrated. That is a logical grade-by-grade, as well as team-by-team progression of what material is taught.
4. Arriving at a common understanding of what is being taught (and a student is expected to know) at key intervals including how to measure the student, the class and the school against the standards.
5. School's offering are not relevant to today's kids or tomorrow's challenges.
6. Kids not vested in learning - does not validate who they are or address who they are becoming.

1. Because of the different teaching philosophies in the various houses it is difficult to establish a common understanding of success or failure of the school. Are the children learning and is curriculum appropriate? Who can tell? The fact that there is confusion suggests that there is a broad communication problem.

1. Greater student expectations and measurements of their progress.
2. Developing a widely accepted, validated system by which to determine the quality of a school's academic program.
3. There is a serious lack of accountability, follow-through, and expectations the part of students. The impact of this is cumulative and I believe in and of itself creates as a byproduct many of the issues that we today find so troublesome in managing our schools.
4. Overcoming the poor performance of recent Math, Reading and measurements of Shelburne and CSSU students given the high spending of school per pupil and the high level of education (and therefore the preparation for school) of parents.
5. How do we develop an educational system that is responsive to needs but has clear expectations for performance and meeting responsibilities?

1. What responsibility do we have for others? Given that living in a place of privilege where we are luckier that most of the world's millions, we are also more obliged. ...planning for issues of cultural differences and social justice as defining elements of curriculum development and strategic planning.
2. ...raise the level of discourse around educational issues? What means do we need to reinsert a language of moral, political, civic conscience that links education in our school with the quality of life with in the wider society?
3. Identifying those modifications necessary in order to move current procedures and practice into alignment with the long-term needs of our students.
4. There are far too many non-academic activities ranging from field trips to parent teaching to various social sessions. My concern relates not to the debate on the individual merits of each of these. When taken as a whole there ends up being a very sporadic, inconsistent and inadequate amount of time spent on academics.
5. Respect/ high regard for education is lower that ever and translates to school being just one more activity in a long list of things kids and families do.
6. I don't believe there is agreement on what a "high quality" education is.
7. How do we provide a quality education for all students when we are at a loss to define that quality and in addition we are given mandates to provide a level of services (special ed) that seem to produce a tension between programs and resources?

1. How do we provide the support needed in school, communities and families to produce the type of system that is responsive to needs but has clear expectations for performance and meeting responsibilities?

1. The long term impact of Act 60 on Shelburne's School system.
2. Does Shelburne understand the consequences of Act 60 and how it will affect education and spending? We face difficult choices and without clear understanding of the education value created by the school are divided in mind and spirits about the school and its role.

1. Financially responsible decisions.
2. In order for facility and technology issues to be met, the financial backing needs to be secure.
3. Shelburne is designated a gold town but still has a high tax from its high per pupil expenditure.

1. The community has not resolved the definition of education that was the underlying issue in the recent crisis over parental choice of class structure and philosophy. My assessment is education was defined by the two sides as follows:

a)School: Education = Schooling

b)Parents: Education = Schooling + Learning

(where learning includes motivation and family education activities)

2. The "institution" of school, formed for a past that no longer exists, will not meet the future needs for learning. (Calendar based on harvest, Schedule and curriculum based on High School model, daily schedule/arrangement not based on how students learn- merely organized for adults.)

3. Well educated Shelburne parents have strong differences in the kind of education they want for their children.

4. The education that is currently offered fails to adequately address the wide variety of learning styles that children bring to the classroom.

1. Information Technology is a critical tool, supporting the work of students and teachers. It is constantly changing We must use computers and other related information technologies to store, access, process and analyze information, as well as for presentations and communication.
2. Each member of the school community must become a confidant and effective user of computers and related information technologies. If each student is to be successful in their work life and as a citizen of our democracy, then Information Technology must be an integral component of their education with clear outcomes identified and achieved.
3. Shelburne faculty are untrained in the full use of technology in the classroom.

1. School board members (some administrators as well) are uneducated / unaware of learning theory, etc. so they cannot anticipate, plan for, argue for, defend future school needs. Therefore: low wages for teachers, little support for excellence, poor fiscal/ facility planning.

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Last updated:  May 05, 1999