7 November, 2011
The School Committee and Superintendent are pleased to report that more than 70 citizens participated in last week's three workshops regarding planning for our elementary schools. The input collected at the workshops has been transcribed, and an analysis is underway. The raw data will be reviewed by the School Committee and Board of Selectmen, and will be shared with the MSBA. The School Committee would like to continue to gather feedback, and will report the results as quickly as possible to the workshop participants, as well as the community at large via local media and the school district website.
Listening to and building upon individual opinions, concerns and ideas is the first and most important step in the process. During the workshops, following a short recap of the process to date as well as background information provided, the majority of the meeting time was spent in small group discussion focused on evaluation of potential facility projects and solutions.
The 8 questions that all participants responded to were as follows:
1. What is important to you about the location of a new or renovated elementary school?
2. What is important to you about the cost of a new or renovated elementary school?
3. What is important to you about the timeline for putting a solution to the challenges at Center School into place?
4. What are your thoughts about avoiding or tolerating educational disruptions during construction?
5. What should the School Committee consider in determining whether to renovate Center School or build a new school?
6. What are your thoughts about neighborhood vs. town-wide schools?
7. What are your thoughts about shorter vs. longer grade-spans?
8. What information will you need to know in order to vote on a proposed solution?
For those citizens who were not able to attend one of the workshops but who want to share responses to these 8 questions, they can do so by emailing their responses to School Committee Chair, Jean Bertschmann, by Wednesday, November 9th at 5:00 p.m. to the following email address:
jbertschmann@hopkinton.k12.ma.us
Data collected from the workshops as well as any additional opinions, concerns and ideas shared via email will be shared with the community, and will also be used in the development a community wide survey regarding our elementary schools. The survey will be designed for all Hopkinton voters to participate in and will be presented to the community in early December 2011.
