Will Surry School House MC2 Program?

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10445340.post-1146491797545637472006-05-01T08:48:00.000-05:002006-05-01T16:27:36.930-05:00Will Surry School House MC2 Program?<blockquote>Help build support for Monadnock schools. Please forward this blog to others concerned about education. Send your comments to 38kids@gilsumnh.org. Receive alerts when new posts in this blog via our e-mail list server. To subscribe to the 38kids e-mail list, send an e-mail to stserv@gilsumnh.org with the word "subscribe" in the body of the message. Or send a written request to 38kids@gilsumnh.org. </blockquote>On April 18th the School Board found itself on the horns of a dilemma. On the one side of the room stood advocates for the Surry Village Charter School, whose supporters would like to lease the Surry Elementary School building. That building now stands empty after the district voted to close it last year due to declining enrollment. On the other side were Superintendent Ken Dassau and the district’s principals, who proposed moving the Monadnock Community Connections School (MC2) into the Surry School.Unfortunately, this lead to a debate that in some ways put the cart before the horse. <a href="http://www.mc2school.org/">MC2</a> is an innovative, alternative high school program open to students in SAU 38 and SAU 29 that combines classroom study with experiential learning through local internships. It is the kind of program that could help the district decrease its dropout rate. “I see a vision where students have an alternative. It’s incredible that Monadnock has this,” said Sikunder Rashid, principal of the Cutler Elementary School in Swanzey.MC2 is currently housed at Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene. The school is partially funded by the Monadnock Region Public Schools of Choice (<a href="http://www.anei.org/pages/86_mrpsoc_school_choice_.cfm?redirect=yes">MRPSOC</a>) grant as well as other grants. The MRPSOC grant, which pays $11,000 toward the school’s rent, ends in 17 months (October, 2007). Dassau first floated the idea of moving MC2 to Surry after being asked by the Budget Committee to come up with ways to cut the administration’s proposed budget last fall. “We anticipated move of MC2 to Surry would have a savings of approx $15,000,” he says. The Surry building offers MC2 comparable space and would move the school into a Monadnock Regional School District town from Keene, where it now resides. However, Keene is more central to the district’s member towns, MC2 principal Kim Carter acknowledged. Frank Conroy spoke for the proposed Surry Village Charter School. “We think this is a wonderful opportunity to utilize this building. We’ll be handing over at the time of lease a check for $30,000 and all of the costs of running that school,” he said. “Surry village has always had an elementary school. This is an opportunity to bring a school back to the village.”While the board knew a proposal was coming from the Surry Village Charter School, some members seemed taken by surprise by Dassau’s proposal. “The board received in December a request to move MC2 to Surry School.” But, Dassau acknowledged, “That did not come forward” as a formal proposal. It was clear that some on the board felt they had insufficient information on potential district uses for the school to make a decision to lease it to a private organization. “Surry needs to figure out what they are going to do. MC2 needs to figure out what they are going to do. It’s unfortunate that this [MC2 proposal] didn’t come up earlier,” said Karen Cota. “I’ve heard a lot about money and not a lot about education. My personal opinion is I would rather see our own program in that space,” said Board Chair Colline Dreyfuss. So far, talk about MC2 has focused almost exclusively on budgets, to the disappointment of parent Wayne Imon, who has a child in the MC2 program. He thinks the board needs to get its priorities straight. “The focus is always on money, not educational issues. They spend all of their time debating motions like this,” he said.In the end, the Board voted not to lease the school to Surry Village Charter School, thereby keeping its options open with regard to possibly moving the MC2 program. While it is unfortunate that the district could not help the Surry Village Charter School, it was also clear that the Board needed to debate its own options with regard to MC2 before it could take any action on leasing the Surry facility to a third party. The real issue isn’t whether or not MC2 should be moved, however. It is whether the School Board will continue to actively support the program after grant support expires. Without making that commitment to MC2, there is little point debating where the program should be housed.“My personal intention is to support the concept of MC2. It is the state standard. Everyone seems to be overlooking that point,” Dreyfuss said in a follow-up e-mail. With the grant coming to an end it’s a subject that’s long overdue for discussion. “I'm not sure what MC2 looks like in the future without grant money... but those are questions that the board should have been discussing. And now we will have to discuss [them]. Look forward to seeing it on the agenda in the future,” Drefuss says. And if the grant is extended, will this school board support it?Got kids? Think about attending a school board meeting, see what’s going on, and support your children’s education. The next meeting is next Tuesday, May 2nd, at the Emerson School in Fitzwilliam. MC2 will be on the agenda. <a href="http://www.mrsd.org/MRSDschbd06-07mtgs.htm">Click here </a>for a list of upcoming school board meetings and locations.38Kids Editorshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04000850714803486969noreply@blogger.com