Taking a Real Break

Here I am, 18 months post-retirement. You may be wondering how someone who maintained a blog from 2006-2022 could just disappear, but in fact, that’s exactly what I did. For a bit.

When I retired I craved nothing more than the freedom to do whatever I liked each day, with no schedule, no obligations and no responsibility. For about six weeks, I was in Florida focusing on exercise and diet and reading all of the books I’d put off.

But six weeks is really all I needed and I realized later that I just desperately needed a break.

My colleague Jazz Conboy asked me this question during a conversation about how burnt out I felt, “do you get away from the work?” I smugly answered “Yes! We go to Florida to see our son and his family and they don’t have to worry at all because I always have my phone, I stay in touch with everyone, monitor emails and connect any time they need me. They can reach me 24/7.” Jazz, “Well that’s your problem. You’re not actually ever taking a break. Imagine how you’d feel about the work if you left it for two solid weeks.”

This had never occurred to me. Seriously. It is OKAY to take a real break from the work. You can ask a colleague to check in, an administrative assistant to monitor your emails, and someone else to run point if there’s anything urgent. Then do the same thing for that person.

And by the way, I’m back to working full time. I’m in a role with far less responsibility than I had as a superintendent and there’s a certain freedom to being retired and working in an interim role.

Summer is upon us. Be better than I was. Take a real break. You deserve it. You’ll be better for your teams if you do this for yourself. I promise.

Six Months Until Retirement

I will be retiring in the 21-22 school year. My last date of work as the SGI superintendent will be Friday, January 7, 2022. If you’re wondering why I’m announcing my retirement so soon, it’s to provide time for the BOE to conduct the search for the next superintendent. Whenever a superintendent retires, the search consultant requests a six-month period in which to conduct a search. The BOE members met with Dr. O’Rourke on June 21, 2021 to plan the search process.

When I decided in 2015 that I wanted another big challenge before retirement and applied to Springville-Griffith Institute CSD, I didn’t really know what was in store for me. From an outsider’s perspective, I knew some of the struggles the district experienced with leadership. It never made sense to me, what I saw in the media, because I thought “that should be a wonderful district to lead.” In fact, Springville is a wonderful district. The community, BOE members, leadership team, faculty and employees are among the best I’ve ever known. I’m grateful for every positive comment, for every day of hard work from our employees, for a leadership team—including our amazing administrators, union leaders, and BOE members—who works together to do what’s right. I’m grateful for our students and families who are kind and thoughtful and well intentioned.

It’s been a rough year for all of us. If someone asked me why I’m retiring now, I’d be tempted to answer, “social media!” but the truth is that it’s simply the right time for me. I’ve had a fulfilling career in which I’ve been lucky enough to do meaningful work and to form relationships with some incredible people. We’ve righted the SGI ship and now I know that the next six months will continue to be about leaving the place better than I found it while passing the leadership responsibility to the next superintendent.

Personally, I’m looking forward to freedom. I’ve been on the clock since I was fifteen—a work ethic was the #1 thing taught to us in my family and it’s how we were valued. When my father passed away in March at 78, it confirmed for me that life is short, and I have so many other things I want to do before mine is over. I want to wake up without an alarm clock, drink coffee in my pjs, volunteer, travel with my husband and enjoy our grandbabies.

I’m so proud to be the Springville superintendent and will continue to do so with all that I’ve got until January 8, 2022. We’ve got much to do including rolling out the next capital project that will do more for our students than the last project.  I’ll have much more information on that at our July 6th BOE meeting, a public informational meeting this summer and on our conference days in September.

SGI Family Survey Results

Within this post, please find the results to a family survey that we sent out and kept open over the past few weeks. We received 314 responses to the survey, with 32 people taking the survey more than once resulting in 282 unique responses. I’m grateful for everyone who took the time to participate and to share your thoughts in the comments. To understand our purpose for conducting the survey, here’s the introductory letter that accompanied it.

Dear Families:

We can’t believe it’s been ten months since the beginning of the global pandemic that’s forced significant changes upon our school system. Thank you to all of our families who have reached out to share your thoughts, encouragement, suggestions for improvement and gratitude. This has been the single most challenging time of my 32 year career in education and we very much look forward to the day that our students return to us fully in-person, 5 days per week.

Our leadership team, in collaboration with our teachers and BOE members, have made what we’ve thought were the best decisions for the students of SGI. We turn to you to tell us how things are going for your children. For every parent who asks for more rigorous learning opportunities and more instructional time for students on remote days, we hear from families who say, “we’re managing as well as we can now and cannot do anything more.”

Please help us to get a sense of where you are as a family by participating in the survey that follows. We are looking for opportunities to improve instruction for our students at the same time that we acknowledge that every family is different. Your answers will help to guide our decisions moving forward as we face the reality that it may be longer than we hoped before we’re back to “normal” in our schools. As we return to the hybrid model on January 4, 2021, please know that we will clearly communicate any changes to our current plan in a timely manner so that you can manage the changes in your own family.

As a system, you can count on us to carefully focus on your individual comments where there is room for improvement and an ability to change. For example, if the comment was “get our kids back to five days of in-person instruction!“, we cannot do that under the requirement to maintain six feet of distance between our students. There’s nothing we’d like to do more than have 5 days of in-person instruction and yet I can’t deliver on that request.

I also want to acknowledge that the preponderance of positive feedback and understanding of the situation in which we exist under this pandemic was heartening. Thank you for the positive feedback and words of encouragement!

Who participated in the survey? We had an even distribution of families, with 41.7% of respondents identifying as SHS families, 36.9% as SMS, 41.3% as SES and 13.1% as CES which is reflective of our student population distribution.

How are we doing on communication? 78.3% of respondents agree that we are keeping you well informed. Within the comments we learn of times when someone isn’t receiving a return email or phone call from someone at SGI–this is NEVER acceptable. When you reach out to a teacher or administrator, you should expect a response in a timely manner. If you do not receive one, please try following up with a phone call and/or contacting the building administrator.

I also see a repeat comment from families that says, “give us a heads up sooner if my child isn’t doing well.” Please never hesitate to call the teacher, counselor, or principal to get more information and we will focus on being more proactive. Families can always keep up to date on grades by accessing PowerSchool any time, day or night. Please let us know if you need help with logging in and call or email the teacher if you are worried about the grades that you see there. Especially at the MS/HS levels, 90% of the time your child does know why the grades are low and has already had that conversation with the teacher.

Remote days–is the amount of work and time on the computer just right? Here we have 33.7% of our respondents disagreeing that the amount of work and time on the computer was just right. The next question digs a little deeper to find out if that’s because families want more or less time and work.

Do families believe their children can handle more scheduled time working directly with a teacher?  

The answer to this question is as varied as the families we serve. As you can see 44.3% of families agree that more scheduled time on remote days is preferable, with 35.3% disagreeing.

We have been working to develop a more robust schedule for remote days since November. We are looking to add in more time directly on a schedule with teachers on Wednesdays and ways in which we can add teaching support for all students on remote days. 

I need to spend a bit more time on this topic. We have heard our teachers make impassioned pleas to focus on only our in-person students on their two in-person learning days, as we planned from the beginning. As one veteran and well respected SES teacher said to me,

for the two days that we have students in-person, it is precious little time to focus on our children. Please don’t take that away from me or divide my attention by asking me to teach my remote children at the same time. We are making progress under the hybrid model, our students are doing well and they are not far behind where we would normally be at this time of the year.

We understand that teachers want to be with their students, uninterrupted and face to face when they are in school. However, we also understand the need to increase engagement and contact time with students when they are remote. This is why we are considering other ideas for offering more synchronous learning on remote days. It is our hope to have a plan in place for the beginning of the next semester. Three days per week without direct contact with teachers is not good for kids; we have to do better.

Is the school work on remote days manageable and meaningful? Are we extending the in-person learning or giving what’s perceived as ‘busy work’? I found these results to be encouraging and reflective of the hard work our teachers have done on developing asynchronous lessons. 56.1% of respondents agree that the work is meaningful with just 23.2% disagreeing. Our principals are dropping in on remote lessons, just as they always do in the regular school day to look for areas where they can provide feedback, encouragement and support to our teachers.

Last, to make life a little more exciting (!), I added a question about whether or not our families plan to have their children vaccinated. I can only say that I truly hope the decision about whether or not to mandate the vaccine is NOT left to us in individual school districts. As you can see here, the results are again, as varied as our families.

We will continue to focus on all students and families, doing the best that we can under these unbelievable circumstances. Thank you for all of your support, understanding and love for the Springville-Griffith Institute CSD. Your thoughts matter to us and we love hearing from you!

What’s Gone Well During this School Closure?

We’re knee deep in figuring out the deadlines for school budget votes and Board of Education elections, as impacted by the Governor’s latest Executive Order. Throughout this school closure we’ve had many questions that we needed to answer and decisions to make. I’m not sure I’ve ever found the work of a school superintendent to be more intense or difficult. So in the midst of all of it, I checked in with our school community and asked everyone for the positives—what good may come from this closure?

The results of this latest thought exchange can be found in this summary report. We asked,

What’s gone well for you during the school closure that may be different from the norm or what you’d expect? What are possible changes you want to make when life returns to “normal”?

I found the thoughts shared to be encouraging and reflective of the caring, supportive community that is Springville-Griffith Institute CSD. Please take the time to read the report. I hope you’re as uplifted by the thoughts shared as I am!

We will reflect carefully on the lessons learned about learning and the way we do “school” after this health crisis. If we just return to the way we’ve always done things and a status quo, we’re missing a massive opportunity to improve learning for all kids. Here’s a Buffalo News article by Jay Rey in which I’m quoted as saying,

I actually hope that after all of this is over maybe we can have some lessons that we learned from this time,” Moritz said. “Perhaps some of these things we’ve clung to don’t seem so important anymore and we can focus on how we really define learning.

I hope that people will really think about the equity challenge and finally see how impossible homework completion is for some of our neediest children. I hope that we’ll capitalize on remote learning for our students who are home sick or who otherwise can’t put in the seat time requirements.  We need to think about maintaining the family connections that so many talk about in the ThoughtExchange. I hope we’ll reconsider our thoughts on “proving” learning through arbitrary grading procedures. Most of all, I hope we’ll really analyze and commit to improvements about the actual curriculum content and pedagogy that we employ in every classroom, every day. As teachers were forced to consider “power” standards, the most important learning that’s necessary for each class, did they also recognize that we’re teaching some content that’s irrelevant, unnecessary, and easily found online? If so, then we need to do the hard work of identifying what will be different in our curriculum and instruction that will improve learning for all kids.

Let’s come out of this health crisis better than we entered it.

Springville Generosity

On a daily basis, I’ve been grateful for someone in our organization, their work and dedication. Today I want to thank a group of individuals in our school community who came together to support our essential workers.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart to:

Julie Noeson

Carla Roetzer

Kate Cummings

Marlene Clark 

Valerie Brown

Wendy Cocca 

Sherry Bligh

Lisa Braman

Kara Andrews 

Polly McCauley 

Denise Lawton 

Elizabeth Casey 

John Baronich

Sue Reinhardt

Lilian Quinn 

Cristin Benz and Lily Benz

Jay McCrory 

Alex Simmons and Andrea Simmons

Christine Small 

Stephanie Sullivan 

John Mrozik

James Bialasik

Reed Braman

Frank Noeson

Rebecca Roudebush 

We are here Monday-Thursday, cleaning, preparing and delivering meals, and otherwise keeping the district running. Last week, I gave all of our masks and gloves to the local medical community. Most were dust masks from the shop, some medical masks. Saturday, the guidance changed and everyone is now supposed to wear masks in public–including everyone who’s here working every day. We are social distancing to the extent possible, but our essential employees have been on my list of people I’m worried about. This morning, I was able to give everyone working at SGI a handmade mask. Here’s mine.

Between Saturday morning when I put out the call for help and this morning at 7:30, our school community came together and made 200+ masks for our employees. I am so very grateful to everyone who did this for us. Having worked in Springville these past four plus years, I’m not a bit surprised at the generosity and caring of our community because I’ve been lucky enough to live it, every day.

Coronavirus Preparedness

Dear SGI Families:

On February 12, 2020, I sent a letter home to all of our families regarding the Coronavirus. A template was sent to superintendents from NYSED and NYSDOH. I want to point you back to the letter as it can be found on our District website, in case you’ve misplaced it. Here it is.

I know that many of you have been asking questions. I watched Governor Cuomo’s address on Coronavirus at 9:45 am this morning and was relieved to hear that the two suspected cases in WNY tested negative. I assure you that we will do everything possible to plan how to handle a Coronavirus emergency in our district. At the same time, I’m encouraged when I read the facts and I encourage you to do so too. Here are two good resources for you to consider. NYSDOH guidance and the CDC. I’ve been inundated with emails from various sources but can point you to none more valuable than those two sites.

PLEASE stress the importance of good hand washing to all of our children—demand it of them and of yourself. We are working to print posters on hand-washing for every classroom and restroom now.

Our full Administrative team is meeting this week to discuss and to plan. We will:

  1. Review our cleaning protocols AGAIN. These were reviewed with the flu outbreak we experienced, and the protocols are similar. Facilities Director Dave Seiflein is working with Hillyard to identify any opportunities for improvement, to answer the question of whether our hand sanitizer, that’s alcohol free, is effective enough, and to plan for the training of all cleaning and custodial staff that’s already scheduled for 3/20/2020. Again, good hand-washing with soap and water is a great method. Teach our littlest ones to do so while they’re at home please.
  2. Review our food service practices and protocols.
  3. Review all scheduled domestic and foreign student travel and monitor those planned trips closely.
  4. Planning for the worst—if we have the need to cancel school for an extended period of time, can we provide an education virtually? What would this look like? Are we equipped to do so, as least for our SHS coursework needed for graduation?
  5. Review perfect attendance awards—a main recommendation is to stay home if ill, therefore we will discuss the ways in which we reward good attendance. This is a tough one because we want our students at school but NOT if they’re sick.

If you have thoughts you would like to share that may benefit our SGI approach moving forward, please email me, call (716-592-3230) or talk with any member of our administrative team who can relay those ideas at our Friday morning meeting. We can work together to keep our school family safe.

Thank you.

Kimberly Moritz

How Steep the Cost of Transparency in Leadership?

It’s a pretty quiet day in the office when there’s a snow day. When I started this work over a decade ago, I received a phone call from our local veterinarian, Dr. Inkley, on such a day. My snow day call probably wasn’t 100% necessary–that’s how those calls go sometimes.Weather can be fickle. Dr. Inkley said,

Kim, when you close school and it’s not needed, I lose all of my employees for the day. Most of them are working moms who then have to take the day off to care for their kids. Please keep that in mind when you make the call.

I’ve had John’s words in my mind for every snow day call since. No, I’m certainly not going to have school if we shouldn’t but there isn’t always a clear cut answer. I understand that my decision to cancel school has to be about student safety first and foremost. There are other consequences to the decision. In every district there are children who are safer, warmer, and yes, better fed, at school than at home. Time off from school is a stressful event for those children. Calling a snow day means 4 am calls to the transportation supervisor who’s calling all nine of our highway superintendents to seek their input, studying the weather forecasts and talking to colleagues in other districts. It’s not as simple as it seems.

On Thursday, February 27, 2020, I called a snow day. Then I easily drove to and from the school through one portion of our large 161 square mile district. I was thinking about all of these things and I posted a tweet. Then the internet, and my life, blew up for about 12 hours.

My tweet: “Where, exactly, did this blizzard hit? Because I’m really regretting my decision to close schools. When the NWS and the news talk blizzard and huge snowfall, I can’t ignore that. I’m sorry to every working parent who had to take off a day from work for childcare.”

IF you know me, you know that I often post questions, use ThoughtExchange, and ask our school community for feedback. I genuinely felt regret that my decision, which from my drive through one part of our district seemed unnecessary, may have inconvenienced our families. If, for one moment, readers could read the tweet without whatever attitude they may have inferred on Thursday, they perhaps would just read it as it is. I wanted to know where the snow hit. What I expected from the tweet and what I got were two very different things.

A few students did tell me about the weather at their homes. But what ensued after this tweet was so disproportionate that I’m still astonished by it. Quickly I had a request from the Buffalo News and Channel 2 for an interview which I did via phone. People then started contacting me via direct message on Twitter, which is not something I use regularly, nor do I use Facebook messenger. I’m available and accountable to our district residents and families through email, telephone calls, and in person meetings. I then received a message and took a call from a Channel 7 reporter who told me she was passing me to her colleague. I said, “great, please give her my number.”

I could see my phone blowing up. I was doing something else and could not attend to it.  I briefly changed my Twitter account to private because I was alarmed that my profile and background pictures included my grandson and they were being shared in really negative ways, on the news, and in retweets. I was mortified that his beautiful face was being shared far and wide. Over 100 new people, many without any Twitter profile of substance, started following me. I went into a meeting and was unable to tend to the calls/messages/tweets for two hours.

At some point a reporter at Channel 7, who I’m guessing had a sense of urgency for a story, sent her own tweet,

Interesting. It looks like @kimberlymoritz chose to speak with only certain media outlets today before setting her account to private and ignoring our calls after she said she would do a phone interview with me.

The hatred, judgment and condemnation that were directed at me via tweets, direct messaging, emails and phone calls were unbelievable. People called for my termination. Our BOE president received an email directly calling for that termination. I was called a MORON, an IDIOT, a poor leader, horrible, suggestions of drinking on the job, and asked if I have kids. There were hundreds of comments and retweets. It seemed everyone had something to say.

It was awful. I kept thinking, “all of the work that I’ve done over a 30 year career, the programs I’ve started, the support I’ve given to employees and other leaders, the countless decisions I’ve made on behalf of our students and families, the love that I’ve shown, and my professional reputation is reduced to this?”

Over one tweet? People far and wide decided to extrapolate, infer, imagine or make up all sorts of things about that one tweet. I wrote it so I know what I was thinking and intending.  I was leading as I have for 20 years, from a place of honesty and transparency. I was self reflecting and taking responsibility for what may have been a poor decision on my part.

What did these people, who don’t know me or my work, get out of this? They had to take the time to comment in vicious ways. And this isn’t just me–this is happening to leaders in every aspect of our society and to, really, anyone who puts themselves out there at all. I’m asking what the HATERS (as one student called them) get out of it? And what is our response? Should I have responded to, argued with, or defended myself on every comment? Who has the mental energy or time for that? A few people who do know me entered the fray and quickly became exasperated by it.

No one wants to bring on a media maelstrom. However I’m glad that it happened to me and not to a member of our administrative team. I’m grateful for the countless positive, supportive messages, texts, emails and tweets supporting me.

I would have been really hurt about this earlier in my career where now I just feel concerned about where we are in the world that anyone can use social media to yell horrible things at anyone else. I’m worried about the personal attacks. I’m wondering what happened to appropriate civil discourse.

We had our Erie 2 BOCES school superintendents meeting yesterday. A colleague said the most important thing of this whole event to me:

Imagine what our kids feel like when they’re attacked on social media like this.

I believe in public accountability, especially for public employees. I have a responsibility to our students, families and taxpayers. This public scrutiny and disparagement is something altogether beyond that and it leaves me wondering.

What does this mean for our future? Who among us will want to step up, to take a risk, to be courageous as they face this kind of scrutiny? Who will want to lead? 

What are the best things we could do to improve our buildings and grounds?

We recently conducted a ThoughtExchange where we asked our SGI employees and students to answer the following question:

What ideas do you have about the physical improvements that you think we should make to our schools, fields, and facilities? And what do you wish or dream we could have here at Springville?

Believe it or not, it’s time for us to start planning the next capital project. It takes a couple of years to plan a project so as we begin to do so, I wanted to hear from our employees and students. The project we are concluding this year has many items that the architect and engineers identified as “need to do” items–rooftops, parking lot repaving and boilers. There isn’t a lot in this project that really touches classrooms and learning spaces.

For the next project, we want to consider all of our student spaces and what we can do to enhance our learning environment. As our school administrators work on walk throughs in our buildings and our architect considers our Building Condition Survey, the employees and students told us what they notice every day at SGI. You can read the Top Thoughts report here. 

As promised, we will carefully consider all suggestions. Given our parameters around cost–we plan for the next project to have a minimal impact on taxpayers–there are items in the Exchange that we will attempt to do in house, items that will definitely be considered in the planning of the next project, and items that are unrealistic.

Participants top thoughts (meaning they received the highest rank from other participants) included:

  • air conditioning
  • bathroom updates
  • lighting upgrades
  • locker replacement
  • kitchen equipment updates
  • flexible seating options

The first five of those items are definitely things we can analyze for the next project. I’m glad that so many teachers are thinking about ways to change up their classroom seating for more project based learning. Furniture isn’t something that’s aided within a capital project unless it’s to outfit a new space. We work hard to maximize the aidable part of a project so this means we’ll develop a line item in the budget to pay for new seating as we’re able to do so, just as Mr. Bialasik did out of the HS budget for the library at SHS.

I do care what you think–just as the many comments about the quality of the food we served last year helped us to know we should move forward with a BOE initiative to bring our food service in house, these thoughts will impact our next project. Thank you to everyone who participated.

If you’re a community member and have noticed something that needs to be improved, let me know! You may leave a comment here or email me at kmoritz@springvillegi.org.

School Safety When Alleged Threats Are Reported

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, we had two different incidents that captured the attention of our students, staff and families. Our SRO, Deputy Lundberg, our principals and I were well aware of the issues, investigated them fully and worked with the families involved. Neither issue constituted a real, credible threat to our schools. 

In the first case, a rumor was spread about a MS student “shooting up the school” that was completely untrue. Not a germ of truth to it. Still, the right thing happened and students who heard the rumor told parents and a few of the parents notified law enforcement of the alleged threat. Our middle school principal, Ms. Shanda DuClon, and SRO Lundberg investigated the claim thoroughly and directly, concluding that this was a middle school rumor.

Middle school students have engaged in this kind of mean spirited behavior forever. Hurtful gossip and rumors are never acceptable and through the course of the year we have had instances where a child has made up a claim that another student is intending school violence. This takes the concern to an entirely new level. Law enforcement and school administration investigate every single mention of a threat. This takes up a colossal amount of time while rocking the security we want our students to feel at school–all from a falsely reported incident. There must be consequences for children who falsely report by fabricating a story about school violence. Talk to your children about the damage done by making up any kind of rumor about another student, and most especially this kind which can result in law enforcement bringing consequences for falsely reporting.

But let me stress, if students hear something from anyone that constitutes a threat to oneself or others, they should immediately bring it to a teacher, parent, administrator or other trusted adult.

In the second case, high school students overheard part of a potentially concerning conversation and did the right thing and reported it to the high school principal, Mr. James Bialasik.  He and Deputy Lundberg did a thorough investigation and concluded that there is no threat, no intention by our student to do harm to others, no hit list or “shooting up the school” plan.

“See something, say something”–that’s the mantra we’re all following. People need to report to school and law enforcement authorities when they see or hear something. If it’s after school hours and you or your child have first hand knowledge of a threat, by all means, report it to law enforcement.

At the same time, please remember that rumor and conjecture can grow exponentially. Remember that old telephone game we all played in elementary school? Whatever was stated at the beginning of the row of students is never even remotely the same at the end. This happens even more on social media. We now have two students, one MS and one HS, who are faced with wondering if everyone heard the rumors and thinks they’re going to do something to harm others. A difficult pressure for young people.

Regarding communication from the school to our students, employees and families, I will share information with you when I can. You have my absolute word that we will communicate with you, as I’m doing now, as soon as possible.

Here’s my cell phone number: 716-258-8361. Report school safety concerns to law enforcement first, especially after school hours. But you can text or call me if you’re afraid for your child because of what you’re hearing or reading on social media. I’ll tell you what I can, which may simply be “we’re aware of the issue and are working on it. We’re confident that our students and staff are safe to come to school.” I won’t ever give you the details about someone else’s child, but I’ll tell you what I can. And if we’re not confident our employees and students will be safe at school, then our emergency plans will go into play and you’ll receive a parent broadcast.

School violence is by far one of the worst tragedies of my lifetime. It’s terrifying and involves those we hold most dear, our children. Let’s work together to do the very best that we can to care for all of our SGI children.

Colden Elementary School, Declining Enrollment

As one of our BOE members so aptly put it at our BOE meeting in Colden on Tuesday night, declining enrollment at Colden Elementary has been the “elephant in the room” for years. In the four years I’ve been in Springville, I’ve had several people say to me “when are you going to close Colden?” It seems that everyone has an opinion about what we should do.

However, we can’t make decisions based on people’s opinions alone and definitely not when the topic is a polarizing one. If you don’t already know, Colden Elementary is a beloved part of the Colden community. It’s a great little school with wonderful educators, a new principal and many families who are committed to keeping their K-5 children there. The building itself is an asset, one that we’ve invested in over the years. It’s also a school with declining enrollment when our other K-5 building, Springville Elementary, has increased enrollment.

Here’s a quick view of the enrollment stats:

                2015-16      2016-17      2017-18      2018-19      2019-20

Colden Elementary                 189                   194               177                 160                131

Springville Elementary          539                  538                557                555                557

As I said in this blog post from over a year ago, it’s my responsibility as the superintendent to study all areas of our school operations. We are going to develop a plan moving forward for Colden Elementary School. I don’t know yet what that plan will be but it needs to be based on a deep study of our enrollment trends, what’s best for kids, financial considerations, and the impact on the district as a whole. I want to know that our BOE members can answer the question “why don’t you close Colden Elementary?” with solid reasons of why we decided to keep the building open OR have a clear plan for if and when we reach a tipping point in enrollment where it’s in the best interest of all of our students to attend SES. 

The BOE members developed a list of questions for further consideration and study throughout the rest of this school year.

  1. What would be the reason to close Colden? Is there actually a significant cost savings?
  2. What would be done with the building upon closure and what would be our options?
  3. Can we conduct a study to help answer questions and provide clear information on costs and benefits associated with maintaining things as they are, reconfiguration options, closure?
  4. Enrollment Number—is there an enrollment number in which it is financially irresponsible to maintain two K-5 elementary schools?
  5. Educational Experience—how does it differ for a student who’s in a small group at CES for 6 years? Is there a limit when a small school is just too small to offer enough diversity and opportunity for our students?
  1. School Choice—could we allow families to choose to send children to CES or SES, using parent transportation or central pick up point(s)?
  1. Boundary lines within district-if we adjusted the boundary line, could we more evenly distribute enrollment between the two elementary schools? Consideration given to families with students at both CES and SES during transitional period.
  2. Reconfiguration of grade levels-are there any possibilities that work for all families district-wide and are good for kids?
  3. What impact does a closure have on student travel times? Costs to transportation? Should we reconsider one bus run/start and end times for all buildings?
  1. If we make changes to district lines or configuration at our elementary schools, how is the rest of the district, in particular the SMS, impacted?

As we move forward with a study at the Board of Education level, we will share information publicly and welcome community input. I know that this is an emotional topic for many people–any time we have conversations about those topics that affect our children people respond passionately. I hope that our dialogue can be respectful and show consideration for everyone involved.