Lots of people

There are a lot more people here than I thought would be -- probaby 200-300 at least! Wow, what an awesome show of support.

I would love to be sitting in one of those Areon chairs right now -- these folding chairs are...well...you can imagine. I'm shifting around more freqhently than a bobber in a typhoon.

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They are discussion how dollars will be shifting to support the transition.

Dale (logistics): Questions from community - worked on scenarios to move students in different bus routes. We didn't want to split up the transportation of families in different schools. So, they would drop off students 20 minutes early at OV so that sibblings could ride the same bus. This would accomodate the breakfast program.

The afternoon would be coordinated by bussing siblings separately and try to get them home at the same time. We would like some feedback from the community. Another traffic idea -- put a service road between CI and OV. Access OV without being on Hemlock. [Lots of side discussions.]

Looked at possiblity of changing bell times. We are working with principals to setup some scenarios to get the transportation costs down.

Kim: Who is responsible for the traffic path and cost?

Dale: We are responsible and would cost $125,000 to do. City would have to be involved.

Linda: FO parent - concerned about how she would get to parent teachers conferences. Her husband has 2 jobs and needs their only car and can walk to FO, but could not get to OV. How would we accomodate that? Could we provide a shuttle service? {Lots and lots of maons in the room. People are NOT happy.] Could we have teachers come over to FO to meet with parents.

Dale: We talked about that.

Another speaker: Brought up the suggestion of moving teachers at different sites. We would need the parents very involved with us to make these decisions. [Of course those parents have the most difficult time making it! Odd how that happens.]

Lynn: Believes Early Childhood programs are very important. What needs to happen to encourage families to take advantage of early childhood programs?

Speaker: We have School Readiness, Early Childhood Development, More for Fours (fully funded tuition based program). Funding for School Readiness and ECD is a sliding fee scale and qualification basis.

How do we do outreach? We do outreach at Doctors and clinics, web sites, student advocates, principals, school secretaries, cultural specialists. Constantly field phone calls. At FO did not even know if they would have the space. For open houses for Kindergarteners, they encourage parents with younger kids to apply.

[For those Weaver parents out there -- nothing is being discussed about the movement of the magnet program.]