Focus Groups Executive Summary
Read the whole report - please

SJPS Board reviews new report
Is there a new high school in your future?

by Jean Martin

The St. Johns Board of Education received a report at its June 9 meeting from Jeff Gartner of Gartner & Associates that summarized the results of focus groups in regard to the district's strategic plan. Gartner faciliated a total of seven focus group sessions that involved parents of students and other district residents, business and community leaders, school staff and students.

The board is reviewing Gartner's findings prior to adopting the strategic plan.

Below is the SJ Indy's abbreviated summary of the findings.   We urge our readers to read the whole document and make up their own minds with regards to the contents.

Introduction

St. Johns Public Schools is in the final stages of developing a new strategic plan. Parents, administrators and other staff, and board members have teamed together during the past two years to develop this plan.

Key issues uncovered have included:

• inconsistencies in class sizes across the district and the subsequent effect on staffing and operating costs,
• a likely State-mandated change to all-day, every-day kindergarten,
• the growing demand to teach to individual student learning levels (from at-risk to academically advanced) and learning styles, and
• technology and facility upgrades to meet 21st Century everyday teaching and learning needs.

Enrollment is projected to be flat, continuing the trend from recent years.

Specific research goals include providing the district’s strategic planning group, Board and administration with better understanding and more insight into:

1. The perceived urgency to upgrade and improve facilities and technology to enhance St. Johns Public Schools’ capabilities to meet today’s 21st Century educational needs.
2. The perceived urgency for improvements not directly related to classroom teaching and learning – specifically the new gymnasium, new swimming pool, new synthetic turf and athletic field improvements, and auditorium renovations and additions at St. Johns High School.
   These are the specific components of bond issues that frequently serve to mobilize opposition in many communities and act as magnets for "no" voters.
3. The levels of support and oppositions to consolidate St. Johns six elementary schools into three – comparing the educational and cost savings benefits with the emotional loss with closing neighborhood/community schools and changing attendance boundaries, and perspectives on alternate uses for the closed elementary school buildings.
4. The levels of support and oppositions to best deliver St. Johns elementary school education with a K-1 (or preK-1), 2-3, and 4-5 grades facility configuration instead of the historic k-5 grades configuration.
5. The comparative degree of support and opposition for a bond issue next February 2009 to finance as much as $70 million with a ZERO increase in mills by extending debt repayments 23 years.
6. The degree to which its community’s taxpayers trust St. Johns Public Schools to spend its money prudently and wisely.

Conclusions and Recommendations

While apparently satisfied with the academic quality and performance at St. Johns Public Schools, many parents, other residents, staff and students are quite dissatisfied with its operations.

The primary sources of operational dissatisfaction are:

- - Disparities in classroom size, facilities and supporting resources between its four older, smaller rural and two newer, larger in-town elementary schools.

- - Bus logistics, with too many children riding the bus longer than what would be reasonable.

- - Impractical School of Choice policies.

"[W]e can just worry and be scared and do nothing, or we can do something positive." This requires a bigger and bolder vision and thinking from SJPS leadership.

[I]t may be wise to revisit the possibility of a new high school as the visionary improvement needed to generate excitement and support to overcome the emotion and discord with the elementary school consolidation.

For a new high school to be affordable, it may be necessary to consider a smaller size footprint embracing even more instructional technology, operate it more similar to a community college with perhaps additional start time options at 10am and/or 12noon (and still a 6- to 7-hour academic day), and explore relationships with Lansing Community College and the Clinton County RESA to deliver community college level and career/vocational technology classes.

However, a new, smaller and affordable high school is exactly the bold vision able to rally support from the local business community, as implied from one of their requests of SJPS in a focus group session.

While a new high school option is explored for its affordability, the SJPS district leadership can still immediately make the necessary decisions to improve its busing logistics, clarify its School of Choice guidelines to provide more equity for in-district families and more stability for all Choice families, and improve its communications at the district level.

Summary Of Findings

1. The disparity in classroom size from one school to another, including from one year to another in the smaller schools with just one or even two sections in a grade, emerged as the most important issue for most St. Johns parents and staff in these focus groups …

2. Disparities among the elementary schools in facilities, educational programs and supporting resources is an equivalent priority issue for St. Johns parents and staff in these focus groups.

3. Another equity related priority issue facing St. Johns is busing logistics, with too many elementary school parents feeling that their children’s bus ride takes much too long, especially when their distance from the school is not that large.

4. Clarifying and communicating the district’s School of Choice guidelines for both out-of-district and in-district Choice students is another important management issue confronting SJPS.

Parents wonder "why do parents who do send their child to another SJPS elementary school have to re-apply every year, it’s really unsettling for the family?"

5. Because of these disparities in equity and inconsistent School of Choice policies, it is not surprising to hear numerous comments from parents and staff suggesting that the SJPS district is not unified.

6. Leadership disputes and the unresolved middle school leaking roof exacerbate this disunity and related distrust … "I don’t trust them, we can bring everyone into town and they still may have 31 in a classroom.

7. Parents and staff not directly affected by too many students in their classroom or inequitable facilities and supporting resources voice minimal criticism of the SJPS academic quality and performance.

8. SJPS must improve its communications as a district to its parents, community and staff.

9. Compared to similar studies with other districts, fewer SJPS parents and other community residents understand how Michigan public schools are financed.

10. The local St. Johns business community is especially concerned with accountability for SJPS as a district and accountability for individual teachers …

11. Parents acknowledge that today’s learning is "at a much faster pace" and "more advanced," with "so much more expected from our children now."

12. The accelerated learning pace continues as their children proceed through school …

13. Parents and community members also cite the use technology as a significant difference between their own education and their children’s education.

14. Parents with high school students, staff and the high school students readily agree with the urgency to better equip St. Johns High School for today’s teaching and learning instruction and for important extracurricular activities that give not only SJPS but also the local community its cultural identity …

15. Specific comments about needed improvements to science labs and classrooms include:

• "inadequate ventilation so you have to be careful what you mix" and
• "they tell you to always
• leave the door open" and
• "when you try to do something, there’s so little space and someone is always bumping into you."

16. Specific comments about needed improvement to the music area such as

"the band room is a fire hazard having us all in there, you can’t even move, there’s almost 200 students in a room for 50" contrast to the significant stated pride in the SJPS district’s strong reputation for its drama and band programs …

The high school students add "our auditorium is disgusting" and "the carpet smells bad"

17. Other infrastructure needs in the high school cited by parents, staff and students include air conditioning, desks, cafeteria, halls, parking lot and mechanicals …

18. Parents, staff and students most familiar with or using or supporting St. Johns High School athletics readily agree with the need for a second gym, a new swimming pool to replace the current leaky pool, and athletic field improvements.

A second gym and additional locker room facilities not only lessen the need for "running gym classes in the hallways" or for "teams to go to elementary schools for practices," but more importantly eliminate a potential Title IX violation for having two boys locker rooms and only one girls locker room.

19. A new pool to replace the current pool that apparently has a significant leak pleases parents,

students and staff who report ""we have a really good swim team" and "the Sea Lions program is

so huge," but ultimately depends on the extent that the community wants to preserve

and perhaps expand its community swim program.

20. While parents and students voice concerns about "cracked concrete steps" and "broken down

bleachers" that are "not big enough, not everyone can sit," there is much less expressed

urgency for a synthetic turf … student-athletes report "the field is in good shape."

21. With all the additions and renovations needed for the high school and its companion athletic facilities, it is not surprising at all when parents, residents and staff remark "in hindsight, we know we should have built a new high school instead of the new middle school" and ask "given that our high school is already 40 years old, would we better off by taking the money and putting a new building up?"

22. The suggested elementary school consolidation is certainly the most controversial element of the preliminary strategic plan, and is contentious enough to cause a bond issue for the accepted high school improvements to be defeated by voters … "the biggest part of the vote is the emotional vote" and "if you separate the elementary school, then you have a better chance of having the high school go through."

23. With all the rumors, hearsay and conversation surrounding the elementary schools and their possible consolidation, "most people do not understand that in order to build a new school or to add classrooms (at the existing elementary schools), we would first have to close some space."

24. Parents, including those who sends their elementary school children to a parochial school because of the perceived disparities in classroom size, programs, resources and facilities don’t have a clear preference to one option or another, but would vote "yes" to any bond proposal that addresses these disparities.

25. Opponents of the elementary school consolidation are comprised partly of parents who admit "there’s a lot of emotional attachment" from "people who live here and grew up here" and "love their rural schools."

26. Opposition seems stronger from parents in the north end of the district than from the south end. A few north-end parents say "if you close these schools, you’ll lose enrollment money from people leaving the district through School of Choice,"

27. The elementary schools consolidation should be a separate decision from any elementary schools grade reconfiguration to prevent further opposition.

28. In addition to the elementary schools consolidation controversy, other magnets for "no" votes next February 2009 to extend existing bonds to finance, with ZERO increase in the current mills, $70 million in the discussed facility additions, renovations and improvements include:

• Insufficient urgency for the athletic field improvements and especially the synthetic turf,

swimming pool, and additional gym …

• "The $70 million will seem to be too much to some people and ignore that there is zero increase in taxes."

• Weak trust and confidence in the SJPS leadership to manage construction projects because of the middle school roof … "

29. Parents, other residents and staff not surprisingly ask "what would happen to the old buildings" and "would we demolish them? They agree the buildings would "be an eyesore" if they remain empty.