Macdonough's Turn

On Thursday night, nearly 50 people gathered in the Macdonough School cafeteria to go through the same "visioning" exercises about our school system as Moody School did on Wednesday night. JCJ Architects are taking seriously their charge to understand what families in town want for the schools -- and at times it was a bit of a struggle to keep people focused on that lofty question when there are so many immediate concerns about possible redistricting for next year.

If you've been following this issue you know that Moody has had larger classes in recent years, and the Superintendent has promised parents that a solution will be found before next year. JCJ was retained to make recommendations by May on this short-term issue, as well as producing a longer-term plan for redistricting all the schools, considering the capacity of each school, the configuration of grades and compliance with Connecticut's racial imbalance law which requires that no school can be more than 25% higher or lower than the district average for minority students.

Greg Smolley from JCJ stressed that he has not been given any directive from the Board of Ed or the Superintendent's Office about what solutions this study should recommend -- he says he has not been hired to justify some plan that is already in the works. But one parent bluntly put it to the crowd: "I'm not buying it." She voiced out loud what many in the room were murmuring among themselves: the suspicion that Macdonough alone might be asked to absorb the overcrowding at Moody School. Smolley didn't back down -- he said that in all the studies he had done, all up and down the east coast, he had never been given less pressure from an administration, and he said "you can believe that or not, I have no reason to lie to you."

I was reassured by his commitment that although meetings are only being held at Macdonough and Moody schools, the short-term recommendations will in fact consider the capacity of all eight elementary schools in town. That means that every school will be reviewed for the potential to take more students, either by moving uses within the building to create new classrooms or by increasing class size -- if in fact JCJ determines that some Moody families will need to move. Although it was a hard sell, Smolley maintained that the only reason that Moody and Macdonough were having community meetings was that they chose the largest building and the smallest building to study, to see if that would give them some insight at the beginning of the process. They will eventually hold meetings at all the schools.

In the context of all that stress, I'd like to report that the visioning process itself was truly a pleasure, primarily because of our lively and interesting table of 8: five current Macdonough parents, one Moody parent who lives in the North End, one Macdonough teacher and one staffer, both of whom live in the neighborhood. As fishmuscle and JAM wrote on Thursday's Eye, our task was to rank 9 items on how they affect the schools. No shrinking violets here -- each person was willing to speak up for their beliefs about what makes a school a good place. Two people were all for putting a higher priority on technology, while the two iphone-wielding parents argued against it. I had phys. ed way down on my list but changed my mind after the teacher pointed out that kids need time to get moving or they can't learn. We talked about the stigma that some of us feel is attached to Macdonough -- mixed with pride about how the school is getting better all the time. We all agreed on the importance of after-school programs, but daycare fell lower on our lists.

Living close to your school was primary for many people -- as one wise-cracking parent at another table noted, we might have been at a realtors' association meeting, since all you kept hearing all night was location, location, location. Although my table was generally frustrated with the format of the lists -- where, for example, was the issue of racial balance/diversity on the list of school qualities, we wanted to know -- it did spur conversation that hopefully was noted by our JCJ facilitator. In my regular life, I attend a good number of public meetings, and I have to say I can't remember the last time I participated in such an open and reasonable discussion about issues affecting our town. In sum, it was a worthwhile evening -- I came away renewed in my appreciation for the Macdonough community and my family's commitment there.

It turns out that the exercise itself was meant as a learning experience. Smolley wrapped up by pointing out that we'd probably noticed how challenging it is for a small community of 8 people to come to concensus on what makes a good school, so we can expect that kind of challenge and compromise to continue throughout the study.

JCJ will have some preliminary findings to share at their next meeting on April 27th meeting at Woodrow Wilson School at 6 pm. Childcare will be available.