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Show In Tom's Opinion What Bo You Think Of Schools? By TOM BUSSKLBERG North County Editor What do you think of Davis County's schools? IF YOU'VE a child or grandchild attending, that's a question that hits close to home. And even if you don't, the products of those schools are all around you, affecting you directly or indirectly. More than one-fourth of the county's population fills the 60 schools, every day, and the business of schools indeed is a business, with combined budgets now entering the S100 million league. Even at today's to-day's inflated prices, that's a lot of money affecting a lot of people and employing several thousand from teachers to secretaries to custodians to lunch personnel. per-sonnel. SO WHAT do you think of those schools? Are they just brick and mortar, kids romping through your rose bushes on the way home from school, or football foot-ball games? They could indeed be that, but hopefully they'll be a lot more. The answer to what you think of your schools is of vital importance to the board of education educa-tion and your local school principal, PTA and parents. pa-rents. THANKS TO all the noise that government reports sometimes generate, particularly the "Nation at Risk" that was headed up by former University of Utah Pres. David P. Gardner, many people are taking tak-ing a second look at their schools. Many schools are holding meetings specifically to receive input from patrons on what direction to go. Should there be more of a return to the "basics" of the old three "Rs" and related material, should schools go year-round or should the day be extended? AT BOL'NTIFUL'S Oak Hills Elementary School, for example, a "public opinion survey" has been sent to area residents asking for "your feelings about many subjects. Your anonymous comments, positive posi-tive and negative will be very helpful in determining areas of strength and weakness." It doesn't waste time, going right to ask what the effectiveness of the administration and teachers is, from "excellent" to "improvement needed" to "don't know." OTHER questions ask about "How well are the following curriculum areas being taught?" referring to reading, spelling, physical education, health, music, art, writing, arithmetic, social studies, science scien-ce and language. It also asks for any other courses that should be added. How could teacher effectiveness be improved? Several choices are given with three asked to be checkmarked: better college training, increase salaries, salar-ies, more specialist teachers, teacher merit pay, more responsible students, reduce teacher-student ratio, better inservice (enrichment) training for teachers, more parent volunteers in class, better facilities and equipment and longer school day or year. "INCREASE IN quality education often requires an increase in funding for education." Again, what sources would you favor? Would it go to increasing teachers salaries, building improvements, additional courses such as computer, foreign language, gifted training. Would you reduce the teacher-student ratio, provide more supplies, equipment of furnishings, fur-nishings, or do something else? WHAT ABOUT parent-teacher communication? Is it "excellent" or don't you know? And what about parent-teacher conferences. Are they held frequent- -J r ly enough, are they long enough and is goal-setting for students conducted during the conferences? r Are homework expectations too high, satisfac- f tory, or too low? WHAT ABOUT the first grade day. Should it be shorter for those students than their older peers1 j Then what about Monday teacher preparation time , ' in a block that means students go home earlier that day and spend a bit longer the other days to make up i for it? What about year-round schools? f How would you rate your neighborhood schools' J facilities, looking at inside and outside maintenance, j playground, classrooms and halls, equipment and J supplies and the media center? j WHAT IS your greatest safety concern? Not only individual schools, such as Oak Hills, arc p. studying the issues hand-in-hand with PTAs, but J individual district-wide committees are studying ev- erything from time effectiveness, questioning if there f are too many interruptions for utudents during the day, for example, to elementary concerns. Should classroom teachers have specialists help when it comes to teaching music, physical education or art, : for instance? THE BOARD of education needs responses from ... local schools by Nov. 22-just before Thanksgiving and the busy holiday season starts. But before that body can get the results there have to be meetings or U forums to get those feelings compiled. j So contact your local school principal, whether you know him or her or not, whether you have kids V there or not. You're a taxpayer, you've a right to know where your money is going, if nothing else. If ' you don't do it now, there may never be another chance. GO FOR IT! |