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What are Kennedy's biggest concerns?; Tell us
Topic Started: Oct 23 2005, 04:12 PM (1,461 Views)
ThatSuzyGirl
3rd Grade
Anna Krome
Jan 5 2006, 12:35 PM
Hi Suzy,

Thanks for your balanced and thoughtful reply.

As for attendance, lots of folks watched the LI unveiling on TV that night. No questions were allowed to be asked at that particular meeting, so we stayed home to watch it, too.

The specials are the result of losing afternoon recess--and actually account for a 5 minute decrease in "specials" time per week. Having recess has been proven to be essential for kids' well being. And, it is going to be legislated very soon that 2 recesses are required per day. So, you see, the specials will be discontinued very soon.

In addition, the specials are designed to be "surveys"--offered about two times a week. The kids will not have adequate time/instruction to learn to speak another language, and many parents do not feel this major change is "worth" it.

The BOE discontinued these very specials about 2 years ago. They will most likely be cut again, as soon as it becomes "necessary" to the BOE.

Change can be good. But my little one will switch schools 5 times. That is too many for me.

Plus, we will go to Cooper, which is across the street from a toxic waste site (fenced off and with danger signs).

We are nervous about this, because no studies have been done since 1991. No one really knows if it is safe at Cooper.

As for keeping kids together, well, the kids will all go to the same string of schools, but in a 900+ school, they might have trouble finding each other.

It would be a logistical nightmare, and the BOE is already talking about a large "community of learners," not a neighborhood of learners.

As for the budget. It is going to be necessary to spend millions on buses and updates to the schools--the BOE is not really sure how much this will cost. So, the math is a little fuzzy here. Spend millions to gain, well, no one is sure.

The "savings" are estimated to be less than 1% of the annual operating budget.
Busing will increase drastically. There have been no traffic or safety studies. People are concerned about the long bus rides for children, because it is believed that bullying increases on the bus. And, kids will miss a large portion of their afternoons and have to wake even earlier. Cranky, hungry kids = lethal combo.

I say this respectfully to you. What do you think?

Anna Krome

I did know the information was scheduled to be on cable that night, I still thought it was important to be there in person. What is a community or a neighborhood that doesn't come together? :unsure:

Respectfully, I think you might be presuming too much by saying that the specials will be discontinued soon. We don't have a crystal ball that will tell us what the future is going to bring. I've been in Livonia through times of plenty and times of want. I remember years of teachers passing out pencils and crayons on the first day of school and years of hearing that there would be no art or music education for my class and here is the list of supplies our parents need to provide for us.

I think that I would like for my child to even have an introduction or survey class. In my mind, these are supplements to her education and if she shows an affinity for a topic, we will certainly help her further herself. I had foreign language instruction from 8th-12th grade and I can say that I certainly did not leave high school speaking French or Spanish fluently. I can see how parents would not think a survey was a worthwhile use of instruction time. However, I know that I would rather have my child exposed to a different language 20 minutes per week than to have her learn the information on the MEAP test backwards and forwards so she tests well. There is so much more to life than testing well. (But I am sure you agree with me on that one!)

Switching schools 5 times is troublesome and I can see why you would be upset about it. Like I said before, I know that our situation is different than many of the other families out there. These changes will have been in place many years before our children experience public school. And as for Cooper school...Cooper was closed while I was in high school. Many of my classmates had gone to Cooper and had lived on the site or adjacent to the site. I have not heard of any lingering health effects. That doesn't stop me from thinking that they should close that school and use Nankin Mills or Adams instead. I agree with you wholeheartedly, that school should be closed and other schools should be utilized.

I have really put some thought into the LI and I really am comfortable with the changes. I look forward to my children going to 5/6 and 7/8 schools. I really think that the committee put a lot of thought into the plan and I really do believe it will save money. We had to do something to keep from going under. I don't know that any plan that they could have proposed would have been met with mass approval. The Livonia Schools have been unchanged for 50+ years, I think it was time to rethink the way we do things.

I'm glad I found these forums. Anna, you have a lot of good points for me to think about since so many of these changes are not effecting my family. Thank you!
Suzy

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Anna Krome
Principal
I appreciate your post very much.

Just to mention one thing in regard to the financials, again, as you state, there is no crystal ball to the future. That is why I really doubt that LI will save what they are proposing.

A quick survey of fuel prices might provide an example--two years ago, we could not have predicted what we are paying now. The very large dependence that LPS will have on foreign oil for the bussing seriously conerns me.

As far as other plans, well, the BOE has said that the current K-6 plan saves the same amount of money as the LI. Change for change's sake does not work for me.

As you've said, Livonia has attracted people for the school system. I am concerned that LI will change our rep for the worse.

Realtors say that if your local school closes, you can count on about a 10% drop in values.

If my values go down, others in the city will also, depleting tax coffers, causing more $$ woes.

As for health concerns, I appreciate what you have said about Cooper. Airborne particulates
take years to show up as a problem. But it is proven to cause such things as heart disease from clogged arteries.

Specials are cool. But losing recess is not. To me, we have been led to think we are "gaining" something, when it was a switcheroo. Again, to me, it is not worth it when taking the whole package together.

I guess if LI works for you--that's great. But there are so many problems w/it for so many people--seems to me a better solution with the input of a fair representation of the 100,000 population could have been found.

Actually, several alternatives have been posted on this site and at meetings.

We cannot afford private/ we may do school of choice. We moved here to be near our school, Adams. Our PTA just dumped $18,000 into new playscape equipment, and the BOE knew it was closing a long time ago. It would've been better to let people know.

I really have no confidence in anything this committee has come up with, nor, do I have confidence in the BOE.

As for community sticking together, you should've seen the public hearing. Well, maybe you were there. There were several hundred people who came out in the freezing cold to sit and listen for 6 hours of comments from the public.

It was awesome.

Thanks again.

Anna Krome
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Cindi
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Principal
Suzy:

Did you attend the Q & A at Frost a couple of weeks after the unveiling of the LI? I'm curious to what you thought about the additional plans they presented but did not "recommend". I know many people have grown up in Livonia and have either stayed here or have moved back here to raise their families. I personally like the idea that 6th graders are in the elementary schools, one of the main reasons we have stayed in Livonia. My oldest is in the 4th grade at Kennedy and under the LI is slated to go to Johnson next year. The bus ride is over 6 miles from our home. Long bus rides, Large schools and an added transitioning is not exactly an enhancement in my childs education. Studies have pointed out over and over again the loss of student achievement in large schools and transitioning. High school drop out rates increase, it takes a child a year to adjust and overcome the transitions, just in time to make another one. Many states are revamping and going back to the K-8 models because student achievement increases. My son will be 10 going into the 5th grade, some students will be 9---this may seem old enough to you when your children are young, but believe me...they are still young and impressionable.

I certainly do agree with you in regards to studying for MEAPS vs. a foreign language. But I do not agree with how the plan was using foreign language as a key selling point. 45 minutes a week for a total of 10 weeks...this is wasteful spending when our district is in financial trouble.

I'd like to point out one more fuzzy financial question....Crains Detroit Business published a list of the top 25 employers in Wayne County for 2005.

Livonia is # 8 with 2344 employees - the 6th largest school district in MI
Plymouth/Canton is # 17 with 1747 employees and they are now the 5th largest district in MI.

How can one justify having 597 more employees and less students?

I think the Demographics Committee "thought" they were being innovative at the time. The list of references they supplied as their research is beyond poor. I have found many more references supporting the negative impact the students will experience with large schools and transitioning. I really don't beleive they did their homework like they should have. The K-6 configuration was not broken...so why are they trying to fix it when there are other options out there?

Thanks for your feedback, it was positive and constructive. I find it interesting that you may have considered alternative plans if Kennedy was closing. That is kind of how I feel since my child is one of the experimental children under this plan.
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grantmom
Principal
ThatSuzyGirl
Jan 5 2006, 01:23 PM
grantmom
Jan 5 2006, 12:07 PM

Suzy....How would you have felt about the LI had Kennedy been one of the schools slated to close?  How about if the boundries had been different ie..straight down Farmington Rd. and Kennedy would have been directed to Cooper, Emerson and Franklin (Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Emerson or Franklin)? I'm just wondering if your feelings would be different since you choose you neighborhood for the schools like so many parents did and now they're being shuffled all over.  (it is so hard to do this in writing...I mean no negative tones to my questions, I'm just asking. :)

We thought about that. We would have been upset if they had closed Kennedy and as we learned, there was a pretty good chance of that happening. If our children were to go to Cooper/Emerson/Franklin that would have been disappointing but fine. My husband and I went to Emerson and Franklin and somehow are managing. ;)
Both my husband and I think that we've got to roll with the punches. If they had slated to close Kennedy, I am sure we would have spent the next few years thinking about what we wanted to do for our daughter. Maybe move to a new neighborhood in Livonia, maybe carpooling with other families nearby, maybe Catholic schools, maybe going with the system. It has been our plan all along to assess her educational needs and work to meet her needs by any means necessary. Whether Livonia changes or not, we're going to keep her our priority. I realize that this is what so many other families on this forum are doing. Keeping their families first in their priorities. :)
Having said that, I still think that the proposed changes are a positive thing and I know I say this from a privledged place.
Suzy

Thanks for your honest reply. Like I said I have no problem with Emerson and Franklin. Cooper on the other hand is a different story, not because of the school itself but it's proximity(sp) to a site known to have toxins in it. You at least have time it seems to figure out what is best for your daughter, a lot of community members unfortunately find themselves having to make decisions yesterday about what is best for their child now,and moving to a new neighborhood isn't going to be easy in today's housing market. My only hope is that the children going through this LI don't have to pay the price for the children of the future.
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