I was asked to pass this along...
Meeting: Monday, February 02, 2009 at 6:30 in the Kiley School Auditorium.
Discussion of closing the Burke School is a possibility.
Consider this a public service announcement.
Farewell Dark City....
11 years ago
12 comments:
I think you mean FEBRUARY 2???
OG says..
Can someone please explain what value these meetings have? first we rile up the West School community and now we get the Burke folks all worked up...why?????????? all of these meetings are hypothetical and speculation driven until we get the data and findings of the research committee!!
Needham's Corner:
Oops, my bad. Fixed now.
OG:
It seems silly to me as well. Let's just say someone asked for this to be announced, as it is very late getting to the public, and I was happy as it is germain to the conversations I would like to see here.
However, the SAVE OUR SCHOOL (singular) campaigning that will start (has already started?) is both sad and counter-productive
to a GOOD analysis and any possible solution.
People are going to force this to become a PERSONAL BATTLE to save their school and the hell with the rest. this is not going to be a happy time for anyone and (surprise) the ones who will again pay the price? The students.
How much tax dollars are we spending on this? I'm curious, we seen to be worried about $$ city-wide, meanwhile I believe an outside agency was hired to help figure out this non-issue.
A school is NOT going to be closed, the city is in great financial state. We have $10 million dollars in the bank, we just gave out nearly $3 million in raises.
Over 5k was spent on consultants.
From what I read in the Newspapers, The consultants were mostly focusing on demographic patterns and projections - in other words how the population(s) of Peabody have been changing and how they think they will change in the future.
Without understanding that key factor ANY changes to the school system is a farce.
And $5,000? I bet the City spends more on copy paper in one day than that amount for this important study.
PI I was just giving the number nothing else.
Problem with what you are saying is the city can have those numbers for free. A study was already done by the DOE showing a 400 student drop over the past 3 years. The report also shows a 350 to 375 increase over the next three years in Peabody.
If the city is paying 5k a day for paper we could save some money if everything was online.
Hi Anon:
I did a quick search at the Massachusetts DOE site but couldn't find your data. Not surprising though... it is NOT a very user friendly place.
I did not mean to come off snotty with the comment about the $5k... I simply have had quite a few conversations with folks who don't understand that some amount like say $5,000... while being A LOT to regular people in a household context... is really a tiny amount in the world of business (or in this case government.) So no attitude was meant in my comment.
And, to those of you who will blast me for saying that $5k is not a big deal because it's YOUR TAX MONEY DAMNIT! I will preemptively say... while you are correct you are simply stuck in small mind thinking and need to get into a bigger mindset to see the true big picture at play.
Now Anon...
As for the study...
I would certainly expect that this would be more than a + and - count of students. Any comprehensive demographic profile of student aged persons for the next 20 years needs to look at a great many factors, including buildable land, current profiles of Peabody households, current price structures (home costs vs. who is buying), etc. And then this data needs to be broken out by sector of the City. The best method would be actual projections placed into a GIS for real analysis by folks in either Community Development or in Public Services where some detailed what if? scenarios can be played out.
In other words... if we have no good idea WHERE student aged people will be living and WHEN they will be living there... we have no facts at all to base a major redistricting of the City students even if closing a school saves some short-term money.
PI I am trying to find that study for you. I will email it to you when I find it again.
Who needs a study look at the census numbers.
2006 pop was 51,000+ now the precent of kids under 5 years old was 5.8% in 2000. So lets say the precentage now is 4%. This means Peabody has over 2000 kids in the city under 5. If these numbers correct or close we are looking at 600 to 800 hitting school age in the next two years.
As the wise man used to say, there are two reasons to hire a consultant:
1) to tell the people what you already know (they are the "experts" so people will believe them) and
2) to tell the people what you already know but don't want to tell them (they are the bearers of bad news).
I daresay that most of us could make some sense out of basic City census and US census information about the 0-15 year old population. But we aren't the "experts."
OG says...
hey Needham's Corner...you are right on the money with your consultant theory...these data analysis experts will do their job in an objective way and then leave the subjective decision making to our local leaders. This is a wise strategy to take by Mayor Mike. OG eagerly awaits their findings because all of the hype and speculation really has no value.
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