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RE: School District Issues & Discussion



Mike,

Thank you for addressing this.  I was at the school board meeting and at a 
League of Women Voters where this information was presented by Larry 
Verdahl.  It is too bad that the press did not pick up on this.  Maybe this 
could still be done.  Yes, the enrollment is down, but the answer is not 
simply that they are going to private schools such as Logos.  Larry has 
some interesting information on this point, especially at the junior high 
level.

I believe there was more to what you called the short answer, and that is 
that the mid -90's saw a very high enrollment "bubble" that graduated and 
moved on.  So demographic shifts have also played a part.  (I grew up in a 
community that had 6 elementary schools at the height of the baby boom but 
had to shrink down to three as the boom ended and those older parents 
without school age kids were not moving away.  Was that because the schools 
weren't doing a good job?  No!  My school district was considered one of 
the top in the state.  The demographics had simply changed.)

As Mike pointed out,  this loss of enrollment does NOT mean that the 
district is a failing district, as Doug Wilson would have us believe, or 
that there is a lack of quality, as Mark Beachamp would like us to 
conclude. From my perspective as a parent with extremely high standards and 
with  experience in other districts both as a parent and as an educator, I 
am not unsatisfied with the education my daughter is receiving, at least at 
Lena Whitmore.   However, I know there are areas the district needs to work 
on, and I hope that we as a community work with the district, school board 
and new superintendent to improve these areas.

Karen Jennings

At 5/16/02 09:04 AM, Mike Curley wrote:
>Not suprisingly the district HAS reviewed the
>circumstances and as much as possible (some
>folks leave without a "forwarding address" so to
>speak) DOES know where the enrollment has
>gone.  The short answer is that the majority
>have left the area, not transferred elsewhere
>locally. For example, in '00-'01, 169 of 198
>"transfers out" were students who left the district
>altogether. There was a public presentation of
>this information at a school board meeting.
>Some of the data appears at the district website
>(sd281.k12.id.us--click "inside msd," click
>"general information,"  click
>"enrollment/dropout").  The data that is NOT
>there is that which shows how many students
>have transferred INTO the district from various
>sources.  The NET change in number of students
>who have transferred in and out of what we
>usually call district schools (charter schools ARE
>district schools by state law) to and from other
>local options (charters, home school, Logos, St.
>Marys, and others) is a VERY small percentage
>of the enrollment loss over the last 5 or 6 years.
>It is convenient to link enrollment decline with a
>charge that the district isn't doing a good job, but
>the data does not support that argument (yes,
>yes, I hasten to add that this does NOT prove the
>district IS doing a good job--just that one must
>use some other data to support that assertion.)
>
>Mike Curley
>
>
>On 15 May 02, at 17:00, Tim Kinkeade wrote:
>
>Date forwarded:         Wed, 15 May 2002 17:06:46 -0700 (PDT)
>From:                   "Tim Kinkeade" <kinkeade@moscow.com>
>To:                     "Dale Courtney" <dmcourtn@moscow.com>,
>         "'Vision2020'" <vision2020@moscow.com>
>Subject:                RE: School District Issues & Discussion
>Date sent:              Wed, 15 May 2002 17:00:07 -0700
>Forwarded by:           vision2020@moscow.com
>
>MessageHi Dale & all,
>Thanks for providing excerpts from the Lewiston
>Tribune article.  For the sake of clarification, I
>never asked "where are the kids going?".
>However,
>I did suggest we find out "why" they are going
>and
>I was surprised to see Mr.. Beauchamps ask the
>same question in his interview with the LMT.
>Certainly enrollment has the propensity to ebb
>and
>flow.  I am confident that it will level off and
>eventually regain some ground.  If there are
>changes that the district can make to slow the
>erosion of enrollment I would like to see those
>changes implemented. Tim Kinkeade
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>From: Dale Courtney [mailto:dmcourtn@moscow.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 3:17 PM To:
>'Vision2020' Subject: RE: School District Issues &
>Discussion
>
>
>   Tim Kinkeade wrote:
>   > I am interested in the agenda of my opponent
>   in Tuesday's > school board election.
>   Unfortunately that agenda has yet to > be made
>   clear.  I encourage my opponent to make his
>   positions > clear on the issues we face,
>   including configuration, > facilities, budgetary
>   matters and erosion of enrollment.
>
>   This from today's LM Tribune. For copyright
>   reasons, I'm only using a few
>excerpts. The entire article can be found in
>today's paper. This is Beaucamp's stated agenda:
>
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------
>-------------------------- --
>   [Kinkeade] wants to improve communication
>   between the district and the
>community and "begin dialoguing on the issue of
>eroding enrollment."
>
>   [Beauchamp] says the exodus from the public
>   schools is no mystery and
>accuses his opponent of insipid "Dilbertisms" that
>make no sense.
>
>   An example:
>
>   "We need to know why our district has suffered
>   loss of students and we
>need to begin a discussion on how to stabilize and
>rebuild the enrollment," says Kinkeade, owner of
>Advantage America Mortgage Co., in a news release.
>
>   "I'm surprised there isn't already a task force
>   out there charged with,
>'Where are they going?' ... and how can we market
>ourselves as a positive educational experience for
>all children?"
>
>   That's the kind of statement, says Beauchamp,
>   that shows his opponent is
>big on platitudes but not fit to represent the
>community on the school board.
>
>   "I'm not making a mockery of the system,"
>   Beauchamp says, "but I certainly
>am thinking this is a really funny debate.
>
>   "I can't believe that Tim would just open
>   himself up like that saying we
>need to know where our students are. ... If
>they're (Kinkeade and the school board) honest
>with themselves they know where the students are
>-- they're in other schools!"
>
>   ...
>
>   Kinkeade, who is active on a number of community
>   committees and task
>forces, says he is convinced the quality of
>education at Moscow is top-rate, proven by
>students' grades and test scores.
>
>   ...
>
>   Beauchamp, on the other hand, says public
>   schools have a monopoly and an
>unfair advantage over private schools that must
>fund themselves without tax dollars.
>
>   "And yet (public school) population is declining
>   and enrollment in these
>other schools is increasing.
>
>   "There are lots of different reasons, but it's
>   mainly because of the
>quality of education."
>
>   If he were elected to the school board,
>   Beauchamp says, he would begin by
>asking parents why they have taken their children
>out of public schools.
>
>   "I'd like to find out why these other schools
>   are flourishing so well and
>why people are going to them.
>
>   "There are lots of other services offered to the
>   world that are
>market-driven in a market-driven society. But even
>when the product is free (as in public education),
>people aren't going to it.
>
>   "On the other hand, people are going to Logos (a
>   private Christian school
>in Moscow) even if they have to pay for it."





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