Minutes
May 26, 2004 Master Plan Committee Meeting
Taken by Charles Hill
The meeting started at 7 PM at Myers Corners ES
Mr.
Powell handed out the unedited draft of A
Report to the Wappingers Central School District, prepared by Stanton Leggett & Associates
(Mr. Abramson's firm).
Committee
members were asked to read through the draft for about 20 minutes.
The
committee's recommendations to the Board will be presented at a June meeting
(June 14 or 28 are likely dates; June 21 is also a possibility).
Dr.
Jaeger handed out a May 13 memo he wrote to Mr. Powell called "Master Plan
Committee Update."
Mr.
Powell asked for comments about the draft:
- Graphs should start from a base of 0 so that enrollment changes
do not appear in a distorted manner.
- Verify the dates that elementary schools were first opened (is
the Sheafe Road date correct?). Mr. Abramson thinks that the dates came
directly from a district document. They will be checked.
- Page 5 refers to a "mission" ; the mission is not
actually stated in the document. Mr. Abramson said that the term was used
in a generic sense ("to provide an education for students") and
did not refer to a specific district mission statement.
- Page 10 (and other pages) reported the views of principals
about issues affecting their schools. A discussion ensued as to whether
these comments should appear in the body of the report, in an appendix, in
special topical sections (for example, on kindergarten or on computer
labs), or not at all. The discussion branched out to include the report's
organization (should enrollment information go first, etc, so that the
public gets to the meat of the report early on?).
- Much conversation about the impact of housing development in
different parts of the district. The relationship of the amount and type
of housing development to enrollment changes is not self-evident (for
example, apartments, town houses, duplexes, raised ranches, and new houses
may all attract different populations, not all of which have children).
- Mr. Abramson observed that the factors driving housing crunches
in district schools are (a) changes in how classrooms are used (i.e.,
special education, computers, other special uses that were not in place 20
or more years ago), (b) move toward smaller class sizes, and, to a lesser
extent, (c) population changes. In the case of (c), the changes may be
more focused on demographic shifts within the broad geographic area than
on overall population growth.
Mr.
Abramson noted that the draft report has missing sections (costs, for example).
It is organized around observations (for example, that there has been little
school construction activity in the past 40 years) and the scenarios dealt with
over the past several meetings. It needs (and will get) an executive summary.
He
asked committee members to email him with suggestions and corrections.
He
will send the next version out for comment, probably prior to June 11.
Next
meeting: June 9, Myers Corners ES, 7 PM
The
meeting ended at 9:07 PM