Agenda - 03-11-1985 - Laserfiche WebLink

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' ---- - -he subiect o+ my discussion was the recent article in the Chapel Hill Newspaper concerning possible merger 0+ the Chapel Hill--Carrboro School System with the Orange County School System- Although a loose con+ederation where parent trict of sending their children to a closer school in the other dis it would be a without cost penalty might be useful , I believe that mistake to combine the two administratively. Before moving to this was activein School affairs in the area +our years ago hool system Montgomery County System in Maryland. This was a sc with over 95(.')Q0 students and a annual budget of more than :�,30million dollars in 1981. One ".^y.`` ^..^... that ._ _` _-m | per student the education available would be excellent. | � / Unfortunately that was not the case. Stud6nt/teacher ratios were | large administr�tpr/student ratios were low, school roofs leaked, � ' � and and materials were limited. Also because 0f the large schools distances to Board Meetings parent involvement in th e sc h oo ls |� d as in fact given lip service. The | although nominally encourage w Teachers whole system only had one volunteer program coordinator. salaries although higher` than here were significantly lower than ' d inistrative �alaries. The Superintendent,s salary was over, � am ' ! 70,000 dollars/year at that time. i i | � In my opinion a optimum size school system is between 4000ang . 7000 students. At this size the number of administrators can be | If problems occur in the schools kept to an efficient minimum. | parents can organize quickly and address them. The Board of | Education is not innundated with budgets in the hundreds of. | millions. olunteers can make maximum inputs. When 1 was in i � Maryland^ I did a small study of the effects of parent involvement . | on pupil performance. Admittedly, other factors play important � roles in this. In spite of that I feel that it is important to � stimulate as much as possible parent involvement. I feel that i making the system significantly larger both area wise and student � number wise is a mistal...:e' What is now 7 to 10 thousand students in . h 2O t� 4O / a combined district will later perhaps approac | thousand. Declining enrollment projections might tempt you to move toward consolidation., The experience in Maryland althougt | perhaps �t directly transferrab1e indicated that as the .community � �� d with wo�� families of childbearing aged a turnover occurre ring age accelerate in moving c loser to the urban center. Such trends may � ! � with the longterm uncertainties �n our energy | future especially »�� � supplies. ~T ��v� ��* �Aam�d � ^ ~� ~��M� , ' _ ^ p^� � Robert R. Reeber S ^n- | Frank Porter Graham .Parent | / | / | ) . . | ! | ' � `