Still students

[friend]

My attendance is Owen-Still-MV. I live in Owen "west."

I have had several conversations with parents about some of the kids who fed into MV from Still as Freshman for the 2009-10 year. I have heard that their kids had a horrible time transitioning because they had classes with nobody they knew. I heard the same was true for lunch. I was told that the Freshman class from Still was 50 students. One parent told me that the MV administration did not realize how hard that this would be some of the students and are going to make some changes for next year. I asked the parent what MV had proposed and she was told that they would try and pair up more Still kids in classes together. So I suppose the Fall of 2010-11 will be another "trial"of how those Still students transition.

My two neighbors each have a child that went to WV for Freshman year and then Sophomore year to MV. Both kids transitioned very well, but both kids also moved to WV <from Still> and MV with more than 50 kids each time.

Has anybody else heard anything about this?

[casey]

I have not heard anything about this but nothing surprises me here. I do not think the admin or building principals/staff have done anything in the line of making transitions easy for the kids. I don't know a thing about Metea but I will tell you it was very hard on the Waubonsie transfer kids from Neuqua. There was never any kind of introduction process at all and to this day my child still claims she has no idea who the principal is. The kids were just thrown in the mix almost like moving from out of state.

As I've pointed out numerous times, the transition for my own child was hard in the beginning. She supposedly was going to be transferring with 240 other kids from TG/WE (well we know how that worked out!). She started off not knowing anyone. That being said, she is now extremely happy at Waubonsie.

[gatordog]

Mar 23, 2010 11:33:03 GMT -6 friend said:

My attendance is Owen-Still-MV. I live in Owen "west."

I have had several conversations with parents about some of the kids who fed into MV from Still as Freshman for the 2009-10 year. I have heard that their kids had a horrible time transitioning because they had classes with nobody they knew. I heard the same was true for lunch. I was told that the Freshman class from Still was 50 students. One parent told me that the MV administration did not realize how hard that this would be some of the students and are going to make some changes for next year. I asked the parent what MV had proposed and she was told that they would try and pair up more Still kids in classes together. So I suppose the Fall of 2010-11 will be another "trial"of how those Still students transition.

My two neighbors each have a child that went to WV for Freshman year and then Sophomore year to MV. Both kids transitioned very well, but both kids also moved to WV <from Still> and MV with more than 50 kids each time.

Has anybody else heard anything about this?

I know a bit about this, being that I have a child Class of '12 who went to Still. The Still graduates Class of '12 who left WV as freshman to go to MV as sophs was over 80 students. I am pretty sure that the later classes moving from Still to MV will be about this number, as well. Which leads to a question....when you say 50 students moving from Still to MV, do you mean 50 Still and former Owen students? I believe when you figure the Gombert East students, this number going to MV is higher than 50.

In a rough approximate way of thinking at Still:
2 ESs go to WV: all of WE, ~70% of Gombert + ~30% of Owen
1 ES goes to MV: ~30% of Gombert + ~70% of Owen
So about a third of Still goes to MV.

One point you raise is this: a "perfectly fair" split MS would send 50-50 to each different HS. Actually, with Fry being a very large ES, SD's largest I believe, Scullen does more fairly approach a 50-50 split. But, the Still HS split is a bit imbalanced: more go to WV no doubt.

Not to get hung up on exact numbers.....the big picture question I believe you are asking for the administration is "how to deal with split MSs"? Well, the SD has virtually no experience with this. I agree with you, the admin needs to more actively plan on how to deal with this, as opposed to just passively "seeing what happens". What suggestions can we come up with as parents? Especially parents who have children who have first hand experience with this?

One point you do raise, your comment suggests that it is a correct thing to minimize splits at the MS level. (and you might also say at the ES level). The administration and SB successfully worked to achieve just this. So these splits are minimized across the district (we are only talking about 2 out of 7 MSs). I dont know if there was a better, feasible plan that further reduced split MS below 2 and met the other criteria. I know there were indeed plans that would have resulted in more split MS.

One a more personal note, my sophomore at WV from a split MS does sit in the class room with fewer of her MS friends. But, she does get invited to activities and functions at MV with her old Still friends. And that is pretty cool, too.

[gatordog]

Mar 23, 2010 14:11:53 GMT -6 casey said:

..... She started off not knowing anyone. That being said, she is now extremely happy at Waubonsie.

A pleasure to hear this, casey!

[macrockett]

As you all know, Still was the most split re neighborhoods

winsome.cnchost.com/MAC/NewBoundaries02_20_08.pdf

[friend]

Mar 24, 2010 11:42:24 GMT -6 gatordog said:

Mar 23, 2010 11:33:03 GMT -6 friend said:

My attendance is Owen-Still-MV. I live in Owen "west."

I have had several conversations with parents about some of the kids who fed into MV from Still as Freshman for the 2009-10 year. I have heard that their kids had a horrible time transitioning because they had classes with nobody they knew. I heard the same was true for lunch. I was told that the Freshman class from Still was 50 students. One parent told me that the MV administration did not realize how hard that this would be some of the students and are going to make some changes for next year. I asked the parent what MV had proposed and she was told that they would try and pair up more Still kids in classes together. So I suppose the Fall of 2010-11 will be another "trial"of how those Still students transition.

My two neighbors each have a child that went to WV for Freshman year and then Sophomore year to MV. Both kids transitioned very well, but both kids also moved to WV <from Still> and MV with more than 50 kids each time.

Has anybody else heard anything about this?

I know a bit about this, being that I have a child Class of '12 who went to Still. The Still graduates Class of '12 who left WV as freshman to go to MV as sophs was over 80 students. I am pretty sure that the later classes moving from Still to MV will be about this number, as well. Which leads to a question....when you say 50 students moving from Still to MV, do you mean 50 Still and former Owen students? I believe when you figure the Gombert East students, this number going to MV is higher than 50.

In a rough approximate way of thinking at Still:
2 ESs go to WV: all of WE, ~70% of Gombert + ~30% of Owen
1 ES goes to MV: ~30% of Gombert + ~70% of Owen
So about a third of Still goes to MV.

One point you raise is this: a "perfectly fair" split MS would send 50-50 to each different HS. Actually, with Fry being a very large ES, SD's largest I believe, Scullen does more fairly approach a 50-50 split. But, the Still HS split is a bit imbalanced: more go to WV no doubt.

Not to get hung up on exact numbers.....the big picture question I believe you are asking for the administration is "how to deal with split MSs"? Well, the SD has virtually no experience with this. I agree with you, the admin needs to more actively plan on how to deal with this, as opposed to just passively "seeing what happens". What suggestions can we come up with as parents? Especially parents who have children who have first hand experience with this?

One point you do raise, your comment suggests that it is a correct thing to minimize splits at the MS level. (and you might also say at the ES level). The administration and SB successfully worked to achieve just this. So these splits are minimized across the district (we are only talking about 2 out of 7 MSs). I dont know if there was a better, feasible plan that further reduced split MS below 2 and met the other criteria. I know there were indeed plans that would have resulted in more split MS.

One a more personal note, my sophomore at WV from a split MS does sit in the class room with fewer of her MS friends. But, she does get invited to activities and functions at MV with her old Still friends. And that is pretty cool, too.

The number 50 was given to me by my neighbor who has the Freshman at MV. I told her that number seemed low and her reply was that her child had a very small class. I assumed that the 50 number included all of Owen West and Thatchers Grove. Like you, I had assumed that each class that splits off to MV would be about 80. I realize that not every kid has trouble transitioning but I feel sorry for those kids (and their parents) who do.

What the SD has done to Still is water under the bridge to me. The situation is what it is. My concern is going forward that MV administration is addressing these parental concerns. Glad to hear via my neighbor that they are going to pair up more Still students for Freshman year.

FWIW, my child at Still had friends that moved to Fischer and they still keep in contact with each other. I think that it is great that the kids have friends that go to different schools. You can never have too many friends!