Slight lead, more counting to go
With 22 of 27 precincts counted, and excluding advance and absentee ballots, bond issue is a bit out ahead with about 52 percent of the vote.
Stay tuned.
Watching and waiting
Polls are closed and the USD 457 Board of Education, along with some district staff and bond supporters, are gathering at the Educational Support Center, 1205 Fleming St., to wait for results. We’ll be over there as the time gets closer, and we’ll get info out to you as soon as we know anything.
Decision ‘08 Presidential Results
Turn it out
Telegram staff went to four polling places this morning for a story to be in today’s paper about voter turnout. Steady, but no lines, one said. Another did find at least short lines, with poll supervising judge Pat Stockham, at the Jennie Barker precinct, saying it’s the first time she can remember it happening in her 10 years as a poll worker.
I’m headed to the polls in a bit. Have you gone yet? What did you encounter? Any problems?
UPDATE: I was the 319th voter at United Methodist Church at about 11:30 a.m.
Exit polling
Don’t forget to check back here and at the Telegram’s Web site tonight for the latest election results. I’ll also be posting to the blog with comments/reaction from interested parties in the bond elections for both Garden City and Hugoton. And if there’s time, I’ll be rounding up results of other bond issue elections around the state.
More than you ever wanted to know
Still not sure how you’ll vote on the USD 457 bond issue tomorrow? Here’s a chronological roundup of Telegram stories about the proposal:
Research by Garden City High School Facilities Study Group (This listing is incomplete, as we switched content management systems in the middle of the committee’s work and don’t have immediate links to some older stories. The reports written by the subcommittees themselves are available here.):
- Group discusses new high school – 8-10-08
- Freshmen center discussed – 8-15-08
- Group discusses year-round school option for GCHS – 8-24-08
- Building new, or going with two, preferred – 9-14-08
- Panel offers up two options – 10-5-08
Students prefer one high school – 9-25-08
GCHS dominates facilities talk – 10-29-08
High school options, solution debate continuing – 10-30-08
District wants feedback on options - 11-13-07
Two-part series on how other Kansas school districts have dealt with high school overcrowding:
- Will we follow Dodge City’s lead? – 12-8-07
- A tale of two schools - 12-15-07
Phone survey key to facilities decisions – 1-15-08
Results show support for replacing high school - 2-19-08
Board to ask for new GCHS – 3-10-08
Decision broadens facilities plan – 3-12-08
Board working on bond details – 4-15-08
Bond issue committee forming – 6-16-08
Long work ahead for committee – 6-18-08
Possible high school site gets a look – 7-1-08
Preliminary costs of plans $97 million - 8-5-08
Teams forming to promote bond issue – 8-6-08
Board to keep bond issue as proposed – 8-12-08
Further study of land required - 8-25-08
Five-part series on facility plan – 8-30-08 to 9-13-08
- Proponents: Shared resources a benefit
- Issue: Garfield expansion
- More spacious Abe Hubert in the plan
- Room for expansion for academy
- More space, more opportunities
USD 457 puts option on land for school – 9-9-08
District begins bond issue sessions – 9-10-08
Getting out the word - 9-12-08
County Commission hears bond issue details – 9-16-08
FCEDC mulling stance on bond issue - 9-24-08
City hears facts on bond issue – 9-26-08
A taxing decision – 9-27-08
District holds first informational meeting -10-10-08
MONEY MATTER$ – 10-10-08
Plan B? There is no plan B, yet – 10-11-08
Tour illustrates issues – 10-17-08
History not kind to big bond issues – 10-18-08
Locals take exception to flood plain change – 10-18-08
As good a time as any: Bond issues around the state – 10-22-08
Escalating costs figured into plan – 10-24-08
Answering questions on the bond issue – 10-30-08
Bond issue decision looms – 11/3/08
And from the Hutchinson News:
School district develops bond issue Web site – 9-17-08
Voters to weigh economy vs. needs – 10-21-08
Does size matter?
Came across a compilation of research by the National Conference of State Legislatures about smaller learning communities, which schools are using to break up larger high schools. These would be incorporated into the new Garden City High School if the bond issue passes, and the building would actually be structured to house them. It sounds like GCHS would be headed in the direction of “career academies,” in which students choose an academy based on a field of interest, and their academic and vocational classes are geared to that theme. The students in the academy would stick together and the teachers would collaborate.
According to the conference’s report, here’s what the research shows about smaller schools/learning communities:
- They “support academic achievement” – Apparently, some studies show achievement is higher in SLCs, while others show it’s equal to other environments.
- They promote academic equity (closing the achievement gap)
- Student attitudes and behaviors are more positive
- Extracurricular participation rates are higher
- Attendance is higher and dropout rates are lower
- Students feel better about themselves and others (perceptions of themselves academically and in general)
- Smaller schools prepare students for college as well or better than larger schools
There’s also a U.S. Department of Education grant that supports development of small learning communities in schools of 1,000 or more students.
What does this mean to the bond issue? It seems a lot of research says small schools are the way to go, but is USD 457’s small learning community plan best? The school would be designed with different wings, and a “community” would fit in each wing (kind of like the houses in Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, I suppose), but GCHS is managing to operate an engineering/construction academy and a health science academy now in its current building. Staff say, though, that it doesn’t work as well as it could because all the classes in the academy are spread out, so it’s hard for, say, the welding teacher to collaborate with the math teacher.
The research also advocates small schools in general, which begs the question of whether adding a second high school would be a better plan. (Three board members preferred this idea, and the administration recommended it, but bond issues to add a second high school to Garden City have failed twice.)
Irrelevant but intersting side note: This blogger recommends New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman as the next secretary of education — apparently he’s a big backer of small learning communities — but predicts the choice will be Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
Tough times, cheap schools?
Apparently contractors are desperate for work. Maybe a bond project would cost less than expected?
Limited attendance, decent participation
Mediocre turnout at the forum tonight regarding the USD 457 bond issue and the race for District 2 of the Finney County Commission — about a dozen in the audience for the bond portion, a few of them from the school district or the board. I heard one person express relief that there were so many (he was worried nobody would show), while another expressed exasperation that so few attended, considering that those non-attenders might be the one who complain about the result later
Here’s hoping more tuned in on the radio or TV. Or that they didn’t need to, because they know so much about it already. Here’s hoping those people vote — the ones who know about it and let those facts form their opinion for or against the issue. (It’s our right as citizens to vote, but our duty to be informed when we do so.)
Anyway, a few audience members submitted questions to supplement those developed by staff at the Telegram and Western Kansas Broadcast Center. Here are the audience questions, with my paraphrase of respondents’ answers. Those answering questions included Rick Atha, superintendent; Mike Utz, board president; Craig Wheeler, co-chairman of the High School Facilities Study Group; and Stewart Nelson, architect with Gibson, Mancini, Carmichael & Nelson.
The Hugoton school district is proposing a bond for updates/additions that include strengthening their wrestling room for a storm shelter. Does Garden City’s school district bond proposal include similar safety precautions in the new high school as well as the two schools that will be renovated?
Nelson said that yes, the new high school would be set up to provide shelter from storms, with its walk-down gymnasium (the gym would be below ground) providing an ideal place. The early childhood center (an expansion of the current Garfield Elementary School) would include a multi-purpose room designed as a storm shelter. Both shelters would have restrooms immediately adjacent.
Will passing the tax increase help the district start meeting AYP, which it hasn’t done for the past few years?
Atha started by noting that USD 457 barely missed AYP this year and that it made it last year, after two years of failing to do so. “Will this help us? It won’t hurt us, but those targets get higher every year,” he said, adding that by 2014, No Child Left Behind aims for schools to have 100 percent of their students scoring “Proficient” on state tests.
He said the plan will allow for smaller class sizes and giving all teachers classrooms. That means a lot to teachers, he said, because if the difficulties of pushing materials around on a cart and still being prepared for each class. Often it’s the new teachers who wind up on carts. “For them, the question is, ‘Do I stay and continue on a cart until I maybe get a classroom? Or do I go somewhere else?’” It would save the district money if those teachers stayed, because training new employees is expensive, he said.
Wheeler said the high school study committee learned that there are a lot of factors that go into learning. “The primary thing is personal interest and one-on-one time the teacher can give a kid,” he said. But that’s hard to give when teachers are sharing classrooms, etc., and there’s no good place for a teacher to meet privately with a student. The new high school will enable that, he said.
Nelson said architectural research points to the importance of natural light in classrooms and the way it improves learning. All the new high school classrooms would have this. He also said that since the district plans to have a closed lunch at the new school, there would be little opportunity for students to skip out of school — a lower truancy rate can’t hurt test scores. Nelson mentioned GCHS’s planned small learning communities, which would be devoted to certain areas of interest. The district has likened them to small schools within a larger school. That would help students have more sense of involvement, he said, which could translate to achievement.
Utz: “The overall environment is going to change attitudes.”
Will there be an immediate benefit to the community due to expansion of vocational/technical education at the high school?
(Note: This question was submitted by Jeff Crist of the school board.)
Atha: Small learning communities would be based on students career interests and exploring those. Focusing those would allow the district to increase the rigor of its coursework. The communities would be flexible, so a student would be stuck in one after freshman year. “If they learn, ‘This isn’t for me,’ that’s important, too.”
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Check Thursday’s Telegram for stories on the bond issue forum, the County Commission forum and the role the youth vote could play in all this.
