South Washington County Schools gathered feedback through eight community listening sessions and multiple staff and school sessions following the unsuccessful bond election in August 2022.
These sessions were opportunities to listen and document feedback. The information gathered will help guide the development of a community phone survey, which in-turn, will guide the next facility planning process.
External facilitators guided the discussions around four main questions:
- What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
The common themes are posted below and are unedited.
Please note that any errors in the feedback are unintentional. The views and common themes shared in the feedback are solely the expression of participants and are not necessarily endorsed by South Washington County Schools.
Elementary Schools
- Armstrong Elementary Staff
- Crestview Elementary Staff
- Woodbury Elementary Staff
- Hillside Elementary PTO
- Hillside Elementary Staff
- Grey Cloud PTA
- Liberty Ridge Elementary Staff
- Middleton Elementary PTO
- Newport Elementary Staff
- Royal Oaks Elementary Staff
- Pullman Elementary Leadership Teams
- Crestview Elementary Parent Group
- Bailey Elementary Staff
- Valley Crossing Elementary Staff
- Cottage Grove Elementary PTO
- Cottage Grove Elementary Staff
- Pine Hill Elementary Staff
- Grey Cloud Elementary Staff
- Valley Crossing Elementary PTA
Armstrong Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- The additional space given to high schools.
- Consideration being made for future growth
- Consideration being made for future growth
- Crestview becoming a larger building without separating the community
planning for successful learning spaces for all students in our district
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Closing of an elementary school in a community that needs it most
- All the extra remodeling of elementary schools that necessarily didn’t need it.
- Building a new Pine Hill
- The overall HUGE price tag and what that would do for homeowners, especially during this time.
- improvements planned for district service center- too many students needs vs. admin needs
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Do not allow for inner district open enrollment or “grandfather families” with the exception of juniors/seniors stay at existing high school (not their siblings)
- Redraw boundaries and don’t close schools
- Change boundaries to fill current buildings to capacity
- Focus where the greatest needs lie - high schools?
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Changing boundaries will resolve many elementary overcrowding issues- fill schools who have room
- Equity in boundaries-boundaries should be changed to match district space needs rather than just by certain cities.
- Educating the public allocation of funds in public schools - staffing, materials, curriculum, building
Inequity of schools between north and south
Crestview Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Crestview got a new school
- A Pre-K option
- Bathrooms
- Plans for Next Step and Pathways
- Alternative high school close to the high school
- Community Schools
- Reasonable student count
- Financial Stability
- Prioritize most urgent needs
- Boundaries
- (Themes for all questions) Trust, affordability, sense of community - broken down by school, communication from each SCHOOL vs. entire school district, accessibility to information (translated information, families who are not english speaking, etc.)
- New Crestview school would provide needed improved facilities for a high-needs population
- Space concerns, facility updates,
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Closing Newport- but not utilizing PIne Hill as the building they would go to
- Advertising that the cost was the largest in history
- Inflation
- We need neighborhood schools. Buildings that have 1,000 elementary students is too many.
- Crestview students need a close school.
- Community Schools
- Reasonable student count
- Financial Stability
- Prioritize most urgent needs
- Boundaries
- (Themes for all questions) Trust, affordability, sense of community - broken down by school, communication from each SCHOOL vs. entire school district, accessibility to information (translated information, families who are not english speaking, etc.)
- Too ambitious and expensive for the community under the current circumstances. Might have been better to break into a few smaller bonds.
- Trust, lack of clear communication, intentions, in house (not public)
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Start with the most pressing issue. Ask for smaller amounts of money
- Prioritize
- Classroom space
- Bathrooms
- Community Schools
- Reasonable student count
- Financial Stability
- Prioritize most urgent needs
- Boundaries
- (Themes for all questions) Trust, affordability, sense of community - broken down by school, communication from each SCHOOL vs. entire school district, accessibility to information (translated information, families who are not english speaking, etc.)
- Restructure school funding system to be more equitable. Stopgaps like portable buildings are not effective or efficient in the long run.
- clear communication, build trust, reset boundary changes, push it back so it's not happening all at once
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Space
- Cohesiveness and Inclusiveness
- More information
- Solve trust issues
- Transparency
- Community Schools
- Reasonable student count
- Financial Stability
- Prioritize most urgent needs
- Boundaries
- (Themes for all questions) Trust, affordability, sense of community - broken down by school, communication from each SCHOOL vs. entire school district, accessibility to information (translated information, families who are not english speaking, etc.)
- Sufficient resources to adequately serve the students and provide for necessities like appropriate student/staff ratio and staff compensation.
- Building Trust, Transparency
Woodbury Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Increased equity among buildings, district growth, comprehensive long term vision, accommodated growing student population
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Cost, lack of communication about specifics to stakeholders (staff/residents), financial ask during a time of inflation where people are struggling already
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Explore year round school and multi use spaces, engage politicians to increase funding at the state and federal level (our district has low business tax and families unable to or unwilling to support increase in property taxes), redraw boundary lines
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Mental health of staff, lack of staffing (skeleton crew), class sizes, connections with least engaged families, Slow response to student support needs (ie: process to get students what they need takes too long); inequities across schools with PTO funding, technology
Hillside Elementary PTO
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Most people in the room were in favor of anything related to the schools - all members of PTO said they prioritize voting for issues supporting the schools (in regards to raising taxes)
- Smaller class sizes are a plus
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Not enough transparency; where is the money going, what were the numbers based on?
- Is there a way to do it without closing a school (Newport elementary)? That was a trigger for lots in the vote No crowd
- A lot of people thought all the money would go to Woodbury
- Repayment? Who would actually pay for this when the bonds come due.
- Would rather see the money used for teacher salary; would have liked to have seen more education on levee vs bonds
- the largeness of the number surprised people. Lack of clarity around upgrades for existing schools vs. new constructions
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- There was very minimal communication on what the bond was; lots of vote No signs - there was a strong opposition campaign. All we saw was “vote no” and the price tag.
- Are they taking in consideration private/home school students - did the number need to be as it was?
- Communicate more to people not in the school - new kindergarten parents didn’t know much
- Timing of the vote felt “off” - August vote was shady
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Class sizes; Park high school is PACKED. Rumors of evening classes for students.
- Teacher salary. Attract AND retain top talent.
- School upgrades - Hillside has one bathroom set for the whole school.
Hillside Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Upgrades to all the schools
- More space
- Improved bathrooms
- Bathrooms at Hillside
- Space for SPED
- All the buildings were included.
- Helping overcrowded buildings
- Included SPED in plan- own areas in elementary buildings
- Didn’t move boundaries for families
- bathrooms
- Additional bathrooms for specific elementary schools needing more bathrooms
- Rezoning of Grey Cloud to relieve the overcapacity currently happening
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Losing an entire school
- Cost to taxpayers
- Allocation of preschool
- Cost
- Closing Newport
- Confusion about the bond vs. levy
- Wrong time– can’t afford to pay more in taxes
- Cost
- How long would the plan last before it needed to be brought to voters again? How long would the HS’s before they’d be overcrowded again?
- taxes going up while pay check isn’t, unrealistic promises (class sizes going down), as long as we’ve been here things have passed but we’ve seen no changes to our building
- A lot of people think that Cottage Grove is not getting what it needs. We think that voters would be willing to vote for yes for a new building but not upgrades to every building.
- Lack of communication and excess amount of false information
- The overall price tag (biggest ask in history)
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Are there any grants available to help with cost?
- Provide state representatives a tour of our facilities to see how/where they can help?
- Set up long term fundraisers to help with cost?
- Utilize buildings better
- Being transparent about spending
- More communication
- If voters aren’t willing to pay, then boundary changes will have to be made
- Continued virtual learning opportunities for HS and potentially MS?
- look to developers and the city about slowing down developments
- The boundaries need to change.
- More classroom teachers and less TOSAs
- Get community buy-in
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Overcrowding
- Large class sizes
- Space for learning
- Class sizes
- Staff recruitment
- Overcrowding
- Class sizes
- Cost of mobile classrooms due to overcrowding.
- more support for teachers, competitive pay so that we can retain employees and make them feel valued.
- Having enough room for the kids and all of their needs. We need smaller class sizes. We need more paras.
- Growth and increasing of class sizes every year
- Teacher burnout, too many new initiatives at once
- Overcapacity at highschools, lockers not available for each student, overcrowding at lunch
- Potential portables - not efficient and is not secure/safe (student safety is number 1 priority)
Grey Cloud PTA
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Crestview upgrade- location was not safe for elementary
- Rentals were getting removed- investing our own buildings
- Purchasing land for future growth/Minimal boundary changes
- Helped with high school growth- kids could stay in the community sports team
- Everyone got what they needed- Bigger cafeteria for Grey Cloud- more gym space
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Big price tag when all schools were getting something
- If people were not impacted, would not vote for it
- Administrative building- no direct impact for kids
- Bad timing- COVID, lost jobs, and inflation
- Just passed a a Levy- an increase is an increase for taxpayers
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Remote learning/ rotation/trailers
- Redraw boundaries (Redraw for the vote no people)
- Alternative hours/ schedules (Summer school/ seasonal)
- Put specialists on carts/ change programming
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Schools need more space- something needs to be done
- Not closing schools- people are invested in their schools
- Class size
- Keeping specialists in their own spots
Liberty Ridge Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- It was compartmentalized where voters could approve/reject each portion
- Something for everyone
- More space
- Projects were earmarked for sped
- Love the fact that we have a long term plan
- Made sense, schools are overcrowded
- Everything was laid out plainly
- Can’t go wrong investing in education
- It felt like what we actually needed rather than what we thought would have a good chance at passing.
- Broke it down specifically what would be improved
- Projecting growth, forwarded thinking
- Spaces were improved and bigger
- There needs to be expansion
- It provided for some growth with student needs being front and center
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- It was compartmentalized where voters could approve/reject each portion Capacity ( new space) vs. additions/improvements
- Extra money that didn’t need to be spent
- Cost to taxpayers
- Where the allocation of the money was going
- New DSC
- Mistakes made in the past with long range plans so there is a layer of mistrust
- Economy
- Price
- Approach to marketing that it was the biggest ask in state history killed the trust in our community
- Timing-inflation affected everyone
- More disruptive changes
- Were the numbers old data? What are the actual numbers?
- It is insulting to say it is only $18 a month
- Cost-big ask
- DSC wasn’t needed, new buildings should go to the kids and not admin
- Huge competition for people’s tax dollars
- Naysayer signs were very effective
- Could have been split into multiple questions
- Unprecedented cost
- Loss of trust in the projected numbers
- Some were still confused between bond and levy
- Getting buy-in from non parents
- Disconnect between the schools and the community--public doesn’t agree with indoctrination of students
- Price
- Fear of the unknown, communities (elementary) are afraid of being closed and becoming a mega-school
- Use Park and Woodbury as visual examples. East Ridge is already seen as the golden child
- DSC-money seen as going to adults and not students
- Only one question on the ballot
- Cost-it was a big ask
- Levy was just approved
- It felt like a blanket so no one was left out. Maybe there is a better way to prioritize the money.
- Could it have been a multiple question ballot?
- DSC-money needs to go to kids
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Online positions/school will address some of the capacity needs
- Creates job security for teachers within the district
- Redo boundaries
- How many kids are we losing to choice schools?
- Build trust
- How is the district spending its money?
- Relook at capital projects and prioritize
- It is fiscally responsible to adjust schools (close, boundary changes)
- Portables, trailers
- Close schools and fill up the remaining ones
- Transparency
- The district is doing the right thing. Invite the naysayers to be part of the process.
- Press the north that if it isn’t passed to send them to another school in the south
- Split the questions on the next bond ballot
- Prioritize projects
- Show the public we are looking at other revenues other than just asking our community
- Flip the script to tell what the impact on staff/students of the overcrowded classrooms rather than the classrooms are overcrowded
- Virtual options
- Is there a way to separate the school district?
- Offer more PSEO
- Middle School online
- Boundary changes
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Funding
- Lack of transparency of how money is spent and where it is going
- Where did the Covid money go?
- Fiscal responsibility
- Trust
- Having our own Setting 4 program
- Equity(resources, facility) for all our schools.
- We have done a great job of updating and maintaining our facilities
- Can we sustain our budget? Resources to do our jobs: space, teachers, and materials
Middleton Elementary PTO
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Plan for the Post-Secondary High Schools being consolidated from strip malls into an educational facility.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Notice- a lot of confusion about tax dollars- businesses go to 622. If you want $ to go 833, you need to go to Cottage Grove. More Transparency. Where does the $ go?
- Levy Learning- we have lost students we need to recover.
- Misinformation about the size of East Ridge-. Size was chosen by the voting population because they weren’t “forward thinking”.
- “Save our Schools” campaign for Newport. Vote No campaign was very vocal.
- They don’t need a new district service center. Staff didn’t know what the plans for the new district service center.
- Pricetag
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Boundaries in loss of community with WHS and ERHS at Middleton. There is a divide- is there a way to address this in Woodbury to focus on community. The WHS/ERHS divide is very much felt in Woodbury even at the Elementary level.
- More Focus on the Elementary schools and individually.
- Concise communication- almost too much was sent out.
- Highlight the 40 year old buildings and safety. Things that trigger facility needs.
- Bathrooms at PHES. Push out videos. Short tiktok styles of these are the needs.
- Keep it simple- here is what we need and why.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Sense of Community
- Transparency
- Early learning does not pay for itself.
- People are tunnel vision and it’s hard for people to look outside their needs.
Newport Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Recognizing the need to upgrade certain schools.
- *Solved overcrowding at high schools
- *Added bathrooms where needed
- Bathroom upgrades
- The plan addressed the needs that the high schools have enough space, classrooms, facilities etc. in order to provide the best learning environment (including places to eat lunch, reasonable class sizes, lockers) for students.
- Upgrades are needed for older sites.
- There were not a lot of positives.
- 1. It addressed the bathroom issues at some elementary schools.
- 2. It addressed the overcrowding at the high school.
- bathrooms at elementary schools
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Priorities were not aligned with the needs of the community.
- *Closing Newport
- *Enormous cost
- *District office improvements seem unnecessary
- Lack of community/staff input/communication, the closure of a successful school, disrespect from board members and administration, not tiering plan based on need, putting desires before necessities
- The speed at which the failed plan moved ahead without involving staff, families and communities in the early stages. This created an atmosphere of distrust.
- The lack of transparency. For example, the fact that the high schools were not prioritized as number one in the bidding/building process should the bond have passed.
- Lack of community input.
- Needs were not prioritized.
- False and unprofessional communication.
- Not utilizing existing spaces efficiently, instead just planning to build new.
- 1. The plan was rushed and used outdated data.
- 2. There was a lack of transparency on the part of the district and school board, and the disrespectful tone taken by some board members towards those that had concerns about the plan was hurtful and disappointing.
- 3. The fact that the biggest need for space at the high schools was the last thing to be addressed and the first thing was to build a new DSC was concerning. The optics of this are very poor. If a new building is to be built it should be going to directly affect students.
- 4. The change to building large elementary schools is not what is in the best interest of students. Research shows that small schools are better and are more effective for young learners.
- 5. Closing the only school in a community sends a negative message to the members of the community and makes it difficult for them to continue to feel like they are a valuable part of the district.
- *closing Newport Elementary and displacing the highly diverse students
- *eliminating the only school in a community
- *cost impact to tax payers - tax payers can’t afford the projected amounts
- validity of the data presented: enrollment current and projected numbers were not consistent across publications
- *The plan was presented in a very rushed, impersonal manner and was NOT accessible to all the families impacted. Families had to ask to have the plan and information translated.
- *Newport El. staff and families went through a very emotional process and needed more emotional support and acknowledgement from the top district leader(s). There needs to be follow-up after the plan was rejected to address the community and the emotional toll it went through. i.e. Where do we go from here? How does the district leadership plan to build that relationship back? Newport community needs to be considered important
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Start with the student needs prior to faculty needs.
- *Save money by eliminating Assistant Principal and Assistant Superintendent positions.
- *Do not cut programs to save money.
- boundary changes, community and staff input, additions to existing schools to address need, look at updated demographic information, cost-effective decision making
- The priority has to be put on the student needs
- Pause open enrollment in schools that are overcrowded. Keep the schools “neighborhood schools.”
- Divide bond requests into separate questions, as has been done previously. This provides transparency and allows line items to be considered and voted on individually.
- Consider presenting more than one plan and ample time for community involvement in determining which plan will move forward. The plan rejected in August did not allow invested parties to be involved.
- Prioritize over-capacity.
- Updated demographics.
- Use existing spaces better.
- 1. The board and district leaders need to be transparent with the community. This means sharing why the chosen plan is the best option. The community needs to know all the other options that were tried and why those options did not work prior to asking for such a large sum of money from tax payers. Transparency also means sharing all information (print and online) in multiple languages to ensure that all members of the community have equitable access to the information that affects them.
- 2. The space that currently exists needs to be fully utilized prior to building new buildings. We have buildings that are sitting with space available. Boundaries should be adjusted to fill the schools we have before we begin costly construction projects. All building projects should be ones that directly affect students (school improvements over new district center buildings).
- 3. Have all creative options for remote working been explored? Are there staff members at the DSC that could work from home to free up needed space? Video conferencing is such that meetings and collaboration could be done effectively even when not all staff are in the same place.
- 4. Are there some temporary solutions that could be employed (changes in lunch schedules, staggering passing times, grouping grade level classes in one area in the middle and high school to alleviate crowding, )? Could there be a way to bring in some temporary space (trailers) to get us through the bubble of kids currently at the high school?
- 5. Look at adding on to many elementary schools instead of building such large new schools. This would maintain the small feel of many of the elementary schools .
- *Boundary changes in affected communities
- *accurate and up to date enrollment numbers
- *temporary classrooms for schools with a bubble of enrollment for a short term fix
- add on to existing schools that have the room to expand i.e. Newport El, Crestview, CGE, see “MN Dept. Ed guidelines for school construction p.55”
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Efficiently use the space we have available.
- *Consider Changing Boundaries
- *More transparency
- *Put kids and families first
- Transparency, community input, communication to all, consideration, respect
- Funds need to be allocated for students and schools FIRST.
- Transparency for all member of the school district.
- Value and listen to all opinions without bias.
- Put students first, not administration.
- Address building needs.
- Listening to parents, students and teachers in ALL the affected communities about problem solving the growth. We need to be very clear with the communities we serve about how we have FULLY utilized all the currently existing facilities and we need to not be afraid to try solutions that are creative and outside the box to solve the crowding issues. If we rush to build, we may end up with too much space in 10 to 15 years when the population starts to age.
- *Transparency!
- *ALL communication to families needs to be sent home in the language they need - all emails should be sent in several languages
- *open communication with staff and community - have several sessions for feedback that are well publicized and communicated well in advance
- *school board meetings with better access to comments and the comments are available to everyone to hear; school board members should visit and know where all the schools in the community are and attend at least parent meeting per year
Royal Oaks Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- additional bathrooms for ROES
- Provide needed improvements, bathrooms in classroom, common open spaces, maintaining current class sizes or smaller (we prefer not to have bigger classes), new building less students
- Bathrooms
- Common space
- Designated special ed room
- Multi-purpose room
- Added facilities to older buildings
- Upgrades to Woodbury and Park High School
- It was clear and focused on building improvement and itemized how the money would be spent. Each school would benefit from the plan and it appeared equitable.
- improving and updating the older elementary buildings.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- closing schools
- unnecessary movement of the DSC
- clarified need for why some buildings were getting additions
- why are kitchens being updated if it does not seem needed
- transparency of what was actually needed & included
- Asking for too much money, closing Newport, more effort in decreasing class sizes, more focus on how it will help students learning, how can it be reworded that this is to benefit the children.
- Lack of communication to community members, reasoning behind the administration building, no response when negativity came out. Closing Newport school.
- Closing schools just to build new schools
- Moving early learning out of the elementary schools-Parents have said they want they won't enroll their kids if they have to drive to a school other than their home school
- Many of the items on the bond were not seen as necessary to a majority of people (i.e. adding on to newer schools like East Ridge, a new DSC, etc.)
- District was not transparent and/or specific about what was being done and why
- The messaging needed to be streamlined - Maybe start with bullet points and then have links to find more information on each bullet point
- We were asking for too much money when families are struggling and our teachers are some of the lowest paid in the state/metro
- The price tag and how this request came during an economic hardship with 10% inflation and recovering from Covid. Families are struggling right now so timing is off. Another major concern is preK being moved to a facility that parents would have to transport, so this would affect student preparedness for kindergarten and could cause reduction in student enrollment in their neighborhood school.
- Large cost to the residential taxpayer, as we don't have a large business tax base.
- Budget cuts that already exist to offset improvements/updates needed throughout the district.
- Budget management feels more like its reactive than proactive.
- Top heavy-money going to a lot of administration personnel.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- focus on students & needs over facility needs
- Keeping class/size and case loads small (expanding buildings or a building?), keeping Newport open, itemized list of how the money will be spent (more money in student building versus adult facilities), able to see where the money is going making sure the people who live in the district are aware, why is our district always at a deficit for money (one of our staff members has worked at 8 districts and it seems like we never have any money compared to other districts).
- Address the issue of prospering in schools. We keep focusing on the really nice schools and not the rest.
- Maybe prioritize what is needed right now or near future, and focus on that for a smaller bond
- Student and teacher testimonials about what they are experiencing in crowded hallways, classrooms, cafeterias along with photos of what is taking place to be shown at board meetings for the voting public to hear and see. Show the voters specific photos of windows that have gaps, how the cafeteria and classrooms crowding looks. If the District Office needs improvements, these improvements will require detailed information about the cost and reason the improvements are needed so parents are more comfortable with funding these items.
- Lower class sizes are important.
- Addressing the mental and social emotional health of our students.
- Lack of training and lower salary for many support staff.
- Seek outside budget management input from various expert sources.
- Figuring out where funds are most needed and revising policy to help get the resources/funding needed where it would be most beneficial
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- adequate and equitable facilities for schools/students
- Can the levy be put into multiple separate votes? MUST haves, Moderate need, extras
- Top heavy of admin (more specialists to help such as speech, OT, EL), financial accountability, transparency, class sizes, how is the money going to impact your child?. The children should be at the center of the money. Instead of cutting art prioritize where the money goes. Teacher pay- we are the lowest paid district but such a wealthy district. Teachers coming from other districts aren't being honored for all the years they have worked.
- Space in the OLDER SCHOOLS.
- Reduce class sizes
- Pay our teachers and paraprofessionals comparable to districts around us
- Make improvements equitable between all schools and positions
- To create a team to review this input and list of the facilities that need the most.
- Staff Retention and keeping up with the cost of living and inflation reflected in teacher contracts and support staff salary.
- Making sure the board is REALLY listening to parent and staff concerns.
- How are we going to know that someone. is actually looking at this data and actively addressing concerns that both parents and staff are expressing?
Pullman Elementary Leadership Teams
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Addressed needed things at all levels, especially older blogs at elementary
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Costs were too much for families to handle during this time. Maybe needed more time to sort out needs at all levels.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Start with the biggest priority first(What schools are over capacity)and address those needs. Possibly boundary changes to help alleviate stress at some schools.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Gathering community feedback through listening sessions/surveys.
- Population growth and where to put students/boundary changes
Crestview Elementary Parent Group
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- addressing outdated facilities, increased classrooms for growth, minimizizing boundary changes, security concerns
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- cost, overwhelming scope of the entire plan, inability to break out more immediate needs from the entire plan, uncertainty around where new crestview would be located and future zoning related to that, closing newport elementary.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- a boundary change policy is needed where it can't be used as leverage. we do need more space, the treat of closing schools seem contraditory to that and gives families mixed messages.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- continnually cutting programs is a concern. space in some schools and classrooms. too much weight given to the loudest voices without considering those without the platform.
Bailey Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Addressed community growth, new facilities/adapting buildings
- Space and overcrowding being addressed and being proactive and thinking long term.
- Additional Space for Bailey Elementary
- Security
- Addressing lunch rooms size
- Bringing equity to older buildings
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Cost of the referendum, new district offices being built, stress on Newport
- 1.) We hope the community understands the connection between having more spaces allows smaller class sizes (hopefully) - the district has to be willing to reduce class sizes.
- 2.) Trying to close two schools right before the bond vote did not help with it passing. Some rumor were swirling in the community that they were building the district center before classrooms and schools? Schools would come after the district building?
- 3.) Lots of misinformation from people and community members saying we don’t need space and we do have space and that building schools is unnecessary. What is the most credible source of information since there are so many platforms of community members are spreading information and misinformation about the bond (facebook parent groups, community members going door to door and passing out fliers).
- 4.) Cottage Grove brings in more taxes into our district than Woodbury does. There is a deep rooted rivalry within the community that affects many families and community members which makes them resistant to any changes. There is a divide within the community. Some families have a fixated mindset and determination of where their children will go to school.
- Cost, increased taxes and interest accruing. New DFC did not seem necessary and closing Newport was very controversial.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Open enrollment because there are openings at other schools/some schools are full--at or above capacity; influences the equity in the classrooms, teacher to student ratio needs to be addressed--some classrooms have 18 and some have 27 in same grade level but in different schools; communication for the bond; need to have more power/input as the teacher's union, Bailey is at 95% capacity--what is going to happen as we continue to increase?, could we make pre-k or kindergarten centers
- We know that bonds are for buildings, but class sizes are always the most important issues within classrooms. Transparency is extremely important. Smaller class sizes would positively impact teaching, learning, and classroom management.
- Think of taxes at an investment, not a bad thing. Concern about families whose children attend private schools not being invested in our District.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Equity, class size, having seats for each student, having tech for each student that is working, tech needs to be sourced in state and not Texas, need adequate supplies for new reading curriculum, looking at boundary issues/combining schools, behaviors and mental health, level of respect for teachers/staff from parents and students
- Class sizes, teacher pay, work load, transparency,
- Equity and equality; Perception issues about the different schools (equity, for example Park is not as good of a high school as ER or WHS, etc.). Class/race issues
Valley Crossing Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- It upgraded spaces that needed upgrading
- felt logical and necessary
- kept boundaries consistent
- Kept up with growth and future needs
- an attempt to be proactive for the situation, and now we’re going to be in a reactive state
- Fixing the buildings
- adding bathrooms
- redistribution of kids to make class sizes more manageable
- - Addressed the needs of the older schools, bathrooms, special ed classroom
- - Expanding East Ridge, Woodbury HS
- Bathrooms, space for students, addressed some of the spacing needs, provided relief of crowding in the secondary buildings.
- - Trying to address the growth of the communities.
- - Make school facilities equitable
- It is difficult to add ideas when not living in the district
- Addressed basic needs of students ie bathrooms
- Addressed increased class sizes
- Addressed crowdedness in buildings and addressed bathroom issues.
- - Did not favor certain communities - impacted most of the towns within the district.
- - Went for an “all or nothing” approach vs. doing a small chunk every four years.
- - Using data with projections to determine greatest needs across the district
- addressed needs in over crowded schools.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- price tag was seen as WAY to costly and that scares people
- media pushed dollar figure and spinned it emotionally, fostering an us vs. them
- advertise it in a different way
- skepticism about the reality of the facts
- how to communicate the need in a more positive way
- community-wise- seems to be ‘Woodbury’ problems and not focused on the whole community- which sets up an us vs. them mindset
- lingering resentment about East Ridge being built in Woodbury vs. Cottage Groveway too much money to ask for
- unclear to community (particularly to people without kids in the system) what was being asked and what money was being used for
- more transparency
- - Closing facilities that were already open (Crestview, Newport) and build a new school.
- - Distrust about building new schools, ie East Ridge was supposed to be centrally located.
- - There is also too much overhead (executive cabinet)
- Bathrooms- is there a standard for the amount of restrooms needed based on student count? It was too wide open of a plan. The perception of the age of a building and already needing an addition (Ex: East Ridge isn't that old and already needs addition.) Some community members were upset about closing buildings.
- - The timing of the vote due to the political climate and inflation.
- - The community perception that it was “greedy”
- - Misconceptions in Cottage Grove that this was mainly benefiting Woodbury
- - Coinciding with money being asked from home owners for a community center in GC?
- People are facing economic hardship and it’s a hard time to ask for more money
- new boundaries again for some
- shutting down a neighborhood school in Newport
- Building a new district service center vs buildings that directly benefit students
- Huge amount of money, communities losing their community identity (school).
- - The question on the ballot did not spell out what the money was for - felt like a “blank check”
- - The amount felt big, was overwhelming for people
- - Our taxes within district lines are already really high compared to other surrounding areas
- timing of asking for increased taxes(actual amount & with the troubled economy)
- Asked for too much(like new district offices). Did not just addressing the needs of the students.
- Threatened boundary changes & portable buildings.
- Doesn't seem to factor in the increased tax revenue from all the new homes/building
- BOUNDARY issues are huge.
- Not a lot of faith in who/how future space needs were researched
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- seemed way to costly as a price tag- way too big of an ask
- do we need better PR
- why do we have so many ‘director’ positions and yet ‘feet on the ground’ people are being let go?
- negativity from
- don’t even feel confident in displaying yard signs because of the political feelings
- remove new district admin building
- put money to schools and kids
- slow down and be more transparent
- get the people who vote to spread the word more than teachers/staff members
- better marketing; give proof like pictures of bathroom stalls and packed classrooms
- - Address community, not only family members in the district
- - Use videos to show needs to building, show to WHOLE community
- Be transparent about budget and where funding goes for different projects. Timing is important. Videos of how crowded buildings are or in need of renovating. Look at Nuevas Fronteras as an option for more building space.
- - Make information easily available- even a QR code might be too much for older citizens
- - Offer tours of the buildings to show the disparity between sites, make videos and pictures available
- Create a place in the district level 4 program
- Look at the use of current facilities
- Split the district in half
- Consider bathroom concerns (gender neutral, privacy- think Hyvee), Be more transparent about cost- remodel versus new, Ask the "no voters" to come together to discuss concerns, breaking up decision making into smaller pieces
- - Can we have stakeholders come in and see the schools to see first hand the overcrowded cafeterias, hallways, classrooms?
- - More transparency and communication with family for much more time before. It felt rushed to sneak it unto the Aug ballot vs. taking time to actually meet with families, staff, etc to build trust.
- The students need more space(over crowded buildings) and prioritize what buildings really need the extra space.
- Smaller class sizes would benefit faculty & student needs.
- Hire a reputable firm to really look into the future growth needs.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- we need more people in the schools where the need is
- we need specialist to help with mental health
- we need a better plan for how to address students with specific Fed 3, 4 students being a part of the general education settings- the cost of sending students to 916 vs. staying in gen. ed. setting
- right facilities and space for kids
- - How to reach community members not connected to schools
- - Community doesn’t understand needs of school
- Do we have enough facilities for the students that are here now as well as in the future? We need to address future growth now.
- - Community trust
- - Quick to pacify loud parents
- - Does the district leadership culturally represent the communities they serve?
- Increased class sizes across all levels
- Inadequate student support
- Inadequate behavior support
- Trust issue
- - Making sure all schools have an equitable environment for learning especially regarding basic needs (i.e. timely bathroom breaks with ease of access to cut down on academic time that is disrupted)
- - Building trust with families
- - Building our own Fed 4 setting school so that we can keep funding “in-house” vs. sending kids to 916. This would keep the student enrolled in our district and would be a number/funding for us..
- Running out of space. Address the main issue
Cottage Grove Elementary PTO
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Keeping Boundaries
- Addresses over capacity at schools
- Adding on to some buildings
- Feeder School system with the added HS
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Didn't address the HS and MS needs soon enough
- Cost was too high-Big finance burden - tax impact
- Plans to upgrade District facilities
- Closing school- NES
- Timing felt rushed - August date for voting was a concern
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Get more information out to community members that do not have kids in school
- Do not rely so heavily on social media to get the information out
- Have a more diverse group of people on the committee. The committee had mostly like minded members from similar demographics.
- Use in person opportunities at schools (such as conferences and open house) to educate families regarding the issues.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Small class sizes
- Teacher retention and quality
- Culture of the school district - we VS they mentality
Cottage Grove Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Need more space in HS
- Modernizing facilities across the district
- Updates in older buildings-Refresh
- Bathrooms added in some schools
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Budget-Things were not itemized
- Long term tax payer responsibility for a semi-aging community-Fixed income homes may be strapped
- Specifically name a spot for the new HS - uncertainty
- Show them where there money is going
- At the elementary level there are so many low enrollment schools/open seats- we need to redraw boundaries
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Boundary adjustments to fill empty schools
- Online K-12 Academy- Robust
- Incentive to retire - benefits buy out package - to save money and reallocate
- Admin at district level - reduce to show community we are willing to make cuts to go back into the building
- Show community that the money is for the kids
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Retaining teachers
- Enticing teachers to come to SoWashCo
- Small class sizes
Pine Hill Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Updated space
- All in one, included future planning
- Consolidating programs (Next Steps, etc) into one building
- Updating space
- making buildings more equitable with facilities"
- New Building for Pine Hill
- Extra bathrooms
- More space at all the schools-lunch rooms/classroomsA new Pine Hill!
- Addressed over capacity schools with minimal boundary changes
- 1. That we were going to get a new school; more space; more bathrooms
- 2. Older schools get updates.
- 3. Upgrades to Park HS.
- 4. Inequities between CG (Cottage Grove)n and WB (Woodbury) addressed.
- Addressing overcrowding issues and updating facilities, giving ALC kids their own space
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Price
- Community buy-in
- People who don’t have children in the district not seeing the need
- Closing Newport
- Utilizing open space at buildings with space
- Amount of money of bond
- Wasting of money on Pine Hill on new parking lot - landscaping
- Miscommunication-lack of trust of Cottage Grove vs. Woodbury
- Where is the money going -needs to be more transparent with the community
- Not specific enough information of what we actually need
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Updated space
- Long term building planning with community growth in mind
- Looking at community numbers when determining boundaries
- Reconsider the boundaries
- Add another campus rather than destroying the current PH building
- Why aren’t we using portables?
- Perhaps ask for less money and prioritize
- Look at administration costs and allocate that towards building needs
- 1. Asking for bare minimum- priority
- 2. Can we just add on vs. new building. If not, why?
- Being more specific and detailed about the whys
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Space/overcrowding
- community communication and buy-in/support
- Overcrowding of schools
- Space/bathrooms that are appropriate for number of students in a building
- We need space, specialists do not belong on carts and you will lose quality educators over this!
- Putting teachers on a cart is VERY offensive
- Parents are concerned over boundary changes, especially at the high school level
- DAPE and other special ED services should NOT be in the hall way"
- 1. Overpopulation
- 2. not enough space
- 3. not enough staff (support is needed)
- Dealing with overcrowding
Grey Cloud Elementary Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- More rooms for classrooms with increase
- Addressing need for growth
- More bathrooms and equity across district
- Something for all buildings
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Cost (Would it be more with inflation, timing with inflation, School finance is complicated)
- There are empty classrooms across the district
- Closing Newport
- District Service Center
- Community has not seen all the buildings/People only look on what impacts them
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Boundary change- only answer and stick to the boundaries (No intra-district transfers)
- Balancing enrollment
- Cracking down on addresses, people living out of district (i.e., day care)
- Clear communication about alternatives that are not a threat, but the plan
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Overcrowding and making people aware
- Trust
- City and school district need to work together
Valley Crossing Elementary PTA
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- - Plan financially seemed manageable and reasonable (increase per family), especially compared to other districts our size. We are at the bottom of what we spend per student.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- - People didn’t attend the listening sessions.
- - Physical learning space for students.
- - Closure of schools - specifically Newport as a higher performing school? Why would we bus students out of their neighborhood school?
- - Timing of election.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- - Send a one-pager to explain to families what the money is being used for, to debunk the myths, and to Share the hard facts… “Did you know?” (for example, some schools only have 3 girl stalls and 3 boy stalls in the bathroom for the whole school).
- - Use of influencers and social media to get the information out to families through their personal pages.
- - Targeting specific zip codes and demographics with how it affects them specifically.
- - Less information sent out more frequently.
- - Reach out to City Councils to have a Listening Session.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- - High school space.
- - Classroom size (physical size and number of students).
- - Plan for future pay increases for staff to develop talent and aid retention. Provide the facilities so staff want to stay at those buildings.
- - Be clear about the impact on students and buildings if the bond doesn’t pass.
Middle Schools
- Oltman Middle School Staff
- Woodbury Middle School PTO
- Woodbury Middle School Staff
- Cottage Grove Middle School Staff
- Lake Middle School PTA
- Lake Middle School Staff
Oltman Middle School Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Space and equity
- Remodeling schools to increase capacity
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Closing schools, timing, money
- ALC next to Park (parent concern) or any traditional HS, closing Newport & Crestview
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
-
overcrowding and community support
-
balancing out elementary schools (boundary changes), and high schools Newport/Cottage Grove to PHS (from ERHS), re-looking at current resources
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- overcrowding and community support
- push the state to re-boundary business revenue within Woodbury– (not sending money to Stillwater/NSP), budgeting, CLASS SIZES!!!!, mental health, keeping community schools, transportation issues
Woodbury Middle School PTO
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Additions for the HS, Updating older buildings
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- District Office-Didn't understand the why, Understanding Bonds and Levies, Amount
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
-
Don't have any ideas
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Equity for all, students have opportunities
Woodbury Middle School Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- We don’t remember the plan, but we think a good thing was addressing overpopulation
- That there is one, and it is addressing student population growth
- Everyone was getting something
- Dedicated music spaces
- The program that is at the strip mall across from WMS was going to combine with a similar program in a district building.
- Update old buildings
- Addition to building schools
- Addition to high schools
- Everybody was getting something.
- Building safety was a focus
- More bathrooms at the elementary schools.
- Avoid overcrowding in the high schools.
- Additional music room at WMS.
- Enhance security.
- All the buildings were going to be addressed in some capacity.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- We don’t remember the plan, but a concern is that it wasn’t well shared and organized, since we can’t remember anything that was a part of the plan.
- Lack of clear, concise information, tax increases for households
- Who did we hire for these long range planning? How does ERHS already need additions? If we already knew it would be a problem, it should have been built originally to accommodate.
- People are struggling financially with COVID, inflation, etc. This was too big of an ask at one time.
- Communication - don’t tell people you’re closing a building but building new ones. It may not make sense to the general public."
- The marketing. The message was that our schools are overcrowded but the first thing was going to be the district center.
- That Newport Elementary was closing.
- Amount of money being asked for
- Property taxes going up
- Shutting down the only school in Newport.
- Cost - financial burden.
- How money would be pigeon-holed in certain ways, how it was allotted for specific things.
- There would still continue to be inequities between the schools regarding facilities.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Be more clear, transparent, and organized. Communicate with people through the whole district. Directly communicate with the teachers and staff affected by specific areas (if you’re going to change the pool or gyms, ask the gym teachers for feedback)
- Make information clear, concise (short) and user friendly
- Smaller but more frequent asks.
- Put out bullet points about what is absolutely necessary and why.
- For new builds - plan for needs further into the future when creating new plans.
- Boundary redraw
- Close open enrollment
- Have better marketing for the next bond initiative and have a plan in place to address miscommunication
- Have a flexible schedule
- Have hybrid classes
- Buy land for new campus (elementary, middle and high school)
- Turn DSC into a school and have district center employees housed in school buildings.
- We need to either build more schools or more additions to accommodate the number of students in our district.
- Hear more teacher voice about building-specific needs and teacher needs.
- Explore more ways of communicating with families, including families who will have students in the district in the future (younger families, too).
- More transparency.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Safety with overcrowding, quality learning with overcrowding.
- All sped school (Fed 4 site) , - to gain additional income from other enrolling schools
- Class size
- Cost of living raises for all staff
- Overcrowding
- Class sizes
- Outdated facilities (bathrooms at elementaries)
- Equity
- Overcrowded buildings
- Student to teacher ratios
- Classroom sizes"
- Check in with teachers more about what teachers feel is needed.
Cottage Grove Middle School Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- adding classrooms to decrease bloated class sizes
- *Space and equity
- *Increased Capacity
- *Updating older buildings
- *Addressing student population growth
- *Enhance security"
- taking area growth into consideration.
- secured entries, additional space for overcrowding, consistent numbers across the district, renovating outdated buildings ,
- "More space.
- The idea of adding onto the high schools to make more space.
- Permanent places for Next step
- comprehensive plan
- Less boundary changes
- students first, equal distribution amongst schools, no kid households their buy in is different, the bond was overly complex.
- Reducing number of rented properties/access to more appropriate school buildings (based on size), It was very helpful to have the household per month cost - it would have been great to make this more visible - $25/month is a lot more approachable than the overall dollar amount for the whole referendum.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- none
- *Lack of community input
- *Not using existing space efficiently
- *Property taxes going up
- *Closing Newport
- *Amount of $ asked for
- educating the public on the details of our current situation and future plans
- closing Newport Elementary, rebuilding Crestview and Pine Hill, poor communication with the public, rebuilding district offices, staffing for these new spaces
- Closing Newport!
- "Doing both building onto the high school and buy land was too ambitious.
- Do not like online school option.
- Losing neighborhood schools - students need easy access to their school.
- The large amount of money.
- too many projects on one vote.
- The plans did not feel student focused - “one of the first line items I read was about a new administration building”, Meaning of “secure entry” needs to be clarified - some folks read this as metal detectors, security officers, etc., Community word of mouth - new attendance boundaries seem to favor more affluent areas (for example: East Ridge was scheduled to get updates, it is a perception that East Ridge gets everything)., It felt very expensive - breaking down where the money is going and how much it is going to cost residents was helpful, but it was difficult to find details on coact breakdown in the original plan.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- smaller add ons to all buildings, continue to rent instead of build
- *Be more clear and transparent
- *Hybrid classes
- *Zero hour/Flexible Schedules
- *Buy land for new campus
- *Improve marketing/communication of needs
- limited staff to the size of classes and services for students.
- Keep Newport and still add the Pre-K, refurbish instead of rebuild, better family communication, add online options for middle schools too
- Redistrict High Schools so that the capicity percentage is the same.
- Online school should be like it was with COVID. Attendance, check-ins, online with the teacher, etc. Make kids more accountable.
- Break it down into smaller parts (building, technology, etc)
- population data seems to be different amongst different groups
- Parking spot lottery - if there are not enough spots available students have to enter into a lottery for the year to be allocated a spot, Remote work for district office employees - DSC would turn into meeting spaces that can be reserved as needed for in-person meetings, Allow backpacks - students are dropping Chromebooks and it is expensive. To solve the issue of fire marshall concerns (tripping concerns) - add backpack hooks in each classroom.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- bloated class sizes that cause behavior problems which causes sub shortages
- *Safety
- *Overcrowding
- *Outdated facilities
- *Class sizes
- *Hiring/Retaining staff - pay keep up with cost of living"
- providing students the support they need in special education and general education.
- overcrowding, class size, lack of teachers and support staff
- STAFFING! Doesn't matter if we have the space if we don't have the staff. "
- Class size
- Increasing enrollment
- Technology damage accountability
- Teacher shortage and recruitment.
- Lack of para support
- projects that directly affect students should come first. keep community schools.
- "Keeping class sizes reasonable, Appropriate school buildings for current enrollment - no student should ever have to eat on the floor, Being clear in the amount of money that is going to cost per month - it can also be helpful to compare cost to something folks may already buy, such as a daily/weekly coffee/beverage.
Lake Middle School PTA
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- The fact that there were few boundary changes, additions to high schools, secure entrances for middle schools and repurpose of buildings.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- We full supported the plan. Concerned about all of the misinformation put out by the "no" group who were very loud and effective in spreading rumors.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
-
High Schools are in dire need of additions. District has done a good job and put forth an acceptable plan, however the community will need to know of the deficits if not passed and what will not be offered and/or provided. Every recommendation of a school closure has failed - repurpose when possible.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- District growth without the needed funding/resources in regard to building space and services to students and retainment of teachers.
Lake Middle School Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Addresing Safety and Security, Overall Over Crowding/Growth, High School Additions, Alleviate space needs for a number of years.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Closing a school in St. Paul Park, overall Cost of the plan, the perception of building a new DSC, Community doesn't understand how schools are funded, Need to be even more honest about our needs and what won't be provided if bond fails
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Changing boundaries, build in stages instead of "going for a homerun," continued transparency of true needs and current conditions, again letting our community truly know what will not be provided (and have everyone stop trying to provide EVERYTHING with a minimal budget - we cannot continue to add "more" to everyone - we are stretched very thin with heightened expectations of our families and overall needs of our students.)
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Overcrowding/the overall rate of growth, safety and security at some schools i.e. entrances, class sizes, teacher/staff shortage overall , including shortage of subs, mental health/behavioral support of students, special education heightened needs, academic expectations and accountability for learning, special education programming and resources/funding
High Schools
- East Ridge High School Parent Cabinet
- Park High School Staff
- Woodbury High School Staff
- East Ridge High School Staff
- South Washington Alternative High School
East Ridge High School Parent Cabinet
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Additions rather than building a new high school (cost)
- Keep from having very large high school (super school)
- Potential for new high school to keep total school sizes reasonable
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Expansion plan for high schools didn’t address class sizes
- Size (cost), economy
- Marketing plan - hallways/cafeteria not as effective as class size and boundaries
- Not all things in plan addressed space - focus on essential needs
- May not have had 100% teacher (staff) buy-in
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- More hybrid classes during the day
- More/different learning options for students
- Alternative revenue sources (like Minnetonka online, open enrollment, etc)
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Work to build better business relationship/partnership with City of Woodbury to address solutions
- All of these items need to be discussed prior to rolling out the plan
- Safety needs to be emphasized
- Explain the why (Newport plan, kids enrollment changes, etc)
Park High School Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- It addressed school capacity issues, would have lowered class sizes, gave options for the immense growth in our district, and was proactive with buying land NOW while it is cheaper.
- Excitement around acknowledging the growth in our region.
- All needs were trying to be addressed
- The high school needs had plans accounted for (i.e. Park and Woodbury overcrowding)
- Trying to be forward thinking (looking ahead to 10 years instead of 5)
- Quality pre-steps
- Communication early on via e-mail was good
- Presentations were done well (with specifics for each school)
- Improving/increasing space where the need is highest
- Original plan felt like every school was addressed
- Addressed everything but it might have been too much at once.
- Addressed needs of the district
- I liked the needs of Park being concerned
- Additional parking
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Newport elementary closure, the cost and how people were being communicated about it being paid for, and it really feels like the City of Cottage Grove (specifically) is building without regard for how it will impact schools.
- How the public would perceive the plan with such a big price point.
- Price tag
- New offices for the district administration
- The final draft before board approval had changes to the approved plan
- Was communication (slideshow) available in any other language than English?
- Closing Newport Elementary
- The size of the referendum
- Presentations weren’t human enough (very numbers--missing the heart)
- Misinformation being spread
- Too ambitious
- There wasn;t enough about the “yes “ vote out there or out soon enough.
- District offices addition felt sneaky
- Community felt district was being “sneaky” doing it in August
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- District needed to address Newport staff and students and what they would be GAINING from the changes, more communication about how money is being taken from the community and being paid for, come up with more alternative options perhaps (communicating what is REALLY going to happen if these things are not changed), moving forward having more community and staff buy-in so that our community is all on board.
- More information to families via snail mail. Not all families are active on social media.
- Redraw boundary lines
- Setting standards for accepting out of district students simply for the monetary value
- finding the most cost efficient options for remodeling/expanding schools.
- Would smaller phases be more efficient? Every 3-5 years in smaller amounts?
- Splitting the referendum into options (A, B, C)
- Communicating the difference between Bond and Levy
- Communicating the heart more--other than space, what is the heart of this project? How does it impact the kids better?
- IF a Vote no, lay out more clearly what that means. What do those new boundaries look like?
- Can we better use some spaces that we have?
- Break the questions up by need so some things will pass that voters feel are most important.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- CAPACITY- student class size is getting WAY TOO HIGH (40+ to a room)
- Class sizes and room for growth.
- Regaining trust of the district by community members
- Transparency at the district level
- Misinformation being spread in the community is hurting our schools
- How to be forward thinking--instead of consistently fighting against?
- Do we live up to the Be Seen. Be Heard. Be Bold as a district? Are we responsive when staff do these things?
- Personalizing--making things more human. We are a large district, but we need to make things more personal. Listing the long range task force members and allowing community to e-mail them, for example.
- Smaller class sizes (communicate the median not the average--those will look much differently).
- Overcrowding of the schools creates more safety issues and problems
Woodbury High School Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- address all school needs, bigger lunchroom at WHS, secure entrances
- Contemporary areas for common gatherings (multipurpose- large spaces)-- online learning space
- Addressed long-term solutions for ten years
- New traffic flow pattern
- Lunch room overcapacity/small kitchen space was to be expanded and updated.
- New Pre-School created to bring students and families in a central area
- This would have been a one-time spending request; not a repeated request year-after-year (as has been the case in years past)
- Appropriate finish/polish to the highschools. Buildings have become outdated/dilapidated
- Investment to existing highschools that people already have an investment in
- Buildings and facilities we can be proud about as a community
- The opportunity to teach in rooms that meet the fire code
- WHS was going to get big renovations (parking, security, lunch room, storage, classroom updates).
- Expansion of ALC
- getting more space, security, improved parking lots, smaller class sizes and safer bathrooms.
- 1) Alleviate overcrowding of classrooms and adding much needed space that would have provided the very needed space special education programs, individual work spaces, and small group break outs for students and staff
- 2) Larger lunchroom- less stimulating for students with special needs
- 3) ixing parking lots and the traffic flow
- 4) Improved safety and
- 5) Restructuring of “dead space” Reworking of spaces across the district so as to better use space instead of having to spend money to rent out spaces to meet our growing needs (which costs way more in the long term).
- Focus on non-portable or temporary options, Security measures, Class sizes would be smaller, More bathrooms a positive
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Funding/cost, Asking for too much/ all needs
- Price/Cost
- Families haven’t been in buildings for two years to know concerns
- Community benefits not clearly defined
- New District Service Center seems unnecessary for kids to many families
- Timing (August), we are not in touch with our families/voters during the summer at the same level we are during the school year
- Closing schools and upsetting communities
- Didn’t like the August vote
- Different approach to media blitz….be blunt and communicate that without this plan we will have students learning in pods/trailers…..boundary shifts….will have to get creative with housing students BUT not in a good way
- The price Tag was alarming and easy to campaign against
- Not enough listening sessions and opportunities for the community to talk
- A more specific way to demonstrate how little their taxes would have gone up with this plan
- Money
- DSC renovations being the first to have updates instead of schools.
- Community members don't understand the differences between bonds and levees
- Closing Newport
- Transparency in communications (addressing what the public thinks and shutting down falsehoods)
- inflation, priorities for construction of schools, will the high school have their needs met
- it didn't include what our representatives can do for us,"
- That it didn’t go far enough to address the long-term needs of the community.
- Unclear about why the bathrooms are an issue at elementary schools, unclear what would happen to various service centers, priority to build new admin building instead of school spaces, having all items on one vote
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Fund it in parts and not such a big bill
- Educating people about why we need common areas. Why not build classrooms?
- Boundary changes
- Articulating educational changes that dictate needs for different (not classroom) spaces, understanding the shifting nature.
- Addressing how online is working and the space needed
- Classrooms are built for 30 and high school average 35 students.
- Help community members understand how school has changed since they attended: collaboration, on-line, pseo, security, after school needs, student parking, parent drop off/pick up, mental health
- Have voters & parents simulate the hallway experience during passing time (Go Pro footage?) : )
- Comparative data from other school districts/high schools. i.e. what is the square footage per student at Tartan/Stillwater/New WBL High School, what is the taxpayer contribution per pupil in this district compared to other districts.
- Classroom focused, student voice being involved. Building representatives as the spokesperson. Classrooms big enough to fit all students. Staff members monitoring an assigned space for online students.
- share our rooms during prep, build sufficient office space for all teachers, changing the boundaries
- 1) Reworking of space so all mental health staff (counselors, psychs, social workers, cultural liaisons) can work in conjunction with each other to support all our staff in a confidential environment
- 2) Dedicated spaces for special education resource including places to meet one on one with students, small group pull out areas, and adequate office space for specialists/support staff
- 3) Handicap facilities more accessible to high needs special education programs
- 4) Speech resource room near students with special needs
- 5) Motor/sensory room for special education
- Expand with room to grow, new demographic survey that takes into account online schooling, space needed for online students and teachers, need quality technology and internet support, plan for classrooms with windows
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Reconsider needs (we all don’t know the needs), Class sizes (WHS), Plan for the future, not for the moment
- Bathroom security/safety/use
- Access points into the building/exiting
- Safety— security of issues
- Class size
- Mental Health
- Chemical Health
- Athletic facilities equity between the schools (could be a carrot for parents)
- Security (no cameras in parking lot & impossible to limit human traffic in & out of building)
- Capacity for students…..there is nowhere to add students in a classroom setting….no small group spaces for students with i.e.p. or working with paras
- Class sizes
- Security
- Cutting of arts and elective courses
- Supporting and paying our support staff
- Transparency in funding (community education, bussing costs, etc)
- class sizes, security, future student population growth,
- 1) Overcrowded classrooms and lack of space.
- 2) Safety and transportation for special education - vans for too many students/large high school students with no paras which are on buses
- 3) For the community to realize we are not frivolously spending money and the older buildings have become patchworked together to continue to have some functionality.
- 4) Community support of education and understanding so as to retain high quality teachers"
- class sizes (starting at elementary level), more mental health and counseling support, keeping up with effective and relevant technology in classrooms
East Ridge High School Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- 1. Keeping the three high schools (NOT ADDING)
- space, prioritize teachers and students, equity for all students, save admin costs
- That they weren’t going to build another high school
- Incorporating facilities for career & technical education in the high schools
- The plan addressed the many needs of the district all at once.
- Flex Space, additions to high schools, building a new elem school
- "It addressed the fact that our schools were too crowded.
- It would fix the fact that many of our elementary schools have only 1 restroom for the students.
- Space
- Communication
- Transparency
- Safety and Security
- Focus on whole-child experience
- The new elementary building to accommodate our rise in population in 2025. Otherwise, not much… Additions to the high schools are long overdue as well.
- no new high school. smaller class sizes. potential for additions to buildings.
- Addressed overcrowding and space issues
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- 1. Pricetag
- equity for all students of So Wash Co, focusing on the future, student/teacher centered decisions,
- Price tag
- Newport closing- is that the most equitable?
- The plan addressed everything at once which made the cost too high
- Lack of communication, lack of vision, no additional space for flexible spending, amount of money being asked for
- "It was expensive, but it isn’t going to get less expensive as we ignore the problem.
- It was linked (fairly or not) to the closing of an elementary school which became very unpopular.
- The sale of district service and program centers with the addition of making new facilities.
- Space
- Communication
- Transparency
- Safety and Security
- Focus on whole-child experience
- Lack of effective communication plan led to twice as many “No” votes as to yes votes.
- the amount was so large that it turned away a lot of voters. closing Newport. close/new Crestview.
- Cost and tax increase
- Newport and Crestview closing
- Potential reboundering
- A lot of change at once…staggered approach better
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- 1. Change from brick and mortar
- 2. Utilize college schedules (Monday/Wed or Tues/Thurs)
- 3. Extend day (classes earlier in morning to later in the day
- 4. Hybrid schedules
- 5. Online classes
- flexible scheduling for our high school students, transparency from the district to the community and school employees, revisiting growth numbers
- Breaking the bond into parts. Include the highest needs first. (Extra bathroom, school additions)
- Connect the bond to space and class size
- Show classroom spaces and crowded rooms
- Add something “attractive” and visible to the community and families (maybe athletic facilities)
- Flexible learning spaces, increase communication with school district leaders and community leaders, greater technology needs, flexible scheduling for students (do all students need to be in school all day)
- Build new schools and keep them smaller so students have more opportunities.
- Ask multiple questions which gives the community a chance to choose priorities.
- I think we need to skip adding on to high schools and go straight to adding a new high school, put money into the new building and each middle school has its own feeder high school. The unity of each high school I think would be higher with one middle school to one feeder high school.
- Make adjustments now to the space we have. Create a lecture room and double up the lab space for science (for instance).
- Use a hybrid schedule until space issues have been addressed or add a 7th hour.
- Space
- Communication
- Transparency
- Safety and Security
- Focus on whole-child experience
- Greater use of technology to start the trend of “Flexible Facilities.” Meaning, everyone does NOT need to be in school all-day.
- leverage online. pass the bond. money for support staff, mental health, paras, etc. change boundaries.
- If we have growth then we need more staff-nurses/counselors/school counselors/social workers/teachers/admin.
- Staggered approach to bond issues-
- 3 tiers of priorities
- Build another high school instead of mega schools
- If not a new building, and add on, then do A/B day to address large populations
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- 1. Changing and using what we learned from covid. We do not have to continue to deliver education like we are in the industrial age. We didn't utilize anything we learned from Covid.
- equitable space for all students, getting back to manageable class sizes, competitive pay for staff, transparency between district, school school staff, and community
- Teacher, para retention, recruitment and pay.
- School space
- Class sizes/student to teacher ratios
- Equitable programming for all students, communication plan
- We need better messaging to people as to what a Yes vote means and what a No vote means for our schools, students, and boundaries.
- The organized opposition to CRT and the concept of “taking over the school board” in order to establish a new agenda.
- Space
- Communication
- Transparency
- Safety and Security
- Focus on whole-child experience
- Lack of accountability for students
- space, overcrowding, mental health, not being able to have relationships with students
- overcrowding
- under resourced/under staff to appropriately meet student needs (academic and mental health)
- Mental health, meeting both academic and mental health needs
South Washington Alternative High School
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- We were excited that SWAHS was included. We were hoping to move into a new building.
- resources, overcrowding
- We would get a new facility (or new to us!).
- Every district building was included
- Addressed deeper needs (remodeling school kitchen, expanding bathrooms)
- General sense of trying to back our students more
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Average citizen would think that is too big of an ask
- cost, messaging, only one option, lack of information, website is cumbersome
- Why close Newport when other buildings are under capacity?
- What about changing boundaries?
- Size of the ask
- Only one ask, instead of three
- Lots of asking for $
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Double wide trailer classrooms.! Place them right next to the parking lot where the parents can see them. Alternate schedules.
- options, hybrid, online, early release
- Multiple questions may lead to more success
- Look at open enrollment numbers
- Perception that ERHS is “so new”
- Combining 2 of the smaller schools
- Ask for less money
- More improvement to the southern part of the district
- Make a few ADA compatible trailers
- Change boundaries
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Equity among schools
- communication (active), break plan down by grades/buildings/geography areas, explain the why for justification
- Teacher workload
- Burnout
- Teacher/Staff Mental Health
- Student mental health
- Class sizes
Advisory Groups
Special Education Advisory Council
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Space, restrooms, Collaborative work areas, flexible space
- More space to impact class sizes and give students more room, smaller class sizes, collaborative spaces/work differently, repurposing rather than selling and getting rid of
- Enough space in schools to accommodate growth
- More bathrooms
- Moving the transition programming all to one location (the DSC)
- Offer Setting 4 programming in SoWashCo
- Updates to bathrooms in schools and Additional space for ECSE, Transition 18-21 programming, ALC, and in our buildings that are over capacity
- Option to offer our own fed 4 programming
- Plan was very comprehensive and thorough thinking about all of the needs across the district
- Liked that special education was included in the planning
- It was long-range vision
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Price, presentation of the Bond, Newport, DSC VS Transitions, Optics-student centered choices were not at the fore-front
- 1. One large, one question versus breaking it up, 2. lack of clarity and specificity within the plan for students with special education needs (what are you doing for those students? How will this plan impact learning?), 3. more choice, less sticker shock, 4. timeline for addressing urgent needs, 5. focus on students before adults
- Timing of the referendum with other community tax increases (road work in Royal Oaks area)
- The people getting new houses are getting more and the people in old Woodbury are not getting as much
- Concern about building a new District Service Center
- Not enough information about the impact on increasing services for students with special education services
- Timing - coming off of Covid and concerns about when the students would get services (including inflation)
- Communication around plan - particularly regarding closing Newport
- Any time there are plans around closing schools/redoing boundaries - being sensitive
- Plan communication/miscommunication about the new DSC being built
- Concern about the plan for larger schools
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Flexible transparency collaborative spaces, not Merging DSC, but giving the new space to students, transparency of the new buildings, Merging bonds (schools together), recruiting staff.
- 1. Breaking up the ask into pieces based on the areas of the ask, 2. helping people understand how we are different from neighboring districts, 3. explaining the plan with specificity to class size and student groups, like special education students 4. Looking at older generation to explain the 'why' and address historical lack of trust
- That a plan that is put in place help get ahead of the problem (not just catch up)
- Retro-fitting the older buildings and consideration of boundary lines to balance access to new/old buildings
- Would like to see enrollment numbers across the district along with numbers of students with IEP’s - address demographic projections
- How do we get “buy-in” investment from all community members
- Increase district presence/responsiveness on social media to address and respond to questions and clarification of misinformation being spread
- Consider alternate schedule options for students
- Continue to find ways to fund the updates needed
- Consider options for staff who can work from home and the flexibility with virtual meetings (opens up spaces which are in short supply) add shared work spaces for people to access
- Prioritizing the needs to respond to the most critical needs first
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Distrust and Equity!!
- 1. Staffing and getting the right staff to support our students, 2. Sped teachers and paraprofessionals adequately staffed to support student needs, 3. Equity throughout the district, resource allocation/investment/opportunities similar throughout the district, 4. Continuum of services from Birth-21 adequately meeting the needs of students, and a continuum within our school district, 5. Direct response within social media platforms, 6. Lack of historical trust
- "Bathrooms/Lunchroom spaces in all schools
- 18-21 programming - making sure there is access/space for programs
- Access/Accommodations for adaptive sports and accessible playgrounds/Middle School access to recess time and outdoor spaces (including swings for students with vestibular needs)
- Making sure that the planning is long range so we are not coming back over and over in 5 years
- Make sure there is clear messaging and transparency from the district
- Kids with mental health and behavior needs - including curriculum to address social skills (at a Tier 1 Level)
- Staff safety and having enough staff - particularly regarding supporting students with intensive behavior needs
- The need for a robust MTSS system with high quality tier 1 research based instruction and interventions (other than special education)
- School inequities - what are the guaranteed experiences at every school
- Trust and transparency between district admin and staff/community
Community Sessions
- Community Session 1 - Oct. 17
- Community Session 2 - Oct. 24
- Community Session 3 Virtual - Oct. 25
- Community Session 4 - Oct. 27
- Community Session 5 Virtual - Oct. 27
- Community Session 6 - Nov. 1
- Community Session 7 - Nov. 2
- Community Session 8 - Nov. 3
Community Session 1 - Oct. 17
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Updates and new schools
- Improved student/teacher ratio, supported a growing community by planning for future growth, college/career readiness preparation, extra activties added by such as transportation to activities
- High school level expansion - addition of classrooms, especially at East Ridge.
- Purchase land for future use
- Replace current building with a new Pine Hill Elementary
- No long-term benefits spelled out
- Tough to find list for building our future
- We need a better argument than "It's for the kids."
- The decision was asked to be made with a very truncated input period.
- everything needed was in the original plan; long range plan can’t do the work if you do piecemeal.
- fairly invested in our children, it touched every school and every children.
- better focused on actual needs vs. nice-to-haves.
- the original plan has the intention to purchase the land for future at a lower cost now than a potentially much higher price in the future.
- the original plan has the intention to cause limited school boundary changes.
- 1) Levy tied to inflation
- 2) Minimal boundry changes
- 3) Improve what we have rather than building new
- 4) Phased approach to improvements
- 5) Decreased class sizes
- 1 Not much - we didn't understand the plan 2 buying land now while it's cheap, before the housing development goes in and increases the land cost to buy new campuses 3 I liked how each school was detailed with actual bullet points to identify needs across the district 4 & 5
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Cost, transparency, accountability
- 2015 did not last as long as it was originally advertised, district was not transparent with how they would be spending the money specifically, was the city working with the district to slow growth, nothing specifically stated about adding back the extras that were cut (zero hour, art/music education)
- cost overall is too much for community
- lack communication from top down about the reasons why they made certain decisions - it seemed broken
- Concerns about boundary changes
- Large cost
- List of needs - no prioritization and costs associated with them
- What metrics are we trying to achieve with the proposed additions/projects?
- School district boundary changes. Who/when/where?
- Why isn't the school district working with the city to work through funding? I was told that its the district's issue. That tells me that the district isn't planning well enough.
- Inflationary pressures and the price tag, not realistic for current situation
- Not understanding the communities needs (e.g. repurposing Newport)
- Administration getting a new building
- The majority of community members part of the process are pro school and don’t see cost as a barrier; try harder to get broader input
- Lots of new elementary schools being built
- 1) Price tag
- 2) Lack of transparency behind recommendations
- 3) Lack of community input during development of recommendation
- 4) Concerns about where the $$ really went ... student vs. administration
- 5) Lack of transparency of alternative plans
- 1 no one gives out money without understanding what is needed - you have to make a strong case 2 there were no benchmarks of facilities (Dept of Ed facility standards) each of 26 school spaces had for maximums, or averages (student to classroom) 3 closing a school created alot of anger 4 it would be nice to have photos / diagrams or visuals of the need 5
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Cost, planning
- Note the goals, what is the student/teacher ratio goal, what is the capacity of each school. Make sure that each school has the student/teacher ratio met, schools that are using a high degree resources for a small population (such as Newport Elementary) this isn’t fair to kids in the larger schools, allocate resources fairly across the district
- Prioritize facility needs rather than a one-package-fits-all-needs
- One package might be better IF you understand the why
- Big bill is too much - is the school district too big
- Over-communicate the overcapacity issues in terms of # of students over along with % over, before the election vs just images of halls and cafeterias
- Get the voice of the students - especially high schools, what is their experience like
- Articulate the goal number of kids per teacher/classroom, etc.
- What metrics are trying to achieve with the improvements?
- Where is the district going to get the staffing with the unemployment rate as low as it is in MN?
- administration needs to look harder at current spending, we want our district to be most efficient, and we’d like to see how our school district allocates our money, comparing to other school districts in the metro.
- To address growth, administration needs to be more forceful with the cities and the consequences of their over the top growth plans. Are they still creating a community that people want to be part of
- Address space issues with middle and high schools and cafeteria/kitchens
- Return the academic rigor and put our focus back on academics
- 1) Be frugal
- 2) Build new buildings as a last resort
- 3) Listen to the public
- 4) Minimize rezoning so students retain sense of belonging to a student community
- 5) Make it real for the parents ... spending per student transparency
- more community knowledge - Q& A or surveys (including for people who don't have kids in the schools) along with a webinar that gives baseline information . We want high quality schools. We want our schools to be more transparent - over communicate with good journalism.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Transparency, leadership, accountability, mental health, school boundaries
- Too much growth, need the city to be involved in district planning,
- need to communicate clearly to the community what you are doing,
- Focus on arts/music education, the 6 period day does not prepare high school students for college–students need to pick between language and art education in order to get into college.
- There are no buses for after school activities. Parents with means will get their kids to activities, but this disadvantaged the kids whose parents do not have the means or job flexibility.
- ADD zero hour back, add back some of the extras that made our district unique and stand out
- Community growth
- Curriculum/programming not equitable between schools in the same level
- High teacher ratios, recently increased at the secondary level - over-crowding in some classrooms - how will ratios be impacted in the next few years at the secondary level with the elimination of elementary band/orchestra which typically absorb a lot of students
- Community doesn’t trust the board’s judgement
- Be more inclusive of smaller communities so they know their needs are being heard, i.e., Newport
- Commitment to stay open during Covid or other issues going forward - folks are considering private or alternative schools due to this.
- Can SoWashCo fund the schools that are needed going forward?
- Is SoWashCo working with the Cities and are they properly budgeting for schools/teachers/maintenance/etc. going forward.
- School Board/Administration trust with the community
- Losing academic rigor
- over crowded classrooms
- Community engagement in processes, helping the community to understand the importance, maybe reach out to some parents to get variety of input
- 1) Overcrowded classes/buildings
- 2) Playing catch up now after 2 failed bond referendums
- 3) Retaining good teachers
- 4) Lack of transparency
- 5) Digging out of a hole in proving that education is more important than facilities
- 1 mental health, 2 staffing shortages for teachers, bus drivers, staff, 3 teacher burnout 4 PSEO/college in schools/tech eduation 5 involving the community - how technology will affect learning & it becomes obsolete quickly
Community Session 2 - Oct. 24
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- updating valid needs at elementary schools, addressing overcrowding at high schools, adding secure entryways at middle schools
- Appreciate facilities updates. Investment in kids and staff. Funds spread across all schools. Reasonable monthly cost. Minimal boundary disruption.
- Liked the plan for Pine Hill, Park, Crestview and all schools that are over capacity.
- Willingness to construct across all areas of the district.
- Willingness of the district to address the growth of the community.
- Liked minimizing boundary changes which are very hard on families and particularly for kids with high anxiety.
- Liked looking for ways to address changing employment needs by adding vocational opportunities for students (CTE).
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- transparency and lack of respectful communication with community and staff members, lack of community input being put into the facility plan, misprioritizing items and not tiering items based on need but more on desires and wants, relocation of Crestview Elementary and the closure of Newport Elementary which would leave one city in the district without a home school, The plan itself is costs too much and seems contradictory when renovating for early childhood spaces at many elementary schools as well as repurposing Newport into an early childhood learning space while separating pre-k students from their home schools
- Overwhelming total cost! Vague terms and allocations of funds. Impact to low SES populations. Schools and school buildings closures versus re purposing. Too vague.
- The cost
- Impact to community - is central and consolidation good for community?
- More transparent communication - i.e. breakdown of costs, initial survey results - how did we get here
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Looking at more cost-effective ways to save money such as redoing boundaries and building walking signals at busy intersections, listening to families and staff members and being transparent about the changes that will affect them, ensuring the community survey includes community members from all cities not just Cottage Grove and Woodbury, Prioritizing questions on a future referendum, Appropriately placing Next Step, Pathways, and ALC to accommodate the specific needs of each program
- Vote between Incremental plan to address immediate needs first versus a big bond Bring a bond that brings equitable facilities at each level. Better definitions of terms in the bond. Central information repository with specific greater details. Vote of bond versus actual boundaries. More information is better.
- Information sharing - more grassroots effort to get the word out - small format - more ability for question and answer sessions
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- The school board and superintendent do not welcome opinions and feedback that they disagree with, making sure to use updated and current data as well as current socioeconomic status when looking at student numbers at each school, money is poorly budgeted and poorly spent
- Equity. All supported. Mental health and stability for kids and staff. Maintain and improve community support. Clear and transparent communication.
- Over capacity in certain schools
- Giving each student the opportunity to learn to their highest potential within their own community school
- Involve community in education system.
Community Session 3 Virtual - Oct. 25
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Limited the boundary changes
- Addresses the overcrowding in the schools
- Appreciated the amount of information on the District website, about the history of the needs, funding, and information by school what changes were necessary. The information per school and how the plan would address each school's needs, especially overcrowding.
- Plan was thorough and well thought out.
- Transparency of the plan.
- Early Learning Center
- Renovating for tech ed- STEM and Robotics
- Special Ed
- Comprehensive (met needs at every school)
- Strategic Elements (repurposing existing buildings)"
- Anticipated needs of the entire district (pre-K to 21, all cities).
- Laid out plans and needed upgrades.
- "Wow" factor of our district and plans to retain it.
- Improvements in the bathroom to student ratios
- Minimal disruption to the boundary line while improving facilities
- Permanent fixes and solutions rather than temporary, i.e. trailers, Appeared to be a true long term strategy and not short term Band-Aids
- Liked that it addressed all levels, elementary to high school
- Address both building and safety needs
- No drastic boundary changes
- Addition of more space
- Secure front entries
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Closing of Newport Elementary school; felt bad for their community
- Didn’t seem like there would be an immediate impact on the overcrowding issues.
- Concerned about the order of the remodeling order and starting with the District Service Center
- Referendum on a non-regular election time. Could have been addressed better.
- Cost of the plan was huge"
- Marketing and communication - the why wasn't clear for some needs (ex. renovation bathrooms)
- The overall dollar amount - should have been cost per home
- Elementary school closures - bad PR
- Changing boundary lines - avoided confrontation that might happen if boundaries change, perhaps should have been more forthcoming
- Population growth- what if growth doesn't occur as projected, how would the plan be adjusted?"
- Unable to see the priority of the plans.
- Would have appreciated breaking into smaller pieces to know that some could be funded. Can we have more than one question for varying amounts?
- Mistrust / distrust in the numbers. Show me the data.
- Did not know the impact of voting ""no"".
- Cost, and timing with post covid and economic concerns
- Validity of the data that is being communicated
- Trust, Communication, Data, and cost transparency
- Outlining Priorities
- Timing - should this have been a special election"
- Not a transparent plan- insulting to think that we would agree to this with such little information. Give us the information needed to make a decision of this magnitude.
- What are we getting from this plan and how is it going to impact our kids?
- Cost- how are the taxes for all these new homes going to help pay for this, and why do the rest of us need to cover so much more?
- Is this plan even realistic? Will it stay on budget? With shortage of supplies and workers, can we even accomplish these goals?
- Too many big ticket items here- felt like reaching for the stars. Would like to understand what are the most important priorities and what would just be nice to have.
- Newport Elementary- felt that this community was not being listened to. We all feel it is very important to keep that school open for their community.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Build additional schools
- Redraw the boundaries so money from Woodbury does not go to the Stillwater school district!
- Shorter term steps that showed immediacy of the needs"
- New bond referendum- better marketing, breakdown cost, adjusting overall cost down
- Highlight current spending/budget
- Pursue alternative funding - grants, increased fees, partnerships with businesses
- Might make sense to address high schools needs uniquely, for example east ridge is larger and serves more of the population
- Break bond into multiple questions on the referendum - some funding better than all- more options than just yes or no"
- "Reevaluate the numbers (enrollment projections, housing numbers, etc.), and impact of online learning.
- Clear, transparent data - understand options considered.
- See how the money will be spent over time. What needs to be addressed in the next two years? Five years?
- Creative ""flex space"" options
- If no, it seemed like ""we'll just try again."" Be clear on the plan. Showing the impact of not spending the money now - will it come out of another budget?
- Rationale of why the needs are being requested. i.e. district center improvements vs. school needs
- Transparency and improved communications
- Cost analysis if the decision is delayed
- Visuals of what the needs. Infographics are not enough"
- "Prioritize- what really needs to be done, and what can either be postponed or done more economically.
- Provide a line item budget so the community can understand the total cost.
- Get multiple bids from contractors and provide that information to community. Conflict of interest with prior contractor lined up to do the project paying for marketing- not appreciated by the community.
- Keep frugality at the forefront- we have senior citizens and many others in our community on tight budgets.
- Contact Marvin Taylor (Newport City Council)- he is skilled at presenting information to the community in a way that is understandable."
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Overcrowding
- Bullying in middle school
- Retaining good teachers because we don’t have the funding to support our schools
- Population growth
- overcrowding
- Maintaining attendance boundaries for middle/high school
- Results of state testing/getting caught up/being a leader in the state"
- Retain quality of education and ""draw"" of the value education brings to the community
- Overcrowding
- Teacher pay; retaining and rewarding talent
- Mental health
- Safety in our schools
- Mistrust in the numbers - people in the district did not achieve financial success without understanding their own financials.
- We hope the district finds a way to give our kids what they need and to regain trust from the adults / parents.
- Maintaining academic rigor, especially in light of recent test scores
- Rebuilding of trust between the board and the members of the community and the Reestablishment of effective leadership
- Mental health. academics. social environment, and supportive resources outweigh new facilites
- Retention of qualified staff with competitive pay
- Keeping this a desirable school district, as that is the reason many of us moved here in the first place.
- Take care of our teachers- pay them well, involve them in the decisions around curriculum and technology as they are the ones that will be implementing everything.
- Communication and transparency- these really need to be at the forefront right now, it seems a lot of trust was lost with this last proposal and how it was handled.
- Consistency across the schools of what is offered (i.e. IB at Park), what is being taught and how it is being taught (elementary through high school)
Community Session 4 - Oct. 27
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Comprehensive Plan
- Suggested building adjustments made sense
- Updates and renovations.
- 1) Nothing
- 2) New land purchase
- 3) Updating schools favored instead of demolish/rebuild
- 4) Comprehensive
- 5) Plan addressed goal of funding the future of students
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Came out nowhere and seemed rushed.
- Lack of preparation and proper communication
- Amount of $426 may be too large
- Is data shared accurate
- Closure of school does not sit well with community.
- 1) Communication did not meet needs of voters
- 2) Deficiencies in equity regarding City of Newport and Title I
- 3) Questionable forecasting data
- 4) Financially irresponsible and non-student centric priorities
- 5) Too much construction all at once
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Donors / Fundraising Opportunities
- Partnerships with cities/municipalities
- Improved communications
- Keeping Newport and adding something else into it.
- 1) Improved communication/meeting between district and ALL cities in district boundaries to address growth strategy
- 2) Look at redistricting and share what that would look like and how a plan including redistricting with fewer capital improvements would look.
- 3) Break up the referendum into smaller pieces to address separate goals so that if one doesn’t pass, then others might to address high-priority concerns. Proposed plan seemed too interwoven.
- 4) Create plan to address facility maintenance/updates so as not to arrive at this junction again (e.g. is this a result of failed historical leadership vs. perfect storm of explosive growth?)
- To avoid overcrowding, students could be split into two groups, one that would attend in the morning and another in the evening.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Overcrowded schools
- Staffing shortages
- Communication
- 1) Restoration of trust and financial responsibility: emphasize transparency and embrace public engagement; improve bond rating
- 2) Separate out wants from needs and communicate those appropriately; differentiate from current need vs. projected need
- 3) Address staffing - new/improved facilities are meaningless if there are no professionals to teach curriculum
- 4) Address falling test scores
- 5) Address challenges with growth, volatile economy
Community Session 5 Virtual - Oct. 27
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Comprehensive, all-encompassing, focused on good updates - HVAC, security
- High school additions
- more room in the Park Cafeteria
- went out and did an ask and put a study together
- well balanced investment of money in all the communities. Most money spent in Cottage Grove.
- Building for the Next Step Program
- Additional space for classes allows all students to go to school together - don't have to think about hybrid options to lighten the population at a given time
- All types of high schools will be on SoWashCo campus - won't be leasing buildings and will create more of a community feel for our students who are not attending their "home schoo"
- Allows more opportunity for SPED students to have appropriate learning spaces and hopefully the staff to support the programs
- Additional security for building both from the traditional welcome/office space to the increased number of bathrooms and updated bathrooms, to the increased cafeteria space and all of these security features gives a better sense of safety in hallways and classrooms
- Not as many boundary changes affecting students at all levels
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Communication, heard concerns from district staff, not enough focus on the "why"
- Data sources and accuracy
- Financial Implications- too much money asked for
- Needs vs Wants
- Project Plan execution- optics
- Price point
- Closing of a school - community doesn't have a say
- Transportation/Parking inside of Newport for multiple pre-K families and busses will be tight
- Lose small school feel and family connections (also multiple generations going to same school)
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Better messaging, reach out to people who don't have kids in the district, have community groups assist with combating misinformation
- Better pictures of needs, more accurate betrayals/pictures of the need
- Expand our virtual school
- Expanding the roadshow- city council, central park, senior living, …more than just the parents of the school age kids
- smaller group conversational discussions rather than a spectacle where we can calmly talk about needs, pros/cons, listen to both sides
- boundary changes
- Split the bond into more than one question to address the different levels of need - allows for possibility of some pieces passes vs all or nothing (ex bathroom renovations, cafeteria renovations, SPED/alternate classroom spaces)
- Create a roll out plan so families see benefit now and later
- Split the high school into morning/afternoon - extend the time the building is open but allow students 6 hours of campus time - this would mean staffing would be different maybe a 7am -1pm option and 1-8pm option...how many students do we have that are not full time?
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Equity across the district given the growing diversity of the students and families, safety, basic needs - clean water, space, teachers, small groups
- Discipline needs to get under control. Children getting beat-up in sp.ed.
- Political environment of passing any dollar is a hurdle
- Next referendum should have a multiple question format
- Not enough teachers, paraprofessionals, and staff
- We are growing, but we don't know which demographic we need to work on first
- How to keep community in the forefront - sense of community and hearing the community voices
- We have a growing need for SPED and alternate academic classrooms and opportunities and we need the staff to support these needs
- Staff pay is low compared to other districts and jobs in general and we are losing staff to jobs that are more flexible and often less stressful
Community Session 6 - Nov. 1
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- addressing overcrowding
- repurposing buildings (reduce rental spaces)
- better security
- investment on future land growth
- Comprehensive
- Maintained communities
- Not changing boundaries
- All schools included
- Upgrades to outdated schools can be a positive.
- Communication of the plan was visible online.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- large dollar amount
- unclear and poor communication for why decisions made
- Not fully utilizing current schools by balancing
- price tag and transparency with funds
- very little communication to non-techy and people who aren't immersed in school system
- advertised benefit is mostly for families who don't live here (new homes)
- changing boundaries hasn’t been addressed as a solution
- how long are these projected numbers going to hold up?
- how accurate are they?
- we need better descriptions and more info:
- what is renovated kitchen?
- what is land purchase for? just more details..
- Does not address overcrowding in a clear and concise way.
- Concerned that populations fluctuate and this may be a loss in the end.
- Closure of Newport Elementary does not make sense.
- Staffing
- Transparency in economics
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- prioritizing school growth over community growth
- inform the community on specific cost details
- 4th high school
- Redo boundaries
- Reevaluate the data post-COVID
- using third party if/when boundaries are redrawn
- get accurate projections for homes and students
- More opportunities for community and staff involvement in creating the plan.
- Create a more cost effective plan.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- overcrowding in each classrooms
- staff/kid safety
- lack of community and lack of respect for one another. need to teach empathy.
- Staffing
- Losing a sense of school community because of boundaries Ex: 85% of Lake are Eastridge and 15% are Woodbury
- Spending and budget transparency
- focus on the kids vs building
- what is needed compared to what is desired
- what do they need to actually be successful
- get rid of so much device time at elem level
- Curriculum transparency
- Community buy-in
Community Session 7 - Nov. 2
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- to high schools with classroom resources to relieve large class size elementary schools being updated with bathrooms etc.
- not building new schools but addition updating them instead
- that it got defeated
- Would hopefully reduce number of students in classrooms
- Meet needs of expanding community
- Investment in STEM and CTE at high schools
- Added more space
- Efforts to lower classroom size
- Focus on existing facilities
- Security efforts
- Cafeterias
- The plan addressed every school in the district and tried to be equitable.
- The district was proactive planning.
- Tried to meet students needs and utilize the capacity of the buildings.
- Planning ahead for future needs
- -Comprehensive plan, where every school got something they needed
- -Doing things to improve efficiency (North bus garage, not renting space, re-purposing buildings)
- -Taking into account what the city knows will be needed ahead of time
- 1.Being proactive with the plan
- 2. Least disruptive about boundary changes
- 3.Addressing overcrowding
- 4. Trying to get all schools equal
- 5. We want buildings repurposed to save money
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- statistics based off statistics from pre-pandemic
- Concerns about what was going to happen with students from Newport/ closing of Newport
- What is transportation going to look like
- History of school buildings being sold and not being used for the district
- capital improvements instead of staffing
- High schools were last priority when were at the highest need
- Communication was inadequate without enough effort to build community support
- Closure of Newport Elementary School
- Size of bill:
- Timing of Vote:
- Lack of transparency
- The high cost along with the closure of two neighborhood schools that could drastically impact students with high needs.
- The concern that if this passed, it could impact a future levy vote.
- -Price tag/sticker shock
- -Better defined cost/impact to property tax brackets as well as various demographics and stakeholders
- -Where does this capital raise compare to others in the metro area? Compare this to how the district ranks compared to others and how the bond will help us keep our spot
- -Explaining the difference between Levies and bonds to the general tax payer and acknowledge that the district has asked for $ before the latest bond
- 1. Cost
- 2. looking at a 5 yr plan vs 10 yr plan (without adequate projections)
- 3. More detailed communication
- 4. Not seeing immediate results when we would be taxed immediately
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- budgeting the different options over time instead of all at once
- prioritizing needs vs wants
- possibility of more online learning platforms
- Schools districts, cities and county governments should work more collaboratively together to address housing / school needs.
- Expand current elementary schools versus simply adding new
- Building a vision for our children that the community supports with a more positive, appealing message
- Creative usage of existing spaces,
- Re-Purpose closing schools.
- Phases.
- Messaging, Communication
- The district needs to rebuild trust and transparency with the community - not just the parents.
- The district needs to invest wisely and be cost effective.
- -All of us agreed that Covid may have hurt the communication of this bond and that if the community would have been capable of meeting in person to hear more about the bond in detail, more people would have been able to better understand the ask of the district
- -Need to explain why this is needed in a clear way as a ‘need’ instead of a ‘want.’
- 1. Getting new demographics and listening to the public
- 2. Tiering the cost
- 3. Start with schools that are overcrowded
- 4. Keeping neighborhoods in their schools (elementary)
- 5. Keeping Cottage Grove equal
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Class size & Need for Teachers
- Teacher Pay
- Diversity within staff/ teachers
- Mental health resources and mental health staff in schools
- Hiring and retaining high quality teachers and staff
- Improved and expanded facilities will require additional operational funding
- Challenge to taxpayers in the current economy
- Seek more commercial industry within the school district and not just housing to provide tax support with more collaborative efforts between the school district,; city and county governments
- Chemical Health,
- Overcrowding,
- Language classes,
- Sports Cost,
- Classroom Size,
- Respect for All
- Partisan politics have no place in the public school. This includes district BLM and pride posters, school supported walkouts, and teacher-influenced political praise/shaming of students.
- Growth and trust.
- The teacher moral which directly impacts student success.
- -Communication and more communication. I’m hearing that the community wants to support our kids, but wants to understand the bond budget better to get on board with the ask
- -Explain beyond the financial impact to the community
- -Space/land will be more and more difficult to find over time
- 1. Small Class sizes
- 2. Easier financial snapshots
- 3. Competitive pay
- 4. Disciplinary measures
- 5. Band and orchestra reinstated to Elementary
- 6.Supervision and stronger disciplinary measures
Community Session 8 - Nov. 3
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Designated space for robotics for high-schoolers.
- Covered a broad range and had everything we needed.
- Improvements to capacity - better classroom sizes.
- Maintains a high standard of education and enrichment for children.
- addresses basic necessities,
- addressing some overcrowding of middle and high schools,
- long term focus,
- consolidation of district resources
- The plan met many needs across the district
- The intentional effort to preserve attendance boundaries
- Thoughtfulness to streamline efficiencies
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Price (largest ever)
- Shutting down Newport elementary school.
- No tiered options.
- great monetary expense during a period of inflation,
- lack of transparency regarding specifics (too much generalities),
- did not address the fixes to be made for current and immediate needs,
- lack of addressing the surges of enrollment as the years continue (for instance an elementary school has a surge now but might not in 5 years),
- lack of creativity to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars
- It was too big from a messaging standpoint
- The closing of Newport Elementary should not have been attached to the referendum
- There wasn't a big enough Vote Yes campaign
- Summer was bad timing for the vote
- Should have had listening sessions on the front end
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Stop new construction rezoning of single family homes until issues are resolved.
- Consolidation of specialized programs at single locations.
- Split school days / hybrid online classes for high school.
- use more creativity with existing resources
- building another middle and high school instead of additions rather than bringing additional kids in and trying to retrofit,
- Build greater community support early on
- Being more intentional with sharing how the plan would benefit individual schools to the community members at those schools.
- Diversify how communication gets by by thinking through innovative ways to address each audience (how do they like to receive their information?)
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Managing growing student population.
- Maintaining services and programs for kids.
- Overcrowding.
- Managing changing diversity.
- political climate,
- overpopulation,
- inadequate spaces such as bathrooms,
- kitchens etc which cannot handle current capacities,
- too much use of electronics
- Rebuilding school community and engagement post COVID
- Navigating the political landscape as loud people negatively speak out against public education and want to tell the district how and what to teach.
- How to address equity and give kids what they need to feels supported in the face of outside political pressure.
Government and Elected Officials
Oct. 24, 2022
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
-
Planned for the future rather than reacting, and where we need to go.
-
Planning for growth and working to address unmet needs.
-
Changes for the high schools to address overcrowding.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Overall price tag and families struggling with costs
- Overall communication
- As bond funding decreased, operation funding increased for level expenses rather than taxpayers seeing a decrease in property taxes as the bond is paid off.
- Closing of Newport and students moved to three other elementary schools, concerns about population of the school (low-income, students of color, English language learners)
- Transportation to a different community, walkable schools
- Multiplier used to project student growth
- New district central office as a priority in the plan
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
-
Remove Pre-K from schools to make room for traditional programming
-
More confidence in student projections and communicating that out
-
Keep elementary students within their cities
-
More communications and add ballot to Nov. elections
-
Survey the community about allowing school districts to increase funding for cost of living expenses (equipment, staffing, etc. )
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Lack of a local newspaper with a focused education reporter
- State funding and support for education
- Lack of adequate prep for students in life
- Inadequate student support for mental health (counselors, etc.)
- Inadequate student support for career counseling.
- Provide more class offerings in education (technical, trades, etc.) in all schools
- Weight PSEO classes
- All classes should be unweighted since it creates inequity
- The need for consistent course offerings among the schools
- Collaboration and support from the cities that serve the district
- Working with unions and costs to avoid strikes
- Preparing students for a variety of culture and diversity
Oct. 27, 2022
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- High School End of it.
- To keep these three HS desirable equally
- Keeping the balance across the district
- Like the 3 HS model rather than the 4 HS Model
- Focus on the High Schools
- STEM
- Big Balance is important
- High School
- The 3 HS Model
- STEM
- Would like to see STEM in elementary schools as well
- Still need to plan for that 4th high school down the road
- Elementary - Need the facilities to be upgraded.
- Like the upgrades that were planned for the elementary schools
- Additions to the school
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Newport Elementary
- Horribly handled from the perspective that it should have had a community side to it.
- Could have determined between the city and the district of what to do
- New HS didn’t go well, because we had just built Oltman
- Should have had multiple questions
- It was such a large # - it would benefit a lot to have multiple questions
- Timing with inflation
- When discussion was about Crestview - because of the history of East Ridge they thought for sure that it was going to Woodbury and not staying in Cottage Grove.
- There was something more local here - other referendums in different districts passed where ours failed
- Commercial Base is not the same as other districts - can’t compete - different message to community members.
- How the message was delivered to people - gave them time and reasons to speculate.
- I want to see what are the trends and how is the district predicting the trends. Not enough information provided.
- Closing down an elementary school in Newport - they need that local school there and have to hop on a bus and go elsewhere. This was the one biggest thing.
- Newport
- Demographics
- Schools that are similar - not going to be as much growth on the Eastern Side. Other schools will be attached to the same issues as Newport. That is the challenge. There will be further situations.
- A lot of the emphasis was on new housing, not existing neighborhoods.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Show some data
- Show exactly the data that the district uses to predict where to put schools
- Have to light a fire in the community to move the legislature (may not be friendly in public school education)
- Engage the community to support additional funding from the legislature.
- Get the pressure in the community to call the senators and legislators
- Getting the public into the schools to see how things are in real time/real issues
- Make them aware of what staff and teachers are dealing with
- Centralized elementary is a good idea in the border area. (New Building) where all the new growth is occurring.
- Bringing the district together with a school on the border.
- Managing the message of what you want to achieve as a district within the community.
- Find the balance of what we can find that is acceptable to people.
- Manage and deliver happiness to people.
- A message that is able to connect these items and present it to the community.
- Divide it up into pieces rather than the whole thing at once - manage in pieces.
- For HS - like to see a program / facility that reflects the program for the trades (carpentry/sheet metal/welders/machinery). Trade School type program. If we are looking at how we are going to serve that next generation.
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Public Education
- Achievement Gap - results
- Making sure to shrink the gap
- Hold the state and federal accountable and keep it off taxes.
- Safety for employees and students in all schools - make everyone feel safe. Keep awareness up and train our staff. Have guidance counselors available.
- Understanding what the limits are of what we can do in the schools - making sure we have the very best training to serve our students.
- Social workers - Mental Health - Be here for our students
- Transportation - shortage of
- Issue of community - how communities interact with each other within the district - challenge to keep a sense of community meaningful
- The above affects the vote “no”
- Lack of voters in certain areas
- As population ages - that can be an issue too
- The four cities are so different and you can see that in their voting behaviors
- No investment in certain areas where other areas are always being invested in
- Need to find a way that we support all areas of the district - it will be a challenge
- Identifying what is achievable from all the big issues and what the district can actually wrap their arms around to move forward with.
- Engaging communities when information is compiled that the District can start to share and conduct community member meetings. Open Houses/Tours/PTO Meetings/City Council Meetings - to share information with the community.
- Board Members are absent from community meetings. They should be involved more.
SoWashCo Schools Staff
- District Administrative Team
- SoWashCo Community Education Staff
- District Service Center Staff
- Special Education Staff
District Administrative Team
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- comprehensive, addressed growth, student focused,
- Centrally Located Elementary School
- Comprehensive (PK-21+): Every School and Long Term (i.e. included land)
- Modernized learning spaces and facilities for students needs
- Didn’t expand the high school footprint by buildings but expanded the current spaces
- Transparent plan was available and principals were clear on what was happening
- Addressing the need for the growth of students
- Minimal Disruption to students and families
- It met all the needs across the district
- Long term solution
- Few district realignment
- The costs were lower
- Comprehension
- Comprehensive, well thought out
- It met all of our needs.
- Communication was clear and easy to access. Easy to understand if the time was taken to read it.
- Forward-focused
- There was something of benefit for all sites.
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- cost, closing Newport, projections, mistrust of information, August election choice
- Cost
- Timing of the ask of taxpayers (already voted yes for levy, economy, soon after pandemic) and when the election was held (August)
- People don’t like closing schools even when it makes sense and the perception of the “lower poverty school being closed”
- Heard a lot about the district service center “for adults” - timing (done first) and question of need
- Perception of demographic data and enrollment projections and Misrepresentation of facts on social media
- It was too lofty in price, and it was apparent that the community was not going to support it. It was a surprise that building a new district center was one of the needed goals. Did not feel student focused. People did not like taking away Newport.
- Addressing perceptions
- Division in the school district north/south divide
- People didn’t understand the tax impact
- Misinformation was out there
- Closing of an elementary school
- Timing
- Instability politically
- DSC building was a stopgap for many people. It’s purpose/need wasn’t understood.
- Cost and inflation.
- LARGE ask.
- August vote was challenging.
- Concerns about Newport Elementary being repurposed.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- elementary boundaries, student voice
- Boundary changes to address overcrowded elementary schools
- Staggered start at HS’s (early start, late start/ A day B day/ Require online)
- Rent space for learning
- Collapse programs (multi age and make VCES boundary school) Move specialized programming to schools with space
- Reconfigure: Move 6 to elementary and move 9 to MS (make it JR again) PREK and K centralized location(s)
- We are going to have to re-boundry and stick to where students have to go based on boundaries. Only updating when needed, not because it is on cycle. Questionable remodels when not a dire need
- Messaging that is in depth
- How do we build trust
- Create connections within and amongst our schools so we are 1 district
- Tough for community members to understand the asked changes
- How do you ever suggest closing a building without emotional needs?
- Be more transparent to the public
- FTE gets used for travel-do they understand the cost?
- Think about how we can change the day to serve the number of students (am-9 and 10 in person/pm-asynchornus -elementary come 4 days
- Need an addition to every high school.
- Education around school finance in our communications going forward.
- Elementary boundary changes.
- Transition programming space
- Alt Ed space
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- safety, overall school climate
- Trust in the plan and facts associated with the plan
- What is the community willing to pay (tax tolerance)
- Reaching the “swing” voter with facts
- Making sure people will feel an impact (class size will go down, etc)
- Addressing the high school capacity issues now
- Giving teachers the support they need example: special ed and EL is extremely understaffed, substitute shortable, large class sizes, not competitive pay, more support with the need in K-1 (too many student with many needs)
- Trust and how to build it
- Equity-what buildings have and don’t have compated to others
- Over capacity buildings
- Looking at structure of our special education programs (Level 4-have our own buildings-mental health services therapists
- Getting kids to school
- Class sizes!
- Too many administrators
- Lack of sped resources
- transportation
- increased mental health issues/concerns amongst students and staff
SoWashCo Community Education Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Transparency - communicated out
- Do you really know anything other than the number/amount of money being spent?
- Equity in resources and facility planning across the district.
- Forward thinking, not addressing a very small immediate need, addresses all the needs for longevity.
- Combining of spaces and populations and repurposing buildings.
- Effort in trying to keep communities together.
- It addressed overcrowding in schools
- Addressing issues in older schools
- Technology upgrades
- Provided some promise for community space
- Space Needs addressed, Updates from 2015 creating more equity, Community Education has more space, ECFE was separated
- We didn't hear a whole lot of positive feedback about it; Community Ed would have a new facility focusing on our specific needs; greater collaboration with colleagues; one location for early childhood
- -Nothing..no one really liked it.
- -More space, new combined building for DPC and DSC
- -Addressed overcrowding at schools
- -There was something in there for everyone
- -Planning for anticipated growth in District
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Did not include all programs, cost, Newport
- Data is skewed, District is not transparent with spending.
- Do we really need to spend half a billion dollars?
- Have we looked at other alternatives for spending or expansion?
- What are other avenues that do not require a massive dollar amount?
- Have we looked at year round schooling, or pilot schools for year round schools?
- How do we unite as a district instead of just our individual communities?
- Timing of the referendum was terrible with inflation, gas prices, housing
- Schools closing (repurposing) - NES, CES
- Missed communication (buyin) from community/neighborhoods that would be affected.
- Overall cost (paired with taxes)
- Timing of vote (Pandemic, CG Referendum)
- People felt we just asked for money a few years ago"
- Financial impact, Adult programming not addressed, communication to the general community especially those without children, Seniors concerned with their already limited income.
- Many of our visitors are on a fixed income and cannot afford additional property taxes, coming out of COVID was a poor time to ask people to pay more in property taxes, since property values were increasing at such a inflated rate, won't taxes go up even further?; a lot about the bond ask appeared misleading to many people; are they accounting for additional taxes from additional growth.
- -COST!
- -Strong response with lots of Vote No signs..even staff and teachers were not in support
- -Everything rolled into 1 big question..all or nothing..better to split it up and voters choose what to support
- -Closing of Newport..polarized community..can’t talk about overcrowding and then close a school with lower attendance numbers
- -Appeared that underserved communities were the ones asked to adjust the most
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Bussing
- Internal bias within communities and buildings and facilities based upon community members being here over many generations.
- Can we have community members or groups visit to see “overcrowding”? In order to develop understanding and build/bridge.
- Year round schools in some communities, or pilot schools?
- Do we bite off a smaller chunks to develop community support?
- Year Round Schooling - Change the model of schooling
- Boundary changes
- Research other states that have delt with overcrowding of schools
- Divide the School District!"
- Communication, education and delivery of proposal to general community.
- Be more transparent about how the new tax base will effect the disparity in needs; stability - uncertainty in young people should be taken into account; stop building so many houses when we cannot appropriately support the students we currently ha
- -Will have to build or add on somewhere
- -New high school..4 high schools for 4 middle schools..create more of a feeder system
- -Redo boundaries to send more kids to schools that are under capacity
- -Stop building new homes
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Staffing, space and equity
- Overcrowding
- Equity: Everyone needs to have all the resources they need
- How are we going to adapt now that we don’t have the referendum passed? Are we looking at portables?
- Build and Bridge and develop a sense of community within all of the municipalities, so that we can have a more uniform focus and push forward for support.
- Space
- Staffing
- Flexible use of space after school hours (shared space)
- Equity, Space, transportation concerns
- Finances; safety; staffing; transparency
- -Newer buildings
- -Alleviate overcrowding
- -More space, more staff
- -Creating more unity in the SoWashCo community
District Service Center Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Additions to all High Schools
- Addressing Growth
- Building Efficiency
- Comprehensive
- New DSC
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Cost - Price Tag
- Misinformation - especially internally with district employees
- Timing of vote
- Closing Newport
- Inaccurate enrollment projections
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Boundary Changes
- Use Portables for community sees it
- Re-purpose buildings
- Educate public
- Engage local politicians
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Overcrowding of schools
- Equity across the District
- Staffing shortages
- Outdated facilities
- Cohesiveness between Cottage Grove and Woodbury
Special Education Staff
What did you like most about the original long-range facility plan?
- Restructuring, programs in one building, a place for transportation,
- Addressed learning spaces, and over capacity, Included flexible learning spaces, cafeteria, etc., prioritized space for non-traditional learning, re-purposed spaces, land purchase for future growth
- Addition of space and classrooms to reduce class sizes
- Centralized DSC
- one location for 18-21 program, like the idea of using the DSC due to the opportunities to have students work close to the location as a part of their education.
- space for Early childhood and ESCE in one space
- Space for our own sped setting 4 program
What were your greatest concerns about the original long-range facility plan?
- Price, timing, transparency, projections,
- Cost-tax tolerability, Conceptualization/clarity of the plan for community members, transparency about planning, preparation, and fiscal responsibility
- 1. opportunity to create appropriate spaces for sped students-handicapped entrances, sensory, fed setting 4 and bathrooms for sped students
- 2.Too big of an ask. Break into smaller chunks, work with news media to be positive, make sure public has actual details
- 3. Repurposing of Newport left community out of the picture
- 4. focus needs to be on students and not staff-so is there another way to find appropriate meeting spaces, DSC spaces? Get more creative.
- 5. Re order concerns as there is a hierarchy of needs and ask questions this year in that order.
What suggestions do you have to address student growth and facility needs?
- Reviewing finances and other revenue options
- Communication around listed concerns, help the community say the 'day to day' experience in buildings in transparent, regular and non-threatening ways,
- 1. Break the ballot questions into separate questions so that people can choose.
- 2. There is a lack of trust in the district of how we spend money-is there a way to educate the public more about what it costs to educate students
- 3. Can we take more pictures of crowded areas? Can we push out more info on the over crowding? Utilize students to tell the stories of overcrowding
- 4. Add playgrounds for high schools/middle schools for sped kids.
- 5. Address the needs for student movement through outside spaces
What do you believe are the most important issues facing SoWashCo Schools?
- Overcrowding, transportation, trust
- Staffing, class size, building capacity, equity across buildings/district, mental health, MTSS
- 1. Planning for growth/spaces for that
- 2. We talk about student/Staff SEL and mental health but we don’t even look at curricular resources, our tiered system of intervention and support around learning how to embed SEL/mental health in all classes, teachers continue to be asked to do more and more.
- 4. Needs of students are more significant and need systems in place to address mental health/behavioral health. (i.e. Tier systems, more mental health support, etc).
- 5. Alternative to suspensions and utilizing restorative measures to support both learning and discipline choices. Decrease suspensions with students of color and sped students