Hoping to spur deeper community involvement in the King Philip school system, three new parent groups are forming this fall. Parents and residents from the tri-town system are encouraged to join.
The KP Community Working Groups (KPCWG) are a direct response to the ongoing budget issues facing the school system. Last year, dire budget predictions spurred many parents to start attending school committee meetings, and their interest in the process resulted in roundtable discussions with the School Committee and the administration. From those discussions came the impetus to form three groups designed to tackle some of the persistent issues facing the schools.
In mid-September, two kick-off meetings were held for the new groups. Dr. Susan Gilson, Assistant Superintendent and KP Middle School Principal, said she was pleased with the turnout from the three KP towns.
“It was a great opportunity to focus on how we can continue to grow and support the KP school district together,” said Dr. Gilson. “While the groups are just in the beginning stages, there is great potential for them to have a strong positive impact on our community.”
The three committees will focus on the budget, strategic planning, and community relations.
According to Norfolk resident Julie Redlitz, the goal of the three groups is to provide community support to the schools while offering a sounding board for the administration and School Committee.
“There’s so much work to be done and the community should be providing input into what we want to see out of our schools,” said Redlitz. “We can harness some of the community energy, even though it started out as negative energy. Let’s turn it around and be positive.”
Tracey Molloy, another parent from Norfolk, agreed that the new committees can offer some help to the schools.
“I’ve been to the School Committee meetings,” said Molloy. “They have a full plate. I don’t know how they can possibly do any more than they are doing.”
Molloy said Norfolk residents are committed to the elementary schools, and that involvement can be translated to the regional school system.
“We’ve seen Norfolk parents do some pretty neat things in the past, so let’s see if we can do some interesting stuff at KP and get all three towns engaged. Let’s see if we can help out a little bit and get some of the grunt work done for them.”
Last year’s budget cycle brought many questions and concerns from parents and community members. Distrust in the numbers, a perceived lack of communication, and unfamiliarity with all that goes into the budgeting process illustrated that some education around the budget was necessary. The new budget group should help with those concerns, said Molloy.
“We definitely think there’s an opportunity for a better process of explaining to the general public where the money is going,” she said.
Patrick Francomano, chairperson of the KP School Committee, said the School Committee is committed to transparency and welcomes the community involvement.
“People have a significant stake in the use of their tax dollars, and a very high stake in the public education system,” said Francomano. “It’s important that people know what’s going on and have a comfort level with what is happening, and it’s important that what is happening reflects the wishes of the community.”
The budget group, along with the other two groups, will include an administration and School Committee member, in addition to parents, according to Redlitz, who hopes the groups will also include town government representatives from each of the three KP towns.
The school system has a new business manager, and Redlitz envisions the new budget committee members acting as auxiliaries. For example, researching sports or club fees in other towns could be performed by the group.
“That takes some legwork. The group can bring that data back and help him facilitate some analysis that would take less time than if he had to do it himself.”
Redlitz said the ultimate goal of the budget group, however, is to help build trust in the budgeting process.
“If we’re integrating all those different groups and all those people have eyes on the budget as they plug their way through the different major areas, then I think we’ll come out of it at the end with a really strong understanding that yes, this is a solid budget, with no funny stuff going on,” she said.
The strategic planning group will focus on updating the school system’s strategic plan. Last year’s budget concerns highlighted the many different priorities parents thought the schools should spend money on. The new group will help gather input from the communities as to the goals on which the schools should focus, which will ultimately help determine budget priorities.
“Every time you do a new strategic plan you need to get the community involved because that’s who your stakeholders are,” said Redlitz.
The group focusing on community relations will work to shore up the communication between the school system and residents of the three towns, and how best to share information from School Committee meetings or the budget process.
“We need to do a better job on getting some information out there, being consistent on how the budget cycle works, and maybe coming up with a better way of presenting the budget information that brings people along the process and eliminates all the hype,” she said.
Redlitz hopes the community relations group will also help build bridges to each of the three KP towns, strengthening allegiance to the regional school system.
“People don’t really see KP as their school until they’re in it. We need to change that,” she said. “We need to get everybody from the beginning, when they first move to town or start having kids, that KP is their school and the way to do that is through education and community outreach.”
Both Redlitz and Molloy hope the three groups will create a new synergy in the school system, and provide a way for parents and other community members to make a difference.
“There’s a lot of talent in the community,” said Molloy. “There are people out there who are really smart. It would be very interesting to see what comes to the table if people volunteer to help with these groups. There’s this sense that once your kids hit middle school, you step back. I think it’s time to change that a little bit and keep the parental involvement.”
For more information about the working groups and ways to help, visit www.facebook.com/groups/kpcwg/.
Issue Date:
October, 2017
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