Educational Priorities
In a series of meetings the Strategy Committee of the SDCC Education Committee has decided to try to set up the organizational framework for community wide involvement in solving the problems of Hamilton School.
At the community wide meeting to be held Wednesday, Jan. 19 the agenda will include a brief description of the events leading up to the meeting. Then the Chairman will ask the group to divide into 2 groups for discussion of 2 main objectives.
1. A BOARD LIASON COMMITTEE to decide on priorities to pursue with the Board of Education to get more classroom space in the Skinker DeBaliviere area. Among alternatives discussed at previous meetings are the 12-month school, dispersed classrooms, remodeling buildings within the community and including this in a bond issue, ways to make sure Hamilton is included in a bond issue, or possible combinations of the above. Resource people with factual information on these proposals will be present.
2. A COMMUNITY – SCHOOL LIAISON COMMITTEE to work directly with the Hamilton School staff in building support and involvement in the school and to make available the human resources of the community to the school. Information on various school-community programs in other parts of the city will be provided.
The Committee sees the 2 groups as supportive of each other, and, in fact, complementing each other. For instance, if the Community-School Liaison Committee decided with the staff of the school that the school needed a paid parent to serve as a full time liasion worker between the community and the school, the Board Liaison Committee could then request this from the Board of Education in their negotiations.
The work of the Community-School Liaison Committee would be essentially to make Hamilton a community-centered school. For instance, a list of people in the community willing to share their knowledge and skills in their field with the children in the classrooms could be compiled and made available to the staff. Another list could provide the names of parents at home during school hours, who would be willing to serve at the school as volunteers for field trips, lunch room and playground supervision, tutoring, etc.
The Strategy Committee will urge the 2 groups to create specific recommendations, some of which could be implemented immediately. Through organized and sustained pressure on the Board of Education the community has a better opportunity to meet its educational needs.
Originally published in The Paper, December 1971.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1971_12.pdf, printed page 5.
