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Today's Poll!JC plan is No. 1 in school size
District: Academies are best way to create smaller learning communities; Patron: District’s plan would create ‘mega’ high school campus
Sunday, October 21, 2012
If all Jefferson City high school students were combined on one campus, it would be the largest high school in the state, home to about 2,670 students.
That’s what the Jefferson City Board of Education is proposing to do with its plan to build a single, replacement high school on the land it purchased three weeks ago east of Missouri 179. But by breaking up that campus into smaller learning communities, called academies, the board hopes to address the community’s concerns about such a large high school.
However, Dan Ortmeyer — a member of the JCHS Class of 1978 — is in the early stages of building a coalition to support an alternative — construction of a second school and the preservation of the existing campus.
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Comments
MrandMrsSmith 7 months ago
What exactly is Jefferson City trying to accomplish with this terrible idea?? Taxpayers already wasted MILLIONs of dollars re-building Atkins Stadium only to walk away from it only a few years later. Why build a school that large when they already have issues with student behavior with the current sized school? Behavior problems will only increase by cramming all those students together, how could you possibly manage that chaos?
RobHunterJohnson 7 months ago
2 High Schools! Rob
Dano 7 months ago
Please visit our facebook page at facebook.com/jcschooltax .
We have also have a secondary page Fan2jcps at facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100004535018909
jfester 7 months ago
SPORTS, SPORTS, SPORTS!
After all look at MU,
SPORTS, SPORTS, SPORTS!
A larger pool of students to compete in sports.
JCLifer 7 months ago
Obviously the "leaders" of this town do not want to grow or to maintain an level of quality.
The U-Haul dealers are gonna stay busy renting trucks to people wanting to move out. The only new construction that will happen will be for more nursing homes for the OLD PEOPLE.
jfester 7 months ago
Right on, I was born and raised here; worked here for twenty years in the state government and legal field, re-married, moved away for 8 years and wanted to return, and did.
Now I can't wait to take buying power and tax money to another city, to another state.
At one time we thought this was the ideal place to live; no longer
mia 7 months ago
I ONLY hope I can sell my home (where I pay for JC) before this goes through. What a mess. (We already moved JC Lifer and boy, is it so much better). We were told so many times to "move if you don't like it". Great words, if they are ever said to you......take their advice.
jfester 7 months ago
might add,
Last person or leave JC, please turn off the lights!!
RobHunterJohnson 7 months ago
Im not leaving, but these kids deserve the best! The school enrollment, class size is very important to student/teacher and LEARNING! The first sentence in this article says it all. The largest High School in the State, I went to Parkway before they built all the schools, there is only so much room in sports, choir, cheerleading, ect! We had large classes, and it takes more than k-12 because these kids will need to ready. Rob
JCLifer 7 months ago
Is it the private school people trying to destroy our public school system?
Why don't they listen to the patrons and taxpayers. The school board and the council and the park board work fir us. We need to throw these clowns out.
jfester 7 months ago
we have to take an avid interest in city politics (watch city council meeting on streaming ~ i.e. city of Jefferson's website, gives details) contact your council members by e-mail, phone. Lurk, read, involve yourself............... let them know what you are thinking. And vote ..................
newone 7 months ago
Normally I would agree with you jfester, but in Jefferson City it doesn't matter how the city votes, if something doesn't pass that the city council wants passed they just keep trying until it does, that is just how this city is no matter what the issue is, unfortunately our vote or opinion doesn't matter to anyone in this town anymore.
kentheco 7 months ago
Just wondering how many kitchens/lunchrooms the new "campus" will have. Has anyone figured out how long it will take to feed 2,000+ students? If they schedule 30 minutes from departing classroom, eat, and return to classroom, I would hate to be last in line. Another concern would be how early to start feeding and when the last person would eat. As long as the sports programs appear to be the primary concern of the school board, there will never be two public high schools in Jefferson City. Some may say that sports aren’t the driving force. If that’s true, why does the football team list over twenty coaches/assistant coaches in the Jays homecoming section that was in the newspaper? Even if most were unpaid volunteers, on a team of one hundred players, they would have one coach for every five players. Wonder what size classes the school board is planning for the new high school, bet it’s not five students to each teacher.
JCsleeper 7 months ago
How's that big, single school football program working out this year ?
jfester 7 months ago
anyone for home schooling?
lovebeingmom 7 months ago
This has nothing to do with keeping sports together! There have been many meetings to discuss this information and many open forums have been held throughout the district. This is not something the district has come up with on a whim! MANY schools around the country have gone to this Academy approach and there have been many people in our district that have visited these schools. It is about educating our students for the 21st Century!
JCHS72 7 months ago
I agree we need to improve our educational environment. And building a new school may be part of the answer. But one school or two schools, you could still restructure the classes into the Academy idea. One is NOT contengent upon the other.
jfester 7 months ago
small classrooms, small campuses, foster learning; large classrooms tantamount to lecture classes tax the teachers, confuse and divide the student population and hinder learning.
Jefferson City High School was bad in the late 80's and early 90's; even worse in 2000; this is beyond belief.
rollnthndr 7 months ago
Come on "lovebeingmom", the district did go out and put this together on their own. Study groups going back to the Kimble administration looked at secondary education and many were asking the district to consider a second high school option and then in December 2011 the district administration announced they had another plan. Academies have been around since the 1970's and if it is so "21st century" why haven't we seen more school districts adopt this approach. Many have it as part of their overall education plan, but not the only approach to educating their students. The district does NOT have plans on how they will implement this new plan. The evaluation process is being considered as we speak. Questions such as, how do we deal with too many applicants to a particular academy, have not been answered. The school district should have had these and many other questions answered before they decided to sell this to the citizens. Did you know 5th graders will begin "aptitude counseling" this school year?
It is my hope, and I will give the district administration the benefit of the doubt, that this proposal has nothing to with keeping the sports program together, but the district sure does have a big hurdle in overcoming this perception in the community. Note to Dr. Mitchell, you need to be a better LISTENER!
lovebeingmom 7 months ago
Jfester you are right in saying small classrooms, small campuses foster learning. Small classrooms is exactly what having Academies is all about! The campus will not have the "feel" of a large campus because students will primarily be in the building in which they have chosen to study. In no way will the Academy Model encourage large lecture type classrooms. Rollnthndr there have been study groups as far back as Kimble. When the Secondary Committee completed their task last year all of the requirements they suggested fit into the Academy Model. More and more schools are going to this model in some way or other. A very forward thinking school in the Kansas City area is using a type of Academy Model successfully in conjunction with local businesses. The community is stepping up because they are educated on the importance of staying on top of our changing society, not trying to beat it to death by doing the same thing over and over! Perhaps Dr. Mitchell has been listening very carefully to what our students need and realizes this is what is best!
spelchek 7 months ago
"A very forward thinking school in the Kansas City area is using a type of Academy Model successfully in conjunction with local businesses." -- Guess who our biggest employer is and sets wage standards in this area. A 21st century idea in education to work in conjunction with the lowest paying wages doesn't sound "forward" to me. Until that changes, those who take advantage of the new system and have ambition will continue to leave this area. Our state government is the albatross for JC in terms of competitive salaries.
JCLifer 7 months ago
Low salaries = low property valuations = low taxes with no room to increase them.
It all goes back to the very low salaries and lack of good employers in this town. That is what is holding this town back so, and that is why the youngsters leave and never come back. Guess the cheap cost of livng is great for the older folks, so they move in. Jefferson City is growing older and older eveyr day. Many old people can afford more taxes, but are not going to pay because they don't have kids in the district. Vicious circle over and over.
dokeus6 5 months, 1 week ago
Excellent post spel.
JCLifer 7 months ago
The academy enrollment will need to be balanced out. Aptitude testing will probably continue to sort the smart kids to the smart programs, and the dumb kids to the dumb programs. You can't mix the bad with the good. The rich parents will call and complain. Worse yet, they may withdrawl their athletic $upport.
TickledPink 7 months ago
While I don't fully agree with the acadamy idea, I DO think we need to start teaching kids according to their actual ability and stop with the cookie cutter classrooms. Of my children I had 2 gifted and 1 above average. Putting them in a class with students who, when I was in school, would have been in LD classes, does neither set any good.
mikemojc 5 months, 1 week ago
Especially when teachers have to teach to the 'Lowest Common Denominator'.
rollnthndr 7 months ago
Secondary schools committee was formed to promote the academy approach. Many schools are adopting the academy approach as part of their approach to education. We will potentially have a high school serving over 3,000 + students. Two high schools serving 1500 students each offering academies would have smaller classes and smaller a academies.
This proposal being pitched by the district will end up costing closer to $100 million. Why? We have not been given a cost estimate of what it will cost to replace Thorpe Gordon elementary. These are all questions which must be answered.
The Mitchell administration did not listen to the community rather they felt the need to promote another approach over what the community felt was important. It may be time for Mr. Mitchell to get out in the community rather than spending all his time at the country club, compliments of the taxpayers of the JCPS system.
kentheco 7 months ago
Using any Kansas City area school as a "good" example is disturbing. Didn't both Kansas City and St Louis get millions of Missouri tax dollars to fix their schools and then didn't both lose their accreditation? Still haven't heard any plans on how the district is going to feed over 2,000 students also, isn't segregating students simply because of academic over sports goals wrong? Didn’t the previous talk of two high schools fail because some of the academic minded students also played sports and they (school board) couldn’t figure how to move the students between the “academic goals” school to the “athletic goals” school so that Jefferson City could maintain the large student base for the sports program?
JCsleeper 7 months ago
Billions.
lovebeingmom 7 months ago
kentheco you should check the school out. It is in Johnson Co. Kansas. It is in the Blue Valley School District which is one of the best districts in Kansas. The program is called CAPS. Many businesses are partnering with the school because they understand the importance of changing education and keeping up with the times! The idea of having two high schools does not seem to be the most beneficial and cost effective. If we had two schools we would have to renovate the existing high school which could take a very long time. How would students be able to learn as building and construction were going on? The price to run two completely different campuses would be much greater. There are many costs associated with having two. The decision to have academies was not based on athletics! It's about moving our district forward!
Dano 7 months ago
Lovebeingmom, I guess we should stop going to JCMG ALSO since they are building on and improving the facility. What is the price to the tax payers to build a second high school in ten years because the Mega School is at maximum capacity? The price to run two different schools? We already are. Did you forget about Simonsen?
kentheco 7 months ago
I am quite familiar with Johnson County Kansas. Before you compare Jefferson City to any community in Johnson County, you might want to check this site ”w.w.w.jccc.edu/about/profile.html” where you’ll find that the county residents tend to be rather conservative. Of the over 360,000 registered voters in the county in 2010, 48% were registered as Republicans and 22% as Democrats. Earnings of those working in Johnson County between 1997 and 2007 accounted for “36% of the total earnings of Kansas workers.” Johnson County's per capita personal income in 2008 was $54,395, the highest in the state and the median household income was $76,250”. Compare this to Cole County which has a per capita income of $20,739 and a median household income of $42,924. There are six “Unified School Districts” and, according to the 2010 Census, 95.6% of residents 25 years and older are high school graduates or higher, 51.1% have a bachelor's degree or higher, and 17.9% possess graduate or professional degrees. In Overland Park alone, there are fourteen high schools with the Shawnee Mission and Blue Valley School Districts being the second and third largest employers in Overland Park, only topped by Sprint Nextel which employed approximately 18,500. An average residence in Overland Park has an appraised value of $244,212 (2012, Johnson County Appraiser’s Office) and Johnson County has an estimated assessed valuation of $2.63 billion. Overland Park is also home to Oak Park Mall, with 1,800,000 sq. ft. and 200 stores, it is the largest mall, both in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area and the states of Kansas and Missouri. There is no way the Jefferson City can achieve what has occurred in the Johnson County Kansas Schools without having the employment opportunities either in the city or county and the income and assessed valuation levels where the Blue Valley School District is located. You can find additional information about the Blue Valley High School, design, layout and facilities, and the other five Unified School Districts, on the internet.
RobHunterJohnson 7 months ago
Thank s Ken! Rob
JCLifer 7 months ago
Comparing backwater Jefferson City to Johnson County, KS, or Ladue, MO is a total waste of time. We live in a very poor community, and people here are stuggling every week to pay their bills and just trying to afford their $4/ gallon gas and milk. We are not even middle class here- we are near poverty wages. How can we ever expect to have decent schools when mosrt of the people here make very little money?
Once again, the extremely low wages and lack of good paying jobs in this town are severely holding it back. i do not understand why our community leaders, including the Chamber of Commerce, City Council, County Commission, Jaycees, and all the various civic clubs do not come together and work on a way to grow the local economy and get higher wages in this town. If it takes the Unions to help, bring them in. This town is dieing on the vine and starving due to very low wages. If we had better wages, the taxes could be higher and people could all have a much higher standard of living.
JCLifer 7 months ago
Kansas City schools have tried the academy model years ago and it totally failed after wasting millions of dollars.
Big schools are a very bad idea. We have needed two high schools for years. The district administration is so out of touch with the voters. This thing will fail bigger than TRANSFORMATION!
Crump 7 months ago
Having attended JC in the 60s, I can see many differences from then to now. We didn't have police in school, we had Mr. A. We won sports events because we had pride, not because Coach Pete was running everybody off by playing his son at quarterback. We had parents that cared and we knew what was right. The parents today have created this problem, and now think the schools should fix it. Good Luck!
interested_party 7 months ago
What a joke! For those of you who actually read the article, what makes Dan Ortmeyer an expert on public education!? The JCNT basically gave him a platform for his opinion and it should have been put in the opinion section, not the front page. Oh and by the way, he may have went to JCHS, but his kids don't! He is so concerned about public education that he chose to forgo it for his own kids!?
Dano 7 months ago
interested_party: I suggest you ask Allen Mudd who is on the school board, where his kids went to school. Helias partner. Now here is a school board member who has a double standard. By the way I went completely through the public schools here in Jeff City. East, Simonsen, Freshman High ( performing arts building) and JC. I have a right to voice my opinion how my tax dollars are used.
RobHunterJohnson 7 months ago
Dano, I agree with you, I did not go to school here in Jefferson City, I did go to Parkway, with over 800 kids in my senior class (75). They tried all sort of gimmicks on us in the late 60s and 70s, the worst one was a pod class room enviroment? I have no children involved, I want to see these kids get a good education, and to see my tax dollars spent right! We need 2 High Schools, not a super academic complex, their purchase was not wasted they can build other school buildings as the need arises. If they wanted a new High School, why did they build their football field, to give it away for pennies on the dollar? Ther late 70s, the plan was 4 JR Highs playing intramuraly into one High School? That says it all! Rob
rollnthndr 7 months ago
Yes "interested_party" I did read the article, did you? Mr. Ortmeyer was not holding himself out as an expert on public education, but rather as a citizen concerned about the direction our school leaders want to take our education system. If you were to get involved in causes that you believed in you would be given the same opportunity to speak your opinion. Maybe you already do get involved in our community and we need more people who are willing to step up to make this a better place to live.
If you would look at how many former "Jays" sent their kids to Helias in the last 10 - 20 years you would probably here the same reasons Mr. Ortmeyer sent his kids there. Smaller school, smaller class sizes, and discipline ( bad word in this day and age). Why don't you ask the former Jefferson City residents who have moved to the Taos/Wardsville area so there childeren could attend Blair Oaks? Many current staff memebers of the JCPS live outside the district so there children can attend schools other than what is offered here in Jeff City.
We definitely need a change in our education system here. Why don't we start with making our students more accountable for their education rather than school distric? Students are leaving our system today who do not possess skills to get a job. Is that the fault of the district? In most cases you will find it the individual students own fault. "Jay Pride" is just a term the district likes to throw around today. We know longer live it.
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