Community Listen & Learn - Chute Middle School

Thank you to all of the individuals who invested the time to engage in our Listen & Learn sessions regarding the Structural Deficit Reduction Plan.

Meeting summaries were created to provide increased transparency across the community and to provide insight as to the perspectives and thoughts across various stakeholders.

Robust conversation took place across sessions and content from the meetings were summarized based on high level themes that emerged. In community and parent/caregiver advisory sessions, the responses to questions 1 and 2 were transcribed directly from the chart paper provided from the various groups. Identifying information has been removed and responses to question 3 are provided in summary form (not verbatim quotes).

An asterisk indicates that the idea was supported or named by other individuals within the session. The total number of participants does not include district facilitators.

Meeting details:

• Date and time: December 9, 2024 at 6:30 p.m.
• Location: Chute Middle School
• Number of active participants: 31

Question 1: As difficult decisions lie ahead to balance the budget, what are the top three priorities that you believe must be protected?

Meeting students where they are (support, acceleration, climate, and belonging) and using data to identify what works *******

Supporting teachers (recognizing teachers/building admin experience) **

Classroom Environment (student/teacher ratio/productive learning environment)

Equity Initiatives

___

Equitable access to services* 

• not all kids have an advocate*
• services are hard to get even with an advocate*

Productive classroom environment**

• Adequate staff in classrooms (all the time, from the beginning of the year)
• Appropriate class size
• Preserve teachers’ ability to teach each kid

TWI**

• More proactive Spanish speaker enrollment

Staffing in classrooms to make them more productive, support services that are needed

____

Top-quality teachers + retention ********

Academic excellence + rigor **********

• Bridge from D65 to D202
• Student support

Focus on inclusion + welcoming + supporting diverse families*

Fine arts classes for well-rounded education

Access to walkable schools****

• Builds community, lifelong relationships

Address deferred maintenance

______

Maintain programs (special education, TWI, ACC)

Neighborhood/community school *****

Academics *

Safety and accessibility

Long transition

Optionality on budget

Transparency with agreed decisions ****

_____

Educator retention/stability****

Counseling/support services

STEAM programming*

Equity work**

Facilities maintenance 

Environment/sustainability*

• Grant procurement
• Districtwide compost

TWI/ACC programming

Question 2: What programs or services do you consider most essential to maintain the quality of our students' education?

School lunch/breakfast (no food insecurity in the district)**

Streamlined afterschool programming (communication and access for bus-taking students)

IEP Services**

Literacy/Reading Specialists and paraprofessionals

Crossing guards

• Walkability/bike-ability

Field Trip/experiential learning opportunities (eg artist in residence)

PEP/PTA Coordination

TWI/ACC programming****

Differentiated instruction

District-wide restorative discipline

___

Individualized education (enrichments & MTSS)

School Age Child Care (SACC) (flexible before and aftercare)

Field Trips/special outside experiences*

Small class sizes (not 95% utilization/capacity)

Special education Services *

TWI*

Supports for academics/tutoring

Social Emotional Learning *

Not fans of Standards Based Grading

Departmentalize 3rd and 4th (like Dawes)

____

Strong and consistent curriculum*

• Math/English Language Arts & Arts - Add science K-5
• Magnet curriculum

Libraries/Arts*

Direct Student Supports*

• Interventionists/Acceleration
• Social workers

___

Teacher training and supports

• Maintain access to PD

Academic and skill-based clubs - have outsized (outside?) ROI

• Debate, chess, coding, STEM)

Fine Arts, music, PE

School Age Child Care

TWI *

• Increase outreach to boost enrollment

Special education services ***

Early childhood at JEH *

____

Fine Arts + PE + Language + social workers****

• Music, drama, art, library, computer science, SEEL

Social workers available to students *

• SEEL every year

Before and after school care **

• Why is there both RAS daily care and SACC?**

TWI and language services
 

Question 3: Please share any additional information that should be considered as we prioritize budget reductions.

What happens if federal dollars are reduced? What will be the impact?

Be cautious about decisions that are permanent or irreversible; permanent disposal of an asset like a school, must exercise extreme caution

Consider one time influx of cash (positive impact) or a more sustainable impact

Keep in mind what city is looking to do with zoning changes; developers might put in condo units that will eventually need the support of a school for students 

There is not another opportunity to replace the land where school buildings sit

Need to consider 50 year decisions

Get grant money from city or private foundations; dipping into reserves faster than anyone anticipated is probably a bad idea. If there is another way to raise money, consider that.

Avoid state takeover; what does that look like?

If families come back, does the district receive more money?

District should issue a survey of families on reasons for leaving and also understand why families come and they stay. There are some things in our control. Really good things are happening in our district.

Need for change management and communication, helping the community to understand why decisions are made and how they contribute to overall impact

Should be commended because there is a high level of transparency and engagement among this team, encouraging the management team to look at case studies from other districts who have gone through this and understand lessons learned.

Comprehensive study or assessment on why families left the district and will we remedy the things that drove them to leave?

Important for admin to give community a good view into roles and responsibilities of administration and how they impact student outcomes

Transparency around how the budget is spent and different ways of breaking it up - purposes don’t map directly to priorities - technology for example doesn’t seem to be used that well. Need to ensure that money spent is adding value

Looking at the window (Jan 13th - Jan 27th) as a short window for getting clarity on what is under consideration for cuts.