By MEGHAN BRADBURY

news@breezenewspapers.com

Parents soon will have an opportunity to weigh in on the School District of Lee County’s proximity plan for elementary school attendance.

Stakeholders have been meeting since September to come up with scenarios for what is being called the Elementary School Proximity Project for the Lee County School District.

Davis Demographics Senior Project Manager David Kaitz told the school board that over the last two months, the group began focusing on creating additional boundary scenarios and strategized on just how to accomplish that. The group is made up of 60 stakeholders, 30 from the district and 30 from the community.

The community stakeholders group draws from individuals from areas such as civic and nonprofit organizations; the district stakeholders are school staff, administrators and staff from different district divisions.

Board member Melisa Giovannelli asked how many parents are part of the stakeholders group.

“It’s really important to have the parents’ input because it is their children that is being transported and it affects their children,” she said.

Although the district did not single out parents only for stakeholders, there very well may be parents that are part of the group, she was told.

Superintendent Dr. Greg Adkins said what was intended was to get a lot of input from very involved members of the community in the initial phase of the boundaries they are reviewing.

“We are not going to be able to do this successfully unless we get a lot of community engagement and support. I was a part of this district when we used to have boundaries. Your points are well taken. I understand we have to get the community engaged in this and the community buy in. This will be a big change, a more sustainable and durable system. In order to do this effectively, we have to get shareholders’ input and part of that process moving forward involves those key stakeholders,” Adkins said.

The meetings were held virtually, due to the COVID-19 social distance environment. The next meeting, which will be held next month, will, however, be in person with social distance measures in effect.

Kaitz said the stakeholders were divided into three groups regionally, with 10 district and 10 community stakeholders comprising the west, east and south regions of the district.

“We would then meet for three consecutive days for each group,” he explained.

The first round of meetings took place in the middle of September and lasted about 90 minutes. The groups zoomed into their specific regions to try to come up with initial scenarios that were grouping three to four schools per region.

“Each of the three groups on their own requested the technical group to go back to the drawing board to come up with additional scenarios to share with the three groups,” Kaitz said.

Three more scenarios were brought back to the second round of meetings, which happened in early October. The conversations shared what the stakeholders liked and did not like, which resulted in additional slight adjustments.

The third workshop began on Oct. 20 with the west group, followed by the east group on Wednesday and the south group on Thursday.

“We have decided to do our first in-person group meeting on Nov. 10,” Kaitz said. That will be a three-hour session.

The hope is by the end of the meeting to have two to three initial plans, or scenarios, maps that can be shared with the general public. There will be three to four meetings strategically placed across the district to allow the public to come in and look at the maps and talk with the stakeholders. The comments will be collected and then shared when the stakeholders reconvene in January with its new forecast.

Due to additional meetings with the stakeholder groups, the schedule was shifted a little for when the proximity plan would go before the public from October to November.

“Considering we have another eight months to go, two weeks didn’t alter the overall presentation in July,” Kaitz said, which will go before the board.

Board member Gwyn Gittens asked how they will keep things equitable once the lines are drawn.

Kaitz said right now the existing boundaries are equal and diverse. He said they will first focus on the boundaries of the map before moving into the policy portion of the work. After the new year Kaitz said they will come up with policy to achieve equity and diversity.

When the plans are brought to the community, Kaitz said they will use the platform as their initial introduction to the public of their plans.

“We will take input from every public person that attends those meetings, or have an opportunity to look at these maps through your website. We will reconvene as a group in January and look at every comment. We are going back to the public at least one or two more times. We will definitely get input from the public and we want their input,” he said. “This will not be presented as take it as it is. There will be an interactive process with the public.”

Board member Betsy Vaughn asked what the district can do now to ease the transition once the proximity plan comes to fruition for elementary schools that are going to be affected, addressing such things as clubs, baseline curriculum and before and after school care.

Adkins said they have begun to have expansion of before and after school programs, so the district can have equitable efforts, so no matter where the student attends school there will be quality before and after school care. The district has also spent time in reducing the number of schools with poor scores, so everyone has an opportunity to attend a really good school.

Kaitz reminded the school board that the proximity plan will not be implemented until the 2022-2023 school year. He said once the boundaries are adopted in July 2021, there will be plenty of time to address those issues and topics

“We want to make sure that through whatever boundaries we come up with, there is equal access to programs as well,” Kaitz said.

The board also raised concern about not being involved in the process, having the ability to attend the meetings.

Board Attorney Kathy Dupuy-Bruno said in order for board members to attend the meetings it has to be properly noticed as a public meeting, which then opens up attendance to the public.

District staff shared that the stakeholder meetings are internal and so not public meetings.

Adkins shared his opinion that the stakeholders are a working group trying to work on a presentation to recommend to the school board.

Dupuy-Bruno said the proximity plan will be brought before the board for a vote.

“I prefer that board members not attend,” she said of the meetings.

Giovannelli said the proximity plan is an important discussion and board should be kept in the loop.

“A final recommendation is not being made. They are just talking through a process. The working group needs to have an opportunity to gather information and data and come back to present to the board. Board members should not be involved in that part of the nitty gritty,” Dupuy-Bruno said. “When the decision comes to the board, the board can make a decision about the recommendation.”

The Nov. 10 meeting, which will be held at the district’s office, will be recorded, so board members may watch.