School Committee Welcomes Student Leaders

Monday night Wayland School Committee members welcomed to their meeting student leadership from during an annual feedback gathering.

“It’s a longstanding tradition for the School Committee to have student leaders come in,” Superintendent Gary Burton said, adding that the informal meeting is intended to bring together students on the receiving end of education and committee members on the policy end.

Five students, Dan Hong, student council treasurer; Daniel Kim, student council vice president; Lauren Colwell, class of 2011 president; Lina Cowen, student council president; and Zoe Corner, student council secretary responded to questions from school committee members and offered opinions regarding their experiences at WHS.

The construction of the new high school came up as School Committee members sought to understand its impact on the students’ day-to-day school experiences. Overall, the students were positive about the situation, even saying the earth-shaking bangs and crashes heard occasionally were “exciting” and reminded everyone that they were connected in the situation.

“Given the circumstances, we’ve done really well adapting,” Corner said, adding that even sharing a parking space hadn’t been that big of a deal to her.

The students were invited to be candid in their responses, not withholding any negative feedback they wanted to offer. Though the overall tone was positive and complimentary of their time at WHS, the students did mention that a move to alter or cancel senior traditions – moving prom to Saturday next year, originally canceling Senior Show (it did take place though it wasn’t on the calendar at the beginning of the school year, students said), asking parents to avoid hosting parties after particular events, etc. – felt a bit stifling to the students.

Admitting that she understands administration’s goal is to keep students safe, Corner said the letters to parents requesting no parties, for instance, felt like administrators were “Stepping out of the place as our school advisers and into our home lives.”

Throughout the roughly 30-minute dialogue, committee members listened to students and asked questions, but didn’t offer comment on the students’ input, saying that they were appreciative of the feedback and time the students had devoted.

Middle school fields discussion

Following the meeting with students, the School Committee continued in primarily a listening role as it opened the floor to public comment.

The proposed fields at Wayland Middle School were discussed as a WMS neighbor asked the School Committee to consider the various curriculum uses of the current middle school forest, which would be partially removed to make way for the fields.

“I am not aware of any other middle school in the area who has an asset like this,” she said, noting several curriculum uses for the field including that the seventh grade curriculum devotes an entire unit to ecosystem study, which is often completed in the forest. “We ask you to maintain this natural classroom space.”

Brud Wright, recreation commission member, asked the School Committee to abstain from taking any further votes until an already approved land study could be completed.

“What I’m hoping that you would do is wait for the process to work its way through to some kind of conclusion,” Wright said. “We would like all the input that all the neighbors and any other [people] in town would like to provide [and then] take that input and include the experts necessary to answer those questions. We need to get the facts  …  so that we can make a good decision for everybody.”

Earlier this year, the School Committee voted to support the debt exclusion question on the town election ballot. That question passed and allowed the town to borrow the funds necessary to study the middle school land for field space.

School committee member Barb Fletcher, later that night elected School Committee chair, said that the committee would again consider the project once the study of the land had been completed.

For now, the committee agreed to let the study proceed and wait to take another vote until the land study results were made available. .

Other business

- Voted unanimously to decline participation in Massachusetts’ School Choice program.
- Approved 2012-13 calendar. The school year will be Sept. 4, 2012-June 17, 2013.
- Elected Fletcher chair and Beth Butler vice chair.