This is in response to John Vander Meulen’s letter to the editor in the August 2004 New Falcon Herald about Falcon School District 49.Mr. Vander Meulen has overlooked some facts in his letter. Over the last six to eight years, Falcon School District 49 has offered increasing levels of choice to its public in spite of the overcrowding. For several years now, Project Lead the Way has provided pre-engineering at Sand Creek High School for those interested, with those at Falcon High eligible to travel to Sand Creek for the program. A Cisco networking program, more advanced placement classes, information technology, a hotel, travel and tourism course and ROTC have all been added over the last few years. A health careers program will be added next fall (2005) – all to supplement the already-in-place opportunities for qualified students to attend Pikes Peak Community College and UCCS for higher education while still in high school.With IEPs (individual education plans) and ILPs (individual literacy plans) to meet each student’s particular needs, the district can help the student achieve to the best of his/her ability at all grade levels. Much of a child’s success, too, depends on the student’s ability and work ethic and the family support. Many people today seem to think education happens by osmosis, not hard work. Students and parents have as much or more responsibility for the child’s learning than the school district does by instilling a good work ethic and by cultivating a child’s natural curiosity and interest in learning. Choice is available within D49 to meet individual students’ programmatic needs whether in elementary, middle or high school. Students are either placed in the school with the program they need or may travel to another school for a particular program.District 49 has been striving for at least the last few years to improve both quality of academics and available facilities for its students. Improving program quality does not always show on tests, as many incoming students from lower performing districts can dilute test scores. In spite of this, D49 has improving scores and has never had a low performing school until it got the Pikes Peak School of Expeditionary Learning as a charter school- a quasi-private public school, which, in its 5-year history under an Academy District 20 charter, only managed to have an “average” rating at its middle school level last year. All of its other academic ratings for elementary and middle school levels for those 5 years were low. It remains to be seen if it has held that one average rating for this past year. Students who began their school careers there five years ago will have spent their entire elementary careers in a low-performing school- a terrible waste of their potential. Once a child has lost those basics that should be learned in elementary school, they generally cannot make up the lost ground. Any other school in D49 or D20 should have been able to provide an IEP and a better individual education for these children.Choice can be a good thing- there are some excellent private schools, but the choice to put a child in a low-performing school, especially year after year, does not speak well of the parents’ concern for their child’s education, only of the parents’ resentment of public education for whatever reason. Can public schools be improved? Certainly. There is always room for improvement. But they are generally not as bad as some people perceive.As for facilities in D49, the board and administration over the last six to eight years have delivered far more than they promised on ballot measures. Bond projects all came in on or ahead of schedule and on or under budget. The savings from those that came in under budge and capital reserve money saved through frugal, conservative management practices built at least 29 additional mortar and brick classrooms throughout the district. Had all those been in one location, they would have constituted a complete additional school.This is no small feat considering the low level of state funding to D49 over those years and the fact that the district has nearly the lowest tax rate in the Pikes Peak Region. These additional classrooms amount to a full school without asking taxpayers for an additional cent. Unfortunately, there is a limit to how many more classrooms the district can deliver without more help from the public. This November’s mill levy increase is absolutely necessary for the good of district students.I agree with Mr. Vander Meulen that public education needs to offer more choices. D49 is continuing to do so by adding more programs, such as those mentioned above, each year, and by providing specialized help for those students who need it at all grade levels. This help is more readily available when the public supports its schools and does not expect its children to learn in gymnasiums with partitions as the only thing separating the teachers’ and children’s voices in a large, acoustically unsatisfactory room; or in portable classrooms where winter’s winds often howl above the teacher’s voice.Shyrl SpringerCo-chair of the D 49 Commitment for Kids Committee
