Legacy Academy Blog

3 responses so far ↓

• 1 brooksy // Feb 26, 2008 at 10:32 pm

  Speaking only for myself, you don’t need a room full of professionals to work out a sock hop. To go from the substantive discussions that followed the last meeting, to a bunch of lip service about a high school that will never exist without a great deal of serious planning, is just passing strange.

  A future planning process needs concrete goals, specific tasks, and measurable progress in those tasks toward the enumerated goals. Sub-committee-level maunderings are inappropriate for large general meetings, else, why even have sub-committees! This FPC meeting ran like a coffee klatsch, not a serious meeting. Often people carried on private conversations without regard for others already speaking in the room.

  The tenor of things raised a concern in me about the lack of a coherent chain-of-command in the school. The idea of board of directors leadership flowing through the administration, administration leadership flowing through the staff, and staff leadership flowing through the students, seems to not exist at Legacy. I see a lot of superficial consensus without much direction. It leaves one wondering about who runs things at Legacy.

  It’s probably clear at this point that this particular FPC incarnation has no interest in taking bold steps to build out the high school. They don’t even discuss it.

• 2 Michelle MacEgan // Feb 28, 2008 at 9:08 am

  Speaking only for myself, I don’t believe you have to insult and belittle to get your point across. Why is it that people think that put downs are expectable in a forum that was created to improve the school not only the building but also the atmosphere. The meeting had an agenda and proceeded to move through the agenda. There were over lapping topics and part of the purpose for the meeting was to bring new leadership to areas of concern. The PR committee was charged with action items, The Student council was charged with action items. The social committee was charge with action items. The teacher committee is still looking for leadership. The teacher support committee was charged with action item. The only topic on the agenda that was not discussed in detail was the facility committee, which needs a leader. I thought the agenda was stuck to and much was accomplished.
  Some people would like to put the cart before the horse. We cannot expect to build out a school that dose not support its current population. It seems that the future planning committee would need to figure out some basics before forging into a large building and more financial burdens. Can we get this community of parents and teachers to support the K-12 program? Until that happens we seem to be at a dead end. With out buy in from the community the school will continue to struggle to retain students at a higher level.

  THIS SCHOOL HAS TAKEN BOLD STEPS TO ATTEMPT A K-12 PROGRAM!

  It would be another bold step to open the communication and create a school atmosphere that not only gives lip service to CHARACTER but also actually displays character throughout the school with every staff member to every student to every Parent. We should respect the fact that we all want the same thing. A school that our children can be proud of, a learning environment that promotes academics and creativity for our children. A parent driven school that want something a little different then the school up the street.

  Speaking only for my self I and Happy the school is BOLD enough to start taking steps to build up this community again and to hopefully create an atmosphere at legacy that all our students matter K-12

  Michelle MacEgan

• 3 brooksy // Feb 28, 2008 at 1:21 pm

  This is a chain of emails in response to my criticism above. They weren’t written for a public audience, however, since I have been made into a public issue and this blog is about full disclosure, here they are.

  FPC discussions

  Here’s the bottom line for me folks. I stand by the ideas and analysis I have thus far put forward about building out this high school. I stand by what I believe to be the constructive criticisms of the FPC process I’ve made, and I stand by the defenses I have had to make. Hey, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, consider that stipulated in spades.

  For my family at Legacy the clock is ticking. If we don’t start the high school addition this summer, and we can’t offer a fully functional high school to my student by the Fall of 2009, then we’ll have to evaluate what is available at Legacy compared to other alternatives and decide accordingly when the time comes. I’d like my student to remain with his friends and the teaching community he’s done well in, but it’s just not fair to put him into an incomplete high school.

  Even though my own interest is at stake, I believe the school’s interest parallels my own. Legacy is in limbo right now, distressed over this issue, stuck in ambiguity. It needs to fish or cut bait. People cannot build their lives around uncertainty. The prospect of a foreseeable future of more limbo is frankly uninspiring and nothing about a school should be uninspiring. That’s a huge disservice to the kids.

  No interim solution has been devised that itself does not create more problems and further exacerbate long term fruition of a fully functional high school.

  So it’s in my own family’s interest that this process move forward concretely, strategically, decisively, without reservation, and successfully. Our leadership needs to express the goal – thumbs up or down – and the whole school needs to implement it.

  To the Board – Pull your thumbs out of the wind and make a solid decision. All of you.

  To the Administration and Staff – Follow the direction of the board and quit following your own agendas.

  To the Parents – Hold the Board, Administration and Staff accountable.

  To the Students – Hold all of these adults to your highest expectations. Make them earn your respect.