Schools to Host "Community Conversations" sessions

[Christine Gordillo]

The Lakewood City Schools will be holding two community gatherings this month. District officials will spend some time addressing the district's financial status and the challenges ahead and then it will be community members' turn to offer thoughts and feeback. We encourage everyone to attend one of the following sessions:

Tuesday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m., Horace Mann Cafetorium or
Wednesday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m., Emerson Cafetorium

Hope to see you there!

[sharon kinsella]

Why would anyone even bother? Look what happened with the work residents did about school closings. Completely ignore.

Big waste of time.

[Melissa Page]

Christine, I was glad to see you post this notice on the Deck. I hope you will continue to post things like this on the Deck. Knowing you are the community relations person for the schools and also a Lakewood resident and mother of children in the public schools I'd like to see you share more here.

May I also remind and encourage you and everyone out there to post school events that you think would be good for the Lakewood Observer readers to know about to the LO website Home Page Calendar. I've been volunteering my time to build it as the most complete Lakewood community calendar. (As soon as I heard about the community meetings I posted them on the calendar so they are already on). It's exciting to see all that gets put on there from every corner and type in Lakewood.

Thanks,Mel

[Christine Gordillo]

Hope to see many of you tonight. If you can't make it this evening, please try to attend the Oct. 20 session at Emerson.

And Mel, you might notice a slew of new school events added to the LO calendar recently .

[Danielle Masters]

I was not able to make the meeting, can anyone summarize what was discussed for those of us who couldn't go?

[Betsy Voinovich]

Hi everybody--

I too would like to hear about what happened at the Community Conversation last week. There is another one tomorrow night, and if we could get an overview of what happened, maybe more of us could prepare for tomorrow, with some good questions/suggestions.

From what I did hear, Dr. Madak had a lot of information to share, and was very responsive to the questions put to him by members of the community.

I'm going to contact the Board today to see if they can videotape this next one, for all of us who can't make it-- and would like to hear the comments of our neighbors. It sounds like it was very informative.

Kristine? Christina? We know you were there.

Thanks!

Betsy

[Christine Gordillo]

Thanks for the reminder about the meeting, Betsy! I was just logging on to do the same when I saw your post. I think that those in attendance last week would agree a lot of valuable information was shared by Dr. Madak, who was able to explain some very complicated financial scenarios in a way we are all able to understand. He does the same with the complex State Report Card system, explaining how it is that our district's student achievement is improving while our Report Card rating went down. I've attached the article I wrote for today's Observer giving an overview of last week's session. I hope one of the community members in attendance might also chime in. It is so important that our community understand the financial forces at work that impact our district and equally important that the Superintendent hear back from the community on issues of concern to them and suggestions on working together.

Christine Gordillo
Communications & PR Specialist
Lakewood City Schools

[Betsy Voinovich]

Hi Christine,

Thanks for the synopsis of the last Community Conversation in today's Observer. I just read your link. It sounds like a lot got done. I was wondering if you could find out about having the one tomorrow videotaped, probably should have asked you first--- I enjoyed your article, but it points out that there's no way to really get the specifics unless you attend-- and many of us can't--and it would be so helpful to the community to be able to tune in to see the meeting, either online or on cable.

It's great that the District is engaging in dialogue with the community. I would love it if the results of these Conversations were posted online, and in the Observer for the members of our community who don't do a lot of things online, but read the newspaper.

It's clear from the support that the last levy got that the community cares a lot-- I think the more opportunities we get to engage, and share in what's going on, the more support there will be.

You are doing a great job by the way. I think now everyone knows to turn to you to get the pulse of the District and you make it clear and compelling. Thank you.

Kristine and Christina, and Katie, and everybody else that was there.. I, like Christine G. would like to hear some more from people who were there--- maybe that could help people prepare for tomorrow night's meeting, and build on what was brought up at the last one.

Thanks a lot.

Betsy

[Kate McCarthy]

Christine,

I believe your article summed up the meeting quite nicely. Do you think if it's not possible to broadcast the meeting that the power point slides could be posted on the school's website?

Betsy the meeting repeated much of what has been presented at board meetings so I think the best way to prepare is to think of questions you would like addressed at the meeting. The questions are presented to the superintendent in writing so you could prepare them in advance.

[Christine Gordillo]

Dr. Madak's presentation on Wednesday will be videotaped and posted on the web site as well as on Channel 74.