The Observation Deck

Lakewood residents have always cared about schools, they came out again to prove it.

Tonight's final Community Engagement meeting, Superintendent Patterson's summation of 25 meetings with over 800 parents, teachers, senior citizens, young professionals not only packed the house (the East Cafeteria at Lakewood High) but rocked the house.


Superintendent Jeffrey Patterson addresses the crowd.

He summed up over 600 separate concerns, organized them into coherent topics and effectively told us what we said and gave us another chance to respond, add, or update and convinced the room that very close attention had been paid at every session. He presented us a picture of a proactive, concerned and capable community, saying that Lakewood as a community is stronger than most.

He concluded his presentation saying, "The buck stops here, and I accept the challenge."

He intends to make final recommendations to the Board of Ed by May 7th and assured those gathered that this was just the beginning of a long and beautiful and respectful relationship between the community and the District. Excellent job.





Betsy Voinovich

Sorry I haven't been able to attend these - with class from 6-8pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have just been too busy or exhausted (and tonight was the midterm so I really couldn't skip!). Very glad to have you there paying attention, Betsy. Did he give any details? Is there a summary of what he heard from the community and his take on things?

Sick baby fussing, gotta run.

There is a COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT tab on the Lakewood City Schools' website where you can find notes from recent meetings. I believe Superintendent Patterson said his presentation would be posted soon as well.

http://lakewoodcityschools.org/docs/Com ... ponses.pdf

The best news of the night came when it was announced that the Lakewood Teachers Association is willing to work with the district to help find ways to close the budget shortfall. Mr. Patterson made no promises but said it was a positive sign.

Despite tough times, it was wonderful to see so many coming together to address community challenges.

Thanks for the link, Meg. I have been extremely distracted by other life realms and missed that.

Reading through that PDF, here are a few things (biting my tongue HARD on the "teachers are overpaid and drive fancy cars" comment... WHY that is appropriate to say and document about public workers with advance degrees that are devoting their career lives to improving communities but NOT about private-sector workers of similar college degree status who are paid much more and on average contribute much less to our communal health... ok.. .so I can't bite my tongue ).

Project MORE - some folks might not know what this is, http://www.ohioprojectmore.org/ for more info.

... OK I just noticed the length of that PDF... I got through the Hayes part only. Perhaps someone else can put some added links/information for any points in the other parts of the document that might not be obvious to people who haven't been involved in the process?

The script of last night's meeting with Superintendent Patterson is now available on the district web site for those who were unable to attend.

[url]http://tinyurl.com/7fncgsd
[/url]

Christine Gordillo
Communications & PR Specialist
Lakewood City Schools

This is a link to the Superintendent's Community Engagement Report in pdf form.

All 42 pages, an LO exculsive!

http://media.lakewoodobserver.com/media/docs_1331322976.pdf

And the Superintendent's script in pdf format.

http://media.lakewoodobserver.com/media/docs_1331333881.pdf

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