Buckman Arts Focus Elementary School

This email was sent today to the Buckman Yahoo Group from Site Council Chair Kevin Downing:

Hello Dear Buckman Community,

Site Council members, Shirley Alhadeff, Laura Goodman, Lindsey Grayzel,
Claudia Mason, Linda Nichenko, Regina Pirruccello, Dawn Roberts, Brad Smith
and myself, have been working diligently, although behind the scenes, on
further developing our K-8 proposal since our community meeting in October.
We have been looking at issues like teacher certification, floor plans for a
K-8 at Buckman, opportunities for electives and other challenges that can
come with changing to a K-8 configuration. As you also may recall, we have
done polling of both parents and teachers to gauge support for the concept
too. Parents are strongly in support while teachers are more mixed. We knew
this was going to be challenging but we have continued to remain committed
to addressing issues and concerns that have been raised to make sure we have
the best proposal possible. We also have been working hard to begin to
identify those areas where we would expect a substantial commitment from the
District in order to make a Buckman K-8 as successful as we have come to
expect with any Buckman effort.

Keep reading →

Please join us in the Buckman Cafetorium at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, October 24 to continue the discussions around becoming a K-8 school. This is a Site Council sponsored conversation, childcare is available, and all community members are welcome!

UPDATE:

Here's the Site Council's proposal (PDF).
And here's the letter from Site Council Chair Kevin Downing:

To the Buckman Community,

For many years the Buckman Site Council has focused on ways to sustain and enhance the special and marvelous learning community that is Buckman. Parents and children have found this to be a place where learning can thrive in a place where the arts are a part of the ordinary every day rather than an elective taken up when the serious work is done.

Sustaining an arts integrated focus to education beyond fifth grade has been a long standing concern. As it turns out a viable solution also raises the opportunity to create a stronger learning community at Buckman. We are offering for the community's consideration a proposal to configure Buckman as K-8 school. As you know it is becoming more common within the Portland Public School District because it continues to support students with an ongoing, safe and cohesive community through tumultuous years, supports greater parental involvement, allows 6th through 8th graders to remain less «socially sophisticated» while encouraging their leadership skills by mentoring younger students and can stabilize the Buckman enrollment.

We invite you to come to a community meeting on October 24th, 6:30 PM at Buckman to look at and discuss what a K-8 configuration would mean. In short, the transition would occur over several years by taking in fewer children at the lower levels and adding two classrooms per year at 6th, 7th and 8th grades. Site Council has developed a proposal but still needs input, approval and support from parents and teachers before submitting anything to the Superintendent and the School Board. This is not a «done deal»; we will need to hear from you if this is going to happen.

The proposal is a work in progress. You can direct comments or questions to me at 503.238.4665 or vandown@teleport.com.

Kevin Downing
Chair, Buckman Site Council