Following seven months of input about the future of education in Park City from educators, parents, students, community members and city and county officials, GSBS Consultants will present a range of options to the Board of Education April 16.
GSBS is currently in the process of creating education scenarios and evaluating them using the Guiding Principles, educational specifications, and criteria developed by task force groups. “The options will reflect the community’s vision and make the decision-making more objective,” says Clio Rayner, project manager.
Board members will get their first look at the options during its regular board meeting on April 16 beginning at 4 p.m. at the District Office.
“One of our biggest take-aways was how much agreement we saw from teachers, students, parents and administrators around the district’s mission and values and the Guiding Principles,” says Rayner. “As we moved through the process we kept revisiting these visioning pieces and each time they were reaffirmed.”
The Guiding Principles were developed earlier this fall during the Future of Learning Summit, an all-day workshop with teachers, students, and community members. Throughout the day major themes emerged when the group considered what students would need in the future to continue to be successful learners.
The educational specifications use the Guiding Principles and outline how learning spaces can be designed to help support this vision for education, Rayner says. The specifications were developed with the input of teachers and administrators during five learning leader forum meetings. The specifications will be used to evaluate the current facilities and identify ways to improve schools that focus on education first.
The consulting team is also analyzing the physical condition of the facilities including architectural, site, structural, mechanical, plumbing and electrical components. Each school is also being reviewed for educational sustainability.
During discussions with the Steering Committee, “hot topics” that would directly impact master planning decisions were identified. Task force groups were created for grade alignment, school/class size, school location, Treasure Mountain Junior High, the Kearns campus, and transportation.
“The task forces were asked to develop criteria for decision making that related to each topic. That criteria will be used to evaluate different master planning options moving forward,” Rayner says. “We didn’t ask the task forces to solve the problems, but rather asked them to develop criteria for evaluating solutions to the problem.”
Rayner said it’s important for the community to know that no single option will satisfy all community concerns. “There is still hard work to be done by the district and the community to consider which trade-offs the community is willing to make. Our job is to present the options that reflect the community’s vision and to do it in a way that makes the decision-making more objective.”
The community is invited to visit the Future of Learning website here for more information.