Sentinel
& Enterprise
School committee
member criticizes planning process for school expansion
By Kyle Alspach
Tuesday, February
7, 2006 - FITCHBURG -- School Committee member Patrick Magnan said
Monday he believes the committee hasn't been included in the planning
of the expanded Museum Partnership School, to the disagreement of several
other members.
Magnan said he felt
"pressured" to accept the plan to expand the school and convert
it into a school which would follow the model of the Boston pilot schools.
"You told us
you were going to make this School Committee a part of the process,
and we weren't made a part of the process," Magnan said during
the committee's meeting Monday, addressing Fitchburg Art Museum Director
of Education Roger Dell and others involved with the transition.
Magnan said he hadn't
been given the chance to visit any pilot schools in Boston and hadn't
been asked to be on the design committee for the school.
He was also unsure
about whether paying for an expanded school would be sustainable, given
the budget cuts of recent years.
Mayor Dan H. Mylott,
School Committee chairman, said the committee "hasn't been pressured
by anybody" to approve the new plan.
"I think that's
a gross misrepresentation by Mr. Magnan that we have been pressured
in any way," Mylott said. "I just think that is just incorrect."
Under the Boston
pilot schools model, each school is given more control over its budget,
curriculum and other matters.
Fitchburg would
be the first district in the country to follow the Boston model in any
of its schools.
School Committee
member Marcus DiNatale said he felt the members of the public-private
partnership planning the transition had been "very open" with
him, while Committee Vice-Chairman James Connors also said he didn't
agree with Magnan's assessment.
"If you feel
pressure at any time, you can abstain from voting," Connors said.
The Museum Partnership
School serves 167 students in grades 5-8, but is now a part of B.F.
Brown Middle School.
MPS will become
an independent school this September. Officials say it will become a
feeder school for a new arts-oriented high school as well.
A ninth grade will
be added to the school for the 2007-2008 school year, and another grade
will join the school over the following three years, officials have
said.
Teachers at the
school integrate art in the teaching of traditional academic lessons.
The school will
become independent through the help of a $600,000 grant from the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation.
The grant was secured
by the Center for Collaborative Education, a non-profit which has worked
with the pilot schools in Boston.
The center's executive
director, Dan French, attended the School Committee meeting Monday.
French said the
increased control given to the Boston pilot schools has had a major
impact on student learning. The pilot schools model was first used in
Boston in 1995, he said.
He said the pilot
schools have outpaced other Boston schools in every category, from MCAS
scores to attendance.
"We feel like
that's a pretty compelling reason to look at how you begin to create
a new breed of urban schools," French said. "Fitchburg is
the first district outside the Boston Public Schools that is engaging
in this type of innovative reform."
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