The Park City School District Master Planning process is focusing on how the district delivers education to its 4500 students. The Master Planning Committee continues its work collecting community and stakeholder input. The deadline for completion is May. Carolyn Murray has this:
A first round survey was completed last month. Stakeholders responded to one open ended question asking what three skills a Park City graduate needs to be adequately prepared for college and or career. Architectural Consultants GSBS Project Manager, Clio Reynor said input from the community stated critical thinking, problem solving, communication, study skills and time management were the most important skills high school graduates need.
“And we noticed that those really aligned well to all of the information we’ve been hearing from the steering committee and the community members that we included in the Summit, which was the process that we used to identify those guiding principles that I talked about earlier. So, the fact that we were seeing alignment from those groups and then we presented that same information to the educators and they also agreed that those were the important skills that should be learned. We’re really hopeful that because there is so much alignment between those groups, that we are on the right track.”
A meeting held recently by the School District identified six guiding principles needed for the future of learning. They can be found under the Future of Learning Tab on the school District’s website.
Reynor told KPCW their first sampling received 39 survey responses. She said they hoped they would have received more input from the broader community. The second survey currently on pcschools.us is another opportunity for more community input. She said the second survey has almost a hundred responses and they hope many more will weigh in.
“We’ve asked people to give the community reaction and feedback on those guiding principles because we want to make sure as we move forward, that those are actually reflecting back on the community’s vision. We have been including community members of all different associations as well as educators and students and administration in this process. And, in the process of developing those guiding principles, there were 50 people in that initial workshop where those were developed from all different sections of the Park City community. But we want to be sure that we are getting as much response as possible to those as well."
Learning spaces are a big part of the Future of Learning and Reynor said it does not necessarily mean new facilities. She said project-based learning and student-centered learning are models that require flexible classrooms.
“Because we need to understand the goals that the community has and the goals that the educators have and their students to understand what space is the best resource to help them achieve those goals. They have furniture that can be moved around and reconfigured very quickly and very easily. There’s a lot of discussion about different sized spaces, a variety of accessible spaces that teachers can move between, and even extended spaces that open up into each other to allow for larger configurations depending on what the project is or what the students are learning about at that time.”
Reynor said Park City has amazing schools already and there may be small, incremental changes that can be done over longer time periods to accommodate changing educational needs.
“So, it absolutely can be done in existing spaces. Things as easy as changing the furniture can make a great impact on the usability of a space for those different activities. And, this master plan will consider all of those things. It’s not just talking about new facilities. Park City School District actually has a lot of really amazing schools already. And, we see a lot of opportunity in those schools to make, not dramatic changes, but will allow for incremental steps in educational delivery. So, we’ll be looking at all degrees of remodeling or renovation or potentially new facilities if that’s required.”
The next open house will be in February, but a date has not been posted. Visit the district website for updates. Details of the Master Planning for the Future of Learning are provided on pcschools.us along with the recent survey.