The meeting was called to order by President Mary Lee Walker at 7pm.
A quorum was present. Various PTA members were present to attend the PTA Community Meeting regarding possible school closures.
Mary Lee welcomed a near full house of people in attendance and thanked them for coming. Handouts were given to every person. Mary Lee said that everybody was here because we were concerned parents. She said one of the best things you can do is to become involved in PTA. She asked all to please stay after the general meeting for our brief board meeting to find out what we’re all about.
The she turned the general meeting over to Beth Wiles.
Beth told us that she as a parent of 2 former Pine Castle students and, she herself, as a staff member doesn’t want to see Pine Castle closed. She told us that her husband attended PCE in the 60’s and would love to see the school around for her grandchildren to attend as well.
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PCE has 478 students.
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She told us that this meeting is so that knowledge can be shared with everyone and would ask our input.
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She has known the guest speaker, Rick Roach, for 16 years and told us that he is very straight forward about things.
A summary sheet was handed out on the things that we know about the possible closure of PCE and what we would like to know. Beth told us that we want to be advocates for PCE in the most positive, professional means possible. We are information gatherers at this stage. There are 122 elementary schools in Orange County and PCE was recognized for our Best Practices. She said that is very gratifying to see this many people here. We are very diversified as a school. Mr. Dickerson was digging thru books and found that there has been a school on this site since 1877.
She told us at the end of Rick speaking, time permitting, questions will be taken. We are trying to keep the meeting to 1 hour.
Beth then introduced Rick Roach.
Rick gave us his background.
- He said he has been with Orange County Public Schools for 34 years.
- The past 8 years of that on the school board and thanked us for voting him in and keeping him in that position.
- He said Orange County is the 11th largest district in the country.
- The ideal elementary school size is 700 students.
- Utilizing the half penny sales tax is option 1.
- Option 2 is to see which schools get fixed.
- There are 180 schools for the money to be spread.
- 4 years ago the half penny sales tax was passed.
Rick said he hopes to clear up a lot of things here tonight.
He said there is a huge vacuum of mis-information.
He explained that the school board has work sessions 2 times per month and they have work shops also. The work session is where this controversy came from. That is where the board was brain storming on different ideas to help the situation at hand. The media picked up on the brain storming and created a media frenzy.
He told us about Unitary Status. He said it’s a fancy word to make sure that schools are equal for all children. It’s a federal court order. It’s the building program (capitol budget).
Before the half penny we opened about 3-4 new schools per year. Now, since that happened, we have about 10-11 schools per year that are either fixed or new schools put in. Since the half penny the price of materials has doubled or tripled. There is $16 million to put in new schools. PCE has about $12 million dollars coming our way for repairs.
The Feds recommend what to do and the board doesn’t have to accept the suggestions (this was part of the brain storming spoken of earlier). The night of that Board meeting was to discuss the concept given from the Feds of closing or merging schools. The Feds gave 5 suggestions to the Board.
The board does not vote in work sessions, such as this one they had.
The consensus of the board that night was to consider options. There has been no board meeting regarding the closure of PCE nor is he aware that there is one scheduled with that topic.
Rick said that he works for us, not the district. We have elected him 3 times and he is thankful. He says he will never make the decision of closure without us. He stressed that he works for us and this is his job is to keep us informed. He will squash any rumors that he hears.
PCE is slated for improvements in the year 2013 on the list for school improvements.
Kat Gordon was very upset that she couldn’t be here and sent her apologies for not being able to come. He explained the reason why she couldn’t come was because any time 2 board members show up for a public meeting that it must be advertised 48 hours in advance to the public, whereas if 1 board member shows up it does not have to be publicized.
He pointed out that Maxi Elementary has about 200 students and it is not paying for itself. He said it has been open for 50 years. He said it’s not all about money that it’s about what is in the best interest for the kids.
The Mayor of Edgewood showed up at our meeting. He suggested that when the School Board has meetings of this importance to have them in the evening rather than the afternoon so that the community can be there. Rick replied that the meetings start at 4:30pm but that he will be happy to advocate for later meetings.
Frank Killgore asked Rick if there is a line of reasoning coming from Washington on how they can justify building new schools for 700 students when there is no money for it. Rick agreed that no there was not.
Toronto Liverpool asked if Unitary Status involves the staff as well as the students and Rick said it does.
He assured us that this issue is very important to him. He told the audience to email him at and he will get the information to Mary Jo who is taking the lead in this cause.
The general meeting ending at 8:15pm. 41 people stayed for the PTA Board meeting that Mary Lee conducted afterwards.
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