Members of the FBISD Concerns Page: I have a few concerns regarding the move of the Global Studies Academy to Travis High School. Although this move is not necessarily a bad thing for the academy, the current way in which it is being operated is not well-thought out or planned. The plan put forward by the district administration is that the current freshman will go to Travis in sophomore year, and the current sophomores and juniors will complete the academy program at Clements High School. Why do the freshman have to move to Travis next academic year, if the new students from Telfair and other areas will only be transferring to Clements in the 2016-2017 school year? That just doesn’t make sense. Current freshman that are not in academy programs will be grandfathered at their current high schools, why is this privilege exclusive to only non-academy students? For some students that applied to the GSA from places like Sienna Plantation, who thought they would be going to Clements for 4 years, are now being wrenched away to a totally different school without any Academy-related facilities, and will essentially have to start the Academy program from scratch. Although many students would be willing to attend the GSA at Travis, it is just not fair if it is happening in the middle of their high school career, and without any details as to how the program will be run. The district has not told us if the teachers will move, if the GSA administration will need to train the Travis teachers, how an academy will be operated at two campuses, etc. We have not been given any statistics or hard facts as to why the GSA has to move in the first place. Can it not stay at Clements by monitoring the live-in enrollment and adjusting its class sizes that way? If after investigation it is determined that it is indeed necessary to move to Travis, many students believe that this is positive, and we will be able to open a new chapter in GSA history. However, to do this, we request just one year to plan exactly how this move will take place. The upperclassmen, GSA administration & teachers, Travis administration & teachers, Clements admin & teachers, and finally the district admin should work together for the next year to make this transition as smooth as possible. This type of a sudden transition will be detrimental for BOTH the Clements and Travis communities. The academy programs, although they affect a small portion of the student population, should be seen as an asset to this district and not a nuisance that should be constantly marginalized. As the rest of the country moves towards improving its specialized education, we are still lagging behind and doing our best to equalize education across the district. If a student has a special interest, why not let them develop it? Education is NOT a one size fit all. Even if academies do not affect all students, they are still an incredibly essential program to develop for ANY district trying to improve their system of education. In rough sequence the district: removed cohorting for GSA classes, blocked special curriculum for GSA classes and mandated that they stay almost identical as non-GSA classes, split the teachers suddenly which required totally new teachers to be trained for GSA classes, and now we have to move to a different school, the GSA program will be split in half, and all this without any details as to how this is going to happen/how this is even possible? If it is deemed necessary that we move to Travis, we humbly request one year of planning. That’s all that we ask.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 00:40:59 +0000
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