I must say that when I ask people (including some teachers, some parents of Central students now and some who will have Central students in the near future), I have heard only disgruntled comments about the way information regarding Central’s addition has been shared with the public. Main concerns are the expansion of an already too large school. For whatever reason, the public has not received the necessary information or has failed to hear it. Some people fear that to speak up will stop the process altogether, and we will be back to the present status with no hope for future improvement. Communication should and must continue. There IS a solution; with all of the talent in our schools and our community, some creative brainstorming can result in a viable solution.

I would like to emphasize that I am very aware of of the need for (1) a more efficient science addition (our daughter taught in that department for six years), (2) more room for the large number of students at Central, and (3) the need for better facilities for sports teams with one of the concerns the scheduling of games and classes for both male and female athletes. Most certainly, the Central facility needs improvement. This plan, as it stands, doesn’t seem to be the answer.

I, along with many others, need to pay better attention to what is happening in our public schools; we are blessed with great talent among our teachers, our students, our support staff, and our administration. Working together is the solution, but open communication is absolutely necessary.The Rapid City Public Schools can be even more successful when those ingredients are all working together.

Thanks for the work of those on the school board who believe in the excellence of the Rapid City School District and who believe that we can do anything TOGETHER.

Thanks for the comments. At one of our regular board meetings last fall, the board did officially adopted the MGT study and their recommendations in general. Since the plan is a 10 year plan and is a work in progress, each step in the plans as well as changes to the plan will need to be discussed and approved as we go. The board did agree with all the #1 priorities in the plan which included Central High School. The board also agreed with one of the three options for our high schools that MGT recommended which was to have a third smaller high school. Thus far the discussion with regard to the third high school has been that of a technical high school format and that the timeline for this would likely be towards the end of the 10 year plan.

The next priority the board has agreed to take a look at is the reorganization of the middle schools. A study session has been scheduled to discuss this on April 30 and we welcome everyone’s input on this topic. Timeline for changes to middle schools will likely be in 2-5years, depending on the scope of the work. Regadless of the decisions that are agreed upon for the middle schools, work will need to be done at different facilities before kids are moved.

With regard to the design process for CHS - A link to the concept drawings and site plan is available under the district announcements section of the RCAS website at http://public.rcas.org/Pages/Default.aspx and again we would welcome comments on the proposal. The next stage of the design involves input from a number of sub-committees to get to some of more specific details. If anyone from the public is interested in participating on any of the sub-committees, please contact Mr. Talley at CHS.

For example, MGT recommended that the District fix Central but plan to build a focused, smaller third high school in the near (less than 10 years) future. Does the Board agree with that plan? How does the new design for Central take into account the eventual plan (if the Board agrees) to build this smaller third high school?

In the Design Development process, I hope the proposals surface in time for public comment, and not as they were presented this time — only at the point where the Board is going to vote on the issue.

Actually, the school board did not ask the parent group to meet as they organized on their own a couple years ago and came forward with a plan to fix the theater and add another gym to CHS. It was their drive along with the ongoing overcrowding discussion as well as the new graduation requirements for science that forced the review of the needs for Central. Rather then only addressing the desires of a few, the board hired MGT America to conduct a full review of our entire district and aide in identifying all the needs and help us shape a 10 year capital outlay plan. There were numerous meetings with parents, staff, administration, and board members during the study. The particular parent group from CHS met individually with MGT and provided their input on what their needs and desires were. Please visit with Andrea as the RCJ was invited to many of the public meetings and she did write numerous stories on this topic. Over the recent 6 months or so, the full board has met on at least two occasions at Central for a public advertised study sessions as well as the Facility Committee has been meeting once a month specifically on this topic. The staff and building administration meetings in recent months with the design team has been for the design teams purpose of gathering the necessary data to develop the design concept that was unveiled last week. These were merely interviews and not meetings. The next stage of this design process will incorporate more input from parents, students, staff, and administration as specific details are incorporated into the design. You, of course, will be welcome in participating in this part of the process as well.

FYI;

The entire state of South Dakota only has about 121 thousand students.

The Detroit public school system has about 133 thousand students.

The Los Angeles Ca School district has about as many students as the population of South Dakota - 727,319 students

think thats big ? the New York city school district has almost 2.6 million students !!

How’d you like to be on those school boards, haha