Rogers City Area Schools promotes ways to increase learning options
With Rogers City Area Schools in a downsizing mode because of declining enrollment, superintendent Paul Mancine and the rest of the administration have been faced with the challenge of maintaining school programs. It is a time to examine the way the school does things, Mancine said, and a time to embrace new opportunities with the expanded partnership with Alpena Community College and the implementation of a new ?learning center.? The dual enrollment pilot program was initiated in January 2006 and has been very successful, said Mancine. Tentatively, next fall, the school will offer five college courses including pre-calculus at the Grambau Center.
To facilitate electronic learning, Mancine said they would convert the library into a learning center. The library will still be available for normal media services, but there also will be a designated computer area for students taking electronic courses during the day, along with a designated person to ensure the students follow through with their online class. Mancine sent a letter to the parents and guardians May 3 to outline the challenges and changes. He discussed the issues with The Advance this week:
Advance: Let?s talk about the financial challenges and the corrective action the district has had to take.
Mancine: This has been a difficult time for Rogers City and almost every school system in the state, simply because of declining enrollment and the corresponding reductions in state aid. As enrollment decreases, many school districts, like Rogers City, and others around, have done some reductions in staff. When the student population goes down over a 10-year period by a third, does the corresponding expenditures and staffing go down a third? The answer is always ?no,? because it takes longer to change that. Fortunately, for Rogers City, we have an astute enough board to understand that they don?t want to reduce the fund balance by 15 percent. That is your savings account. That is only about six to eight weeks of operation.
Advance: Has the reaction been adverse to the cuts?
Mancine: Subtly, yeah. Whenever you downsize you are hurting people, because of the livelihood and income, and everything else. You are looking at downsizing programs that are important to some. Is there a backlash? Not right in your face, but there is a little bit of discontent. I think the frustration then boils over to administration. At some point, somebody has to make the tough decision. I am just concerned that people don?t focus on the options that are still out there for the kids. It is not like we are going to shut down; we?re going to do something better.
Advance: Is that what inspired you to send the May 3 letter to parents?
Mancine: A month or so before I got this letter out, I had another letter that was not quite as positive. After some reflection and looking at what we are doing, I said wait a minute. After looking at electronic options for kids, exploring it, talking with staff, and talking to folks about doing a learning lab in the media center, there are a lot of things we are doing that really are great. Let?s focus on those things, and assure parents, who are our customers, that we are still going to meet the needs of your kids, inspite of the cuts. We might even do a better job for your kids, believe it or not.
Advance: One of those new programs instituted during the last semester was the Alpena Community College dual enrollment classes. How is that going?
Mancine: It is going to grow. We doubled the number of kids that participated in dual enrollment, not counting those people in the community, because we have had adults take advantage of the classes, too. The real change in the model was not simply offering classes in the evening, or letting kids take their car and drive to Alpena during the school day. This first pilot was to offer classes during the school day. It was to offer courses slightly before school. Next fall we are hoping to offer five, hopefully; it is not set in cement, and perhaps offer pre-calculus as a new offering. I think there is some discussion at ACC that they are going to try some vocational things this summer with some of our people around here.
Advance: It appears that expanding telecommunications is going to be a necessity, in the wake of budget cuts and financial uncertainty.
Mancine: We have to somehow find options for kids, so we can offer the Chinese course for the one student, or the advanced biology course for three students. Maybe we have eight students that want advanced Civil War history, but they want them at different times of the day. We have to look at the electronic means of delivery. I think that has been a proven option. I have met with associate professors and college people who taught these courses online. They say there is much more interaction between the kids and the professor, because of email and electronic sharing. Someone turns in a paper on Eskimos. You email it to the professor, who says it looks good, but the professor emails it to the other students to critique certain areas. It opens a whole new area of communication, which we did not have before.
Advance: Didn?t the state recently require electronic courses as a graduation requirement?
Mancine: I am really pleased to see the state is emphasizing the taking of an ele
Advance: But technology cannot replace the face-to-face instruction.
Mancine: But it will replace instruction when we cannot get kid a face in front of a kid. It is like Advanced Placement Physics, we cannot offer, it is like the kid who wants to take Russian, we cannot offer. We can offer that, as this option. If I could do nothing else before I truly retire this time, I would hope to leave a changing model of education that better meets the needs of kids.
Mancine said the district is facing further financial challenges down the line with a lower than expected February student count. The school will continue to explore other ideas as well that will allow them to better meet the needs of regular, special, and talented students at all grade levels, Mancine said.