Clearwater Community Wants What's Best For Students First

 About 150 people attended a community meeting Wednesday night to give input on the future of educating Clearwater's youth. 

The Clearwater-Orchard high school started in Orchard and was there for two years but is now in its third year at Clearwater. According to information presented at the meeting, the high school will remain in Clearwater "unless there is a significant change in enrollment numbers. . . . A significant change would be where a school has a majority of the high school students for an extended period of time." 

​"I think our community meeting went very well tonight," said Superintendant Dale Martin. "We had a lot of good discussion from the different focus groups that were meeting to talk about the issues that were brought forward on whether or not we want to do anything here with site location changes and rotation."

The meeting began with background information on the district - from property valuations to census data.

The audience then broke into six focus groups to discuss  student concerns, priorities and how the school should move forward.

Community members representing their groups said their first priority was to the students.

The first group was concerned with the safety of the kids, structure and stability. There was some talk of consolidation as well as having Preschool through 8th grade in Clearwater and the high school in Orchard, or the building of a new school entirely. But they did not want to undermine the original board's decision to bring the two schools together.

"Another thing is, they're friends with the Orchard kids," a member of the first group said, "they don't want to lose those friendships."

 The second group believed two years was not enough time for acclimation. They were concerned with losing students and kids "falling through the cracks."

"A priority is wanting it to work and to keep our kids together," said a member of the second group.

The third group brought up the thought that there may be a  psychological impact on students rotating every two years. They discussed asking student what their feelings were on what should happen.

Quality education and quality teachers was a priority for the third group. They also talked about kids getting home late from school being problematic for parents.

The fourth group said there would be a loss of kids in the school, because parents would not agree to have kids rotated every two years. There was a concern that students grades would drop after a rotation. They wanted to know if teachers would rotate with students or teach a new curriculum every two years and how they felt about that.

Hiring new teachers and the safety of kids on the road were some things the fifth group talked about. They believed that every two years was too often to rotate and suggested a K-8 site and a 9-12 site.

Teachers having to rotate curriculum was a concern for the sixth group. They also feared they would lose good teachers, because they wouldn't like having to move every two years. 

However, their group was unanimous about wanting to honor the current agreement and keep the kids together. They also mentioned that if there were to be a rotation, that it needs to be after a set percentage or number of students and the extended period of time needed  to be set so everyone knows.

"Some people thought that the focus is being lost," a member of the sixth group said, "it's being based on money instead of the kids."

"I think the boards will take that information and go from there," Martin said.