Kathy McWilliams

Hi,
I am a School Board member in Durham, NH for the Oyster River Cooperative School District which serves three towns. The district has an enrollment of 2380 students K-12 and population growth is level. I find your discussions both stimulating and informative.

We have a space/capacity issue in our preschool-grade 8 that we are struggling with now. One of our ideas is to create a Science and Arts building away from the current two elementary schools and the one middle school with 5-8 configuation. We are thinking “outside of the box” with this concept. Currently art rooms exist in each school but no science labs are in existence until high school. We don’t want to continue creating another elementary school that will stilll do much of the same and not create new learning opportunities for all students. A hands on facility with so called experts available for both students and teachers seems ideal. (We are located next to the University of New Hampshire.) It could be a community resource and a fee based service for the surrounding towns.

I have concerns on how this would work logistically and if it can relieve pressure from the current buildings. Any amount of students out of any building during the school day would relieve pressure, I believe.

What do you think of this concept? Have you seen it in action? This idea is truly based upon how children learn and what would benefit the most students.

Thanks for you time,
Kathy McWilliams
kmcwilliams@attbi.com

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