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North Kitsap school leaders are thinking about changing the way
alternative education is provided in the district. That would mean
changes to Spectrum Community School in Kingston and the
Parent-Assisted Learning program in Poulsbo.
The meeting is tonight at 6:30 a the Student Support Services
Building in Poulsbo, 18360 Caldart Ave.
I got an email from Tom Gagne, whose stepson Cody has excelled
at Spectrum this school year. Here’s what Tom had to sayin answers
to some of my questions about the potential changes:
Did Cody attend another NK school before
Spectrum?
The answer to that would be no, Robin and I were married in
2006. Before that they lived in a suburb of
Portland, Oregon. The reason we put Cody in Spectrum is that
he failed the 9th grade there so he was a year behind in grade and
probably 2 years behind in learning. Robin was a single
parent(divorced)and had no help keeping an eye on Cody. The big
city school system did nothing about kids that didn’t go to school,
so he did not attend enough school to get any credit for it. That
has all changed since they moved here. Since moving here and
attending the Spectrum school he has excelled at school and is on
track to graduate next year.
The main problem we had with the NK school district is the
termination of the bus service to Spectrum. This decision was made
during the summer break and we were not informed of this until
school was about to start this year. This left us with the problem
of figuring out how we were going to get Cody back and forth to
school with little time to do it. There were only two choices that
we had to pick from. One was to transport him to and from Kingston
daily from Poulsbo, or find the closest bus stop that
would get him to Spectrum The bus stop was the only way we could do
it. The closest stop is 3 miles from our house and it involves
crossing Bond road. If you are not familiar with that road it is a
very busy, dangerous road. So we transport him as well as one of
his friends to and from there everyday. We have had to change our
work schedules to accommodate this. The part of this that is
maddening to us is the fact that we live very near the NKHS campus
and we have watched all of the extensive work that has been done to
NKHS as well as the middle and grade schools, but the school board
doesn’t deem it a worthwhile expense to provide a shuttle from NKHS
to Spectrum for the students that live in the central and south end
of the district.
To address the point that the district is talking about
providing a “Spectrum type program” at NKHS and KHS.
I am going to speak to this from my point of view which is that
of a child (now adult) that was one of the kids that was left
behind by the same NK school district so many years ago. There
wasn’t any such thing as a alternative program then, so if you fell
behind or you didn’t fit in the regular school setting because of
whatever reason that was too bad for you, and that is exactly what
happened to me. That being said, putting the kids that have landed
in Spectrum for whatever reason back in the environment of the
regular school would just be a recipe for failure. The kids that
attend Spectrum need the environment where there not labeled slow,
dumb, dopers or trouble makers. That is why they can succeed in a
place where they are all treated the same. The educators either do
not understand this, or do not care. I am guessing from the things
I have heard it is the later rather than the sooner. And it’s not
only fitting in. It’s getting the personal help they need to learn.
I don’t think there is anyway that can happen at the regular
High
school.
So I will say in closing, I hope this sheds some light on the
subject for you. Robin and I will be at the meeting.
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