LAWRENCE: Community Conversation to focus on schools

Event scheduled Saturday at Lawrence High School

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
What can the Lawrence Township public schools do to educate students so they will be ready to compete for success in a global society?
    What issues and questions does this raise for the district?
    Those are the questions school district officials are trying to answer — with the help of township residents — at a special Community Conversation Saturday morning at Lawrence High School. It is open to all township residents, regardless of whether they have children enrolled in the public schools.
    The event, slated to run from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the LHS Commons, will be capped by a tour of the recently expanded high school and a rededication ceremony at noon. Attendees should enter through the main door to the high school.
    The Community Conversation is designed to get input from the community to help shape a vision and also provide students with the proper training to compete in a global economy, said school board member Ginny Bigley, who is the co-chairperson of the event with Rebecca Gold, the district’s director of personnel.
    School district officials want to find out what township residents believe students need to know in order to become productive citizens when they leave the district because every community member has a stake in the success of Lawrence students, added Jennifer Polakowski, the district’s grants manager, and Lana Mueller, operations manager in the superintendent’s office.
    “There are a lot of people in the community who (work) in interesting fields that we don’t know about,” Ms. Polakowski said. “We want to tap into that. Maybe they took a different route to get to where they are now.”
    Ms. Gold added the district is trying to plan for years down the road, “but it’s difficult to be ‘in the present’ and plan for the future when so much of the future is unknown.”
    The Saturday morning event will be begin with a brief panel discussion that includes panelists Eleanor Horne, Brett Smith and Theresa Wrobel.
    Ms. Horne is the corporate secretary and vice president of the Educational Testing Service. Mr. Smith and Ms. Wrobel are active in the Lawrence Township Education Foundation.
    Then the attendees will break down into smaller discussion groups. School district administrators, ranging from Superintendent of Schools Philip Meara to the school principals and the curriculum supervisors, will serve as facilitators for each discussion group.
    Based on the general themes that may emerge from the discussion groups, a few committees may be formed that would meet periodically throughout the year, then reconvene at a group meeting.
    After the Saturday morning session wraps up, attendees have been invited to tour the additions and renovations to LHS. The $18.8 million project, which was started in 2004, was completed in 2007. Some residents may not have seen the changes in the high school building, Ms. Gold said.
    A rededication ceremony of the LHS cornerstone also is planned, Ms. Polakowski said. Superintendent of Schools Philip Meara and LHS Principal David Roman will offer some remarks, then some items will be placed in a time capsule, she said.
    The day’s events also include the rededication of four memorials — three for former students and one for a staff member — that had to be relocated because of the latest round of high school additions.
    There are memorials for LHS students Chuck Costello, who died in 1972, Michelle Doroba, who died in 1989, and Erin Pedersen, who died in 1997. The fourth memorial is dedicated to Tony Macheda, who worked for the buildings and grounds department from 1959 until his death in 1992.
    “It’s going to be a very busy day,” Ms. Gold said. “We want to make sure the community has input, but we also want to celebrate the renovation of the high school and the lives of the people we lost. We want to look at the promise of what tomorrow can bring.”