Banning PYP will be destructive, costly

Editor's Note: The following letter was presented to the Coeur d'Alene District 271 School Board at its Oct. 15 meeting.

My name is Nicole Olson. I am a Hayden Meadows parent and I would like to address your recent decisions on PYP. I realize that both sides are passionate about the philosophical pros and cons, but we should not forget that there are practical and financial aspects to consider as well. It shocked me that board members, who claim to want fiscal responsibility, neglected to even inquire about the practical and financial impact of terminating this contract. I have a handful of questions that have neither been asked nor answered. They are not philosophical, political, or social, and they urgently need to be addressed.

* What are the costs associated with terminating this contract?

* What actions must we take in order to legally part ways with IB?

* How much will those actions cost, how much time will it take to accomplish them, and who will do them?

* What other program possibilities are there for Hayden Meadows?

* How much would a new program cost in terms of fees, training, and curriculum?

* How long would it take to transition to such a program?

At our PTA meeting last week, I asked Lisa Pica what changes would have to be made to Hayden Meadows once PYP was terminated. She said posters, IB materials, and any visual reference to PYP characteristics must be removed. This would require some repainting. She also said that all of the lesson plans would have to be destroyed because they were developed using IB planners.

Let me say that again: ALL of the lesson planners would have to be destroyed! Hayden Meadows teachers have been creating these lesson plans for over five years. PYP is school wide. Therefore, all of the lesson plans for more than 25 teachers at six different grade levels would have to be destroyed in June. I hope you can appreciate the magnitude of this. Can you imagine spending five years creating policies and procedures for your employees, implementing them company wide and then suddenly destroying all of them? Do you think your employees would be able to maintain an identical level of efficiency and productivity without the procedures they'd been using for the last five years?

Destroying five years of lesson plans at the end of the school year will severely handicap Hayden Meadows. First, it will deliver a crushing blow to our teachers' morale. I've heard this board give lip service to supporting teachers, but I also know that actions speak louder than words. When you haphazardly destroy five years of someone's hard work, supportive is not the word that comes to mind. Secondly, it will undermine parental confidence. Nobody wants to hear that their child's teacher is just winging it. Parents want passionate, engaging teachers who have a plan to educate their kids, not demoralized teachers that have been abandoned by their school board and left to improvise lessons and learning opportunities. Lastly, it's going to cost money to destroy these lesson plans and it will cost even more to create new ones, especially if it must be done quickly.

You see, in my estimation, true leadership requires vision; it looks to the future and imagines things better than they are right now. Good leaders work to build things: to build up kids, teachers, schools, and vibrant communities. The Board's decision two weeks ago built nothing! It came in with a wrecking ball, set an arbitrary date for demolition, and gave nothing more than an action item for someone else to manage whatever mess remains. Destroying someone else's hard work requires no skill. It is neither creative nor productive. But in fairness, sometimes things do need to be dismantled before something new can be built. However, most people consult an architect and develop a plan before they tear the walls down; to do otherwise is foolhardy.

As you can probably guess, I whole-heartedly support PYP and would love nothing more than to hear you reconsider your decision to terminate the program. But I also understand that, as a Board, you are determined to put PYP behind you. That said, I strongly urge you to reconsider the date on which you will terminate the PYP program. June 2013 is unrealistic, considering we don't have a clear grasp of what needs to be done, how much it will cost, or where we are going. Please do not leave our teachers empty-handed and demoralized come September 2013. And please take the time to plan, to design, to build something new before you let that wrecking ball fly.

Nicole Olson is a Hayden resident.