As the West Central Valley School District progresses in its elementary restructuring discussions, concerns from staff were brought to the school board this week.

After four meetings were held by the restructuring committee, the consensus from the group is to make the buildings grade alike and having preschool through second grades in Stuart and third through fifth grades in Dexter. Board member Jen Clemetson, who is on the committee, was sent an email with concerns from many teachers about the proposed arrangement. Clemetson distributed the email to the Board and the public at their meeting earlier this week while withholding the names of those involved.

Board member Nyle Godwin is also on the restructuring committee and he commented on the group’s mentality, “There’s no perfect plan, there’s no perfect way to do it even with our building structures the way they are. We’re trying to find the best way possible to educate our students with what we have and I think we’ve come up with a solid base to go off of.”

Clemetson mentioned some of the discussion had by the committee, “One of the comments made in there is that they don’t like bandaids. Well, I did the typical ‘Jen thing’ and spoke up and said, ‘I don’t consider this a bandaid I consider this a stepping stone.’ I mean, you have to start somewhere.”

There will be public meetings to discuss elementary restructuring beginning on January 7th at 7 p.m. in the Stuart Elementary Lunchroom. To learn more about the committee members and meetings click here.