Magnet School Focus Group | Rochester School Department Blog

Elementary Parents and Pre-School Parents
Are you interested in providing your child with a unique and innovative school experience?

If your answer is yes, then please join us for the:

Maple Street Magnet School

Parent/Community Focus Group

Monday, December 19

6:00 p.m.

Central Office Downstairs Board Room

We look forward to sharing this exciting elementary school proposal with you!

Maple Street Magnet School will provide:

A 200 day school year.
Students in Kindergarten to Grade 5. Grade 4 students in August 2012 and adding Grade 5 students in August 2013.
A personal Learning plan to accelerate all student’s learning.
French language instruction starting at Kindergarten.
A core instructional program focused on reading, mathematics, science, social studies and writing.
An project based academic/arts instruction on a daily basis.
- Five terms based on an overriding theme of the school. Each term will have a theme based on the school year theme. The integrated activities and content activities will be based on the themes.
- Kindergarten will follow the regular school schedule 8:30 to 3 p.m.

7 thoughts on “Magnet School Focus Group”

Yes my wife and I are very interested in attending.

Jody LaRue | Managing Director

I have been keeping with the news for the new plans for maple street school. Some points I see are good like having a longing school year and a personal leaning plan for kids, but on the other hand not impresses at all with children basicaly beening forced to learn french. I have been reading they want to do a core instructional instruction starting in grade k. Nor am i fond of the school going up to grade 5. I am a mother and on one hand i can see this new program working for regular students.Like i think my daughter would do great with all the new changes but my son who has a learning problem i don’t believe this would benifit him at all. Maple is a great school but also deals with alot of children with learning problems, whats going to happen to all of them if they can’t keep on with the new program. From what i have seen and read this new program is more aless for reguler to smarter students and thats dosen’t seem right. Like i said my son has learning problems and I would not want him to keep going to maple street when all these new changes happen. Maple street is a great small school and has done wonders with my 2 children, it’s to bad they are going to be making all these new changes. I see this new project as no more as a rich person pet project .

And nor do i like grade k students going to school till 3pm i mean give these students a break.

I am interested in learning more about this school but I do wish it were a regular school year and not an extended one. I am happy to see Rochester trying to do something for high-ability students. Every school has special education programs for children with learning issues or disabilities but there is virtually nothing available for students that are advanced.

Yes there is a program in every school for children with learning disabilities but more then half lack the funding to accommodate these students. I just wish they didn’t choose maple street school for this new project, why didn’t they choose McClelland school for the new program or what not. Why didn’t they pick a school that already go’s to grade 5. Instead they choose a small school . I feel like the only reason they are picking a small school is because that way if some students don’t work out in the program they can ship them off to another school because it is only a small school. You know if they picked a bigger school it would of been harder to find room in other schools for all the students that wouldn’t do good in this new program. Like i said before it’s someone pet project.

At least you have special ed. As underfunded as special education may be, gifted and talented is funded even less, and is more or less an afterthought in most school. Even though gifted and talented is supposed to be considered ‘special ed’, they don’t get the support, resources, IEPs, legislative backing that those with learning disabilities get. There is so much made of how we are falling academically compared to what we used to be, compared to other countries in the global community. It’s because we are failing to give everyone a fair and appropriate education. And gifted and talented always get the short end of the stick because, hey, they already know the material that is deemed to be appropriate for their age level, so why waste resources on helping them, when there are others who aren’t up to par? To heck with them, they’ll be fine with just ‘reguler leaning’. These kids then coast along, often getting in trouble because they are bored, never challenged, never living up to their full potential, letting their talents go to waste, because we don’t want to make another kid look inferior by comparison. Sure, there are better schools, alternate resources, but those cost money, and not every kid who is gifted and talented comes from money, can afford to utilize those resources, and families can’t get assistance just cause their kids are ‘smart’.

So we can either ignore the needs of an overlooked demographic, because it might be inconvient to someone. Or we can try on a small scale (like many a good science experiment) to find a way to help every kids get a fair and appropriate education, and not simply pander to the lowest common denominator, as seems to be done time and time again.

My 6 year old son attends the East Rochester School and is doing acceptionally well. He is an eager learner who I feel would benefit greatly from the proposed curriculum of the Magnet School. I want my child to receive the best education he can obtain in public school, so I am hoping the proposal for a Magnet School passes.

Jody LaRue on December 9, 2011 at 1:04 pm said:

Yes my wife and I are very interested in attending.

Jody LaRue | Managing Director

VFX Direct | Strategic Planning | Creative Service | Online, TV, Social Media | Studio Rentals
P: 603-793-485 | W: http://www.vfxdirect.com | E: jody@VFXdirect.com | FB: http://www.facebook.com/VFXdirect
christina on December 9, 2011 at 1:06 pm said:

I have been keeping with the news for the new plans for maple street school. Some points I see are good like having a longing school year and a personal leaning plan for kids, but on the other hand not impresses at all with children basicaly beening forced to learn french. I have been reading they want to do a core instructional instruction starting in grade k. Nor am i fond of the school going up to grade 5. I am a mother and on one hand i can see this new program working for regular students.Like i think my daughter would do great with all the new changes but my son who has a learning problem i don’t believe this would benifit him at all. Maple is a great school but also deals with alot of children with learning problems, whats going to happen to all of them if they can’t keep on with the new program. From what i have seen and read this new program is more aless for reguler to smarter students and thats dosen’t seem right. Like i said my son has learning problems and I would not want him to keep going to maple street when all these new changes happen. Maple street is a great small school and has done wonders with my 2 children, it’s to bad they are going to be making all these new changes. I see this new project as no more as a rich person pet project .
christina on December 9, 2011 at 1:08 pm said:

And nor do i like grade k students going to school till 3pm i mean give these students a break.
Melissa on December 9, 2011 at 2:54 pm said:

I am interested in learning more about this school but I do wish it were a regular school year and not an extended one. I am happy to see Rochester trying to do something for high-ability students. Every school has special education programs for children with learning issues or disabilities but there is virtually nothing available for students that are advanced.
christina on December 10, 2011 at 4:39 am said:

Yes there is a program in every school for children with learning disabilities but more then half lack the funding to accommodate these students. I just wish they didn’t choose maple street school for this new project, why didn’t they choose McClelland school for the new program or what not. Why didn’t they pick a school that already go’s to grade 5. Instead they choose a small school . I feel like the only reason they are picking a small school is because that way if some students don’t work out in the program they can ship them off to another school because it is only a small school. You know if they picked a bigger school it would of been harder to find room in other schools for all the students that wouldn’t do good in this new program. Like i said before it’s someone pet project.
DG on December 10, 2011 at 7:16 pm said:

At least you have special ed. As underfunded as special education may be, gifted and talented is funded even less, and is more or less an afterthought in most school. Even though gifted and talented is supposed to be considered ‘special ed’, they don’t get the support, resources, IEPs, legislative backing that those with learning disabilities get. There is so much made of how we are falling academically compared to what we used to be, compared to other countries in the global community. It’s because we are failing to give everyone a fair and appropriate education. And gifted and talented always get the short end of the stick because, hey, they already know the material that is deemed to be appropriate for their age level, so why waste resources on helping them, when there are others who aren’t up to par? To heck with them, they’ll be fine with just ‘reguler leaning’. These kids then coast along, often getting in trouble because they are bored, never challenged, never living up to their full potential, letting their talents go to waste, because we don’t want to make another kid look inferior by comparison. Sure, there are better schools, alternate resources, but those cost money, and not every kid who is gifted and talented comes from money, can afford to utilize those resources, and families can’t get assistance just cause their kids are ‘smart’.

So we can either ignore the needs of an overlooked demographic, because it might be inconvient to someone. Or we can try on a small scale (like many a good science experiment) to find a way to help every kids get a fair and appropriate education, and not simply pander to the lowest common denominator, as seems to be done time and time again.
Pamela Doucette on December 26, 2011 at 1:06 pm said:

My 6 year old son attends the East Rochester School and is doing acceptionally well. He is an eager learner who I feel would benefit greatly from the proposed curriculum of the Magnet School. I want my child to receive the best education he can obtain in public school, so I am hoping the proposal for a Magnet School passes.