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Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: August 15th, 2023
  • svc@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyztoParenting@lemmy.world•Developing a New School Concept: Seeking Your Feedback
    3·
    3 months ago

    So this is definitely sounding like it will be publicly funded (I don’t think a school owner would be incentivized to spend millions of dollars per year out of pocket). So it’s a public school, which I’m on board with. I think it would be easier to improve on an existing model than try to start from scratch.

    I would prefer if it didn’t feel like a single resource. It would be nice if neighborhoods were planned around a central school, where all homes are within a 15 minute walk of the school. There should be parks in each neighborhood as well. Bonus points if no one ever has to cross a street to get to school (above-ground walkways or getting creative with the geometry of street layouts, I don’t know). Then there can be community centers where all of the sports and extracurricular activities (music, literature, painting) are performed. Instead of 9 hours at the same building, the head teacher of each classroom can walk their students to the community center, where they go to their preferred activity. Maybe the kids are fed a meal at the community center, asking with the meals they’re fed at school.

    The school, community center, teachers, coaches, activity coordinators, chefs, cafeteria workers, are all funded by taxes, which would simplify making things solvent.

  • svc@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyztoParenting@lemmy.world•Developing a New School Concept: Seeking Your Feedback
    6·
    3 months ago

    Wow, there’s a lot going on here. Thanks for sharing!

    All of the numbers appear to be arbitrary, but perhaps they’re backed up by some calculations. I’m particularly interested in how the classroom environment numbers were obtained - 10 districts, 30 rooms, 17 specialized teachers + 1 head teacher per room, and 17 students per room.

    I don’t think a single school needs to do everything. For instance, if there are martial arts programs in the community, having the private school offer this seems to duplicate effort. Is the plan to hire those in the community and consolidate everything into one location? Is the motivation convenience for parents? Drop your kid(s) off in the morning and pick them up in the evening - everything educational and extracurricular has been handled by the school?

    This sounds like a very expensive school - do all of the funds come from the tuition parents pay? If each student has their own personal teacher (17 teachers and 17 students per room), and they’re paid ~36 hours/week (3 days per week, 9 hours per day), and the school has to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars per student that finishes high school, I don’t know where in the US you would find enough parents willing to pay so much for the convenience of a one-stop all-in-one school, even in the wealthiest areas of the US, to make this sustainable.

    If corporations are expected to subsidize some of these costs, it seems that some of the industries interested in early education would prefer to control it themselves, and probably focus on specific subjects (usually STEM), rather than offer all possible subject areas.

    I think public school is a good model for educating the vast majority of children - it doesn’t put a financial burden on families; states and municipalities have a fairly well established funding model (depending on the state); there are educational standards that educators must meet (depending on the state). Why not advocate for increased taxes to better fund public schools? Property tax is a common source of school funding, but that means public schools technically aren’t exactly free (families that own a home pay this tax directly; renters probably pay out indirectly through increased rent). If we pass corporate and wealth taxes, that could be better to learn the burden on families, though possibly less reliable year-to-year compared to property tax.