Survey Will Determine Future of Community Education

Amid flagging interest and budgetary concerns, Lacey Township School District put the community in charge of whether its defunct Community Education program will be re-established. Input is being sought through a simple online survey on the district's website. 

"Our Community Education program had been in existence for quite a few years. For the current school year, we put the program on hold because we wanted to research it and kind of revamp it," said Assistant Superintendent of Schools Vanessa Clark.

"[Community] input is very important because the more input we have, the better planning we can do," Clark said.

She designed the survey with colleagues from the district and the Board of Education in order to learn what the community's needs are and how the district can best meet them, she said.

"Preliminarily, there does appear to be interest to revitalize the program," said Clark.

Technology classes and trips are emerging as strong community interests, along with some personal enrichment and fitness classes, she said. 

"One of the things that's important for the community to know is that the idea behind the Community Ed. program is that it would run as a program at no cost to the taxpayer and no cost to the Board of Education. It's always been run that way, and the intention is to have it continue to run that way," said Clark.

Before putting a pause on the program, the school district noticed that enrollment was very low. Classes that were scheduled with instructors had to be canceled because they did not meet the minimum number of participants, Clark said.

As a result, the program began to lose money, Clark said. That's when the administration and the Board of Education decided to take a "hard look" at what they were offering. 

Middle school Vice Principal Jason King worked as an on-site supervisor in the Community Education program for a couple years.

"There were some really neat programs. We had a basket making program. They weaved some of the most impressive things you've ever seen," said King.

"We're open every morning from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m., depending on the school system, for the students, but the buildings are still here. It's real important to give the public access to what we can offer [and to what they] can offer each other as well. There's a lot of local experts at things that we can bring in and they can bring in from the community and sort of share the information that they have," he said.

King would like to see more music and art programs.

"It would be a great opportunity for the public to do something they normally wouldn't do. We all have jobs. We all have activities we do for fun, but we get into a routine. This is definitely an opportunity for people to break that routine," said King.

The survey will likely remain on the district website through this school year, said Clark. 

"If there's enough interest, ideally we'd like to start [Community Education] again in the fall," she said.