Letter: Tech Center for Teachers, Students Good Idea
To the Editor-
We as a community have a very difficult job ahead of us. We need to make several decisions for the future of education in the Stevens Point Public School District.
With the release of the recent Grade Level Configuration Study and our Facility Report it is apparent that we will need more classrooms in the very near future. Perhaps this is a good reason not to rush into putting a technology center at the former Jackson School.
I have talked to several people to find out how they feel about the placement of a technology center and have received some very good ideas.
I was told the center should be at SPASH, or PJ’S, or at Ben, so we can utilize it as extra classroom space if needed. It should also be used to teach both teachers and students in the use of the newest hardware and software applications, and the ever changing new technology that becomes available.
I believe that SPASH is a good location, but with the apparent need for more space there if we move the 9th graders up, it may not be feasible. I was also told that the downtown area would be a great centrally located place for this center. That brings up some very interesting ideas. If it was near PJ’S, why not check into the availability of the Mid-State building. Will there be enough room for a technology center and additional classrooms. The location is near a Jr. High. It will be next to the Boys and Girls club, the building is already wired and set up in classroom style. True the city was going to put their offices in there, but if the district were to buy or lease the building the City would still have the old Dunham building for its offices.
The old Dunham building does have the advantage of being centrally located downtown, and right next to the new Mid-State building. It is a large enough building to house a technology center and on a bus line so that the public can also utilize it. Whatever the district decides to do I believe that if we start to talk about this we can have a new technology center up and running by the start of the new school year.
We could mitigate the cost of the center if we decided to either buy or lease the old Mid-State building, or the Dunham site by negotiating with the City the transfer of the Emerson property that the city would like to have ownership of.
I believe that these options are all good ones and we need to start talking about this sooner rather than later.
I wish to thank the people that I have talked to and I will not name all of them as some wanted, at this time, to remain anonymous. I will thank Mark Ptak specifically for his information on the Mid-State site.
Samuel Levin
Stevens Point