Last night's community meeting was, for the most part, a very useful meeting. It was an opportunity for Trustees, for educators, for students, for community members and for parents to come together and voice thoughts, ideas, concerns and excitment. I thought that, with the exception of one angry person, it was respectful and thoughtful.

I guess I want to be clear on a couple things. One, I am certainly not totally opposed to this venture. I can see where it has potential to be a great thing. I am not convinced that the HSS venue can accomodate the co-location idea - but I do see the merit in the idea being proposed.

Two, it would seem that many people are picking up on this "fear" point. Fear is really the wrong word here. Perhaps the problem is the limitations of words - I may talk a paragraph of concerns and yes, a point in that paragraph is related to the idea of my child's safety. But it is much more multi-faceted than straight fear. My inability to express the larger picture here probably contributes to this perception but hear me when I say - physical safety is a very minor point in this equation.

I am also not completely hung up on criminal record checks being done as a means to ensure safety of HSS students. A comment on my previous blog made me realize that it is difficult to explain fully thoughts and ideas in cyber-space! I don't think that having safety expectations reinforces stereotypes. But I do see the point being made. I don't think that if we brought UCFV students into HSS that it would be beneficial to have them all do record checks. To give some context to my train of thought, in a previous meeting, parents were told that UCFV students would have to go through some sort of screening process before they would be able to go to class at the HSS campus. What does that look like? Is that something that can REALLY be done? And is it something that should even be done??

If anything, I feel optimism after our meeting. I think that it was clear that everyone felt that this idea, no matter how good, may have been rushed and there needs to be more diaglogue. I think it was recognized that the process so far, has been flawed. It appears that this will be remedied. I think many very legitimate concerns were raised and I certainly hope they were heard. I think that in the world of academia - everything looks and sounds good on paper. The ideas of why this could be a good thing were certainly lovely. Idealistic even. I am just getting stuck in the reality thing. I want to see how this could play out in real life.

I hope they continue this discussion. Not just in terms of mandates and education ideals (and no, I'm not saying these don't have a place!) - but in terms of what it could really look like. Start laying out some concrete plans. And bring them to the public. Let's discuss them. Then go back - maybe re-work them - and bring them out again for discussion. I don't think that time should be considered - we need to give this all the time it needs.

The idea, and all the students affected are worth a good deal of time and effort.