Town hall meeting on MCCSC's future airs tonight on WTIU

Panelists include state superintendent of public instruction, school board president, local school principals

Herald-Times Report
June 1, 2006

A televised town hall meeting about structuring MCCSC schools to meet 21st-century needs is set for 8 p.m. tonight on WTIU.

Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Suellen Reed will join a panel featuring Ivy Tech-Bloomington chancellor John Whikehart, Cook vice president Dan Peterson, United Way director Barry Lessow, Monroe County Community School Corp. board president Sue Wanzer and Rogers Elementary principal Tarrey Banks.

WTIU's Ann Shea will moderate the discussion.

Panelists will answer and discuss questions from both the studio and the television audiences during the one-hour program. They will look to build upon conversations from three previous town hall meetings and address three specific topics:

• The 21st-century skills children will need to succeed in a changing global economy;

• The need to offer a more individualized and personalized education to students, as well as examples of school models facilitating that; and

• How students can be provided a rigorous and relevant education while complying with federal and state mandates regarding assessment and adequate yearly progress dictates of the federal No Child Left Behind act.

Those are among the topics scrutinized over the past several months by the MCCSC Graduation Work Group and the MCCSC Strategic Development Task Force, which combine to include about 80 participants from the community and the schools.

The Foundation of Monroe County Community Schools helped arrange tonight's event, which is also sponsored by:

The Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, the Bloomington Economic Development Corp., Bloomington Hospital, the Bloomington Life Sciences Partnership, the chamber of commerce's Franklin Initiative, Cook Group Inc., Ivy Tech Community College, Learn More Resource Center, the Monroe County Education Association, Indiana University's School of Education, Solution Tree, United Way of Monroe County and WTIU.