FINDING A COMMUNITY IN KIPP

PAINTED and DONATED by a KIPP parent

Tonight a Highlands Coalition meeting was held at KIPP ACADEMY. Although for years HICO opposed the construction of KIPP for it would lead to the destruction of the "community school" at nearby FORD SCHOOL, a representative of LPS. Well here we are at the end of another school year and the destruction is almost complete. Funny thing is it's mostly been an inside job, Personal grudges and petty politics have driven about a third of the staff to flee the school and some twenty or so programs offering educational and social enrichment have been eliminated.

Now KIPP not FORD is the "community school", unfortunately due to the nature of a charter school, it's a "gated" community and not necessarily representative of its location. Still, we are where we're at and thanks to cost saving measures the MAYOR (who I might add did NOT sign the same resolution against lifting the CAP on CHARTER SCHOOLS that the rest of the LSC did) the other PUBLIC school would require a substantial fee to hold a meeting. KIPP gave use the use of the cafeteria FREE OF CHARGE, Hard to beat that price.

The meeting was very well attended, thanks in large part due to outside interest stirred up as a result over staffing of COOK STREET PARK over the summer and to a lesser extent over a [romised discussion over the NET SCHOOL SPENDING  alleged deal. Both matters were somewhat resolved and chronicled in this blog. Still, I know that I for one was hoping for a little elaboration. It just didn't seem to make it on the agenda. Now I didn't stay for the whole meeting but I saw SETH ALBUM from LYNN HAPPENS recording so I figure I can go back and catch what I missed. There is no argument there were a lot of people there including LT. BROWN from the LPD, a resentative from ISD, three city councilors, HONG NET, BRIAN LAPIERRE, RICH COLLUCCI, and aide JOE GILL representing council President/state representative DAN CAHILL.

Good things and lots of them are happening in the HIGHLANDS. Be active and be a part of the solution.

COOK STREET PARK WILL BE STAFFED THIS SUMMER!