On Monday, May 17, Adams 14 hosted a community meeting at Lester Arnold High School to discuss proposed changes to the school’s educational program.

Adams 14 Chief Academic Officer Lynn Heintzman began the meeting with a synopsis of the proposed changes for LAHS.

Rationale for change:

• Financial downturn results in State budget cuts to education of $260 million, and Adams 14 is developing cost savings solutions.
• Incredibly small class sizes at LAHS (sometimes only 5 students – sometimes 0 students in a class) are financially inefficient.
• Incredibly small class sizes at LAHS create inequity for students who attend other District schools.

Proposed change:

• LAHS Career Center – scale up a successful competency-based academic program, Work Keys.
• Couple Work Keys with Discovery, Career & Technical Education (CTE), Adult and Community Education (ACE), jobs, internships and career readiness skills to round out the career and workforce readiness program at the school.

Potential savings: $260,000 annually through staff reductions handled according to certified staff agreement.

Following this synopsis, Ms. Heintzman opened the floor to community feedback and comments from the approximately 50 attendees. A full report of the written and spoken comments, as well as the District response to the feedback may be viewed here.