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East Waco caravan to rally for Wiley Middle School cause
East Waco leaders planning to speak out against any proposal to close G.L. Wiley Middle School this school year hope to put a little neighborhood muscle behind their cause at tonight’s Waco school board meeting.
McLennan County Commissioner Lester Gibson, whose precinct includes East Waco, says an effort is under way to caravan neighborhood residents to tonight’s meeting, which begins at 5:30 in the Waco Independent School District Conference Center, 115 S. Fifth St.
Residents can begin assembling at Wiley Middle School about 4 p.m., he said.
“I can’t estimate how many we’ll have there, but from my understanding the conference room holds 150,” Gibson told the Tribune-Herald this morning. “That’s not to say we’ll have 150 … but people feel very strongly about this in East Waco.”
Waco school board members are considering three options tonight concerning Wiley Middle School’s future, based largely on its declining enrollment and its “unacceptable” state ranking five years in a row. The state ranking is based on the increasingly difficult Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.
East Waco leaders, however, dismiss any idea of closing the campus. They say the school has been gradually improving state test scores in all areas, enough that Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott, noting students’ improvement, declined in June to order the school be turned over to alternative management this school year.
In a letter to the district, Scott said he felt confident the test scores would rise enough in the coming year to elevate the campus into the “acceptable” state ranking.
Gibson said giving the campus another year is only fair, based on what students there have already managed.
“They fought back (with better test scores),” Gibson said. “You can’t take that away from them.”
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Comments
By Lester Watcher
August 7, 2008 1:08 PM | Link to this
While Commissioner Gibson is Caravaning around East Waco, maybe they can stop by the home he owns in on East Mitchell street in East Waco, the same home Where his Son was arrested on Federal Drug Charges. He can point to this as another example of the “schools” failing our kids and forcing them to sell drugs because the schools are so bad.
He should spend his time not rallying for the schools be talking to our young people about the dangers of fast money and drugs. He can talk about how education is the key, to making something out of your life.
Something he or someone should have done with his own children. How sad another young black man ends up in prison!!!
My point is the schools cannot fix what the children are missing at home(role Models). You either instill your values or the world and drug dealers instill theirs in our children.. Wiley is not the problem Mom, and fathers not present in their childrens lives are the problem.
By null
August 7, 2008 2:17 PM | Link to this
or you could ride by his house in Lacy Lakeview where he lives in relative peace, not having to worry about crime in east waco
By Bill Whitaker
August 7, 2008 2:45 PM | Link to this
From the Tribune-Herald gang: Ouch. Enough of the comments and barbs concerning Lester Gibson already. How about comments, thoughts, insights, pro or con, on the fate of Wiley Middle School in East Waco? As staff writer Wendy Gragg makes clear in her story online and in today’s paper, both sides make strong points, bolstered greatly by facts and figures.
By caravan of dreams
August 7, 2008 4:59 PM | Link to this
I certainly hope this carvan is full of the parents of kids who attend the school instead of all the old folks that showed up for the photo op on the home page.