Hi team,
I don’t have my notes handy at the moment so am going to wing a recap of some of our discussion from our meeting on Sunday. I’ll get you more details as needed.
Our main topic of discussion was rearranging Preschool / Children / Youth to better align with the structure of the schools the kids are in and also fit within the structure and size of our classes. Jill and I sat down for an hour yesterday (Monday) and went through this in some more detail, and here is where we came to. This may be slightly different than what we talked about at our meeting in terms of the arrangement of the classes, but this makes pretty good sense, and it’s still up for changes as we start talking with Sara, Jill, and the teachers… but we are going to move with this.
Primary changes:
1. Change Y1 to include 6th grade. Why? All of the local schools – Plainfield in particular – are now arranged with Middle Schools for grades 6-8. This new structure will allow us to mimic that for both the relationships / friends of the people who come, and it will also lend itself ok to literature provided by Lifeway. One drawback to this is that for “general” youth events in which both Y1 and Y2 are together, we will now have 7 grades all together, which makes for a large and very diverse group, in terms of age, maturity, and all that. So there may be some additional consideration to give to all this with Mark and the other youth leaders, and we will do that.
2. Change our upper children’s class (C3) to include 4th and 5th grade. Why? Well, first off… just having a single grade in a class is not practical at the stage we are in now in terms of size. This new structure will also match Plainfield’s new school structure where 4th and 5th graders are together at what used to be the Middle School.
Those are the two MAJOR changes. Here are some of the consequences of those changes, as we see them now.
1. We need to decide how to divide up the rest of the children’s area. Jill’s suggestion is to have a class for the 2nd and 3rd graders (C2) and a class for the Kindergarteners and 1st graders (C1). This would move Kindergarten from the Preschool area to the Children’s area. I am not positive how we concluded this in our meeting on Sunday – I don’t have my notes with me – but this comes from my talk with Jill, and it makes sense to me at the moment. But it’s still open for discussion. – SARA: call me with input if you have some.
2. We will have some major teacher re-arranging. Jill and Sara are setting up division meetings for Preschool and Children to discuss these upcoming changes. They are also working on re-recruiting existing teachers for the next year, but with all these changes, we may want to have “the meeting” first. We’ll also be discussing (Jeff, Laura?, and I) outreach with the teachers at this time. GORDON, I’d like you to set up something similar for all youth SS workers. We need to do this… SOON. Here is a suggestion from Jill in terms of teachers:
a. K and 1st. grade – Charlie and Joan (she doesn’t like to teach, so she’d just be an extra pair of hands)
b. 2nd. and 3rd. – Suzie and I (maybe Suzie would stay if we only had that one particular child 1 yr. instead of 2!!)
c. 4th and 5th – Kerri and Jeff (with Mark when he returns)
d. Then I wonder if Jeannine would want to move up with Gordon? She enjoys the youth and they work well together.
e. So we now have two different women who we might consider to work with Gordon – Kerri – from our meeting Sunday – and Jeannine – from my meeting with Jill. Pray, pray, pray over this.
3. Doing what we are planning is going to eliminate a SS class. I am fine with this, at this stage. Others may not like it… “we should be expanding, not shrinking…” That is an empty argument, in my opinion, and we are dealing in reality here. What I feel this does is give us the ability and potential to grow. We may also run into some conflict with moving teachers who truly believe God has led them to “their spot.” I accept where God has led them, but also believe that this is bigger than a single person, especially a teacher. This is why we are going to bring this to the teachers – not for a vote, necessarily, but their voice will be heard, considered, and taken into the big story. Heck, they might have a suggestion we haven’t even considered!
4. We may need to review literature to make sure it is appropriate for the new structure. The literature order is making the rounds now, but if you have questions, let’s deal with them NOW. I would say we are planning on doing this in September.
Ok, that’s enough for today… I thank you all for your participation in our discussion on this on Sunday (and Monday). It is a good dialog, and I’m glad we were able to take the month to look at it, and then regroup Sunday and set some clear direction.
Chet
