The directors from the Poudre School District Board of Education hosted a public input meeting from 10:30 to noon on Oct. 19 at the Main Old Town Library. They, along with many community members who were willing to take a few hours out of their weekend, had a long discussion about the future of education. There were several topics of discussion that were touched on, but a few were discussed in great depth.

Electronic education is becoming a more important tool for teachers and students alike, yet poses a few challenges. On the one hand, teachers save time and effort in grading and distributing assignments to students. On the other hand, as PSD BoE Director Susan Gutowsky said, “too much technology can be frightening.” The fear that electronics will overshadow the influence of living, breathing teachers is ever present. However, the Board’s overall decision was that technology itself is not the culprit of any good or bad education. Technology is merely a tool that, like any other tool, needs to be wielded by educated and qualified people. Students are encouraged to succeed online, but it is recognized that electronic education isn’t going to replace traditional education, Amy Olson said. Face-to-face learning is a necessity.

Maggie Graham, a Fort Collins resident, brought up an interesting point about the inefficiency of schools when it comes to contacting parents during emergencies. She had recently undergone a slight panic when her child’s school was under a lockout at the end of the school day. There had been an incident in the surrounding community involving an unstable individual, so students were kept inside the building even after school ended. Parents, she said, tried getting into the school because of the complete silence. These parents were put in potential danger, and had the situation been more severe, the risk would have been real. CSU, for example, has a texting system during emergencies so that all parties are informed practically instantly. The district and schools are very good at keeping students safe and calm, but parents need the same protection. The board has considered this topic and will make a decision about better parental communication in the future.

In an interesting change of topic, local John Murrey expressed his opinions about what he saw to be the reason for discouraged students. He stressed the importance of writing—and not just English classes, but the physical act of learning to write with a pencil. He asserted that good penmanship and cursive is disappearing, thus standardized tests are becoming more difficult for kids simply because they can’t write fast enough or the way they hold their pencil hurts their hands. These can discourage a student from doing tasks they are mentally capable of doing because of physical boundaries, he said. This accusation was not to assert that computers are degrading students to a level that can’t be worked with, but simply that “technology is too overbearing on pencils,” said Murrey.