The OneVille project has been supporting dialogue about the future of the Healey School in Somerville. Many Healey parents have told us that they quickly need some basic questions about their school answered before they can really talk about the future of the school.
In the spirit of improving communications between school and home, we gathered questions that parents had asked at our forums. We brought the questions to Mr. Sabin, the principal of the Healey School, at a recent Multilingual Coffee Hour and taped the conversation with participants’ permission, so we could share the information with other parents.
We have the responses from Mr. Sabin, along with some other voices of parents discussing the same issues at other parent dialogues attended by or sponsored by OneVille. We hope this helps. View the document to read the frequently asked questions about the future of the Healey.
Questions asked and answered include:
- What are the four programs at the Healey?
- What IS the difference between the four programs?
- Is there a different kind of TEACHING in the Choice program than the Neighborhood program?
- When they get to middle school, how does it work? Do the Neighborhood or Choice kids seem to have had a different education from one another?
- Why did most of the Choice program children leave the school before 7th and 8th grade, before this past year?
- Enrollment: What’s the process for getting admitted to the Choice program?
- Field Trips: Several parents raised issues of field trips that end up being mostly Choice or Choice-only – local field trips and particularly, Nature’s Classroom. Is the invitation to “Neighborhood” extended and rejected? Not extended?
- What is the process of determining the Healey’s future?
(click to open the document)