GRIDLEY, CA (MPG) - Wilson School’s principal, Joan Schumann, Ph.D and the parent Site Council are looking to the future by developing a Five-Year Plan for Improvement during Visioning Night, held Thursday, March 31^st.

Parent Erica White was the Site Council chairperson of this event. Visioning Night was a combined effort of the schoolteachers, parents and the Gridley Unified School District (GUSD).  Approximately 40 participants worked together under the leadership of Joan Schumann to brainstorm and share their views on the strengths of Wilson School as well the weaknesses.

This event had various levels of incentives for the evening of community work.  Childcare was provided for all second to fifth graders.  Pizza dinner was provided for parents, staff and students.  The movie Encanto was available as entertainment for the students and there were door prizes for attendance, which included several Amazon Fire Tablets.  The new curriculums in Science and Social Studies were also available for viewing, with the text and workbooks on display. Parents would eventually break off into brainstorming groups after certain topics had been addressed on a group level.

Ms. Schumann shared that one of the efforts, after dealing with topics of curriculum and levels of achievement, was developing safe routes to school.  This is encouraged and supported through a federal program called Safe Routes to School (SRTS).   This approach promotes walking and bicycling to school while developing and providing infrastructure improvements, enforcement, tools, safety education, and incentives to encourage walking and bicycling to school.  SRTS initiatives improve safety as well as added physical activity for students. SRTS programs are implemented by partnerships between local government and school districts. 

There was a lot of discussion about how to handle traffic at Wilson during pick-up and drop-off times and hopes for additional parking around the school.  Gridley is a town where many of the students can walk or bike to school with relative safety, so it is hoped that part of the solution will be fewer students being dropped off by cars.

Another big hope for many of those present was for a bigger multipurpose room at Wilson School.  This would be a great community asset as well as serving for better use for school lunchtime.  Assemblies and other large group activities would benefit from a larger meeting space at the school.

Another future hope of the GUSD, as expressed by Michael Pilakowski, the Director of Curriculum and Technology, is to develop a District Site Council that would include parents, teachers, and community members.  This would serve as a communication tool to help make goals toward future improvement of all GUSD schools. GUSD is also hoping to develop partnerships with service organizations and other community groups.

This energy-filled evening of developing the wishes for the future of Wilson School ended by the eight small brainstorming groups bringing their ideas written on large paper before the group as a whole.  Every group presented their thoughts about strengths and weaknesses of Wilson School.  All of these ideas will be prioritized by the principal and the Site Council.  Work on many of the ideas will start right away.