DCSD convening panel to address lake issues

STATELINE — A group of Whittell High and Zephyr Cove Elementary school parents, teachers and administrators is being formed to iron out differences and plan for the future.

Parents this spring have flocked to school board meetings to voice their frustrations with how Whittell is being treated. No one spoke at the July 8 meeting and only a handful of people attended it. Also at issue is the imminent proposed consolidation of the two lake schools into one K-12 institution.

Superintendent Lisa Noonan told Lake Tahoe News she hopes the panel that will be convened next month will look at immediate and long-term goals for the two Zephyr Cove schools. She wants the group to look at the master plan and see if the K-12 proposal is still valid.

It took the Douglas County school board 40 minutes Tuesday to figure out the parameters of the group.

There will be three parents, three teachers and one community member on the panel. The parents and teachers will represent the various schools at the lake, with Whittell counting as two schools because in many ways the seventh- and eighth-graders are a unit unto themselves. That is one of the divisive issues – how that block of students is treated.

Cindy Trigg and Tom Moore will represent the board at the meetings, with Teri Jamin and Ross Chichester their respective alternates.

Noonan is tasked with finding a facilitator outside the district to run the meetings.

An application will be devised for potential panel members to fill out. A group within the district will review them for substantive content, with the facilitator making the final selection of who is on the panel.

All meetings will be open to the public and there will be a comment period at each. Noonan was hoping recommendations to the board could be finalized by November, but said it may be more appropriate to have findings delivered to the board in January when it meets at the lake.

Also at the meeting, it was stated that there is still no buyer for the former Kingsbury Middle School.

— Kathryn Reed