I have lived in this district for 39 years and have had the privilege to work in the Fulda school system all of those years. I have been watching and listening carefully over the past few months in regards to new guidelines involving the students at FHS who take college classes outside the Fulda district (PSEO). Our district offers college classes during the regular school day taught by approved instructors for those students who wish to take them here. Those classes are offered through Fond du Lac College, set up several years ago as the most economical means of providing college credits to our students. Students who choose not to take those classes could take them at alternative colleges. Some of our students choose to take them online at other colleges other than Fond du Lac College. Last year many of the PSEO online students stayed in the library to work on their online classes thus taking up computer availability for other students who would come to the library from their study halls. Understand that we have a great bunch of kids here and a positive outcome was sought for all students. In the Fulda Free Press article reporting on the Fulda School Board a statement was made about a limit of 15 minutes for students to use computers in the library. Students who need to do research or write a paper, are given a pass from the teacher requiring the assignment and are allowed to stay as long as they choose. Many students would come to the library and “surf” the internet, thus not making quality use of their time on the computer. Therefore a limit of 15 minutes was placed for those students who do not have a pass from a classroom teacher requiring an assignment. The students have adapted to this very well.
You may have also read in the City Council article about a student requesting space to study and get on the internet as they work on their PSEO online college class. Many schools in our area require their PSEO students to leave during all of their PSEO hours. Our administration allows each PSEO student to stay in school for one study hall to work on school work but must leave for their other PSEO hours. Most of the state aid that the district gets for these PSEO students goes to the online college from which they choose to take the class. Therefore, FHS gets very little state aid for the time they take the online classes. I have been approached by several community members in regards to questions involving this, so I thought it appropriate to share this information. It is a bit confusing but understandable after given all of the facts. I encourage anyone with questions to please contact a staff member, administration or school board member. I have always thought that communication is the key to positive solutions and I always will.
Always here for the students,
Loren Carlson
