Kingston High School. To say it’s needed to accommodate a growing population of students within the North Kitsap School District would be a vast understatement.

But with about a year and half to go before its doors officially swing open for the masses, some residents are finding it might not be exactly what they had envisioned. At the forefront of this debate is the fact that once Kingston gets its own high school, teaching and learning at that level in North Kitsap will be shifting dramatically. Drastically even.

Small Learning Communities, which basically aims to restructure the relationships between teachers and students in an effort to better the standard of education, are setting sail for the horizon but not every parent in the NKSD is clamoring to get aboard. Given the idea that the SLCs are touted as such an improvement over our current system, we can’t help but wonder why.

Why folks aren’t buying into it, that is.

If the rub is truly from lacking a chance to participate in the formation of SLCs and to offer input and guidance, that problem needs to be remedied quickly — the ship is preparing to leave the dock soon for the waters of trial and error. Is it already too late? Some parents would say yes. The district is, after all, not changing its course toward SLCs and seems totally focused on 2007. But what about students right now who aren’t in the Polaris program at NKHS? What if the transition that has worked for the few causes problems for the many? There are a lot of questions that have yet to be answered and we shouldn’t be willing to fire up the bunsen burners on this experiment until we’re certain it’s doable.

There are two schools of thought on this:

The first of which suggests that everything will be fine. Kinks in the SLC system will be worked out and a better educational system will emerge. The question is how long will it take to do so?

The second school of thought is that this is an “all-or-nothing” deal right now and that the NKSD should back off a bit by either transitioning the system into effect or simply leaving one of the high schools “traditional.” The latter group also contends that a number of teachers, an integral part in the new and existing system, are not on board with SLCs. If this is true for even a few, it could mean problems for a number of students.

True, the NKSD won’t be able to make everyone happy on this one, nonetheless, we hope its efforts to do so continue in earnest.