This past week was really exciting because I got the chance to speak with two people working in Frisco to hear how local control fits into their work. On Wednesday I met with John Classe of the Frisco ISD Board of Trustees and had the opportunity to hear about the impact financial legislation at the state level has on school districts locally. After speaking with Will and Shona, I had this idea that school finance in Frisco is something that needs to get better, and that stance was largely reflected in what Mr. Classe had to say too. He pointed out that the property tax cap wouldn't do much to change FISD but is still something to keep and eye on moving forward. My conversation on Thursday with Nell Lange of the City Manager's office was interesting too, because it was clear talking to her how all the advocating Will and Shona are doing will have real implications in the city. Sometimes because my mentors are in more of a representative capacity, there aren't always concrete challenges they're facing, but in speaking with Ms. Lange, it was easy to see how the state cap to really impact Frisco. Overall it was a really interesting week and will help continue to guide my Final Product moving forward.
It's honestly crazy to me that spring break is already over. It feels like not too long ago that senior year begun, and now it's practically unanimously understood that we're in the homestretch. Unfortunately for me, there's still so much to do, so I definitely can't check out yet. Over the break, I really worked to prepare for my final product through planning interviews and conversations with other sides of the local control debate. Coming back to school, I realize now that I've spent so much time doing research and trying to understand local control that I haven't really slowed down to assess how all this information will fit into the project itself. In other words, it's time to get busy structuring this video. Because I want it to be really high-quality (like an informational Vox video is along the lines of what I'd like to create), it's important that I don't leave it until the last minute. Over the break I really tried to look into different video options and how I'm actually going to put it together. It will be interesting to see with my upcoming interviews how what I learn from other professionals in the field will change the content that I'm going to try to include in the video itself. Overall it's been a nice break, but I have come away seeing how much I need to buckle down for the sake of putting together the best Final Product I can.
I'm really glad that I got to meet with my mentors so early this week (or late in the last week) because it's going to give me the opportunity to focus the last bits of research I want to do and begin crafting the video portion of my Final Product. Talking to my mentors not only helped clarify a few things that their expertise was great for, but also guided where I need to go from here. I think the important things that I should be doing over the next few days is getting some drafted questions out to the professionals that I want to interview for my project and then actually begin scheduling those interviews. Already at my mentor visit today, I was able to ask Shona about potential people on the other side of the local control debate who would be willing to talk to me about my project. I hope that their insight will not only shed some light on the "other" side of the argument, but will also eliminate bias from my work. In other news, I'm looking forward to some of the next few observational visits I'll be able to go on because now that Shona's campaign is in full swing, she has a lot of forums and events in the community that I think will be very interesting to witness.
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