Neighborhood residents gathered at the school auditorium for the neighborhood's first community meeting. As sims chatted before the meeting started it was clear that there were a lot of different topics on the residents minds. The room quieted down as teacher, Rich Cormier took the podium.
"Hello, everyone, and thanks for coming out tonight. I think most of you know me already, but in case you don't, my name is Rich Cormier and I'm one of the educators here at New Eden Jr./ Sr. High School. I started out inviting everyone here tonight to discuss our future plans for the education system, but as I started talking to other sims in the neighborhood, the need for a general hood meeting became apparent.
"On tonight's agenda, I'm going to talk about the future plans for the school system, Shawn D'Sim wanted to tell us about some recent findings he's made about from his studies of New Eden's astronomy and seasons and aging, and we'd like to set up a plan for regular hood meetings and government.
"First we'll start with government. As I was talking to other residents, many of us agreed that we are in need to a hood president to handle general administration, serve as a spokessim for the hood, and preside over future hood meetings. We had two names nominated as potential, qualified candidates, Robin Harris and Winston Crabtree. Robin, Winston, could you please come up here for a minute?
"Robin was suggested because she's employed in the law field and is obviously knowledgable in laws and government. Winston was nominated because he works as an ambassador and already has good relations with other hoods around Sim Nation. We don't have any residents, currently, that are employed directly in politics. Would either nominee like to say something before we vote?"
"I would," Winston spoke up. "I'd like to decline the nomination. I'm already very busy with my work at the embassy as well as running my talent agency. I don't have the time or the interest in becoming hood president as well, not if there's another qualified candidate who is willing to do the job."
"Robin, do you accept the nomination?" Rich asked.
"Yes," Robin answered. "I would be honored to be able to serve the community in this way."
"Ok. All in favor of Robin Harris as hood president, say aye."
"Aye."
"All opposed?" When no one spoke up, Rich continued, "Then it's unanimous. Robin will be our first official hood president and next time we get together I can sit down and she'll take the podium to run the show. Next on the agenda, I'll turn the floor over to Shawn."
"Hi, everyone. Since moving to New Eden, I've been spending a lot of time studying the night sky, taking notes of the patterns of movement of the stars and planets, determining how that will effect our time, seasons, and calendar. I've noted some changes from how things were in old Eden. The biggest thing that you all will notice is that seasons are shorter here. We still have the 4 seasons, but each season will last about 3 days as opposed to 5.
"So far we haven't had a regular system of rotation for households, like we had in Eden, which is necessary to maintain order and assure equal aging. I propose that each rotation last 3 days or 1 season per household. It seems to be a reasonable about of time, easy to measure by the seasons, and long enough to give each household time to advance better than the 1 day rotation we had in Eden. It is yet to be determined if blog posts will follow exactly the same rotation. I think it's a matter of experimentation and finding what works best for us.
"Seasons will be staggered by household. Each household will be featured in one season per rotation and sims will age 3 years per rotation, except for teens who will age at half that rate. In Eden, as you know, teens left for university during their teen years and spent half of the time they might have spent as teens as young adults. With the new rotational system, being three days long as opposed to one, the teen years seem too abbreviated for all the things sims experience at this age, so we've decided to allow teens their full teenage years. This also works well with the education plans Richie will explain in a few minutes.
"We are asking all sims to age as soon as possible after receiving the one day to birthday notice, for all age transitions except for the transition to elderhood, to provide consistent aging throughout the hood. Ages should be as follows, infants birth to second birthday, toddlers age 2 to fifth birthday, children ages 5-12, teens 12-18, young adults 18-22, adults 22-50. Because 50 is a young age to be considered and elder, all sims will be allowed up to one vial of the elixir of life at the end of adulthood. We may put it to a vote at a later date as to whether this extention will be automatically granted or if it must be earned.
"I will post a calendar for the household rotation and have it send to each household. School days are included in the calendar for both the Jr./Sr. High and University levels, also winter and summer community events. I would like to propose that hood meetings occur at the end of each rotation, at the end of each winter, just before a new rotational year starts. Some years seasons may seem uneven because of the number of households featured is not divided perfectly even, but this is bound to change as the number of households in the hood changes. Thanks."
Shawn sits down and Rich takes the podium again.
"My collegues and I have been working on developing a more organized curriculum for our Jr./Sr. High students. At this time we're only focusing on grades 7-12. Children kindergarten through 6th grade will have to be bused to Sim City. This may change in the future, but for right now we only have enough teachers to handle the upper grades and there's only one student in the neighborhood who is in the elementary age group. If we had the available teachers and facillities and higher demand we would be interested in adding local elementary education in the future as well, but at this time, it's not feasible.
"The Jr/Sr High will be on rotation 3 times a year with regular spring and fall semesters held on the main campus, and a additional summer session to be held at a summer camp. Winter season will be off, so the boarding school students from other hoods can go home to visit their families.
"Each semester will focus on one subject. Students will experience hands on learning with various skill building tools, they will also spend time writing papers or giving oral reports based on research. The subjects to be studied are: Physical Science, Health and Physical Education, Art, Home Economics, Natural Science, Foreign Language and Cultures, Writing and Literature, Astronomy, Mechanics or Shop Class, History, and Music. Every student should have at least one semester of each of these subjects during their 6 years at the Jr/Sr. High.
"University will be on the rotation twice a year, spring and fall. This will equal two semesters or one school year per rotation. This is subject to change if one semester per season proves to seem too long compared to time passing in the rest of the hood. The curriculum is still in development right now. At the present the students are following the traditional university procedure for now, but we are looking into making the college experience more interesting, rewarding, and challenging for students. We have spoken with officials at the local university and have convinced them, starting in 2002, to require all students to have declared a major by the end of the first semester of their sophomore year to better taylor the curriculum to their interests.
"We've also been experimenting with on campus vs. off campus housing. Hopefully our current students will be able to provide us with input that will help us determine which type of housing works best. We're also hoping to design a new building for the Jr/Sr High, since the designs we've experimented with haven't worked very well for our needs so far. Two designs we're looked at, were either difficult to navigate because the main classroom areas were located in the basement or on upper floors and much of the school day was wasted just getting all of the students to where they needed to be. We're hiring James McMillian to evaluate the buildings' designs to either remodel this building or design a new building for us.
"In other news, Jessica Ebadi, one of our Jr/Sr. high teachers who has also been serving as the housemother for our boarding students has decided to step down from the housemother position due to the birth of her brand new twins. We've posted a job notice on the SUN boards and are expecting a new applicant from Third Time Lucky to take on the job for a trial period starting in the fall. In the meantime, Lara Hartman, the mother of one of our students has volunteered to take on the job on a temporary basis.
"Well, that's all I have on the agenda. Are there any other issues anyone would like to discuss before we call it a night? I know it's getting late and it looks like some of you are ready to go."
"I have one," Robin spoke up. "About the summer and winter events . . . we'll need someone to organize them and come up with ideas or a theme. If anyone is interested in volunteering for a committee, get in touch with me. If not, I might be calling you soon."
"Ok, I guess that wraps it up. Our next meeting will be at the end of the winter of 2001 and will be headed by Robin. Be thinking of any topics you'd like to discuss then. Meeting adjourned."
