FTGOTS - For The Good Of The School

By Julian Whelan

FTGOTS-or ‘For The Good of the School’ is an all school meeting that happens two times each month at Project Learn School (PLS). The eighth graders run FTGOTS where students can get together, share ideas, solve problems and celebrate. FTGOTS allows students to have time to appreciate friends and share their talents.
    Debby Pollack, a former PLS art teacher, and Lisa Pack, current 9, 10, 11 year old teacher,  started FTGOTS about 10 years ago. FTGOTS stands for “For The Good of the School.” If there is a problem, the FTGOTS representatives in the planning meeting will bring it up. “We have FTGOTS so kids can also find out what some decisions have been made at Town Meeting,” Lisa said.
    Each group sends two representatives to the planning meeting. The reps bring ideas and concerns to be discussed by the whole school. The planning meetings take place in Aubrey’s room and the actual FTGOTS meeting, with all of the students, takes place in the Community Room at 8:45 a.m. every other Thursday.  During FTGOTS the reps announce things like the rules so that everyone can hears them at the same time and to prevent arguments.
    At these meetings the decisions are made using consensus. This is when everyone agrees on the proposals being presented. If there is not agreement from everyone, then the discussion continues until everyone can agree. This sometimes takes only a few minutes, but can also take a really long time. The advantage of this way of deciding is that everyone gets to hear everything, and then can’t say, “That’s totally unfair, I didn’t agree to that!”
    Students also get a chance to have the whole school sing happy birthday to them at FTGOTS. The children who have birthdays in the month of the meeting get to stand up in front of the school and say when their birthday is. Then, “everyone sings a special birthday song that Debby taught us,” Lisa added.