GPA for Co-Curricular Participations is 1.5 not 1.75! Yikes!

I edited my last post. The GPA for co-curricular participation is 1.5, not 1.75. Apparently, I can't wrap my mind around such a low standard and automatically raised it. Sorry about that.

Evansville School Board Business Meeting May 9 at 6:30 p.m.

Click on the post to view the agenda for the May 9th school board meeting in the board and training center. NOTE THE CHANGE IN START TIME TO 6:30 p.m.!!! I might even have time to cook and eat supper before the meetings now. The change in meeting time was one of many tweaks the board introduced to the new face of the school board at their re org. meeting on May 2. See my byline in the Review for the new slate of officers and other changes that may interest you.

Discussion items of note to the general public include school calendars for the next two years and the annual meeting date at which the entire public may vote on the mill rate. Something called a "reality check presentation" will be made, which seems intriguing.

Business that is planned is voting on the co-curricular contracts (contracts for coaches, club advisers, etc.), high school low enrollment courses, approval of 2012 and 2013 graduation dates and times and, my personal favorite and likely a contributing factor to my demise on the school board, is approval of the High School and Middle School handbooks. I fought them tooth and nail on those handbooks repeatedly and without quarter over two items. The first is that their wording in the HS handbook does not match policy on absences AND policy is more stringent than statute. The second item we continuously fought over and over which I still take issue is the completely unacceptably low GPA required at EHS for co-curricular participation. 1.50. A whopping 1.50 GPA. Between a C- and a D+ AVERAGE. People! If that's the average, half of the grades are BELOW that. That's sort of the working definition of an average. But do NOT try and explain that to certain hard heads in the school district. I am waiting for the result of the grading committee because the only sensible thing ever uttered in this debate was by Mr. Everson: "Until there is a consistent standard by which students are graded, GPA is meaningless anyway." Amen brother.

The two bogus excuses were : "Our block schedule forces this low average. Three Cs and an F calculates out to a 1.50 GPA." Really? Thanks buddy, I don't need a primer on calculation of GPAs. It's sorta what I do. Here's an idea. If they insist on flunking a class, maybe they need to get a B in something else to off set the F. Hmmm!!!!!

Then there's "you know, not every kid is an Einstein (with the pointedly inferred glare meaning "like yours"), and some of them only remain engaged in school and graduate because of their connection through co-curriculars." What a sad statement on your own inadequacies in the classroom. Maybe you should take all that co-curricular contract money (nearly $100,000 the last time I signed the contracts 2 years ago) and take classes on how to teach at every level, not just to the middle, and every student would finally get the challenge they need and deserve. I realize that co-curriculars are very meaningful to many kids, but most of them are not going to make a living through them. The kids still need to learn math and grammar and how to write a cogent sentence before anyone will hire them.

Even worse than the HS policy is the MS policy. There is no standard at all. Once the kid gets an F, he must go on probation until the grade is improved. She could have 6 D-'s and a D and still play ball or go to solo and ensemble. There's a great message for our youth. Screw around in school and you can still play (fill in the blank). There may be one or two kids who need a lot of leeway due to learning disabilities. But the vast majority of kids will simply play you at this age. I'm going through my second kid at the middle school and this age group is full of master manipulators combined with the attractive trait of self-absorption. Not pretty sometimes and more than happy to let you molly-coddle them. Ugh. The monster of indignation in me is unleashed every time I consider the ridiculously low standard to which our district holds students to participate in EXTRA curricular activities. That combined with grade inflation makes it pretty dang hard to swallow. So I bide my time. Waiting for the results of the grading committee and wondering if the board has lost their collective mind in allowing this to continue...

School Board Seats New Officers Tonight at 6pm

Click on the post to see the agenda for tonight's school board meeting at 6pm in the board and training center. It's in direct competition with the wildly popular plan commission meeting rescheduled at the high school PAC to hold all the interested citizens that showed up last month. Look for my article in the Review for the new slate of officers for the next year.

School Board Committee Meetings of the Whole April 25 at 6 p.m.

Click on the post to see the agenda for Monday's meeting of the committees of the whole. There are no surprise items on the agenda, which typically follows a set listing every month. Usually, there is a reorganization meeting held on or near April 25th every year, known affectionately as the "reorg. meeting." This is the meeting at which the newly elected school board elects officers, takes on committee assignments and generally establishes the new pecking order. John Rasmussen can't be here Monday due to travel plans he's had for a very long time, so the Board decided to put off the reorg. meeting until May 2 at 6 p.m. so the newest board member could attend.

It's time for a reevaluation of the Human Growth and Development curriculum again. Check out the following link for details regarding this meeting on May 4 from 8am - 3 pm.

http://www.ecsdnet.org/site/common/files/hgdagenda.pdf

Finally, there will be the regular Board Business Meeting on May 9 at 6 p.m. Much is happening in the district this time of year. The general mayhem surrounding the unsettled nature of the state budget scenario has caused a lot of rumor and innuendo to fly around town. Much of it probably has a kernel of truth, but resist the urge to believe everything. If you hear that "they aren't going to replace any retiring/quitting teachers," then more likely the whole story is "they aren't going to interview for such and so position until after the official budget is presented from the state." Which means after July 1st. Because that's when the state promised to have a solid budget proposal. Two of the three years I was on the board, the state didn't come through with final numbers until October. Imagine if you will the havoc that plays on the budget setting needs of each and every district. How can you hire people in August if you don't know whether or not funds are available for it? It's a very difficult situation. So remember to take a deep breath and hope for the best. They have only had to lay off teachers due to decline in enrollment for next year. That may not be the case for 12-13, which is shaping up to be even worse.

Why, you say, are we suddenly suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? It's not, as some would be happy to report, entirely the fault of Gov. Walker. His "budget repair" bill is a dominant player here, but the chickens are coming home to roost, ala the stimulus funds accepted two years ago. What did they hire the temporary special ed position at TRIS with? Stimulus funds. Where did all the capital funds come from for a new handicapped access van and new PT equipment come from? Stimulus funds. All in all, these funds inflated the budget to the tune of nearly a half-million dollars over two years. Add that to a loss of $550 per kid from the state (about a million) and a loss in enrollment of about 40 kids over the last 3 years (about a quarter of a million) and a perfect storm of budget misery strikes. Had it not been for the diligent efforts of the board to build up the fund 10 balance and toe the line on certain expenditures, things would be a lot worse than they are, which is bad enough. So, keep your wits about you and remain calm. Hard as it may be, trust the board and the administrators to be sensible in these dark days. And if all else fails, come to a board meeting!

The New Face of Education?

There has been a lot in the news about a new paradigm for education. The fundamental idea is sharing resources. The best providers in a given area, say AP Biology, offers AP Bio to all schools in that area. This is a novel concept to which current educational structure is not amenable due to contractual restrictions. Apparently any time a kid in district A takes a class offered in District B that is not currently available in District A, there must be a teacher in District A assigned to "oversee" the District B class progress, despite the fact that the teacher in District B is fully licenced and qualified to teach the class. This ups the resources required in District A to take advantage of the class. Until now, the unions have effectively squelched this idea, thereby reducing the quality of our childrens' educations, especially in rural areas where the variety and frequency of offerings is sorely limited. And this is only one example in which the sharing of resources is discouraged. Having a kid in AP level courses, I know how challenging it is to take advantage of these classes, which are on a two year rotating basis at best in our district. Imagine if you will, trying to map out your kid's entire high school curriculum in 8th grade. That is what is necessary to make sure they get the classes they need at this point in our district. Now imagine a world where AP everything is offered every year. Maybe not in the hallowed halls of EHS, but available to the EHS students EVERY YEAR. The possibilities become practically unlimited. And think of the money you parents would save on the blinking tuition fees if your kid entered his or her first year of college as a second semester freshman. That's what I'm talkin' about. Putting the needs and educational excellence of our children first. Share resources. Share teachers. Share excellence. Our kids deserve it. Find a way to make it so. (apologies to Capt. Picard).

Special Board meeting Monday April 11 at 5:30 p.m.

Click on the post to see the packet regarding the special board meeting to address selling one of the building trades homes, I believe. It will take place immediately before the regularly scheduled monthly board meeting in the District Board and Training Center. The following link will take you to the agenda for the regular board meeting. It all starts at 5:30pm on Monday April 11, 2011.

http://www.ecsdnet.org/site/common/files/brdapril11age.pdf

Please Note: Official DPI AYP Designation Has Not Been Assigned

Please be aware that my conclusions regarding district and building AYP status has not been confirmed by official DPI notification. However, as much as the DPI would like to make it seem like the layperson is incapable of understanding how to calculate AYP, anybody with a search engine, a calculator and a pure love for crunching numbers is more than qualified to do the math. I fall in this category.

I qualified the areas where I may be a bit shaky, which is in regard to the second level Safe Harbor AYP definition and the width of the typical Confidence Intervals for our district. Other than that, I completely understand how to arrive at AYP conclusions. One can even access computational websites online entitled "Adequate Yearly Progress Calculator" if you don't trust your own ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide. I got sick of punching numbers and wrote a mini-program in excel to do the SH2 calculations.

The district has a week or so to verify and qualify any data they are legally able to challenge before the DPI sends out the AYP notifications, at which point the DPI designation becomes official. I don't believe that disqualification of a few students at the Middle School will make any difference in their Reading AYP status. (I think I recall that only 2% of disabled students district wide may be disqualified from consideration in the AYP status calculations. I could be wrong on the exact value, but I know there is a very strict limitation here).

Some may criticize me for publicizing this before the DPI calls it official. I say, why wait when you know how to do the calculations? The city of Janesville was proud and trumpeted their news. The democrats were very anxious to show just how impotent the Milwaukee Voucher program results were and posted that data.

I have always been a take-charge kinda person. I propose that the DISTRICT should begin the process of determining the problems and proposing a solution. Scrutinize the data and listen carefully to what it tells you. Don't wait for the suits at the DPI to tell you that there is a problem. Find it, own it and solve it in a proactive way. I reiterate that my purpose in writing the AYP post was to illustrate the complete idiocy of the NCLB Act and how a committed district is negatively effected in many ways by the numerous intangible consequences of unfunded, scientifically invalid federal mandates.