When will the activities die down?

A few days ago, I posted about how I looked forward to the quieter schedule of summer. I'm still waiting a week and a half later. The kids have been going every which way at the same or greater pace since the last day of school. ACT, Graduation ceremony concert, Grad parties for friends, projects for the library, scout merit badge clinics, soccer tournaments, swim team practice, the list seems endless. Add to that the umpteen birthdays in June and our own anniversary yesterday (22!) and the head begins to spin. Tomorrow is Father's day and I hope the day is as fabulous for Bill that Mother's Day was for me. Queen for a day, that's what I was. It doesn't seem like we have had a quiet moment yet, but busy is better than bored. That's like asking for trouble. It's like they have a sixth sense for sensing what the worst idea could be and implementing it.

I'm excited to have my new laptop (thanks to Bill - my anniversary gift!) for work and blogging. Maybe I will have time to catch up on this soon. I don't have to battle the kids to get screen time anymore. I have to write an article on AYP this week, so I will blog the rest of the story on that after the article runs next week. Pray for me that my file transfers go smoothly. I already had to go with an email server I'm less than thrilled with, but I will live. More later.

A Sad Day

On Monday night, the board learned that Deb Olsen, district business manager, was losing her battle with cancer. The next morning I learned that she had passed on and I began to reminisce about what a kind and genuinely talented person she was. She always took time to explain budget items to board members; she often burnt the midnight oil to prepare a budget, especially at those crunch times like the end of the fiscal year and audit time. She never thought my questions were dumb or intrusive, and always, always had the patience of Job when dealing with a diverse group of people. My heart goes out to her family and I pray that this remembrance of her kind and thoughtful ways will somehow ease their hearts in this time of loss.

Agenda for June 13 Evansville School Board Business Meeting

Click on the post to view the agenda for Monday's Board Meeting. It looks pretty innocuous. No packet has been made available yet, but should be on the website by tomorrow. Just a reminder that the meetings start at 6:30 P.M. now if you're interested in attending.-M

This and that

Holy smokes, it's been a busy spring. School activities take on a life of their own in spring, and I am very relieved to see summer arrive. The Tommy Awards for the EHS spring Musical "Guys and Dolls" were such an honor for so many. Collin Rehfeldt and John Robinson won Outstanding Supporting Awards, Bob Mentele won for Outstanding Lighting, Anna Bisch and Wolly Wollinger won Honorable Mention for their Lead Roles and, not surprising to anybody involved in an EHS production, the cast won for Outstanding Musical. I went to the ceremony and saw such fabulous talent, it took my breath away. I would not be surprised at all to see some of those kids make it in show business.

Every Wednesday since May 1st has been a veritable smorgasbord of awards for excellence. This is the first Wednesday I have been home in a month. My daughter had to miss getting her award for excellence in English because, ironically, she was buried in homework (not English, btw).

Graduation is upon us this Saturday, right after the ACT test at EHS. Sarah will go directly from the test to performing at graduation as she sings in her last graduation (since she will be walking down that revered aisle next year). Where did my little girl go?

As we seem to have the popular 3 years between all of our kids, I once again attended Holly's 8th grade graduation, or "recognition" on Monday. Tuesday was 5th grade graduation for our baby, Mr. Will. Last time I was in this situation, I vaguely recall that both of the ceremonies were on the same day. Thank goodness they changed that. I was a bit verklempt with all of this honoring of passages going on. One will be a Senior next year, one enters high school and one enters middle school all at the same time. My babies grew up in a blink of an eye. Hello young ladies and young man. Welcome, fasten you seat belts and enjoy the ride!

There are still several years for my younger kids to be in public school. I hope the big changes coming in education will be positive for them but I'm not going to hold my breath. The challenges will be myriad unless something is done about NCLB. Did you see this morning's Wisconsin State Journal article about Madison facing sanctions? Six districts in the state failed to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP). 228 individual schools failed to meet AYP as defined in the law. Nearly double the 140 that failed last year. I predicted this from the get go. It does not make me feel good that my prediction came to pass. But one test score in time comparing one 4th grade class to the one the year before does not tell you how much those kids learned.

On the upside, completely against calculations, JC McKenna met AYP. With the WKCE scores they posted, this was simply not feasible using the straight numbers provided on the WINSS system. Which begs the question as to what the heck kind of magic schools do with the numbers to "meet" AYP. There is supposed to be some 2% of students that can be excluded from "counting," yet an alternate assessment is given in the calculations for various demographics. As with the infamous "Safe Harbor" calculation, there is another factor of which I am unaware and frankly, don't even care about anymore. It seems that in their fury about the ^&&)* NCLB, the bean counters for schools have developed any number of shell games to show "progress." Meanwhile, education goes to hell in a hand basket trying to meet all these stupid testing protocols. So, when all those schools show 100% proficient or advanced students in 2014, just remember some wizadry is involved and we're just as stupid as we were in 2001. Probably more so. But we have numbers to debunk it, so we must be brilliant. Another case of dangerous use of statistics. Blinking bureaucrats.

My rant is done. I am glad JC McKenna met AYP. I fear it is on a house of cards and when the goals increase by 9 and 12.5% again next year, it will all come tumbling down. But I am confident that some bean counter will come up with a formula that will prove all is well. Kudos to Evansville and once again, I must apologize for my premature predictions of AYP failure. Ah, well, for that you must turn in your calculator, missy!

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.