First, Kevin in the 800 m last week
Second, Christopher’s goal from last Saturday
Would have included more soccer footage after the goal but for the next 3 or 4 minutes all you can hear is the train.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
The follies of youth
Just a quick note, before I forget, on how Kevin makes his parents laugh.
1) We were discussing colleges the other day, he mentioned, “what about Dartmouth?”
pronounced Dart-mOWth….
Parents look at him and say, suuuuuure, just go and interview and say it just like that.
2) We were discussing how old his Dad is now, and somehow, ended up wandering around the topic of slowing down as you get older (I think Suzanne was teasing me, and there might have been a viva viagara commercial on tv) And Kevin blurts our “Well, Dad that doesn’t matter, you can’t do it anymore anyway”
Dad looks at him funny, Mom starts laughing…..
turns out Kevin has translated my ‘fixed’ condition into the same thing as Wiley’s ‘fixed’ condition. Mom and Dad have a really hard time stopping laughing. Mom laughs even harder as Dad tries to explain this one!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Holding my tongue
You can go here and see that the school board has again not come to a conclusion on what the school district will look like in the future.
I think we’re closer. I think that it seems the Board has come behind the K-4, 5-6, 7-8 model (so, we’re not closing a middle school, which was a big deal for me) and that the implementation won’t happen until 2010-2011 (which, I also think is a good idea, it gives plenty of time to get all the planning done, and, selfishly, means there will be no effect on Kevin).
The school board, realistically, couldn’t have come to a decision Monday night because there was too much legal junk in the way. The review of the deeds of the schools to be closed isn’t finished, and, knowing what the possibilities for reuse are needs to be complete before the school choice is made. The topper, though, was finding out that a parent had filed a lawsuit against the district so that she could have a 15 minute presentation to the school board.
School board begins the meeting at 7 pm; it’s 9:15 pm, and they are ready to listen to public comment, and they decide, well, we have this lawsuit to deal with, so, let’s give her the time and (hopefully) she’ll drop her lawsuit.
So she begins. And I swear, if there was constant monitoring of my blood pressure during her 15 minutes, by the end of it, I probably was in unhealthy ranges. She starts off with this discussion of how the school closings will affect minorities and disadvantaged (and of course, now the Board has to engage legal counsel to make sure all of this ‘junk’ that she’s thrown into the fray isn’t valid) and, at end, spends the rest of the time continuing the favorite argument in Okemos, for or against the Montessori school.
About 3/4 of the way through I make my decision that I’m going to say something about this, so, I fill out my card to speak, and start trying to make notes so that I remember to hit the high points. They start public comment right after she finishes (and, as she finishes, she’s promptly accosted by the local news reporter and they leave the room). Not sure how I ended up being the 2nd to speak, since I was the last card submitted to talk, but, the 2nd name called is mine, and I’m up.
In hindsight, the part I regret the most is that I was still pretty pissed off about the whole sequence of events, and it showed in my comments. But, maybe that I was so pissed was a good thing, it helped to emphasize the point (one of Suzanne’s coworkers described me as '”emotional”, so, I know it showed). I was so pissed off that I only really remember my first comment (“I didn’t intend to speak here tonight”) and my last comment (“You need to have the courage to do what’s right and what the community wants”). The rest I couldn’t quote exactly if I tried. I know I made a major point that the Board could not consider that presentation any more than any other opinion, that they had 600+ opinions already, and the community has pretty resoundingly said what they wanted, and that there’s a way to present data to the Board, by email and then 3 minute presentation, not lawsuits. I know I made reference to the reporter getting the wrong ideas now. And I know I pounded (or hit) the table once, but I can’t remember what point I was emphasizing.
I ended my speech, and walked away from the podium, and the room was full of applause. Most of the rest of this week has been a sequence of people stopping to say they appreciated my comments (happened on my walk with Suzanne last night). ‘She’ wasn’t in the room for my comments, so, I missed her reaction…that’s my other regret, I had to listen to her for 15 minutes and she missed my 3 minutes of rebuttal.
Next board meeting is a week from Wednesday, so, the story continues then. On the walk last night, I pointed out to Suzanne that it was a good thing the Board meeting wasn’t next Thursday, or I would have a heck of a choice, go to the meeting or go the first showing of Star Trek. Suzanne asked me which I would go to….
It’s sad….but I don’t know.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A journey into the pond
Last night was interesting…..I’ll detail the pre-school board fun here and save the politics for another post. I will say that my 3 minutes speaking last night received the most applause….but you’ll have to wait for that story. This, by the way, is the first post on the new laptop…..
Get home from school with the boys; tell Christopher he has about 10 minutes to kick loose and then we are doing some homework. Boys are gone (at warp speed) outside. I’m letting Wiley out, checking the mail, and look out the back window and see boys climbing up the treehouse (not fully operational yet). Yell out for them to get down and get this response
“we need to see the dog! He needs our help!”
So, I head outside, and, sure enough, there’s a dog in the pond on the other side of the brush and brambles, and he is barking his head off. Convince the boys that the treehouse isn’t the way to see what’s going on, and that we need to go down to where they’ve built forts and look out at the pond from there and try and get the dog to come out that way.
Head down there with the boys and with Nick, boy from down the street, and he’s there first and says that the dog is fighting something. Sure enough, the beagle (who belongs to the family next to the Hoffman’s, with the boys a year older than ‘the’ boys) is in the water, barking his head off, and going round and round with ‘something’. Sure enough, dog barks and lunges and then yelps as he gets bit by the something.
Make it extremely clear to the boys that, at this point, they won’t get near the dog now since rabies is at the top of my list of worries. The Mom of the beagle boys finally comes out now, and she’s screaming (and I mean screaming, top-of-the-lungs-you-can-hear-me-three-counties-away-screaming) for Velvet (which, at the time I heard as Melvin…) Of course, this beagle isn’t going anywhere. I know, from experience, that beagle’s are one-trick-ponies when confronted with small game.
So, head out to the CR-V and get my waders that I have for work purposes, grab a left over piece of railing from the treehouse and trudge into the muck and bramble and brush towards the ‘fight’. Have to literally knock down multiple branches to make my way close enough to make a difference…..Finally get close enough to get the dog to look at me, not the beaver (or raccoon…I was closest, I think it was a beaver) and the beaver takes the opportunity to head off into the sunset. During my approach I could tell that the dog got bit again.
Finally chase the dog towards beagle-Mom…who, at this point, has headed out into the mud herself. This wasn’t a good move; she only had flip-flops on and they’ve been sucked off of her feet by the ooze and she now has to navigate out of the mud, through the downed branches, in bare feet. There’s blood all over her legs, she’s barely holding back the toungue-lashing she wishes to bestow on the beagle kids (including the autistic teenager) and I make clear, again, that she needs to take the dog to the vet and ask if the vaccinations are up to date.
I have to go get Kevin now; have just enough time to go take a quick shower and change (I was in the pond up to my waist). Go get Kevin from track; reduce Kevin and Jane to helpless giggles and laughter by telling them what they missed as we drive home. Find out here that the beagle is Velvet, not Melvin.
So, we pull up, drop Jane off, head down the street. Ashton and Nick are out and I stop to tell Ashton that he missed all the fun…he says no, I gave Beagle Mom my phone to use.
And I remember, now, during all the screaming, that I had heard her yelling at her husband “you have to get home now, it’s an emergency”….and I ask Ashton, just to make sure, who did she call?
911, Ashton says.
“Really? Are you sure, 911?”
“yup…but obviously it wasn’t an emergency, so, they didn’t come”
I’m shaking my head in disbelief, and tell Kevin, Ashton, Nick, and now Matthew, who’s pedaled up the street, that so they are clear now and forever, you only call 911 for HUMAN emergencies. And Matthew chimes in “for animals, you call animal control”
The end. Today, the kids report that Melvin-Velvet has stitches, and is in quarantine…but will wait to hear more on both of those stories as the week plays out.
The pond? Very soft mud, extremely hard to get out to, and not nearly as cold as I thought it could have been.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Draft Day Update
Really, the NFL Draft should be a national holiday…….figured I’d blog while waiting for the Steelers to pick
Wednesday: Kevin had his first track meet….it was sunny and warm and then wickedly cold and wet, and, in the middle of that, Kevin ran the 800m and finished 12th. Video of the event will be posted once I get my new computer (Tuesday) and get everything straightened away on the software front.
More than a few kids sprinted by Kevin at the end; it took this race for Kevin to figure out what his parents have been telling him…his strength seems to be a solid pace over long distances; stick with that. So, he'll be running the 1600m and 3200m at the next meet.
Thursday: Birthday has come and gone…..need to call Pittsburgh and make sure everyone is still breathing. Suzanne and Kevin got up early and placed streamers / balloon’d my car; lots of giggles and smiles as I walked out to the car (and I had no idea they had done that!). Video of this will be available later as well. Boys enjoyed watchign helium balloons sail off into the clear blue morning skies as I opened the door to the car. Went out to Stillwater for dinner and came home to 40 candles on the cake….lucky the house didn’t burn down.
Friday: The boys have been running mileage club at school; Suzanne and I stopped by on Wednesday to watch for a few minutes from across the street. Christopher is running along with his big long gait, and it’s a social event for him, he’s talking, he’s stopping and walking and talking, and if his friends want to stop and go to the playground, he’s out of there. Matthew, well, he’s focused on running. Ask him if he runs with his friends, and the answers is no, they can’t keep up. Nice stride as he rounds the building.
Received Christopher’s first set of standardized tests; nothing there that we weren’t expecting to see, although the results were a bit contradictory at times….
Saturday: Soccer was a 5-1 loss in the morning; the one was a Christopher goal late in the game. More and more I learn that I’m ok at coaching little kids, and I guess ok at coaching good kids, but there’s kids on my team who just don’t care or aren’t that good and it’s frustrating, and I don’t know if I want to keep doing that. Again, it’s 1-0 at halftime, and we’re playing well and have missed on a few chances, and then half the team stops playing aggressively and the roof caves in. Oh well.
The weather didn’t cooperate with treehouse advancement (and Sunday isn’t looking all that great either). Watched the Pens and had to give up in disgust at 3-0 Flyers to get ready to go out to Melting Pot with Suzanne, Christine, and friends. I’m pleasantly surprised to watch the score become 3-1, 3-2, and 3-3 and, as we are driving down to Novi, 4-3 Pens. Get there in time to see the last 2 minutes on the big screen at the restaurant bar….can’t believe they came back like that.
Dinner at Melting Pot was good…tried some different things and am not at all sure what I would order if we were going again tonight. Am always surprised there by how much I enjoy the mushrooms! Went out to see “State of Play” afterwards, good movie, enjoyed it a lot, even though my actor / actress identification skills aren’t as good as others.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
So……
Already a memorable day.
Yesterday(!) my father calls……wants to wish me an early happy birthday because, when he turned 40, he had just gotten back from Germany and found out *his* father was DEAD! So, just in case, he wanted to make sure he got his well wishes in……
Never knew John W. believed in cosmic symmetry to that degree! Very zen of him. There’s an adjective I didn’t think I’d ever have used in the same sentence as ‘my father’…..zen!
Sigh…..
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Weekend Update
only one thing of note to report…..
Soccer: 2nd graders lost 3-0; again, we couldn’t convert (one kid had two wide open shots on goal and kicked it wide) and then they other team did. The team did well for being shorthanded; Christopher was a force at midfield in the 2nd quarter (our goalie never touched the ball that quarter).
1st grade team lost as well. Played a team that had three of the kids that I coached at indoor, and, a little less Matthew and more new players showed. Oh well, I think it’s better overall for the other kids on the team not to have Matthew there.
Soccer practice is taking a major hit with April showers. Cancelled 1st grade practice last week, 2nd grade practice this week, and 1st graders seem doubtful for tonight.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Wiley’s smarter than we think he is
Perhaps the highlight of the recent trip to Florida was getting a call from Suzanne on Monday.
Suzanne: “Are you playing a trick on me?”
“No……”
“Well, I just got home and Wiley’s out of his crate and the latch is still locked! You don’t have someone coming over and letting him out?”
“No……wish I had thought of it though!”
So, this story repeats on Tuesday. Don’t really know what’s going on, but, say if it keeps happening I’ll set up the video camera and tape him and figure it out.
Late last week was the first time I had to take him down, and, I leave, come back, and voila, springer spaniel is out and loose, and the latch is still done. Time to go to the tape!
A word about the crate….the door has two latches, top and bottom. I usually only do the top latch, and the boys are good about doing both.
On purpose, I left the bottom latch undone before taping begins….you’ll see about a minute of video, that’s about 9 minutes after we left.
So, both latches will be done in the future. If he escapes again, well, it’ll be back to the drawing board.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The return of video
Still have the loaner laptop, but, installed the video software and we’re ready to go.
First, Matthew rocking to Bill Haley on his birthday
Second, Matthew failing, and then succeeding, at reigning Nerf destruction on Dad.
The nerf darts ended up in the street; they go a long way!
Third, Video from Race for the House
Fourth, some video from the trip to the beach. Mostly notable for how loud the wind is on the video.
Fifth, well, Wiley video will have to be its own post. And we have some video of Christopher's soccer game to post as well. That’s later.
Treehouse
First picture from the tail end of last weekend. Posts are up, beams and joists are hung
The ‘house’, looking back at it from the pond brush
Pictures from this weekend begin here; Kevin helping me screw in the deck boards
Mr. Hoffman, drawn to the siren call of the hammer, thinks it might be amusing to take a sledge to the support
deck planks
more deck planking
I finally let Matthew and Christopher climb up to check it out late today. You can see the ladder I’m building in the foreground; I need to attach it to the deck.
Still have to put up the railing, still need to finish the ladder, still need to install the rope ladder that is on order, and a bunch of little fixes before the kids can have at it. Added some braces to the posts to stop some of the ‘wobble’.
Still need to figure out what to do on the ‘deck’. Going to put up some kind of walls with roof; not sure what it’s going to look like in the end.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Prepared Comments
Exercised my democratic rights to their fullest extent last night…..went and addressed the school board. It’s 4+ hours of my life I’ll never get back, but, I had my say (twice!) and said what I wanted to say, and came away relatively pleased that it seemed that the school board understood the consequences of an overcrowded middle school.
But, I’ll be back there a week from Monday, since I firmly believe the Board has some form of ADD and forgets the important things when they start talking.
In other news:
Soccer: Spring Soccer is here; two games this weekend. The 2nd grade team is going to be seriously short-handed; we went from 11 to 10 kids (even with adding Matthew) and we’re going to be missing 3 of them when we start. One of the missing is Matthew, who has been invited to a birthday party at zap zone. Christopher’s going to be one tired boy…..he’ll play all 4 quarters.
Track: Kevin’s first track meet is Monday; we thought Kevin would be more successful in the longer distances, but, he’s ended up in the 800m. I guess we’ll see how it turns out.
Tree House: Going to try and get the decking and railing up this weekend. Have decided on a rope ladder and a rock wall as the means for ingress into the structure; ordered the ladder, and will be building the rock wall. Will try and get some pictures up this weekend.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Christmas in April
You may remember the best of my Christmas presents. Finally got around to beginning the work on *my* present today. Mounted the one 2’x10’ beam, and dug holes and poured concrete for the three 4’x4’ posts. We’ll let the concrete cure over night, and tomorrow maybe we’ll try and get the posts in place and the joists started.
The drive from Niceville to Okemos yesterday was uneventful; although I really need to quit driving through tornado warnings without knowing they are going on….not sure how to address that. It rained, hard, for about 45 minutes north of Nashville, and I think I was north of the tornados, but, definitely need to figure out the notifications when I’m listening to satellite radio.
Haven’t mentioned yet here that I’m trying (and it’s a slow slow slow slow process) to get to the point where I can do a 5K this year. Started the work towards that in Florida….went with all the boys once and went with Kevin twice and ran/walked the 1.5 Turkey Creek nature walk. The first time with the boys was interesting; Christopher stayed with me as I did my 60 seconds running 60 seconds walking and was pretty supportive; sadly, he had no interest in coming back the other two times. Kevin, obviously, is running at his pace which is so much more faster than mine as to be incomprehensible. I’ve slowly started to increase my first run without stopping on each successive run and am slowly trying to increase to 90 seconds and longer running with 60 second walking rests. The first 5K I’ll try is on 4/26 and I have no illusions that I’ll be able to finish it running but, with running and walking hope to finish to make this inequality correct (wasn’t going to express it this way, but, figured Melanie would enjoy it!)
Dad’s time < Kevin’s time * 2
Today’s run was longer (Turkey Creek is 1.5 miles round trip, the run to Bennett Woods is about 2 miles) and featured some changes….running with a springer spaniel (who probably wondered why the heck we were doing this, but, did pretty well considering) and the trip back from Bennett Woods is up-freakin’-hill almost all of the way. Ugh.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Gulf Islands National Seashore
Wednesday was Day 2 at the GINS. We went on Tuesday, it was 53, windy, and well, we weren’t there all that long. Today it was 65, windy, and we were there a lot longer
The GINS is a little further east from the area at Navarre Beach that we usually go to. Most of it apparently just reopened after the Hurricane Ivan and Katrina. And there really was noooooone there.
Water was cold, but, not too cold. Shells were plentiful, but, not as plentiful as maybe we thought they would be. The beach was beautiful, and I think we’ll drive the extra 10 minutes to get down into the GINS in the future.
Anyway, on to the pictures:
Looking South from the chair
in the waves Part 1
in the waves Part 2
Matthew pre-wave; someone(?) mid-wave
maybe it was Christopher mid-wave; here’s post-wave
On to the beach for some sand-fun
eating sand wasn’t part of the plan
the water wasn’t warm; I was impressed that they were in it that quickly…and, in this case, dumping it over his head.
it was windy….both Matthew and Kevin spent some time using towels as capes/kites
15 mph from the south-southwest
Christopher wanted nothing to do with the towels, instead, was sand and buckets
most of these shots were Matthew and Kevin getting ready to run away from Christopher, who had sand and water in his bucket
Christopher did find a small tiny crab at one point
Sunday, April 5, 2009
BOE
So, after 5 steering committee meetings and 3 community forums what does the Board of Education do at its last meeting? Semi-reject the community consensus and begin considering another option that hasn’t really been discussed because it isn’t feasible. One board member clearly states that he’s going to rely on his “30 years of experience”, another seems to listen to her friends in the community and that “she’s heard that we should consider this”. Viva la community input. Viva la data (and I’m big on data!).
I resisted getting up off the couch during that meeting and going to the Board and speaking during the public comment period last week; I’m certain that I’ll be there a week from Monday summarizing this letter, that I sent to them last week.
If you’re *really* interested, you can go the school district web site and see the documents with the data I’m referring to…they are on the front page at www.okemosschools.net
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'd like to bring to your attention the following thoughts on the reconfiguration options that the Board seems to be considering currently.
Summary
If the decision has been made to close Central Elementary school, the decision now, seems, simply put, to be to either adopt Option A1 or Option C&D. Another way of saying that is that the Board has to decide whether to close Wardcliff or Chippewa. That choice comes down to compromising the educational environment and reducing the extracurricular opportunities for 900 to 950 students for the near future (at least 5 years) due to overcrowded conditions at one middle school (see discussion under C&D, below) versus keeping an elementary school open that serves 240 students (and only approx. 50 students of those students live within a walkable distance of the school). Leaving Wardcliff open does nothing to reduce enrollments at the other three elementary schools (see the discussion under Option A-1 below), instead, it only creates a greater chance of realizing class size inequities by distributing students over more buildings.
Keeping children together for 5 years at the elementary level and 4 years at the middle school level, under a K-4, 5-8 configuration, is optimal.
Why Option C&D should not be preferred
It seems that the Board is intent on studying C-D as the preferred option for reconfiguration. There are several issues with this configuration that led the community and the steering committee away from it, and you should be well aware of them.
1) Overcrowding at the Middle School.
Below are listed the current enrollments by grade for the 2008-2009 school year (these include Montessori enrollments since those students will be attending the middle school).
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Below are the projected rolled up enrollments at a combined 6-8 middle school in the coming years using the enrollment data the District provided for 2008-2009.
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I'd like to make the following comments on these enrollments. All of these points were discussed in length at the steering committee when this option was debated.
a) The enrollments at current grades 3 through 5 are not completely accurate if they are projected forward. There are children at St. Martha's, Radmoor Montessori, home schooled, or other private schools that rejoin the district at the middle school level. The roll-up doesn't account for the increases due to continued expansion of Middle School Montessori. In fact, the "History of Enrollments" document on the District web site shows that enrollment in 6th grade has only once dropped below 300 students since 1990, regardless of the smaller class sizes at the elementary levels. Any decision to combine the middle schools in one building should be made in the full knowledge that there will be over 900 students in that building and that situation isn't likely to change soon.
b) The subject of middle school capacity was a topic that occupied the steering committee for a long time. I'd like to bring to your attention the following points:
i.While the district lists the occupancy as 1,000 and 1,250 in the data documents, this is very clearly incorrect and the administration identified it as incorrect early in the process. Members of the committee who were in the District the last time there were 900+ students at Kinawa described the use of portables and overcrowding that was intolerable....this situation led to the decision to build the current high school. It seems unconscionable to return to that state of affairs in the hope that it will 'ease' over time. I find it more than ironic that the Board will be in a position of 'hoping' that enrollments decrease to make a decision made now more palatable in the future if this option is pursued.
ii.The administration, teachers, and principals at the middle school level were asked, very pointedly, during Steering Committee meetings what they considered the reasonable upper limits of enrollment at the facilities (Chippewa and Kinawa) are as they are currently configured. The answer was 700 to 800 students. I confirmed this number with John Hood and Barb Hoevel by phone today; in very rough terms and without any independent verification, John believes Chippewa’s maximum reasonable capacity to be approx. 700 students; Barb believes Kinawa’s to be approx. 760.
iii.It was clear from the discussions that there is a considerable difference between having elementary schools at capacity and middle schools at capacity. Currently Edgewood runs at capacity and there are no issues; each of the elementary principals indicated that the same situation would exist at their school. The elementary schools are designed with the idea that children are, for the most part, assigned to one room and stay there for most of the educational part of the day. The middle school environment is different; to offer the length and breadth of electives the school requires movement, it requires space.
iv.Under a 5-8 configuration, whether it be 5-6 7-8 or 5-8, the number of children at each building would increase to approximately 600 students at each school. This is approximately more than 100 students than current enrollments, and, approximately 75-80% of the 'real' maximum capacity of each school
v.The middle school Montessori program is designed to increase enrollments at the middle school level; the District needs to factor that increase into the capacity at the middle school AND the extra space this self-contained program will require.
vi.To say that assigning an additional administrator to the building is the solution is the functional equivalent of saying that aspirin is the solution for the flu; it may hide and mask the symptoms, but they are still there.
2) Loss of Educational Opportunities at the Middle School Level.
I refer you to the pro and con sheet for Option C; you should be fully aware of the cons if you choose to pursue this option. Foremost among these cons is the lessened opportunity for children at this age to experience new and different opportunities. Athletic events, fine arts, and extracurricular activities would all either be reduced by 50% or have the teacher/coach/volunteer ratio increased by 100%. At an age when children are discovering independence from their parents, it seems highly inappropriate to reduce or restrict these options.
There won't be two orchestras, there will be one; either multiple sections will be offered with combined concerts or one section with large numbers.
There won't be two volleyball teams and two basketball teams at each of the 7th and 8th grade levels, there will be one. For most sports, reduced opportunities to compete at a higher level will exist.
There won't be two Knowledge Master Open teams, there will be one. Fewer individuals will have the opportunity to contribute or feel as if they participate.
This list is only the tip of the iceberg. At a time when our District's adolescents are finding their own way, you are proposing to limit the oversight, teacher interaction, and extracurricular options.
3) The status of the closed Middle School.
In terms of utilization outside of the school day, the middle schools are the most frequently utilized buildings in the District. Extensive remodeling has been performed at Chippewa to make it a community asset; the tennis courts, the auditorium, the gyms, the large meeting spaces (group rooms) are all utilized by the community in one form or another and depriving the children, parents, and community of this asset without considering the true cost of closure seems short-sighted. It has been suggested that Chippewa can be converted into a community center; I would suggest doing the research to make sure that Meridian Township is interested in this reallocation of their money before you believe it is an option.
Why the Board’s concerns about Option A-1 need further reflection based on available data.
The steering committee and the community at various times and votes have considered Option A-1 the most preferred option.
March 4th Steering Committee A1 - 26 votes C&D - 5 votes
March 16h Community Forum A1 - 233 votes C&D - 35 votes
The Board made several comments suggesting why A-1 would not be feasible for implementation. I'd like to take a moment to address those thoughts as well.
1) The loss of neighborhood schools. This catch all phrase is convenient for those who have a neighborhood school and is extremely disingenuous. Wardcliff is considered a neighborhood school, yet only 55 out of the 247 students that currently attend the school lie inside the transportation boundary and can reasonably walk to the school (I again, refer you to the data packet in the Master Plan, Appendix E, pgs 15-21). Is Wardcliff a neighborhood school for the approximately 40 students who are bussed from further east than Cornell Road? Is Wardcliff a neighborhood school for the 32 school of choice students currently in residence? I would submit that the appeal of a neighborhood school for, generously, 50 to 60 local students on a yearly basis is outweighed by the educational impact to 900 to 950 students at the middle school level. There is no evidence that closing Wardcliff would have an educational impact on the elementary children at that school; there’s ample evidence what overcrowding at the middle school level will do to that population.
2) Overcrowding at the elementary schools. This is a complete and total misrepresentation of the available data. Option A1 provides the lowest percentages of students versus capacity.
Please refer to Appendix G of the Master Plan. You'll note each Option lists the predicted enrollments for the schools under each option, and, while they might not be entirely correct, they are based on the same model and that should be sufficient for comparison purposes.
Note 1: Middle School enrollments for Option A-1 (535 and 610) don’t seem to include Montessori enrollments. See the enrollment data presented in the C&D discussion above, two grades should be a minimum of 600 students under any scenario. I’ve tried to estimate it here by adjusting the middle school numbers to represent the rolled-up Montessori enrollments by taking the 951 enrollment presented in the Option C&D documentation (MS 6-8 with Montessori) and adding the District enrollment in Grade 5 (presented in the A1 discussion above, 308) for a total of 1259. Let’s agree just for capacity discussions the numbers should be 600 and 659. Even if Montessori 5th grades stay at Edgewood, that would only remove 20 to 30 students to the Kinawa enrollment.
Note 2: I make gross assumptions on what schools are assigned certain enrollments. Hiawatha has to have any enrollment over 405; the designation of Bennett Woods and Cornell for certain enrollments is arbitrary and could be reversed.
Note 3: I'd also refer you to the current composition of the Elementary Enrollments in Appendix E, page 13. The enrollment at Wardcliff, under option C&D, stays approximately the same as it is today ....I think it's fair to assume that the same sort of class size inequities that are present at the school currently will persist in the future and may only increase because of the limited enrollment area that a smaller school can draw on.
Note 4: One note of concern with a 5-8 configuration as opposed to a 5-6, 7-8 configuration is the uneven allocation of students to the middle schools. With a K-4, 5-8 system, that concern can be very easily abated by pairing the largest school (Hiawatha) with the smallest school (the Montessori school, Edgewood and Central) and pairing the two ‘middle’ enrollments together as well.
If you've made it this far(!); I appreciate the time you've taken to review the data and consider this viewpoint. Thank you.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Iphone photo dump
Have the loaner-computer-until-I-get-the-new-one…but, downloaded Live Writer so figured I’d try and do an Iphone photo post
The school district hosts a Fine Arts Festival every year; this is Christopher’s contribution.
Here’s Matthew’s…it’s part of a larger piece of art, which is shown
here…..
did this screen grab a while back….the 42 point game is an example of a game where Kevin is most likely to kick my butt (but, I think I’ve won 4 straight from him recently!)
and this 10 point game is where I’m going to most likely get him. A note about verbal skills, we found a little more about how things will go in high school in English…his ACT score has already(!) qualified him to skip Lit Comp 10…when he gets there in 3 years!
On our way to Florida, we stopped in Indianapolis and visited the Children’s museum. I guess it’s the nation’s 2nd largest children’s museum, but I have to say I left disappointed, there was a lot of stuff, but, not a lot of depth to any of it. The big draw was the “Star Wars: Clone Wars” exhibit….the boys are posed in front of Obi-Wan’s star fighter.
And Christopher is posed in front of Anakin…..the exhibit turned out to be art from the show displayed along the hallway in the lower level….though the much-advertised Lego castle exhibit wasn’t much better than what you could see at the lego store in Orlando.
The glass sculpture was neat though. It’s four stories tall, and the pictures are from the bottom looking up, and then vice-versa
On the basement level, you can look up at the sculpture…that’s the top photo here. Under the ceiling, there’s a display area and some stands that you can hang glass shapes on and make your own sculpture…Kevin was having fun with that!
Christopher in the Egyptian exhibit.
The water clock was very cool, and I could have spent another 30 minutes figuring out how it worked. Sadly, I have some impatient boys, and after watching it begin to switch from full at 12:50 to almost empty at 1 pm, they were ready to go.
I’ve driven through Nashville many times; this was the worst. Ended up going through during the evening rush hour with heavy thunder storms and tornado warnings. Traffic was backed up everywhere…took 2 1/2 hours to go what usually takes 1/2 hour.
So we didn’t get to the hotel until late (we had already planned to stop in northern Alabama); and of course, the boys wanted to swim, so, it was a long day.
Christopher’s checked out for the night.
So has Kevin
But this one…he’s stubborn…and is faking it!
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