Happy Second Semester, everyone!
Freshmen-Congrats on your first finals.
Sophomores and Juniors- No sweat.
Seniors-Woohoo! It's free fallin' from here on out.
So... in the mad craziness of cramming for my finals (Mr. Dominic's Calc BC final-- BEWARE!) I never got a change to write about January's board meeting.
January 11 was an exciting and emotional night, for the board and for me personally. I realized while I was speaking about 4K how incredibly important education is. We're lucky in the US (specifically, in Madison) to have a good public school system but while our goal is that EVERY child graduates with the skills to become a knowledgeable and successful citizen, the sad truth is that this doesn't always happen. Our goal on the board is to change that.
When I first saw the Strategic Plan numbers, I thought to myself "Wow, how can the Board expect to get 100 % of kids performing at grade level on the WKCE's? That's impossible." But I realized that the point of a goal is to shoot for the stars. Anything less than 100% wouldn't be good enough.
Anyways. The meeting:
4K--Support for 4K was strong from the community, local day care providers and board members. But we can't ignore the economy and the continued cuts from the state budget for education, and the Board struggled to find a way to provide 4 year old kindergarten without taxing Madisonians to death. We also had to decide whether or not to implement 4K this year or in 2011.
For the first time since I've been on the board, I found myself completely unsure how to vote. I usually look to the board members for guidance, but on this one everyone was torn. I had to just trust myself, and remember the students. What I concluded was that however many dollars it takes (10, 20, 75), that amount of money is nothing compared to the priceless value of educating a child. 4K provides the incredible opportunity of teaching the children in our district who don't have the money for expensive preschool, or whose parents work and don't have time to teach them their times tables at age three. 4K gives all children a chance to get ready for kindergarten. Finally, 4K in the long run helps tax payers and puts us closer to closing the achievement gap.
I felt that we couldn't wait another year. So did Marj Passman, Ed Hughes and Beth Moss. But with one board member absent, the vote to start 4K this year tied, which means no action. The Board voted again, this time postponing 4K until 2011. This was a disappointment for me, but also a victory to know that our district will soon join the thousands of others providing 4K.
Charter School:
The Board gave members of the Environmental-focused middle school proposal group direction to continue planning and come forth with a detailed proposal at a later date. Keep posted!
Tomorrow is the annual State of the District address. IT will be held at 5:30 in the gym at Wright; also on cable TV.
Tuesday night, Student Senate, 6 Pm. Be there!
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Exciting Meeting tomorrow!
Hello everyone, and welcome back from break. Hope your first week went well! After a grueling first day back last Monday (but I have to say it was nice to see all my friends again) I attended my longest board meeting yet. Started at 5:00 sharp. I left the building at 10:20! Wow! The meeting, as you can imagine, was packed with some really hot issues. The board (me included!) will be voting on many of these tomorrow. Stay tuned!
4K-- Unfortunately, we learned that the MMSD will most likely not be eligible for grants for 4K from the state. We could receive these grants in a few years, but the biggest costs for the district will occur in implementing 4k, which was planned for this coming fall. With this setback, board members are now faced with a question: should we go ahead with 4k and provide this much-needed program to our districts' children? we could use some pretty brilliant methods to finance it, but taxes would still go up for madison citizens. or should we postpone 4k, and hope that perhaps the state budget will give us a little extra money in the future (haha. yeah right).
Behavior in the MMSD-- we had a lengthy discussion of programs in the district to help children with serious behavior problems. These aren't just kids who don't do their homework, or who are snotty to their teachers once in a while. Some kids, because of mental disabilities or very difficult home situations, need a lot of extra help from the district. The board learned about various programs that schools use to help these students and the schools' behavior issues as a whole. Some board members posed a difficult question-- is the recent philosopy that students with severe mental disabilities should be included 100% in the classroom beneficial to those students, or can such students cause so much of a distraction to other students and themselves that they may be better off being educated outside of the school, in a more one-on-one enviornment?
Anti-Bullying-- Bullying, especially in middle school, has been around forever. However, even if some parents and teachers may claim it's "just a phase," bullying is an alarming problem that can cause very destructive consequences. As celebrities such as Demi Lovato begin to speak out against bullying, the MMSD is following suit and evaluating the measures our schools take to prevent and handle bullying. See the district website for the presentation!
New middle school-- The board received an early proposal from a huge, diverse group of community members to start a new "project-based" charter school with an enviornmental focus. Located in the Badger Road/Beltline neighborhood, the school would serve some of the district's neediest children, many of whom now are bussed to Sennett middle school. Through project-based learning, cultural awareness and education about the enviornment, the charter school hopes to bring the students of the school together with community members to increase achievement and activism in the neighborhood. Stay posted!
And that's all for tonight. I'll let you know how things turn out after tomorrow's meeting!
4K-- Unfortunately, we learned that the MMSD will most likely not be eligible for grants for 4K from the state. We could receive these grants in a few years, but the biggest costs for the district will occur in implementing 4k, which was planned for this coming fall. With this setback, board members are now faced with a question: should we go ahead with 4k and provide this much-needed program to our districts' children? we could use some pretty brilliant methods to finance it, but taxes would still go up for madison citizens. or should we postpone 4k, and hope that perhaps the state budget will give us a little extra money in the future (haha. yeah right).
Behavior in the MMSD-- we had a lengthy discussion of programs in the district to help children with serious behavior problems. These aren't just kids who don't do their homework, or who are snotty to their teachers once in a while. Some kids, because of mental disabilities or very difficult home situations, need a lot of extra help from the district. The board learned about various programs that schools use to help these students and the schools' behavior issues as a whole. Some board members posed a difficult question-- is the recent philosopy that students with severe mental disabilities should be included 100% in the classroom beneficial to those students, or can such students cause so much of a distraction to other students and themselves that they may be better off being educated outside of the school, in a more one-on-one enviornment?
Anti-Bullying-- Bullying, especially in middle school, has been around forever. However, even if some parents and teachers may claim it's "just a phase," bullying is an alarming problem that can cause very destructive consequences. As celebrities such as Demi Lovato begin to speak out against bullying, the MMSD is following suit and evaluating the measures our schools take to prevent and handle bullying. See the district website for the presentation!
New middle school-- The board received an early proposal from a huge, diverse group of community members to start a new "project-based" charter school with an enviornmental focus. Located in the Badger Road/Beltline neighborhood, the school would serve some of the district's neediest children, many of whom now are bussed to Sennett middle school. Through project-based learning, cultural awareness and education about the enviornment, the charter school hopes to bring the students of the school together with community members to increase achievement and activism in the neighborhood. Stay posted!
And that's all for tonight. I'll let you know how things turn out after tomorrow's meeting!
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