Friday UPDATE
State High Vision
Friday UPDATE
September 7, 2007
Thanks to all!
As we resumed the routine of back to school this week… morning buses, after-school activities and the excitement of a new school…we would like to thank all of you for your help in protecting the children of this community. Without the efforts of our community – parents, teachers, retirees, students – our children would have started this academic year UNDER CONSTRUCTION. For some, it would have been the defining characteristic of their high school experience. The MEGA SCHOOL would have forever changed Holmes Foster and Greentree neighborhoods. Isn’t the sound of team practices and tennis balls on Community Field so much better than the sound of backhoes and bulldozers? Your efforts in asking the board to STOP and RE-EVALUATE and subsequent response in the voting booth shows that RIGHT does make MIGHT. The incoming school board has many challenges ahead and will need our support (both through the November election and after). We will continue to ask the community to stay engaged.
The next SCASD Board Meeting is this coming Monday, September 10, 2007 at 7:30 in the board meeting room at 131 W. Nittany Ave. Please try to attend this meeting and ALL meetings through December. It is important that the community continue to watch how the district manages our resources until new leadership takes charge.
Update on the Small Schools Advisory Program:
The SCASD began implementation of the “advisory” program at both the NORTH and SOUTH Building this week. Why is this a concern of State High Vision? Advisory and the Small Schools initiative (SSI) were initially developed to address the concerns of having such a large high school. When the district planned to put 2700 kids under one roof, the need for programs that would help the students engage in their school community was prioritized by district administrators. As the SSI program has evolved, under the guidance of paid consultants, it’s current configuration is 19 kids in randomly assigned, same grade groupings, meeting each week for 30 minutes to participate in teambuilding and other community supporting activities, lead by teachers and/or paraprofessionals. The pluses and minuses of a large school will clearly be a consideration as the new board begins development of a District Wide Facilities Plan. The relationship between smaller learning environments and school success will need to be evaluated. Will the solution be bricks and mortar or similar “paper” programs to address the concerns of STUDENT CONNECTION?
What you may not know about the SSI/Advisory…
· Participation in the program is not required for graduation and students will not receive a grade for it.
· Although the district initially told parents who wanted to OPT OUT of the program that it is mandatory, some parents demanded acknowledgement of parental rights to grant/deny permission for non-instructional activities and have pulled their kids out of the program.
· WHY ARE PARENTS CONCERNED? WHAT IS SO BAD ABOUT TEAMBUILIDNG? Parents are reporting several reasons why they don’t want their kids to participate: loss of instructional time; value and “feeling” activities in a public school; teachers and staff who may not be trained or feel comfortable with feeling-related activities. Additionally, the district DID NOT ask for parental permission for our kids to participate in this pilot project!
· If you don’t want to have your kids picture taken by student teachers, you can say NO. If you don’t want your kids to use the internet, you can say NO. If you pull YOUR OWN KIDS from instructional time (i.e. a vacation), you have to sign a TRIP FORM and students have to make up the work. You can pull your kids from instruction if you have religious objections and they let the kids sit in the library doing other work. How can the district get away with not asking our permission for ADVISORY???
· The district grudgingly responded to parent demands to OPT OUT but refuses to offer an on-site alternative. Parents who opt out are being told that they must come in during the 30 minutes of the school day to supervise our kids OR to pick them up and take them off grounds!!! How many families would OPT OUT if given a safe on-site alternative? How many parents can leave work during the school day or really WANT their kids to be leaving school during the school day? By limiting options for parents who don’t want their children to be involved, the district is essentially coercing participation. Is bullying a topic that will be covered in Advisory?
· The district received grant monies for this project under PROJECT 720, ironically named after the number of instructional days that a student SHOULD be receiving from 9th to 12th grade. A freshmen entering State HIGH will lose 18 hours of instructional time over each year for the next 4 years if they participate in the ADVISORY program. Perhaps the district should ask for money from Project “708” since those kids will lose so much instructional time with this project! (The equivalent of 3 days per year for 4 years!).What would be the consequences for a parent who pulled their kid out of instruction for 3 full days in a year without a note????
· An external agency is coming in to assess results even though measures for success were not included in the development of the program (parents asked about program goals at numerous parent meetings). Does that make classify the program as RESEARCH? Will those results be reported externally or written up in an education journal?
· At least one SCASD administrator is using advisory programs for graduate research but is reportedly not using State College kids for his project.
· Will value and “feeling” activities mean more MANDATED reporting for teachers as they are set up to ask kids to share personal things in class and with their peers??
· The CDT reported only several families have opted out and that after only 2 days, administrators were “excited” about the project. Did the reporter actually talk to any kids? Did the reporter actually talk to parents? While some children found the program to be positive, reports of Nintendo, IPODS, paper football, “Do what you want, this is just going to be a study hall” and games without related debriefing were some of the reports from kids. In the meantime, Panera, McDonalds and Meyers Dairy saw a spike in business during the advisory hours. J
· The next phase of SSI is asking our children to pick a “major” or tract and then remain in that for the academic year. Imagine a 14 year old having to identify career interests and then be stuck with that for 9 months? What if all of the kids pick the same option? Will tracts become full? Will this guarantee further LABELING of kids by their peers?
· Just as with the plans for the MEGA SCHOOL, we are once again asking…What are the teachers saying? What are the students saying? What are parents saying? Has anyone been asked?
Hasn’t the SCASD learned the importance of engaging stakeholders – especially parents – in decisions that impact our children before telling us “it’s a done deal?” Parents who want their kids to participate should be able to say yes; parents who don’t should be able to say NO without consequences for our children.