Friday's Meeting

[Ben Hibben]

I attended the Friday meeting at Manual High School to see what the students there had gathered in terms of research data for one of the other maker-type school of innovation proposals.

The students had forgotten the research results but we had a productive conversation about our various ideas and what the students thought about them.  I'll be happy to recount what I can recall at our next meeting.

The most interesting things I picked up while there were references to an experiment in Washington State where they reversed elementary and high school schedules, giving the teenagers more time to sleep in, and the positive effects (higher grades, lower crime were reported in the group; I've not researched this yet) and a reference to an Eminence school that got permission to break some of the rules and saw a massive increase in student results.  Both of these may serve as good reference points for some of our ideas.

I talked to Tracie about our policy of treating this as "not a zero sum game" and being cooperative and sharing resources but also said that it may be too late to do a full partnership given the looming deadline but that we'd see if we could arrange a meeting.  They've been pretty open about sharing resources.  My impression is that they have been focusing on "big picture" stuff where we have a lot more concrete proposals for how to achieve said ideas.

Frank Lueke was deeply impressed with our ideas, as clumsily as I relaid them, and is interested in helping us out as well.

I have a copy of their proposal materials so far (and can get electronic copies forwarded if you haven't gotten them already).

I've had a very long couple of days and I'll get back to you with more resources and links and such after I've had a chance to rest a bit.

Blenster

PS I know I'm forgetting something; when I remember I'll send another message.