| Newspapers; 3/17/06 | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 17 2006, 06:43 AM (212 Views) | |
| NFarquharson | Mar 17 2006, 06:43 AM Post #1 |
Principal
|
From the Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...88/1006/METRO01 Friday, March 17, 2006 David Guralnick / The Detroit News Johnson Elementary School students are released for the day. The school district is moving forward with plans to shutter seven elementary schools, boosting student populations at such buildings as Johnson. Livonia moves ahead with unpopular school changes District says closing seven buildings will be a challenge; it faces suits from parent groups. Catherine Jun / The Detroit News The district is planning additional bus runs and expanding parking lots to accommodate pupils at the newly configured, larger schools. See full image LIVONIA -- Amid the din of weekly pickets, threats of a school board recall and a pending lawsuit, Livonia Public Schools is racing to get all the pieces of a controversial reorganization plan in place. It's an enormous task that includes closing seven elementary schools within six months and dramatically changing grade configurations in the remaining buildings. "One or two (buildings) at a time is a relatively simple task," said Rod Hosman, the district's director of administrative services. But seven is a challenge, he conceded. "We've never done this before," he added. Moving a couple thousand students to new buildings also means moving desks, teachers, textbooks and employees. And the creation of the 750-student-plus upper elementary schools for fifth-and sixth-graders means planning additional bus runs, expanding parking lots and reorganizing curricula. The district is chugging along, though a lawsuit by opposing parents is still pending in Wayne County Circuit Court. Last week, the court denied parents' request for a preliminary injunction to stop the process. That decision gave the district a green light, at least until parents return to the court for a second request. By then, much of the new order may already be in place. The leading opposition group, Citizens for Livonia's Future, is continuing with its suit as well. "The reality of the situation hasn't changed: There are a lot of citizens in Livonia that are not happy with this model. With the lawsuit, we're just in the beginning stages." Parents organized as Citizens for Livonia's Future say they've gathered 5,000 signatures on petitions aimed at forcing a recall election against five school board members who voted for the district reorganization. Meanwhile, work goes on toward the changeover. At Cooper Elementary School, where enrollment will jump from 375 to 901 children this fall, three unused shop rooms will be renovated and converted into five classrooms. The school board is scheduled to vote on the bid for the construction project, totaling $555,000, at its Monday meeting. The money would come from a district millage for facilities improvements. Once approved, demolition and reconstruction work could begin as early as April, said Hosman. "Because it's in an area in the very back of the school, we'll get in there before school ends," he said. Though no desks or computers have been moved yet, the district is taking inventory of furniture in buildings slated to close and planning schedules to send them to remaining buildings during the summer. A consultant will soon be hired to evaluate additional parking lot needs to accommodate more buses and cars at expanding schools. The district will spend about $900,000 to repave and expand parking lots, and add driveways and bus loops where more buses will be making runs, said Hosman. More bus drivers likely will be hired, he said. The transportation department is evaluating what children will be eligible to ride the buses; it will send notices of bus stops and pick-up times to homes early next month, said Donna McDowell, partnership coordinator for the district. The district is swamped with the big and small details, racing to get accreditation for the fifth- and sixth-grade schools by the fall and also deciding which classrooms will get globes, maps and textbooks next year. "We're reducing classrooms and we're adding classrooms elsewhere and shifting the resources so they are where we need them next year," said Sheila Alles, director of academic services. The district met with parents and teachers this week to determine the curricula at the new fifth- and sixth-grade schools, a configuration new to the district. Donna McDowell, partnership coordinator for the district, said class schedules at the three schools will be announced in mid-April. Maria Turchan, a mother of three, says she won't attend any of the meetings. She is not pleased that her 10-year-old son, who now walks half a mile to Adams, will ride five miles on the bus to Cooper this fall. "With the rest of his schedule, he won't be staying after school for anything," she said. "It's not like a hop, skip and a jump anymore." You can reach Catherine Jun at (734) 462-2204 or cjun@detnews.com. ________________________________________ http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a.../603170374/1026 Friday, March 17, 2006 Detroit schools lose 11,500 kids at a cost of $63M Christine MacDonald / The Detroit News -- An audit shows the city schools lost nearly 11,500 students last fall, a plunge worse than administrators originally reported and possibly the district's biggest one-year loss in more than two decades. The enrollment decline will cost the Detroit Public Schools at least $63 million in state funding this school year -- $8 million more than planned when the district first released enrollment numbers. In November, school officials pegged enrollment at 130,600, which would have been a loss of 10,000 from last fall. But a Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency audit sent to the state this week found that number is closer to 129,150. Only the enrollment number and not the audit's details were released, but similar reviews have denounced the district for repeatedly counting hundreds of kids who are attending other districts and charter schools, forcing the state to pull funding midyear. School officials wouldn't comment Thursday because they were still reviewing the numbers. "Naturally we are concerned about the suggestion we lost more kids than we thought," said spokesman Lekan Oguntoyinbo. "We are going to work hard at our outreach and we want to step up our campaign even more this year." The decline could be worse because the audit won't be done for another three weeks. Beverly Finlayson, Wayne RESA's manager for student accounting and auditing, wouldn't comment. But in a fall 2004 audit, she found Detroit over-reported its enrollment by about 800 students and she wrote: "Steps must be taken to determine why students who were clearly not in attendance were marked as present during the count period. In addition to the obvious implications of false attendance records, the inclusion of these names … will have an adverse impact on other applications such as MEAP testing and dropout rates." The district doesn't actually repay any funding, but their monthly aid payments are reduced. Experts say this fall's large loss was caused in part by the district's closure of 29 schools. The district may close another 10 schools this summer. Martha Smith transferred their kids out in the fall. Her fourth-grader left for University Preparatory Academy, in part, because the schoolwork wasn't challenging, she said. You can reach Christine MacDonald at (313) 222-2269 or cmacdonald@detnews.com. _____________________________________________ http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a.../603170345/1026 Friday, March 17, 2006 Teachers use more remotes in classroom Students post answers on a screen for feedback; researchers study if the devices actually work. Sue Vorenberg / Scripps Howard News Service ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Remote controls have long lingered in the crevices of American couches. Now, they've ventured into the classroom. Remote-controlled "clickers" are being used in New Mexico universities as a teaching tool. And at the University of New Mexico, professors are studying how effective they are. Devices used at New Mexico State University and UNM have a series of answer buttons. They immediately post answers on a screen to give feedback. A teacher can choose to post individual responses, but they appear on screen with a number and not by the student's name. "Instantly, a bar graph comes up giving the proportion of students who voted A, B, C or D," said Michele Shuster, an assistant biology professor at NMSU who has used the devices since the fall 2004 semester. If most of her students chose the incorrect response, Shuster goes over the topic again. If most get it right, she can move on. "I can find out right away if there's a problem so we can talk about it before they bomb a test," Shuster said. UNM's Anderson Schools of Management is aiming for a scientific understanding of the value of such devices, said Howard Kraye, a lecturer there. Kraye and Steven Yourstone, an associate professor, are conducting a $10,000 study for McGraw Hill Publishers this semester to try to quantify whether the technology is a better learning tool than standard pen and paper tests. "There's more of them (the remotes) around now, but what we've noticed is nobody was asking the question: 'Does this thing actually help?' " Kraye said. Kraye and Yourstone are teaching junior-level classes called "Production Operations Management." Each professor has one class that uses remotes and another that uses pen and paper tests. The students were evaluated before the classes started and will be evaluated when they finish to see how much they learned, Kraye said. "The reason we're doing it at the business school is it has an application for business," he said. "Every business has to do training, so (we're evaluating) which training has the best results." It's too soon to know how the different classes will fare, but Kraye, who has used the technology for two semesters, said he has received positive feedback from students about it. "It really helps the less-gifted students," Kraye said. "They can immediately put an answer up and get feedback to why it was wrong. They can say, 'I didn't get this. You explained it. If I still don't get it, maybe I need to come in and talk to you.' " It's also helpful for introverted students who have a hard time talking in class, Shuster said.. "It's anonymous. I had other students say, 'If you just posed it as a rhetorical question, I probably wouldn't have paid attention, but with the clicker, I paid attention.' " The technology has been around in wireless form for between three and four years, and its popularity is slowly growing in high schools, colleges and businesses, said Darren Ward, vice president for business development at eInstruction. |
 |
|
| NFarquharson | Mar 17 2006, 06:50 AM Post #2 |
|
Principal
|
From the Free Press: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...EWS02/603170466 Wayne County Redford Union restructures to address deficit Parents' campaign leads to changes in district plan March 17, 2006 BY ZLATI MEYER FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER This sign on Fox Street in Redford Township is to thank the Redford Union school board for keeping Bulman Elementary open. When parents learned earlier this year that the Redford Union School District planned to close Bulman Elementary, they launched a lobbying campaign to keep the school open. The financially struggling district wanted to shut the school, plus Roosevelt Elementary School, which it rents out; the Beck Educational Center, and the board of education office. The Bulman parents' campaign paid off. On Monday, the school board voted 5-2 to shutter the other three buildings, sparing Bulman. But up against a projected $3.7-million deficit, Redford Union also will lay off 41 staff members for the 2006-07 school year. The plan calls for reconfiguring some other schools, such as Stuckey and Keeler, and moving offices and programs. "There were a heck of a lot of 'Save Bulman' signs up, a lot of publicity, a lot of campaigning," said John Pullum, who ran the Save Bulman Web site. "I didn't see the Keeler signs up. I didn't see the Stuckey signs up.Once again, they might have been up there, but I didn't see them." Juanita Goulet, treasurer of the Bulman Parent Club, also applauded the mobilized moms and dads. "We invited the school board to come in and answer questions," said the mother of six. "They told us, 'OK, get a plan, if you want to get your school to stay open.' The school board came up with a fourth option, because parents got together and had their voices heard." After a number of community members objected to the district's original building-closure plans, school officials crafted another 10 proposals, many the result of public input. Faced with a shrinking student population and higher health care and fuel costs, Redford Union is feeling the pinch, as are other school districts in southeastern Michigan. Under the plan that will take effect this fall, Bulman and Stuckey elementary schools will accommodate all the second- through fifth-graders, while MacGowan Elementary School will be home to pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade. Keeler Elementary School will house the elementary day-treatment program for students with emotional issues. The board offices, the evening high school, the alternative and community education, the child care program, GED classes, schools of choice for grades 6-12 and central registration will be at the Pearson Education Center. "This was voted in because it utilized the buildings to their maximum capacity," school board secretary Patricia Isabell said. "It gave us the money we needed to prove to the state that we're really working hard on the deficit, and yet it allowed us to keep three schools open for the children -- Bulman, MacGowan and Stuckey." She added that the special-ed pre-kindergarten and the Michigan School Readiness Program, currently at Beck, will move to MacGowan. Though he sympathizes with the parents who wanted the school board to choose a different plan, Pullum pointed out that all kids could learn from the experience. "Stand up for what you believe in and don't give up," he said. "We're in a society that votes. Luckily, we live in a country where you can have freedom of speech and can voice your opinion and not get censored for it. If they believe in something strong enough and are willing to fight, they could possibly win." Contact ZLATI MEYER at 248-351-3291 or meyer@freepress.com. |
|
|
|
| Hull_CHS | Mar 17 2006, 11:14 AM Post #3 |
|
Principal
|
Thanks again, for posting the articles. I just don't get it, how can this plan possibly save any money when they are spending so much to implement it. |
|
|
|
| Elisa | Mar 17 2006, 11:35 AM Post #4 |
Principal
|
An administrsation responding to its customers by crafting another 10 proposals based on public input! Redford did an outstanding job in addressing their district's financial deficit. They are a glaring example to LPS that it is possible to work with the community in a genuine manner, accomplish the task at hand and maintain parental trust and support through the process. |
|
|
|
| « Previous Topic · Livonia Neighbors Archive · Next Topic » |
11:44 AM Jul 13