You say: "Many educators agree that former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program sounds nice but causes harmful results."

In reality, the former Mass. Senator and famed swimmer, Ted Kennedy, was as much or more responsible for the formulation and passage of the NCLB act as was President Bush.

The health insurance reform scam the Obama thugocracy and Democrat Congress is trying to foist on the American public in remembrance of "good old Teddy" would prove more disastrous for health care than NCLB has been for education.

I do think St Joe and all missouri schools could use some of the ideas. Like staying open until 5 so kids can get help with homework if they need it. What a great idea. Also, people really need to realize it is not financial. There are plenty of people who are without jobs so there financial status has changed. That is due to the economy and has no bearing on how they help there children at home or how involved they are with there children.And a single parent household, what difference does that make? People need to quit trying to blame things on single parent households, and the poor, etc. and see what the problem really is and how they can fix it.

gee..... smaller schools. there's a novel concept.

high expectations for students? didn't patterson famously make her " lets face it they are poor" comment?

there is no way that the teacher's unions will EVER support charter schools even though charter and magnet schools are proven performers.

FULLY FUND NCLB.

( and get rid of smith)

ksmith - I have a great idea, why don't parents help their kids with their homework? I do. Go volunteer in a school that is struggling to meet NCLB and then volunteer in a Blue Ribbon school and let me know what you think is different between the two. I am involved in both and can describe the differences in detail but I would like you to make up your own mind.

boz. the answer to that question is not too difficult. families who are working multiple jobs are simply NOT home. would it be preferable to have these families on public assistance? many parents who are products of generational poverty and a stjo school background are not competent to even help with first grade level work.

look at the poverty in this district. education is the ONLY way out for these students. as far as i know there is NO blue ribbon school in this city which has a burdensome level of free lunch.

Box44
I do help my kids with there homework every night if they need help. I also volunteer at my kids schools as often as I can. I do know there are differences but it is not just because someone is "poor" or from a single parent household. It is about how a child is raised. There are plenty of kids whose parents are working and cannot help there kids. If schools put in extra time to help these kids it would benefit the schools.

Maybe our board should make sure and read this colum.Maybe someone should make it a point to take them a newsapaper.And Yes Mr Smith needs to move on.I think Benton would welcome here back as a teacher.
Small schools theres a concept Mrs Smith not your 8 large elementary schools you want for our community.I also am sick of hearing Patterson excuses that the children are poor and it seams as she is saying these children cannot learn. She should have been fired upon making those comments as well as some of the other comments she has made.The problem we have is Mr Smith is not willing to change her plan and involve the community in its decision making process and had to have a outside group to do her work.
This article has another concept as well 94 cents of every dollar goes to the schools and 6 cents goes for admin.Well if we were not so top heavy with admin that sits on their hands and creates messes for our community then maybe more of the levy would go for the schools and we would still have our schools open.Oh but thats right we have a reserve or surplus of 35.5 million and we could not keep schools open could we Mr Smith.Do you Mrs Smith think you may be the problem along with a few board members?And as far as who is responsible for NCLB I do not really care if the children are getting a good education then they can pass these benchmarks.Like I have said before my children have not been born with a silver spoon in their mouths and they were profecient on their map scores last year.But with the current situation we have in our schools created by Mrs Smith a bunch of our schools are not going to met next year and it will be her fault anyway you look at it.Heres a concept Small Neighborhood Schools,Small Classes,Renovated schools,Community involvment,Biuld schools were needed,Have a long term plan with community involvment, Pass a levy with community support that provides more revenue to run our schools,Hire a new Superintendent with experience turning around troubled districts,Make administration leaner and put the money back into the schools,we could go on and on.Before a YES vote ever comes from our household there has to be new board members with a vision for the schools who communicates with the public and involves the public and a new spuperintendent and a few admin changes.And we were a YES/YES vote the last time till all of this mess was created.

Boz44,
There are a lot of us parents that volunteer in our schools and help out in anyway we can so it not like you are the only one doing this.I am also not impressed with what you call a blue ribbon school because the district focuses more on these school no matter how you look at it.And as I have said before if the local schools counsler or admin knows there is problems at a childs home it only takes a phone call to get it investigated and maybe the child removed from that situation.I would hope that all of our schools are a safe and a learning place for our community children no matter where they come from and what problems they may have at home.Some of our most powerful people in our country was not born with a silver spoon in their mouths and had to over come this and I am sure their school played a major roll in this.I understand parents helping children with their homework and we do but there are some situation where familys do have to work 2 jobs each and there are situation where the parents do not know how to help them because of their ability.So the school must play a major roll in this.There are afterschool programs for the children if MRS SMITH does not take these away as well.And by the way Mrs Smith vision for larger schools how would this help this situation?People take your blinders off and see what really needs to happen in our schools,it is not the way we are going now. Also I was thinking there was children at one of our school that still did not have books as of a couple of weeks ago I wonder how this is coming do they have them now.The children cannot learn without the material they need.

I have a real problem with the argument that NCLB is unfair and unachievable. There are many many districts and states who are meeting these standards. The SJSD is spending too much time making excuses when they should be finding ways to fix the problem. Really sad that the NP seems to have jumped on the excuse bandwagon with them.

Education is one area in which we are all equal. For 40 years, everyone has gotten a free 13 years worth of education. It is worth commenting on how different the outcomes are 5 years, 10 years and 20 years later. All of the government programs in the world can't take the place of personal initiative.

The number one problem with our community is there are very few that will take personal responsibility. All I read on these posts are excuses for everyone but no one wants to hold the families responsible for their situations. It amazes me that when I post about personal responsibility everyone wants to just make excuses. President Obama, in his speeches, stresses that until people quit blaming others for their situation and take control they will never be able to further their progress.

The school district needs to be held accountable for providing our students an education based on optimal and exceptional standards and never settling for just what is acceptable levels of education for any of our schools. I do not think they are doing this right now. However, we each have to look in the mirror to make sure we are sending our kids to the schools in the best possible frame of mind to learn. We do have responsibilities as parents even if we have to work two jobs.

MM- I have asked before and no one has given me any specifics so I ask again. Tell me what Eugene Field gets that no other school gets from the district. I want to know exactly, facts not feelings.

Boz just look at your school compaired to some of the other school if you cannot see the difference then I do not know what to tell you.I do not care if you live in the northeast or the south,north,east,west all school should have been taken care of and remained open.Plain and simple.But this is part of Mrs Smith vision for disaster and it is not working other then causing disater.Alone with continuing the dividing of our town reminds me of our divided country we have.We have a divided St Joseph and our city goverment and school board has created this division and continue to do so ever since I can remember and I have lived here almost my whole life.

Boz, WHY in the world are you so quick to blame the parents? I can assure you that there are many parents in failing schools who spend just as much time as you do with your kids. My goodness, Ellison was passing up until this last year. According to your argument, that must mean that suddenly the parents at Ellison stopped volunteering and helping their kids.

It stands to reason that if the majority of the schools in this district are failing, the majority of the blame needs to be placed with the district. Something is not right.

MM doesn't have to answer your demands. One simply has to go back through the months of posts to find examples from many posters that made parents of other districts feel that they were not being treated equally. I have also heard references to the preferential treatment of certain schools in the district from faculty. Why don't you go interview faculty at other schools? Do some legwork and you will get the information you are looking for.

boz, you fail to recognize that the rather simplistic approach you advocate leaves CHILDREN out in the cold. the Children cannot help that their parents are not ( for whatever reason) participating in their education. i am against nanny states, but in this particular case some kind of intervention is absolutely vital.

while filling up my car at the service station this weekend, i saw a perfect example of what i am talking about. two mothers, with five pre-school aged children between them, got out of their car to go in the store. between the car and the store i heard one of the adults drop the f-bomb at least 20 times. her grammar ( in between the vulgarity) was excruciating. how will these children ever catch up? answer? they won't.

your advocacy for parents participation is part of the solution. however, we have to break the cycle, so that these children can be better parents.

Seems to me that LA has adopted a Midwestern, er, I mean common sense approach. How can anyone argue against “The Six Tenets of High-Performing Schools” or why would they want to? This is an interesting proposal that I hope gets vetted as part of the development of the Long Range Plan.

kidder, excellent point in your first paragraph.

did you read this yet? http://www.ohioleadership.org/up_doc/Lets_Dance.pdf

I have been in the majority of our schools. I want to know the facts about what Eugene Field gets - do they get more computers, do they get better books, do they have better teachers, do they get more money per kid spent on their kids? These are things that can be and should be corrected.

Heritage, the way you break the cycle is education. Education is the key. You have to get the kid excited to learn in spite of everything else in their lives. You do this by creating an environment of excellence. This means new state of the art buildings, innovative teaching methods, hands on practical education, small class sizes so teachers can connect with individual children. But parents have to be held responsible and the one thing I love about this article is it says they require their parents to volunteer, see engaged parents are a key to this also. Guess what, this takes money, it takes more than a $.63 levy with a sunset clause.

Charter schools have multiple strong points. I do have one big question though. Do they educate special ed kids?

Come MAP test time, the special ed kids in the public schools take the same test as the so-called normal kids. Through no fault of their own, these kids drag down the average. If Charter schools don't take special ed kids (I don't know if they do or don't), the superior test scores are a statistical anomaly -- the result of simply kicking the bottom 10 percent out of the classroom. Think how much better the test scores would be if the teachers in SJSD didn't have to go over everything three times for the kids with the learning disability while the 'normal' kid sits there bored.

American teachers educate every child, while teachers in nearly every other country only educate those that fit the standard of 'normal'.

To be clear, this post is more a question than a comment. If charter schools DO accept special ed kids, than my points are invalid. I just need someone to clear up that one important point for me.

boz44,
New school would be fine but not the way Mrs Smith wants to close our neighborhood schools and biuld these school which hold 600 plus students per school.How is a disavantaged student going to learn ion this enviroment?This has been proven in other parts of the country not to work so why would we want it here?What wrong with renovating our current schools and bringing them up to date and modern?What wrong with biulding a school to replace Neely,Hall,Humbolt,Hyde for example?If we are focused on new then why not just biuld to replace one that cannot be renovated?But I personally believe all can be renovated and made modern for a cheaper price tag then biulding new and also save the neighborhood schools.What about children that want to have after school programs and can walk to their neighborhood school and if we get Mrs Smiths vision and people have no transportation how do these children get involved?I personally do not want my children going to a school with 600 plus students in it and all of the problems it will have.Or heres a thought is 16 or 18 elementary schools to much for Mrs Smith to handle it sure seems that way.And yes it takes more than 63 cent levy but you have to trust the people you are giving it to first.I wonder how many of these administrators are worried about losing their jobs over this mess they have created.Heck I would have a problem with the volunteering part it would be great for the schools.Boz does your school still have a computor lab?Please answer and if your answer is yes you have one more thing then other schools do.does your school still have a art room? and if your answer is yes you have more then most schools still have.

Eugene Field elected to give up the teacher's lounge instead of the art room I do believe. Edison has a computer lab as I have spent many of hours working with students in theirs. Until this year Eugene Field has had the highest per student to teacher ratio in the district - now it is Mark Twain - so keeping an art room and computer lab were a choice made over expanding number of classrooms. We the parents wanted to expand into the computer lab and art room for additional classrooms to lower the student - teacher ratio but the district refused to provide teachers.

Ok then bozz you have more then we have I know we no longer have a art room and we no longer have a computer lab and I do not believe we have a teacher lounge any longer.You are one up on us.

Steve - Great article.
As usual it appears there are some more concerned about arguing ideology than the topic at hand but an attempt will be made to remain focused.

Green Dot has certainly had successes and for one obvious reason; their system policies target accountability and results with that most critical in educating the students.

Many continue to question those criticizing the SJSD for not having a more comprehensive plan encompassing what is the most essential part for schools to excel. The G/D approach is a perfect example in support of this argument.

Important to consider in this discussion is the fact that the district does not need to be dismantled so as to embrace a Green Dot philosophy. It can happen with a change in the mindset of the board making the first priority to elevate the caliber and abilities of those doing the teaching.

Lets also face one additional factor not totally unique to the area but perhaps more significant than in some locations. With few exceptions I doubt there are many parents not wanting their child to do well in school. If you happen to be a single parent working two jobs and 60 hours a week in order to survive, the quality time in doing a hour or two of school work each day with your kid may well be a luxury. This should not be taken as an excuse for parents to think they can rely totally on the school system for educational success but it can not be simply ignored.

Bottom line, there are options available to improve the problems facing the district. They will not be achieved, however, until a policy is adopted placing priority on educational process first.

Ap, excellent post. Mr. Booher, good article. These are the types of success stories that our district should be researching. Their main focus is how to best educate our children. Unfortunately, it is not. Their focus is on building new schools. IMO, the voters understand this and will not give them anymore money until we see some new faces (and maybe fewer) around the district offices.

I will be at the BOE meeting tonight. I will have one question. What is the district's strategy for improving education in this district? I really hope I get an answer that is more than an excuse for failure.

boz, you are completely delusional if you actually believe that new buildings will in any way help to raise test scores and the abysmal state of education in this district.

you are thinking in terms of a very small portion of the student population in this district. poor schools have a much lower parental participation rate across the board. should we just dump those students because they have hard working parents who are struggling..... or because they're from a single parent poverty family....... or because they have parents who just don't have a clue? NO.

new schools, fine, make them the appropriate SIZE. i am PRO tax. i argued vigorously against the inadequate levy with a sunset.

i am darn sick of listening to the rest of the BOE exclaim to snethen when he says there is unrest and poverty out there....." who have you been talking to?"

School buildings wont raise test scores, never said that it would, what I said is that you have to engage the kids and get them excited about learning and part of getting them excited about learning is environment. Did you go to the schools in St. Joe? I attended 3 elementary schools and a middle school and a high school and guess what the buildings hampered a lot of learning. Too cold, too hot, too loud and the list goes on and on. If you don't think the buildings matter you are delusional. Our system needs a complete overhaul. Does it bother anyone that we design our schools to meet acceptable levels not optimal level? Oh - studies show class size matters more than school size. Bigger buildings with appropriate class sizes = savings in admin, support staffing, utilities and maintenance, these savings = more dollars available to be spent in class rooms.

bozz44,
I went to the schools here and got my education here and did just fine learning as well as my children are going to school here in the same school and are learning just fine.Our current schools just need updated and our neighborhood schools are still needed.Do our school need AC/NEW HEAT SYSTEM yes they do but it can be done.Yes our system needs a overhaul and it start in the offices at 10th & Felix and on the board.Not this TF and their hired guns that think they can brainwash the general public into buying into this crappy Plan Mrs Smith wants to move forward on.We can have all of these savings as you speak of but you know what our children will suffer from these types of school. It has been tried in other parts of the country and more a less failed.And boz we had the right size classrooms till our communitys schools were closed by a bunch of clowns and created all of this mess for our children and our community.Nobdy here is saying we do not want to fund our schools and our children education we just do not like the plan and do not trust the people in charge or at this point the TF is losing trust as everyday goes by.No answer from you about my last post So I guess your school does have more then most in the community I guess you still have your art room and computer lab and only lost you teachers lounge we lost all three at our school as most schools have lost there classroom for this to make more room for classes.Real good decision being made downtown isnt it.NOT.

boz..... dingdingding..... WRONG

read for comprehension.

http://www.illinoisloop.org/size.html

this should take you about a month. it is a pretty good compilation of studies. i didn't base my year long research on this , but it will give you a basic overview.

the whole bigger is cheaper to run mantra is out of date. you must be drinking the sjsd koolaid.

i didn't school here. i sweated my tail off in an un-airconditioned catholic school in wool skirts on tampa bay at the height of its pollution. don't tell me about being "uncomfortable".

Of all the comments I have read, I have found some to have been interesting and some, not. I must admit, politically speaking, I will be interested to see how the district pays back the political people supporting the levy. The one comment that bothered me was the one about the teaching force. Who hires the teaching force? The administration. Who hires personnel directly above the teaching force? The administration. Who is responsible to come up with a curriculum that will be effective for teachers? The administration. Who is to do their best to make optimum learning conditions for children and positive working conditions for teachers? The administration. Who gets fired if they don't do what the administration says? The teacher. To expect the success that was mentioned in the article, all elements making the success, must be observed. Too often we want a program, but if an element of it is not comfortable to us, we want to eliminate the element and we still expect the desired outcome. Parental support is very important. If that is not available, the support of another significant adult becomes extremely important. MM, I have been reading and supporting your posts for quite some time now. I would still vote for you for school board. I can't imagine anybody more knowledgeable about what goes on in these schools, and be aware of the problems that schools face, than a person who volunteers in a school. Some of us talk to teachers. Some of us are there helping. Those who help listen, involve themselves, and observe what's going on. They know things.

No Heritage I run a business and I promise you that overheads come down per student if you have less buildings with the same amount of students. Let’s say we move from 18 buildings to 12 buildings. We reduce our admin by six principals, six secretaries, six school nurses, 24 lunch personnel and 3 janitorial staff. Now lets say principals are at $80k, secretaries at $25K, nurses at $30K, lunch room at $15k and janitors at $25K, that reduces(with benefits) payroll $1.8 million. Now lets talk about maintaining new buildings vs. old buildings. I live in a 100 year old house, it is a lot more expensive to maintain, heat and cool than that of those lucky northeasterns with the new expensive houses.

I am not interested in any study done by any educational group because their goal is to increase revenues through more taxes. In business we buy new equipment all the time at a great capital investment but the productivity of the new equipment always generates better ROI than keeping the old. Buildings are the same, why do you think McDonalds will tear down a building and put a new one up in the same place? It is less expensive to operate the new building.

MM- I would suggest you do away with classes and increase your class size to the level Eugene Field is so you can have an art room and a computer lab. Listen, we have increased class sizes to keep those rooms, we have given up something to get something. Get the chip off your shoulder, quit feeling sorry for yourself, run for the board and make all the changes you want and better the community. I know MM - it always about how the rich people are taken care of and the poor left to fend for themselves, wow are your posts getting to be a bore.

Boz44
Guess what our classes are at the maxium number allowed so now what do you have to say now?Now tell me how we get those classes back for the children. Also you all were given a chance to have over crowded classroom since you all wanted to keep you art and computer classes.I would say that was a bad decision on your alls part, but then again you all were given a option and we were not.And boz44 I did not bring the rich part into it at all you did.Also I have no chip on my shoulder buddy and noway do I feel sorry for myself instead I feel sorry for you because you are supporting a failed district and plan that they have put forward.And boz yes overhead would come down if we had less school and the education level would fall as well.Oh heck lets just tear down all of the schools and biuld new.You know I listened tonight to unicoms presentation and I do not beleive our board would follow any of their recommendations and I also seen Mr Rucker just want to more aless shut everybody up and go ahead and proceed with working this companys after this group in their presentation said community involvement has to happen.So where was he wanting to let there be any community involvement.He sat up there and acted as if nothing was wrong as if he did not care as some of the other member did as well. You could see the tension between some of the board members.This showed me that the board really still does not want to involve the community.Mrs Watson looked lost as if she had nothing to say ,wait a miniute she is the school board president and she did not ask this group one question.She is really concerned isnt she?I think that this group the TF would be wasting their donors money because theboard should no concern for what this group had to say. No wonder our schools are messed up.

better than being a boor, i guess........

Just got back from the BOE meeting. Here is what I took away: This group's proposal will be to create a "facilitator team" of 15, these people will be trained to facilitate discussion through a series of open meetings with the community. The group will then make a "recommendation" to the BOE.

IMO - the facilators will, by design, have the ability to steer the discussion and therefore the outcome. The representatives I spoke with said that the choice of facilitors was the most important part of this process. I explained to them that it seemed plausible to me that the TF - who was paying their salary - would have the ultimate control over choosing facilitators, and therefore, control over the outcome. They indicated that they would hope it would be a fair process.

When I voiced my concern with a member of the TF that the facilitators would not be a fair representation of St. Jo - meaning, if you aren't on the same page as the TF/BOE, your out, my concerns were dismissed.

I will honestly say that I was initially impressed with their presentation, however, upon giving it more thought, I am skeptical that this will be little more than whitewash. My prediction is this: the TF will choose the facilitators who will be the usual suspects. Most of the community of St. Jo will at that point loose all trust in the process and check out. No one will come to the meetings and then the BOE will state - well, we had open meetings and no one came and do what they have always done.

We shall see how it all plays out. I hope that I am wrong. IMO, we will know how it is going to go down by the choice of facilitators.

mm - I noticed that too about Rucker. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might argue that the TF has conspired with the Admin/BOE to create this "astroturf" group who will hire a consulting firm to guide the community to "discover" the existing vision is exactly what we need and then we will all get on board the SJSD train and throw money at them. But, that is just a theory -- or is it???

Yougottabekiddingme,
You are correct this team will be put together by the TF with their good ole boys and the general public will still have no input.This is just a dog and pony show. Also they picked a time for this meeting to when parents were at ball games with their children and some were at work.I just do not trust anything that the TF or the board is putting forward.If this trulely did involve the public then it might have some power but it is not going to.I hope someone with some power steps up and oposes this group before things get out of hand. Like I said today when politicaians get involved it is never good.And this TF is tied to politician and his hit man Roepe and then you have heartless hospital and their attorneys and goons it all spells disaster for our schools community and children.My vote will still be NO. till we have new board members and a new Superintendent.This meeting was a dog and pony show.

yougottabekiddingme,
I do not think it is so much of a therory as it is reality.I do not trust these people to do what is right for our communitys school,children,familys.I just do not have a real good warm fuzy felling after seeing what I saw.I hope that the community will not buy into this crap and see it for what it is.And after listeningto this group say how inportant community involvement is I wonder if any of them caught on to the fact there in not a lot of community invovlement when it come to the levy. So I would say the levy is doomed unless Heartland and other big business have threatened their employees vote for the levy and if we hear otherwise we will fire you.Not beyond Heartless to do this.I really spent the majority of my time not only listening but also looking at the board member and reading their body language to see how disconcerned that they really are.

mm- I am not for or against the district. I support education and unlike you I think we need a plan to replace our schools over time. I also believe in neighborhood schools, however, I think we can reduce the number of schools while keeping within optimum class sizes, if we can’t keep class sizes at optimum levels then I would support whatever number of schools make sense. I think leadership has to come from the board but unlike you I don't know how much the general public should be involved. I think we should look at the most successful school districts in the country and model our district after what is proven to work, of course with tweaks that help the public accept it. If the school system is a proven winner and makes sense for our community it is the board’s job to generate support in the community to create the funding needed to support the system. If you travel around this country and go to little communities in the middle of Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, New Mexico and others and see their schools, the facilities, the athletic facilities, and the pride the community has you understand why their students are engaged and excited. Everyone will say these communities are growing but in reality very few of the small towns in the middle of Oklahoma are growing, they are facing the same economic realities we do in St. Joe. The difference is their entire community understands the only way out for their kids is education and they support it at all costs. Contacts I have in Oklahoma tell me they are actually embarrassed because anything they put on a ballot in regards to education passes, they say it is actually out of hand, but the point is they support education.

I read all the complaining on these posts but read very few that actually talk about ideas on how to help correct the problems. In life it always seems like the people or institutions that are successful are always thought to get favored treatment, the reality is that some schools and student bodies perform better than others. There is nothing wrong with this it is just the way that it is. The thing the board should be working towards is creating best practices from the successful schools and pressuring the other schools to institute these best practices. In going to multiple schools it amazes me the lack of standardization that exists in our schools. Walk into Hyde and it seems it has a completely different approach to how Edison is operated.
Eugene Field gets no special treatment, if they did they would have three fifth grade classes right now not two. Another school has the same number of kids with three teachers, Eugene Field parents went to the board and their request for a third class was turned down. How are they getting favored treatment? And for the record, I disagree with how the schools were closed and the redistricting was done. I would have liked the board to have put forth a plan to close schools and change boundaries over a two or three year period letting career transfers going into 5th and 6th graders finish out with their classmates.
We do not all have to agree but we do need to respect each other’s constructive ideas and thoughts. I just ask that instead of complaining about what has been done please provide solid ideas for what we should be doing.

Boz44,
I will never support taking away our neighborhood school they are good for the community and good for our children aswell.We were under the maxiumum nuber of students allowed last year and we did not have these issues.I cannot and will not accept the fact that they closed these school because of theere condition or to right size the district because that was a hugh mistake. Your school is living proof of that as well as our school iS.Our board and administration has had everal opportunitys to work with the public to get their input and have not done this and tonight at the board meeting and unicoms presentation the board acted and their body language showed they could care a less. Is this the message you if you were on the board would want to send to the public?Look I have grown up here and been thru the schools here and had the oportunity to go to one elementary school, middle school and high school why can we not expect the same for our children?The answer simply is the district wants to cut our school in half and along the way ask for money and will have less school and to ruin our neighborhood schools and wreck familys,children education and lifes.These people tonight showed me their true colors and I personally cannot wait till election comes and every one there after till we replaced the bad apples.Mrs Smith walked around with her nose stuck in the air and and sit there as well and acted if she was not paying any attentio to this group make their presentation to them and to the public.1 actual board member asked a question.Come on.I have my children in these school and this is not the type of board members and administration I want running our school. They also have forgotten they do answer to me as well as the rest of the community some are elected officials and some are tax payer paid.And by god when I ask a question I expect a answer not some standard answer and the run around.

Boz, the bottom line in education is children learning...not just in making a profit. A school district must stay within its financial borders, but the rest of their efforts should be in quality education. It's not about building "super schools", and laying people off, and just trying to "get by." If you start cutting down so many schools, you lose community involvement in those neighborhoods. "Community involvement" seems to be the byword for SJSD in 2009. If studies show that children learn better in smaller schools, why concentrate so much in building "super schools?" I also have a definition of "community involvement", St. Jo style. It is: Come to my meeting. Do as I say. Break up into groups. Brainstorm with your ideas. Write down your brainstorming ideas. Meet in a group. Discuss all the ideas. I will tell you why your ideas won't work. I tell you what I want. You do it. And we will win because of our great teamwork.

dillygent1,
You are corect in your statements. I went to the board meeting tonight and was not impressed at all with our board.Most were not paying any attention and Mr Rucker sat in is chair sideway most of the meeting and then when it was opened up for questions from the board he just wanted to go ahead and proceed with this company and did not even hear what this company had said it involves communty involvement and asked them no questions at all.He needs to have a new name as I heard rubber stamp Rucker. Our Board President Mrs Watson did not ask any question. Also I was not impressed with St Joe Nows coverage and not impressed with KQTV,s coverage as well they did not talk to any of the people who attended the meeting and ask them their thoughts.Hopefully the NP did.

MM, Do you remember if anybody brought up the idea of telecasting UNedited school board meetings on channel 41, at the meeting tonight?

A good start in correcting some of the problems is to kill the .63 initiative and get another argument on the table that will truly address the funding needed to work on improving these issues out there. I actually presented this argument before the decision was made in August to the board and administration and it was not accepted. NCLB and all these other issues can be more clearly addressed if the proper funding is there to implement it. I am more adminantly opposed to the November cause then ever, especially in light of the new direction being taken. It starts there, when the intiative is killed, then the opportunity exists for a new argument to be implemented and a real commmitted effort made to get the public buy in and support needed, not 5 years from now when it still could be an unstable issue. While I am a supporter of NCLB, I do recognize the funding element of it. The requirement can be achieved given the proper resources, positive mindset and effort to accomplish that. Those are the type of people needed on the BOE and administration, those that will accept the challenge to strive and improve upon the existing mandate instead of taking the mindset approach "in several years all schools will fail." Attitude is key.

Dillygent1,
I seem to remember them saying this presentation with this group was going to be on channel 41.But to what will be on the tape they show would be anybodys guess.

when my nice decided to enroll her child at st.joe christian i was like why. now my daughter tells me in another year when my grandson begins school she to will enroll him at st.joe christian.

they explained they don't have faith in the district. my nice said after her child was moved twice in two years, enough was enough. my daughter just wants my grandson to go where he won't half to put up with an uncertian district who might have to move him from school to school because they don't meet some guide lines.

and after reading these post i can understand why they feel that way. so guess i'll be writing a check next year to stjoe christian,after all my grandsons education is the only thing that counts.

i will still support the funding for st.joe schools as i have always done, just to bad that we have come to this. our children deserve so much more than bickering between adults.

chara,
It is not bickering and I am sorry you see it that way but sometime things have to come to this to get both sides to work together and it has come to this. I personally think it is a shame it had to but everybody must be heard and work together for the best for our communitys children and schools.The ball so to speak is in the TF hands and they can choose to involve all people or keep thinking if you do not think like they do we will not listen to you or involve you and thing will not get better anytime soon.

diligent.... yes, they will be telecasting.

this company rep stated often in his half hour presentation that their usual initial meeting is an Hour and Half...... why was this time shortened?

diligent..... the comment from 9:50 last night caught my eye. that experience you described as called in school speech "being delphied". this is something which i have never heard of, but i asked a respected friend in schools about it and the response was that it is a well known technique that any administrator has heard of at one time or another.

when i asked these two reps after the meeting if they had ever heard of this technique they denied ever having heard of it, even though their entire demeanor and presentation is loaded to the gills with this method of driving people into consensus.

also, i was troubled by a section of their presentation entitled "language matters" here are their two examples.

a) we have gone 5 years since the district had a tax increase. unless this proposal passes we will sacrifice all the recent progress that has been made in our schools . (45.0% agree)

b) in april 2000 we were told that the tax increase would last five years and that funds would be used to improve our schools. both things have happened. we need to continue improving our schools and our community by supporting these proposals. (67.8% agree)

when i pressed these gentlemen to explain how this is not simply a trick of language to persuade the voters to accept what they had earlier disapproved of, and how they would defend their use of linguistic acrobatics to change opinion without changing policy which drives that opinion, they denied that there was anything inherently wrong with this practice.

this is classic manipulation of public opinion, and not aimed at fixing root problems.

article on delphi technique. links on this sight to more in depth discussion of it.

http://www.illinoisloop.org/committees.html

yes, kidder, i see this as pure astroturf and am not buying it.

Heritage, I must admit, I have never heard of the term, "delphied." I have 2 reactions to that comment. A fairly large segment of St. Joseph may not really care about the election turn out, except for its effect on their taxes. My second reaction is this...The downtown office can use an intimidation approach on the principals. The principals can do the same to the teachers. I don't think the teachers dare try this on the children, so here we go again--the teacher is caught in the middle.

Heritage, Thanks for your website information at 9:29 AM. I think anybody who works in a company or a school district should definitely read through that website. Maybe taxpayers should, too. MM, you especially, might like to read through this website. Most informative!

FYI - The meeting last night was recorded and is supposed to be re-broadcast on Cablevision. Email addresses were in the presentation to use for further questions. I am sure if you contact the SJSD, they can also provide contact info for Unicom & Kevin Kirby. It is important to note that anyone is welcome to propose other consultants/approaches to be considered.

I also think when it comes to long term planning we are putting the cart before the horse. I mean we still need to address the current mess the school are in because of Mrs Smith and the board closing 2 schools.We do have a major issue with overcrowding at some of the schools.

Here is a link to an interesting story on Unicom from 2003. Note that the same web site with the scathing comments about Unicom in 2001 have very positive things to say in 2003.

http://www.illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:2293

mm - can you help me understand what you mean by "when it comes to long term planning we are putting the cart before the horse." What is the order you perceive we should do things?

Here is the problem, I made a post with some ideas about how I think we should be approaching things and people want to disagree which is fine, but I don't see one post that presents any problem soliving just problem finders.

Mr Hickman,
I think the district needs to clean up the mess they have created this year with the school closings, redistricting, and the NCLB sanction transfer all of which has caused over crowding in several of our schools, not to mention the hardships this has caused several familys in the community and this will remain for over 2 school years because if the unicom plan takes 13 months that take us into next year and if even anything was to pass for the bilding of school it would be a year or more till they would be ready to hold school in them.So something needs to be done along the lines of bringing trailers to school for more classroom space or open a school back up to solve these issues. This is what I mean by they are putting the cart before the horse solve the current issues you have created for our community and by the way was done for spite for the levy not passing in April.If you would see the mess it has created in several of the school I am sure you would understand what I mean.This is not to disrespect your opinions but after seeing this on a daily basis this needs addressed and it is being pushed under a table somewhere. I also believe Boz44 has the same issues at his schools.

One other thought I had was did we not pay our taxes for this year with the 63 cent part of the levy on them back at the first of the year?So these schools should have not been closed and operated this year and then moved forward with this plan the the TF wants to do for the long term.Maybe these schools should have been operated for 2 or 3 more years.But I believe they could have been saved.You do not close somethingtill you have something to replace it with.

What happened to my thoughts on the Board Meeting and Presentation. Was it removed? Does anyone know?

I was looking for it to see what the comments were after I wrote. Not there!

This is just a prime example not being able to voice an opinion!

A very interesting question has been raised about what should be done. I must admit it is a very difficult question.But, I find myself asking...Webster's top floor is unused. I have no idea how much classroom space is available on Webster's top floor, that might, in some small way, alleviate a problem of overcrowding of other schools. It could be used as a release valve for the pressure of what has been put on some of the other schools. Another thought, which probably will not get too much serious thinking...Years ago, when Elwood School was flooded, they rented space from Wyatt Park Baptist Church for classrooms. I don't know how long these rooms were rented, but they were rented, and students made it through their school year. Also, keep in mind that SJSD owns the building next to the old Wyatt Park Baptist Church,[at 28th and Mitchell] and I believe it has classrooms, a gym, and even showers in it. It might even have some kind of kitchen facilities. Somebody will probably bring up kitchens for the serving of the meals. At Webster, that would require opening up a kitchen, I think. At the building next to the old Wyatt Park Baptist Church, why couldn't meals be brought in, if they don't have a kitchen? I don't necessarily think this is a good solution, with a school sitting idle, but a question was asked, for other ideas. I just gave one.

"Papa September 16, 2009 at 12:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What happened to my thoughts on the Board Meeting and Presentation. Was it removed? Does anyone know?

I was looking for it to see what the comments were after I wrote. Not there!

Papa September 16, 2009 at 12:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This is just a prime example not being able to voice an opinion!"

No one removed your comments, Papa. You need to look at the articles you commented on in order to find your comments. I'm not sure which comment you wanted to find but I found your comments on these two articles:

http://www.stjoenews.net/news/2009/sep/12/levy-group-seeking-outside-help/

http://www.stjoenews.net/news/2009/sep/15/community-hears-school-consultant/

Dillygent1 they just needto open the darn schools back up till they have a plan to deal with the over crowding issue. But they will not even consider it and are not willing to admit they made a mistake.

MM, I agree. I have heard comments about the demeanor of the school board. What was the demeanor of the superintendent at the meeting, as the presentations were being made? If you don't know, maybe Heritage or someone else who was there, could comment.I don't remember hearing any comments on the superintendent.

Dillygent1,
From where I was sitting I could not really see her. But before the meeting she seemed to be walking around the front part of the room talking to people.She before the meeting almost acted as she did not have a care in the world and everything was fine but when the meeting Started I could not see her.
But I can tell you the board President and vice president did not impress me at all.Niether one of them had any questions for this group all Mr Rucker could say was it sound good we should just proceed wit this group as if the district was behind wanting this group for the PR instead of the TF .The TF are the boards puppetsit seems to me.

diligent the word that comes to mind is .... canary, as in the cat that swallowed. staff was grinning from ear to ear and nudging each other continuously. took copious notes, chewed on her pen, listened with rapt attention. obviously all staged as it is obvious that smith had to know what the presentation would be since smith , siemans ( i like her so far) and kirby were the triumverate who chose this group. to date no one has given any avenue by which they chose unicom other than the fact that they heard from third parties that this PR firm is first rate.

i watched very carefully and purposely stood in the back.

i was distressed that the TF rep cut off the first questioner so peremptorily. i don't think they liked the question, which had to do with apparently manipulative "language" presented as good communication. not surprised as this individual was also interrupted by mr rucker at the ACE meeting and told "i know what you are going to say before you say it.".

WAS ANY OTHER CANDIDATE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED? absolutely no other company was mentioned. there are literally thousands of educational PR companies in this country.

frankly, i find the notion of hiring a group to package and "brand" our district disturbing.

Heritage, if the superintendent's long range plan for super-sized buildings, starting with the one at Carden Park, is what they are trying to sell, I will NOT buy it. They are not even looking at their own accomplishments. Webster, a smaller school, and Field, which was a smaller school last year, did rather well. It would be nice if higher test scores and larger buildings went hand-in-hand, but I don't believe they do. They may be less expensive to run. They
also put students into a less personal situation, kind of like a factory, at a time when they need to be nurtured and helped to understand that they are significant and cared for. That's not what our children need.

Look to the top performers in schools where Asian children are present; the difference is in the home life. Parental discipline and standards don't leave room for time-consuming extra caricular activities.Nor are such diversions as play stations allowed.School for these families is about preparation for adult life, not puff courses to elevate grade averages.