School Board votes to restore 40 EA Positions for 2008-09

Congratulations to our Educational Assistants for their hard fight and victory last night at the school board meeting. The EA's and their President provided heartfelt and passionate testimony about how much they love working with our kids and the important roles they play in our schools. Swayed by the testimony provided, Director Bonds moved to restore the 40 EA positions as EA positions instead of the administrations proposal to create social worker assistants and other unspecified positions.

The committee also decided to send the administration's busing proposal back to the drawing board once again after a very lengthy discussion. However, this time the board discussed the importance of the board and administration working together in a creative manor in trying to figure out the best way to cut transportation costs. This is definitely an issue that everyone should be paying close attention too, because it will have direct impact on school enrollments.

Please be sure to attend the Sept. 9th school board meeting on the new mandates from DPI.

DPI sends a memo

Members of the Innovation and School Reform Committee last night were presented with a memo from DPI that contained some surprising information. In light of MPS now being a level three (up from level two) district in need of improvement, DPI has issued various new requirements. Some mentioned by the board members included extending instructional days by 30 days at one or two schools, mandatory summer school for all Title I SIFI schools, some kind of reading plan and various requirements in regards to teacher quality. Members discussed the possible impact this could have on the budget, using the example of how extended instruction would be more costly. Director Morales discussed the memo in terms of it being "developmentally inappropriate" for young children and "financially inappropriate" for taxpayers. The Administration talked about making the memo public by putting it up on the portal, which would be great to actually be able to read it. Hopefully, it will be available soon. The ISR Committee is planning a public hearing on these items for September 9 at 6:30 at Central Office.
Other action taken at the meeting was the approval of the contract for the Hmong American Peace Academy.
Also, remember if you are unable to give public testimony at the meeting tomorrow (August 14) if you want to tell Board members to keep cuts away from the classroom you can email them at: governance@mail.milwaukee.k12.us
or fax: 414-475-8071.

Meetings next week

The school board has a busy week next week:

Tuesday, August 12 - Innovation and School Reform Committee
Thursday, August 14 - Special Education Committee and Strategic Planning and Budget Committee

Blue books (agendas) are available on the MPS Portal.

Tuesday's ISR meeting is shaping up to be interesting. Included on the docket:

• Approval for a non-instrumentality charter school: Hmong American Peace Academy
• An information report on the Comprehensive Literacy Framework adopted by the district in 2004. The report will focus on the writing aspect of the Framework. This Framework came about through the hard work of folks who participate in the Milwaukee Partnership Academy - a broadbased group of institutions representing K-12 education, business, labor, foundations, universities, etc. MTEA has been involved since the beginning. The Partnership has attracted a lot of resources to the district, and some interesting ideas. What's your take?
• An information report about all the money MPS is spending on providing Title I services to non-public school students -- $11,431,550 to be exact. Many of the students, BTW, attend voucher schools. But before you criticize MPS, know that the spending is required by the federal education law ESEA, more commonly referred to as "No Child Left Behind (NCLB)." This law was trumpeted by the Bush administration and passed with bi-partisan support. You all know better than I how schools have been suffering ever since this law went into affect. NEA is working on ways to revise the law so that it's actually helpful to schools as they try to improve. Whether they are successful depends largely on who wins the White House for the next 4 years. Need another reason to vote this November?
• A report on school improvement activities necessitated by our "District Identified for Improvement" (DIFI) status (there's that darn NCLB again!)
• A report on single-gender classes at the 8th grade level at the Milwaukee Education Center.

. . . something for everyone to dig their teeth into!

At the Strategic Planning and Budget committee meeting on Thursday, the Board will set a calendar for the public hearings, but it appears that's the extent of the conversation that evening. However, since public testimony is taken at committee meetings, there is a chance that a debate on the budget could begin at that time.

During the Special Education committee meeting, the Board members will hear a report on compliance. I didn't read the entire 17-page report in the blue book, but it appears the administration will address the recent news that MPS is reportedly not taking advantage of special education funding available from a DPI grant program. It's safe to say there is more to that story than what appeared in the newspaper.

Attend one or all of these meetings if something you see here or in the blue book turns your crank. You will have the chance to testify if you want to.

If you do, report back here what you said and how our Board Directors responded.