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.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, August 8, 2008
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:
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.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Our students and schools need you on August 14th
A professor of mine at the University of Northern Iowa told my class, that being an educator meant more than teaching. Being an educator meant being an advocate for the children in your classroom and school. My professor repeatedly told my class this throughout the semester. It wasn't until I entered my school for the very first time that I truly understood why my professor wanted us to understand that being an educator means being an advocate.
Far too many of our children are voiceless. They don't have anyone advocating for their basic needs. This basic need includes education. Unfortunately, some of the people who are making the big decisions regarding our students education, see our kids as being nothing but dollars. Unfortunately, too many in the public see our kids as being nothing but failures.
An unexpected school board meeting was called tonight to address the 2008-09 Fiscal School Budget for MPS. The Journal Sentinal published that a board meeting would be held to discuss the budget. There were maybe 10 people at the meeting, and this includes the reporter from the Sentinal. There would have been 14 people, but four people left after waiting 20 minutes for the board to end their private executive session in the conference room. I am most grateful that those four individuals came, because they were friendly WEAC members.
While they were there, these four individuals were able to hear citizens, who are extremely involved in the MPS budget process (and they were talking about school board recruitments) belittle our schools, our teachers, and our union. They engaged one individual, and after 20 minutes, it was time for them to go to where they needed to be. I stayed and listened to these Milwaukee citizens speak so negatively about the jobs we are doing every day in our schools. I even overheard one individual share with the group about an administrator telling him that three "bad" special education teachers received poor evaluations and so they were moving on to new schools.
Waiting for the board to move out of their executive sessions was one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had. I bit my tongue to stop myself from lashing out at them. All of them, with the exception of one, had nothing positive to say about our schools, our teachers, and our union.
Fortunately, the meeting ended quickly. Director Bonds motioned the meeting be adjourned for several grounds, which I can not remember all of them. On a five to four vote, the meeting was adjourned. Directors Bonds, Director Hardin, Director Morales, Director Falk, and Director Blewitt voted to adjourn the meeting. This was a big win for us!
The point of this meeting was to look at the budget and make cuts. The first two items on that chopping block are the full-time ParaProfessionals in all K4 and non SAGE K5 classrooms and the restored 40 EA positions. I'm not sure what else is on the chopping blocks, but some of the board are ready to furthur drastic cuts to a very thin budget.
Again, these board members are looking at our children as being dollar signs, nothing more. They don't understand that we have a responsibility to educate the whole child, not just produce a targeted test score.
I am so thankful that the board meeting was quickly adjourned, because our students were voiceless tonight. They didn't have their advocates at the meeting to speak up or stand up on their behalf.
I understand that we are all busy and have lives outside of our schools. However, we chose to enter the education field because we want our students to have a great future. Our students need us to wear our advocate hats more often for them. They need us to be their voice at our school board meetings. I understand that many of us write our school board members. I also understand that many of us call our school board members frequently. We find time to do these things because we care about education in MPS and our students. However, our students and our schools need us to be present in the audience at these school board meetings. The school board makes their decisions in front of the audience, not in front of your letter or on the other end of the phone. If we aren't in the audience, they don't feel the pressure.
I am asking all of you to please attend the August 14 school board hearing and advocate for our students and schools. Please attend this school board meeting, and be a voice for our students. It is our words and actions that give a voice to our voiceless children in MPS.
Far too many of our children are voiceless. They don't have anyone advocating for their basic needs. This basic need includes education. Unfortunately, some of the people who are making the big decisions regarding our students education, see our kids as being nothing but dollars. Unfortunately, too many in the public see our kids as being nothing but failures.
An unexpected school board meeting was called tonight to address the 2008-09 Fiscal School Budget for MPS. The Journal Sentinal published that a board meeting would be held to discuss the budget. There were maybe 10 people at the meeting, and this includes the reporter from the Sentinal. There would have been 14 people, but four people left after waiting 20 minutes for the board to end their private executive session in the conference room. I am most grateful that those four individuals came, because they were friendly WEAC members.
While they were there, these four individuals were able to hear citizens, who are extremely involved in the MPS budget process (and they were talking about school board recruitments) belittle our schools, our teachers, and our union. They engaged one individual, and after 20 minutes, it was time for them to go to where they needed to be. I stayed and listened to these Milwaukee citizens speak so negatively about the jobs we are doing every day in our schools. I even overheard one individual share with the group about an administrator telling him that three "bad" special education teachers received poor evaluations and so they were moving on to new schools.
Waiting for the board to move out of their executive sessions was one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had. I bit my tongue to stop myself from lashing out at them. All of them, with the exception of one, had nothing positive to say about our schools, our teachers, and our union.
Fortunately, the meeting ended quickly. Director Bonds motioned the meeting be adjourned for several grounds, which I can not remember all of them. On a five to four vote, the meeting was adjourned. Directors Bonds, Director Hardin, Director Morales, Director Falk, and Director Blewitt voted to adjourn the meeting. This was a big win for us!
The point of this meeting was to look at the budget and make cuts. The first two items on that chopping block are the full-time ParaProfessionals in all K4 and non SAGE K5 classrooms and the restored 40 EA positions. I'm not sure what else is on the chopping blocks, but some of the board are ready to furthur drastic cuts to a very thin budget.
Again, these board members are looking at our children as being dollar signs, nothing more. They don't understand that we have a responsibility to educate the whole child, not just produce a targeted test score.
I am so thankful that the board meeting was quickly adjourned, because our students were voiceless tonight. They didn't have their advocates at the meeting to speak up or stand up on their behalf.
I understand that we are all busy and have lives outside of our schools. However, we chose to enter the education field because we want our students to have a great future. Our students need us to wear our advocate hats more often for them. They need us to be their voice at our school board meetings. I understand that many of us write our school board members. I also understand that many of us call our school board members frequently. We find time to do these things because we care about education in MPS and our students. However, our students and our schools need us to be present in the audience at these school board meetings. The school board makes their decisions in front of the audience, not in front of your letter or on the other end of the phone. If we aren't in the audience, they don't feel the pressure.
I am asking all of you to please attend the August 14 school board hearing and advocate for our students and schools. Please attend this school board meeting, and be a voice for our students. It is our words and actions that give a voice to our voiceless children in MPS.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Summer recess
While the board will continue to meet intermittently, we will take a bit of a summer break -- unless a major issue surfaces. Once the budget talks heat up again, you will find us here blogging.
Until then, have a great summer!
Until then, have a great summer!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Budget adopted - report from the field
Gretchen Schuldt over at the new Blogging MPS has an extremely thorough report on the proceedings of the June 19 Board meeting. Why reinvent the wheel?
A couple of editorial comments, however:
(Disclaimer: these opinions are formed after reading Gretchen's post. I wasn't able to attend the meeting or listen to the proceedings on the radio last night.)
There appeared to be much talk about how it's difficult to pass a budget when we don't know what will happen with state finances and the property tax levy this fall. This conversation ensued mostly in reaction to an amendment that was presented to add $19.7 million in spending to the budget, which would allow the district to hire 170 more teachers.
From what I can gather from Gretchen's report, Director Falk in particular was cautious about the addition, and Danny Goldberg too, who said "We simply can't do it because we don't know what the fiscal impact of our decisions is on our constituents." Fair enough - I get they're in a tough position - but aren't the students his constituents as well? Isn't it the school board's responsibility to ensure students get a quality education from MPS? And it's their job to make the tough decisions. That's why they were elected. But perhaps Goldberg has another agenda besides strengthening MPS. I wonder what that could be. Your guesses in the comment section are welcome.
Really, we need all school board members to advocate for school finance reform in Wisconsin -- they wouldn't be in such a huge pickle every year at budget time if the school funding formula weren't broken beyond repair. In fact, that appeared to be part of the discussion last night.
Gretchen reports that Dir. Jeff Spence said he would he would "like to see some sort of plan that would get us more engaged" with elected officials, but "to have us go out there as opposed to them coming back and talking to us -- their constituents -- is backwards." He's not exactly wrong about that, but it strikes me as extraordinarily naive on his part.
But good for him for admitting what he needs. So Dir. Spence, here's a plan, and I'm calling it "Lobbying." Call up legislators; ask for an appointment to meet, preferably in Milwaukee; set appointment with a scheduler; meet and advocate strongly for school finance reform, describing the unbearable and immoral choices you have to make each and every year - choosing between property taxpayers and children.
There. That's not too tough, right. And it takes very little money to boot.
In fact, I bet you could even get some teachers to come along with you to that meeting to describe how budget cuts have hurt kids in Milwaukee.
A couple of editorial comments, however:
(Disclaimer: these opinions are formed after reading Gretchen's post. I wasn't able to attend the meeting or listen to the proceedings on the radio last night.)
There appeared to be much talk about how it's difficult to pass a budget when we don't know what will happen with state finances and the property tax levy this fall. This conversation ensued mostly in reaction to an amendment that was presented to add $19.7 million in spending to the budget, which would allow the district to hire 170 more teachers.
From what I can gather from Gretchen's report, Director Falk in particular was cautious about the addition, and Danny Goldberg too, who said "We simply can't do it because we don't know what the fiscal impact of our decisions is on our constituents." Fair enough - I get they're in a tough position - but aren't the students his constituents as well? Isn't it the school board's responsibility to ensure students get a quality education from MPS? And it's their job to make the tough decisions. That's why they were elected. But perhaps Goldberg has another agenda besides strengthening MPS. I wonder what that could be. Your guesses in the comment section are welcome.
Really, we need all school board members to advocate for school finance reform in Wisconsin -- they wouldn't be in such a huge pickle every year at budget time if the school funding formula weren't broken beyond repair. In fact, that appeared to be part of the discussion last night.
Gretchen reports that Dir. Jeff Spence said he would he would "like to see some sort of plan that would get us more engaged" with elected officials, but "to have us go out there as opposed to them coming back and talking to us -- their constituents -- is backwards." He's not exactly wrong about that, but it strikes me as extraordinarily naive on his part.
But good for him for admitting what he needs. So Dir. Spence, here's a plan, and I'm calling it "Lobbying." Call up legislators; ask for an appointment to meet, preferably in Milwaukee; set appointment with a scheduler; meet and advocate strongly for school finance reform, describing the unbearable and immoral choices you have to make each and every year - choosing between property taxpayers and children.
There. That's not too tough, right. And it takes very little money to boot.
In fact, I bet you could even get some teachers to come along with you to that meeting to describe how budget cuts have hurt kids in Milwaukee.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Board Defers Vote on Domestic Partner Benefits
When I arrived home from the School Board meeting, I looked over the agenda again. This time one item stood out more so than before. Listed under the Board’s Core Beliefs is this statement:
Families are valuable partners.
I read no qualifications on this statement. It does not read ‘Heteronormative Families”. It does not read “Married Parents”. It simply uses an encompassing term -- families. By doing this, it does not restrict recognition only to families that look a certain way or believe in a certain religion. It recognizes the task of public education, that is, to provide an education to every child. This task requires Milwaukee Public Schools to work in partnership with the family of every child. Therefore the Board cannot make decisions that will allow some families to receive recognition while others do not.
One obvious and important way for the Board to live up to its core beliefs is to support the extension of benefits to domestic partners of MPS employees. In doing so, the Board would not only be following its own stated values but provide an example to our children of doing what is fair and just. We teachers often talk about utilizing those ‘teachable moments’. I call upon the Board to do just that. This can be a valuable opportunity to demonstrate to our students the importance of equality—including equal pay for equal work. Not offering partner benefits to employees who choose not to marry or who by law of our state are denied the right to marry violates this principle.
I was disappointed that the Board did not take a vote on this resolution but having been to a number of school board meetings in the past few months, I’ve experienced frustration and disappointment before. Something was different at this meeting though and the first piece of evidence was when I walked into the auditorium and two police officers were standing near the doorway. The room was full. There were those with signs that read ‘NO’ and many wearing stickers with “YES”. The division was palpable. Instead of becoming stalled by such divisions, the Board now has an opportunity to facilitate reconciliation. In order to do that, it needs to call out and recognize prejudice and discrimination for what it is and help lead the entire community to understand how such discrimination hurts us all.
Many of those who spoke against the resolution also talked about their own lack or family members’ lack of health care coverage. Director Morales commented on this as well and I wish to extend her encouragement in working to resolve the crisis of the uninsured in Milwaukee and beyond. Instead of limiting who receives health care benefits by where you work or whether or not you are married why not recognize everyone’s dignity and work toward providing quality health care to all? Every year in the United States 18,000 people die due to not having health insurance. As educators and community members all of us can utilize this as a teachable moment for our children and demonstrate we are willing to work towards something better.
Families are valuable partners.
I read no qualifications on this statement. It does not read ‘Heteronormative Families”. It does not read “Married Parents”. It simply uses an encompassing term -- families. By doing this, it does not restrict recognition only to families that look a certain way or believe in a certain religion. It recognizes the task of public education, that is, to provide an education to every child. This task requires Milwaukee Public Schools to work in partnership with the family of every child. Therefore the Board cannot make decisions that will allow some families to receive recognition while others do not.
One obvious and important way for the Board to live up to its core beliefs is to support the extension of benefits to domestic partners of MPS employees. In doing so, the Board would not only be following its own stated values but provide an example to our children of doing what is fair and just. We teachers often talk about utilizing those ‘teachable moments’. I call upon the Board to do just that. This can be a valuable opportunity to demonstrate to our students the importance of equality—including equal pay for equal work. Not offering partner benefits to employees who choose not to marry or who by law of our state are denied the right to marry violates this principle.
I was disappointed that the Board did not take a vote on this resolution but having been to a number of school board meetings in the past few months, I’ve experienced frustration and disappointment before. Something was different at this meeting though and the first piece of evidence was when I walked into the auditorium and two police officers were standing near the doorway. The room was full. There were those with signs that read ‘NO’ and many wearing stickers with “YES”. The division was palpable. Instead of becoming stalled by such divisions, the Board now has an opportunity to facilitate reconciliation. In order to do that, it needs to call out and recognize prejudice and discrimination for what it is and help lead the entire community to understand how such discrimination hurts us all.
Many of those who spoke against the resolution also talked about their own lack or family members’ lack of health care coverage. Director Morales commented on this as well and I wish to extend her encouragement in working to resolve the crisis of the uninsured in Milwaukee and beyond. Instead of limiting who receives health care benefits by where you work or whether or not you are married why not recognize everyone’s dignity and work toward providing quality health care to all? Every year in the United States 18,000 people die due to not having health insurance. As educators and community members all of us can utilize this as a teachable moment for our children and demonstrate we are willing to work towards something better.
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