Open Thread Friday
School ended yesterday and I guess you could call this the last Friday of the 2010-2011 school year.
You know, I had just posted something different. It was doom and gloom.
But okay, tell us something about this school year that made you feel good. Was it a teacher? Was it seeing your child move forward in school in a tough subject? Was it working with other parents at your school?
What makes me happy is when the Roosevelt High School marching band comes down my street to practice. I wave to Scott Brown, the director, and try to see if everyone is keeping a straight line. They all look so young and hopeful and it takes me back to my marching band days.
You know, I had just posted something different. It was doom and gloom.
But okay, tell us something about this school year that made you feel good. Was it a teacher? Was it seeing your child move forward in school in a tough subject? Was it working with other parents at your school?
What makes me happy is when the Roosevelt High School marching band comes down my street to practice. I wave to Scott Brown, the director, and try to see if everyone is keeping a straight line. They all look so young and hopeful and it takes me back to my marching band days.
Comments
-FYI
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/highschoolsports/2015408335_ingraham24.html
Then the whole school came to market day and the kids sold their "goods".
Thanks Ms. B. for all her hard work! The kids had a great time learning!
"Ingraham was chosen in part because producers felt the staff and students there would take good care of what's built."
"'It really has a lot to do with the spirit we sense,'" said Mitch Wright, senior producer for ESPN content development.
(zb)
-KT
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Keep-Lowell-APP-Together-Fall-2011/
Ellen Johnson is an exemplary 3rd grade teacher at Loyal Heights Elementary. She is professional, capable and extraordinarily loving. I'm grateful my daughter was in her class.
Mr. Johnson is a US History teacher at Whitman Middle School. Passionate guy about history and politics..grateful this passion spilled into my daughter's life!
Special thanks to Principal Starosky. Principal Starosky is a caring man with a passion for middle school aged children. His contributions will be missed.
Believe it or not, sometimes math class is NOT like a Hollywood movie when it comes to student effort and student interest.
...extricating ... effort ??
My best wishes & hopes for all of them.
R. Murphy
http://www.asa-seattle.org/
" 'It is of vital importance that the quality of education be revitalized and improved,' L. Ron Hubbard wrote to Applied Scholastics in its formative stages. 'As Man is as able as he can learn and know, it is urgent that a workable learning technology is available to him.'
L. Ron Hubbard provided a workable approach to learning for use in any educational setting that is used by the teachers and taught to the children. It is a common-sense and codified approach to teaching and learning any subject and most importantly gets results when applied.
Add to that our use of individualized programs for the children and recognized successful teaching styles, then this school has unique features that are definitely worth finding out about.
The mission of Applied Scholastics is to provide effective educational services and materials that help people learn how to learn and thereby work effectively to achieve their goals and realize their full potential. Applied Scholastics is providing educational programs that are bringing new hope and a new civilization to the people of the world with learning tools for the 21st century."
"What is the relationship between Applied Scholastics and the Church of Scientology?
Applied Scholastics is an independent, non-religious (secular) charitable educational organization utilizing Mr. Hubbard’s writings in the field of education. Applied Scholastics licenses organizations which directly apply the Study Technology in schools, training programs and tutoring projects in many countries and communities.
Applied Scholastics does not promote or recommend any religious path. Indeed, throughout the world, Applied Scholastics affiliated organizations deliver Study Technology to members of all faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Mr. Hubbard’s Study Technology is a vital tool for the learning of any subject. As the name implies, it is a technology of study, used to improve one’s ability to understand and apply whatever information one is seeking to learn. It is a wholly secular technology for use by any person in any field.
The Church of Scientology and its members have been extremely assistive in the areas of support, volunteering and finance in order to help Applied Scholastics to achieve its purpose of providing strong and effective educational methods to any who thirst for knowledge throughout the world."
And the Applied Scholastics Academy is in the John Marshall Alternative School's old home, the John Marshall building.
Who'd a' thunk it?
MGJ- gone.
Science alignment stupidity- stopped
School board members- on notice
It was hard work and it nearly sucked my soul dry. I know there will be more stupid crap coming because that just seems to be how it is, but thank you everyone who went to meetings, wrote letters, and refused to be bullied.
I love you all
The District website has this update on the attendance policy:
Change the wording so that "educational trips" are excused absences but "short family trips" (vacations) are not excused. This change is being proposed because many schools already include bans on family vacations in their student handbooks, and elementary school administrators in particular are concerned that elementary students are missing critical academic instruction.
So a trip to DC can be excused, but a trip to see Grandma? Fugetaboutit.
Not much of an improvement...
Sigh.
I wanted to post this on LEV, but they won't let me.
In anycase, I plan to take my kids out of school to go pick some organic fruits and veggies in SoCal. This should cover science, history, geography, and the back to earth, save the earth, love organic, eat fresh and soylent so that our family will be carboon footprint + for a nanosecond. Oh and we'll blog blah, blah, blah, about it (oh wait, that will eat up our nanosecond +carbon footprint).
-Legoland and Scripps Lab here we come!
Who sits on the board of Advance Illinois?
James Bell, President & CFO, The Boeing Company
along with
John Edwardson - Chairman, President & CEO, CDW Corporation, whose company sells tech, and is "helping Illinois schools turn to the cloud"
Who else is on the board?
Dennis Hastert (R), ex-Speaker of the House. After he resigned, here's what the Chicago Trib says he's been up to:
"Hastert, 68, a lobbyist and business consultant who retired from Congress in 2007, has hired three of his former staffers at salaries of more than $100,000 apiece to run the publicly financed office. Taxpayers also are paying monthly rent of $6,300 to a company partly owned by three sons of a Hastert mentor and business partner. Other public funds go for an $860-a-month 2008 GMC Yukon leased from a dealership owned by a Hastert friend and campaign donor. . . . Public funds also go for the office's computers, phones, BlackBerrys, utilities including Comcast and DirecTV, and incidentals such as FedEx bills and a $618 invoice for moving a wall clock from Washington. Travel, too, is on the public dime: airfare, hotels, taxis, tolls, gas, parking and mileage reimbursement for use of private vehicles. According to Hahn, two of the staffers used taxpayer funds to travel with Hastert to Washington last year when a portrait of him was unveiled on Capitol Hill"
what does WV have to say about this? (and about a "school" that is supported by Scientology occupying the John Marshall building)?
spheg.
They are a fantastic team and I'm so proud of them and grateful my child has them for teachers.
State's high court to hear school-funding plea
That TfA link to Fordham is just awesome information.
Ten years ago, when a Teach for American recruiter first approached me, I was enthusiastic about the idea of recruiting my most idealistic and talented students for work in high poverty schools and allowed the TFA representative to make presentations in my classes, which are filled with Urban Studies and African American Studies majors.
Not one of them was accepted! Enraged, I did a little research and found that TFA had accepted only four of the nearly 100 Fordham students who applied. I become even more enraged when I found out from the New York Times that TFA had accepted 44 out of a hundred applicants from Yale that year. Something was really wrong here if an organization who wanted to serve low income communities rejected every applicant from Fordham who came from those communities and accepted half of the applicants from an Ivy League school where very few of the students, even students of color, come from working class or poor families.
Since that time, the percentage of Fordham students accepted has marginally increased, but the organization has done little to win my confidence that it is seriously committed to recruiting people willing to make a lifetime commitment to teaching and administering schools in high poverty areas.
Has anyone every done one of those ValuePak coupons? Or has anyone ever paid for a flyer in every delivered newspaper in an area?
I thinking, more and more, that nothing's every going to change unless we remove the "gang of four" and this is the year to do it. I'll donate to a bunch of campaigns, do what I can do to help, but those four are going to raise A LOT of money to stay in power. (And I'm choosing my words carefully . . they're not in it to "server the children" anymore, this is pure power politics!)
What I'm getting at is how much would it cost to get a flyer to everyone in the re-election districts? How much for a notice in the mail, or in the paper, or in the ValuePak thing or to hire some college kids to put flyers on doors or cars?
stu
Maybe we can get a full-page ad in the Times!
I wonder if the Times would refuse a "Throw the bums out" ad. I'm sure they aren't cheap. Maybe some of the alternative rags?
Target areas where there are concentrations of known voters for placement of signs, meeting attendance, anything someone will see as they walk/drive/bike by on a daily basis.
You must relay your message in a matter of seconds - so a short message that relates, in colors that capture attention and are easily read in passing.
Most printing locations can provide quick quotes -- most online.