School board agenda for June 27

Some of the items on the board’s agenda this week:

We’ll discuss issues raised by the petition to put the demolition of Hoover Elementary onto the school board election ballot. (See this post.)

We’ll hear a report about the district’s community education program.

We’ll hear recommendations from the task force to develop a plan to support families affected by immigration enforcement.

We’ll hear on update on voluntary transfers. (Previous posts on voluntary transfers are here.)

We’ll hear an update on the district’s Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Plan. (Info here.)

We’ll hear an update on the renovation of the Shimek playground. (Info here.) Our work session on this topic last month was inconclusive, but there was majority support for looking for ways to make the new playground as accessible and inclusive as possible. (See minutes here.)

All that and more! The full agenda is here. Please chime in with a comment about anything that catches your attention.

School board agenda for May 23

Busy week on the school board agenda. Among other things:

We’ll hear an update on the annual student climate survey, including comparisons to last year’s results. More information here.

We’ll review the report of the School Improvement Advisory Committee.

We’ll get a safety update from the facilities department.

At our work session, we’ll get an update on the district’s proposed contracts with the providers of our before-and-after-school programs. (Information here; see also this post.)

We’ll review the status of the Shimek playground project. The board approved the project in March, but there are still concerns about whether the planned playground is sufficiently accessible to students with disabilities. (More information here; see also this post.)

We’ll get an update on busing plans and costs from our transportation committee.

We’ll continue to discuss the district’s bond proposal and facilities plan, including its building capacity and enrollment projections.

All that and more! The full agendas are here and here. Please chime in with a comment about anything that catches your attention.

One editorial comment: When I’m no longer on the school board, I won’t miss reading this kind of prose. Readers, can any of you tell what this company is going to do for the district?

Should before- and after-school programs be responsible for raising test scores?

At tonight’s meeting, the board will get an update on the district’s contract negotiations with the providers of our before- and after-school programs (BASPs). Two of the proposed changes to the contracts have prompted some discussion.

First, the district is asking the BASPs to commit to furthering the district’s goals of raising math and reading proficiency rates and “creating culturally inclusive and responsive school environments and classroom instruction, with a focus on equitable outcomes for students in protected classes.” (See also the BASP Q&A here.)

It is not clear to me exactly what changes the district is expecting from the BASPs to help raise reading and math proficiency rates. It’s my understanding that the BASPs currently give the kids a number of activity choices, including reading or homework time, but that they don’t engage in actual instruction per se. The children are already spending seven hours of the day in school; when the district added a half hour to their school day two years ago, we heard ongoing concerns about the long day that we were imposing on young kids. Recess and lunch time during the school day is minimal. I’m not at all persuaded that “more is always better” when it comes to instructional time. (See this post from years ago.) Especially given the lack of concrete details about what this new clause will require, I don’t blame people for being concerned about it.

Second, the district is asking the BASPs to commit to holding a certain number of spots open at each site to serve students experiencing homelessness or other emergency situations. This seems like a worthy goal, but it does impose a cost on the BASPs (who may have to turn away families on their waiting lists to leave those spaces open), which could affect their staffing and programming. I don’t have an immediate opinion on what is reasonable to expect from the BASPs here, but I’d like to hear the pros and cons.

The Q&A gives the impression that the district is playing hardball with the BASPs. It goes out of its way to state that BASPs that don’t like the proposed terms may end up getting charged for the use of the school buildings or even replaced with different providers. Maybe the district can offer a persuasive rationale for this approach, but it does come as a bit of a surprise, given that the BASPs are non-profit organizations, often run by parent boards, which in many cases have longstanding relationships with the district and with district parents.

____________________

Meanwhile, in related news, President Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which funds before- and after-school and summer programs, on the grounds that “The programs lacks [sic] strong evidence of meeting its objectives, such as improving student achievement.” In my view, providing child care to working parents who need it is a perfectly good objective in and of itself, regardless of whether it raises anyone’s test scores. (See Freddie deBoer’s post here for an extended version of that argument.)

School board agenda for April 25

Some of the items on the board’s agenda this week:

We’ll vote on bond proposal language to put on the ballot in September. See this post for details.

We’ll get an update on the district’s negotiations over possible changes to the district’s contracts with its providers of before-and-after-school programs. (Update: For more information about this issue, see this post.)

We’ll consider a recommendation for 2017-18 salary and benefits increases for our non-unionized groups of employees.

We’ll hear a review of the district’s grounds care practices and get an update from the Integrated Pest Management task force, which has been examining the district’s use of pesticides and herbicides on school grounds.

We’ll consider whether to approve $2.4 million in expenditures to buy and lease computer equipment, much of which will go toward funding the district’s plan to provide all secondary students with Chromebook laptops for use in the classroom and at home. I describe my concerns about this recommendation in this post.

At our work session, we’ll continue our discussion of the planned renovation of Horace Mann Elementary. The latest scenarios are here. We’ll also continue to discuss the bond and the facilities plan generally.

All that and more! The full agendas are here and here. Feel free to chime in with a comment about anything that catches your attention.