Community Meeting on School Budget

Well, I've just come from a "community budget forum" regarding the various cuts that will have to be made to cover a $900,000 shortfall in our district's budget. (You can find all of the in-depth data here.) I was actually in the process of shifting my weight to get up to talk when the meeting was adjourned. (My dad joked that they saw me coming.) So, since I didn't say it in public, I'll say what I had to say here. (Don't worry. It's not much.)

Although many of the cuts presented were just that--cuts that would result in loss of students, teachers, and/or other personnel and activities--a couple of "cuts" seem to be, to me, beneficial. For example, one possible option was combining Reading and Writing classes (which are offered separately in grades 4-8) into one English or Language Arts class. 

I've heard arguments for both sides. But I think that this move has the potential to deepen a student's understanding of literature and the English language in general. It gives students a chance to see the big picture and how everything ties together in the end. For example, a class can look at particular styles of language, and then see how they have been used in literary works. Unless the two separate classes are exceptionally well coordinated, they cannot play off of each other in this manner--and if they are this well coordinated, what's the point of having two?

Then, another potential "cut" would be the loss of the NWEA test. Multiple times a year, we lose classroom time to this computerized test. Of course, the reason this was frowned upon at the meeting was the loss of "data" about students. (Insert eye roll here.) Really--that score is just a number. In all reality, it doesn't mean that much. It just leads to more stress among students and staff alike, and I would not lose sleep if it went bye-bye.

Finally, the possibility of undepartmentalizing our fourth and fifth grades was also mentioned.¹ I was never a fan of this idea, because I do not feel that students of this age are developmentally ready for these conditions. My mother passed away when I was in fourth grade, and my teacher was incredibly supportive of me in this time. However, younger students don't have as close relationship with teachers, and in similar situations, cannot receive this support.

Well, I'm afraid that's all for this time. I didn't have much to say at the meeting tonight, and I just wanted to get what I did out there!

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1. Although this is probably technically a teacher reduction, I would not mind seeing this implemented in a way that did not cause this loss. With student to teacher ratios well over 20:1 for most of the district, we can certainly use as many teachers as we can afford to keep.

Any Solutions?

Like pretty much any school I'm aware of, our school district is facing massive cuts. This has been a situation of some concern to me--after all, I'm trying to take the "advanced" classes, and, historically, those are one of the first things on the chopping block.

After track practice today, Sandy Malouff, the director of our local BOCES, gave me a ride home, and she was throwing out various solutions being discussed to this problem. One particularly struck me: the idea of "modified magnet schools." This is a system where, even though, technically, there would be one school district, the schools in each of our small towns would remain active in their own specialty.

Allow me to explain some background information: There are currently, within approximately a twenty mile radius of La Junta, six school districts (La Junta, Swink, Rocky Ford, Manzanola, Las Animas, and Cheraw). If you go down the road ten more miles from Manzanola, you run into Fowler, with another school system. Last year, when our schools were forced to make even more massive budget cuts, one option that was thrown around for a while was the consolidation of these districts. (Eventually, the option of consolidating our middle and high schools was chosen.) 

There is, or so it seems to me, major opposition to the option of consolidating these districts, because, potentially, this will result in, "the loss of the hometown feeling of the schools." Of course, this would also be an issue with the "modified magnet schools" idea. Although I'm not yet expressing support for this option--I want to hear what you think about its potential repercussions--allow me to explain it in more depth.

Cheraw is a small school district. The town itself has just over 200 people, so you can imagine the population of the school (K-12) itself. Swink, just to our west, has a population of 700, and runs another K-12 school. Rocky Ford is significantly larger, with a population of over 4000, and is in the same setup La Junta (pop. 7000) currently is (three schools, K-3, 4-6, 7-12).

Do you get the idea? Each town is struggling to run a school system that is becoming more and more burdensome. Now, the "modified magnet" system would, as I understand it, involve consolidating the districts--which means it's likely to meet opposition. However, each school would then offer more options to its students for a specific need of its region. (The schools that I will use in the examples below have been randomly assigned. There is no stereotyping based on the community whatsoever.)

Cheraw, for example, could be considered a GT school. La Junta could move to more of a vocational school atmosphere. Swink could become more of an artistically themed school, while Las Animas could be a general ed school (kind of like the setup of each of the schools now).

Now, of course, there are some problems with this idea. One major one that jumps out at me is that many students at this age do not know what they want to do with their lives, and many would simply choose one school to go to because it was the "easiest." Should we give personality tests to assign students to a school? Of course, then we only have one measure to judge which school will be the best fit for a particular kid. In addition, if this was the case, the student's interests themselves are ignored.

Then, of course, which schools get to host which themes? Should it be based on which school already has the greatest strength in each area? Of course, the students could be surveyed to see what the predominant interest in a particular area is, so that the school already in that area could be themed to that interest

Finally, what would happen to graduation requirements? Would each school have its own, tailor-made requirements that students would have to meet to earn a diploma from it? Clearly, each school would have to have some sort of general ed requirements--it couldn't just teach one subject. But I think that the primary objective of this option is to give more opportunities in a certain subject area to each school.

Of course, this is an issue that deserves a lot of attention, and many solutions should be examined. I simply wanted to see what other people thought of this particular solution. So...any comments?

The Wave of the Future

First off, I have a question: How many other student edubloggers are out there? I'm not aware of any, although I am sure there are some. (Feel free to comment and let me know about others!)

Now, here's another question that, to me, seems to be somewhat connected: What will happen to the idea of a PLN for teachers in the future?

I ask this not out of pessimism, but out of simple curiosity. After all, the majority of teachers (in my district at least) are old enough to have been actively teaching in the days before Twitter and Facebook became key tools for certain educators. (I'm going to focus on Twitter and Facebook because they are the two services I have observed being used by teachers for teachers most often.) But as my generation grows older and moves into the workforce--and yes, some of us will take up teaching--we will have been using these services for our own personal purposes instead of professional ones.

Of course, I don't feel that anything's wrong with this. This is what those services were originally developed for, after all. I myself first joined Facebook to maintain contact with my various friends across the globe. But because I already have this use for it, will I be able to use it in the future for professional purposes?

There are workarounds to this. First off, one can make two separate Facebook pages, and I really doubt that many people will mind seeing the occasional personal tweet. I know at least one teacher who has taken this course. But this simply leads to more confusion as to which "Michael Rees" is the one that is actually being sought.

Then, of course, it's wrong to assume that all incoming teachers will already be active on these two services. I know one first-year teacher our district gained this year (who, by the way, is fantastic!) who made a Facebook page to get messages out to his students. (Now, this leads into what the relationship between students and teachers should really be and other ethical issues, but if you really feel compelled to discuss those, there's a comment form for a reason.)

I guess that what I'm really saying is that I'm uncertain what the future here will really look like. Because our teachers of the future are growing up with their own uses for things such as blogging (!), will new services for the purpose that ideas such as #edchat has taken?

It will certainly be interesting to find out.