I decided to take a small blogging break before the budget process starts in the upcoming weeks.

I’ve been busy though and one of my projects is to represent the District Parent Council at a booth at Kid’s Fest.  Come by and say hello!

The City Council will be voting Tuesday to determine the fate of Hunking Middle School students for the near future.  The School Committee has proposed shoring up the school temporarily as the best option overall.  I would like our voting public to be aware of this issue.  Eventually you will be asked to vote regarding the funding of the new school and I want everyone to understand the ramifications of not building a new school in the Hunking quadrant.

Here is a youtube video of Superintendent Scully explaining the Hunking options.

From the District Parent Council:

Last week the school committee unanimously voted to spend approximately $400,000 to repair the Hunking School so it could safely reopen to full capacity in the fall. As we understand it, this is a temporary fix, which is intended to service the quadrant’s middle school needs until a proposed “NEW” school can be built (approximately 4 years).

Before the school department can proceed with the project the City Council has to approve the expenditure, which it will discuss and vote on tomorrow, Tuesday, March 13 at 7 PM in council chambers at City Hall.

Although it affects Bradford families with students directly, there are ripple effects that have an impact on the entire school district and the city as a whole.

The DPC wanted to make you aware of this meeting.

If you choose to attend you should hear “all” the facts and options regarding this issue.

If you have concerns and feelings regarding this matter we assume you will be able to make them know to those who will decide the fate of this issue.

As parents we all want a safe environment for our children to get an education.    

In honor of Super Tuesday!

Sven Amirian has posted some helpful information about polling changes over on his website.  Basically the city census results have shifted the voting lines a bit and moved a few polling places.  What really struck me as absurd in the process was this:

We have always had a few hundred voters who had to cross the Merrimack River to vote. The Mayor really wanted to eliminate that, but the only legally compliant way to do it is to drop from 21 to 18 precincts, which would have many people voting someplace different. It has to do with the percentage of the population on each side of the river, and I have a document that shows the math behind the calculations. We decided not to go to 18 precincts, especially since we probably would need yet another major change after the next census to maintain that policy. The 18 precinct plan is mentioned on slide 2 of http://civiczone.net/havrp/Hav2011_precinct_plans.pdf.

Oh no – some people had to cross the Merrimack River!  We no longer have to wait for the ferry to cross the river – there are plenty of bridges.  I don’t think this is the greatest challenge facing voters today.  Reading the map legend the adjustments made were to account for people having to cross “little river” to vote.  That’s even more of a non issue – that’s basically a large stream that runs under the existing roadway.

In light of all the discussion regarding the poor children dragging down our district I thought this was a timely post over at the Fordham Institute.  It discusses how poverty is used as a scapegoat to explain away lacking education results.  I’ve addressed this in a number of posts and thought it bore revisiting today.

From the end of the above linked post:

As has been pointed out often enough, and as Tavernise’s opening sentence says,

Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults.

So why have we given up on the idea that education can be the “great equalizer”? The answer, I believe, is that we have accepted the “materialistic fallacy.” We have taken results of our education ineptitudes—more poverty—and made them the cause of them. 

As I suggested the other day, in discussing E.D. Hirsch and reading, insights about cognitive, knowledge, and community deficiencies in early childhood, if recognized, can be compensated for.  

That Tavernise ends her story quoting think tanker Douglas Besharov, saying that “No one has the slightest idea what will work. The cupboard is bare” is indeed bizarre.

Shouted Whitney Tilson:

What?! The cupboard is NOT bare! In fact, over the past decade it’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that very high quality schools, filled with very high quality teachers, in a culture of high expectations, no excuses, etc. (i.e., KIPP and similar schools) can overcome the effects of poverty and that the great majority of even the most disadvantaged kids can achieve at high levels.

Let’s resolve to quit blaming the poor for the poor education they are receiving. 

Lets quit blaming them indeed!

There’s been plenty of controversy about what to do about the Hunking School.  At this point I hope no one seriously believes we can somehow ignore this issue and not build a new school but lets talk seriously about the various options currently facing us.  Even if the state sent a message tomorrow that it would pay all of the money for a new school (not happening) it would still take a number of years for the plans to be drawn up, the RFPs to be assigned and the actual construction to happen.  Instead we have to wait for numbers from the state and then run a referendum by the voters to see if they will pay for the school.  Only if that happens will the plans will be drawn up, the RFPs be assigned and construction begin.  We need a fairly long-term solution to safely educate the Hunking students until all of that happens.

Currently the recommendation is to spend the $350k to shore up the existing building so the students can exist together in one building and maintain the sense of community the students have.  Every report I’ve seen says the air quality has been fine and the mold issue ameliorated.  Some parents are unhappy with this and believe the inspectors are lying.  There is a lot of talk about how the city hates children and doesn’t want to spend any money on them.  $350k is a lot of money that we don’t currently have as a city to be spending.  There are a lot of other needs competing for those funds including the latest settlement news regarding the fire department’s lack of a contract and Haverhill’s share of the Green Schools Repair Grant explained at the last School Committee Meeting.  It’s going to be hard enough convincing the voters in Haverhill to pay for the override needed for a new school without adding extra costs and controversy.

Retail space was explored as an option for the four to five years its going to take to get a new school built.  To rent space for the entire population of Hunking over four years and to remodel it into a school was estimated to cost about $1million.  This is approximately three times the cost of repairing the Hunking to last until the new school is built.  I’ve heard people unhappy with this idea because of the distance their child would be bussed, the lack of playground/sports fields, and possible ground contamination of sites because of previous use of the building.

Keeping the students split between Hunking and Bartlett schools is also a possibility.  This would still require the shoring up of the Hunking as indicated because the current usable side of the building would be slowly damaged over time resulting in the whole building being vacated if the shoring up never happens.  This would keep the cost at $350k but people don’t like this idea because it splits the students up and the students bused to Bartlett lose instructional time every day due to the extra time spent on the buses.  Another problem with this scenario is that like Greenleaf, Walnut Square and Crowell – the Bartlett school doesn’t have a library, computer lab or cafeteria.

Moving all the students to an existing empty school building has been proposed as a solution.  Unfortunately the empty school buildings I am aware of aren’t large enough to support the Hunking student population so the students would still be split up among schools.  Also the empty schools are in some disrepair and don’t meet the current handicap accessibility requirements.  Cogswell for example could not hold the student body of Hunking and should it need to be pressed into service would require so much work and money to update that I doubt it would be ready by September at a price tag the city would find acceptable.

Portable classrooms have also been offered up as a solution.  If we keep the existing open wing of Hunking open and put the Bartlett students into portable classrooms as suggested then we would still have to shore up the other wing of Hunking as not doing so will cause the open wing to deteriorate.  Then there is the rental and installation of portable classrooms as well as the infrastructure needed to run them (water, sewer and electricity.)   Students will have to go between portables to make it through the day which will be a definite detractor in the winter and spring especially in light of the wetness of the fields behind Hunking.  The superintendent breaks down the costs associated with portable classrooms in his latest update on the HPS website:

 The approximate quote for installing portable classrooms to service the 15 classrooms is approximately $2.8 M which does not include the site work.  There is also a question as to the specific location of these classrooms, for if a new school were to be approved, locating these portable structures on the adjacent field would hamper any possible construction if that were to be the chosen site for a new Hunking School.

We could place all the students into a portable campus somewhere in the city but that would also be a very large cash outlay as stated above..  This also assumes there is suitable space somewhere in the city for these classrooms.

Another option is to close the school entirely and shift students across the city into the other middle schools.  This option will make the fewest people happy because all of the Hunking students will be bused further from home than before and be split up from their friends and neighbors and shoved into schools which will be completely overcrowded.  Students in every middle school will be forced to adjust to a very large influx in class sizes and the schedules for the schools will probably need to be redone again.  I don’t have a dollar value to place on this as I don’t have any idea how the schools would handle the overcrowding and the moving of students.  The superintendent states it would be at least $150k per year in his update – I think that’s an amazingly low-ball estimate and would love to see specifics on those costs.  Would each middle school site end up with a portion of portable classrooms with all the above stated drawbacks and costs or would class size simply balloon.  Schools would, at minimum, need to add an extra lunch period each day to handle the influx of students – I can only imagine the outrage when the students are forced to have lunch at 10am or 1pm.

Time and again I look at all the options and can’t fathom why the one Superintendent Scully is working towards is seen as the worst option available – although the parents can’t be that unhappy about the progress being made since only one Hunking parent came to the last School Committee meeting.  Maybe the protests I’ve heard and read in various places are just for show?

I was reading this post from Mike Rowe where he speaks to high school students about the skills gap we’re currently experiencing in America and thought of the comments made during school committee meetings about Whittier Vocational Technical High School.  As a nation we need to stop cultivating disrespect for skilled labor!  From the above linked post:

Not everyone should go into the trades. Rowe himself said he couldn’t weld a straight line so he fell back on a career in music and TV. But he says he took a tradesman’s work ethic with him and never stopped learning new skills in his entertainment career.

“That’s what I tried to do,” said Rowe. “I tried to look at showbiz the way my grandfather looked at carpentry and electric.”

That could be the key to closing the skills gap, which Rowe calls a symptom of America’s dysfunctional relationship with all work, not just the trades. He doesn’t want to force kids into the trades, but wants to help more of them to understand something that the students we talked to seemed to already get.

“No matter what you choose you do, you can approach it as a tradesman,” said Rowe. “There’s nothing inherently good or bad about learning a trade. What’s really for sale is the decision to approach work with that ethic. Apply it to whatever you want.”

Can we please stop assuming the students who go to Whittier Vocational are somehow not able to make it in a “real high school?”  Students who go to Whittier are plenty capable – they just have different goals in life.  The value of a skilled worker is just as high as the value of a doctor or a lawyer or a businessman.  All of these people are professionals in their field.  Often students in trades will go on to run their own business; this means they will do their job as well as be their own marketing department, accounting department, human resources department, and clerical department.

Skilled trades jobs often pay as well or better than office work.  I was looking at the RFP for the Groveland Bridge replacement (which I can no longer access through the City of Haverhill website) and I remember being surprised at the hourly rate for some of the jobs posted.  Welder Divers stood out at $100 per hour.  How many positions in an office setting pay $100 per hour?

Many of our jobs in manufacturing, programming and call centers have been outsourced to other countries.  The plumber or electrician or carpenter who comes to your home can never be outsourced!

Some of Whittier’s students plan to use their trade skills to provide them with meaningful employment while they attend college.  Imagine how much fewer student loans you would have if you were working in a professional environment instead of a general service job making $9 per hour.

Times have changed and vocational schools are attracting intelligent, motivated and skilled students looking to make a career for themselves in industries which are often more flexible about hours and better paying than office work or retail work.  It’s time to give those students the respect they deserve.  It’s also time to value the work they do!

My last post was about how to get involved with your child’s education and their school.  This post is going to address the issue of parental involvement brought up at the last School Committee meeting by member Paul Magliochetti.  I decided to make this post separate from when I will write about the meeting because I think this topic is very important and I am incensed by the fallacies in their arguments.

Mr. Magliochetti put the issue of Parental Involvement on the agenda for the last meeting.  His intent was to ascertain whether or not the school department had any legal recourse to force parents to be involved more in their child’s education – specifically to force parents to lose state funding.  This sparked comments from Mr. Scully about previous practices where Welfare checks were given out by the schools to force parents to visit the school to claim their benefits.  There was more to the discussion – which you can watch here on the HCTV website.

There’s no law that I’m aware of that dictates how involved one needs to be with their child’s school beyond the child needs to be enrolled and attend regularly.  We do have laws regarding truancy and when children don’t attend there is a truant officer who will handle that situation.

I don’t believe there’s a law requiring attendance at conferences, spaghetti dinners, PTO meetings or any other school function.  I also don’t believe there should be one.  Are we seriously going to start arresting parents because they were unable to schedule time off to go to a parent teacher conference?  Should we send police to drag a sick parent from their home into the school for conferences?

There are laws which pertain to the abuse or neglect of children.  As mandated reporters I believe all teachers and administrators are aware of these laws and how to contact the appropriate authorities to handle the situation.  We do not need additional laws to complicate the issue.  There is a lot of grey area between what care is required by law and what care is deemed appropriate by individual families.  I believe much of the debate surrounding parental involvement falls into that grey area.  Many people want their values projected onto every family and that simply isn’t possible or appropriate.

Now I’m going to hop up on my soapbox for just a moment.  Mr. Scully’s comment about how Welfare recipients used to need to go to the school for their checks assumes that only people getting state benefits aren’t involved in their children’s educations and that the only students who aren’t achieving are the ones whose parents are poor enough to need state assistance.  Can we please stop perpetuating the fallacy that poor people don’t care and that money equates to achievement?  Then perhaps can we finally internalize this important mantra: Correlation does not equal Causation.  Is there a correlation between growing up in a lower income bracket and having fewer educational achievements?  Yes.  Does this mean simply that every child who grows up in that income bracket will never achieve?  No.  The inverse is also relevant.  Not all children growing up in a high income bracket will become high achieving students.

There are many, often income related, reasons why students fail to achieve in school.  If you look at Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs you can explore further why students would have trouble focusing in class.  While on the surface you would ascribe income as the main reason these needs aren’t being met – I’ve outlined areas where money doesn’t always guarantee fulfillment.

Lets start at the bottom with the most basic needs of food, water, sleep, and breathing:  Perhaps a child isn’t getting properly fed in the morning and they are distracted by hunger all day.  This may be because their household can’t afford food or because the child doesn’t wake up in time to eat breakfast despite having a kitchen full of food.  If a child isn’t getting enough sleep this might be because they are homeless and don’t have a safe place to sleep or because they are so over-scheduled with after school events that they don’t get home in time to get enough sleep.  Breathing is taken for granted but if you’re sick with a cold or suffering from asthma just taking breaths becomes your key focus – everything else fades to unimportant regardless of socioeconomic conditions.

Moving up in the categories we find security of body, resources, family and health.  Abuse is a horrible thing and if a child isn’t feeling safe at home they will be preoccupied in school and fail to achieve.  Abuse is not limited to poor households.  This economy has taught us that no one is immune to layoffs and foreclosures.  One day you’re living the good life with a beautiful home and then a layoff sends everything into a tailspin.  Children aren’t immune from feeling their parents stresses over resources.  Family stability is vital to a child’s emotional well being.  What if the child has parents who are going through a divorce and the child fears going home each day because one parent might not be there or both parents are there and fighting incessantly?  Divorce doesn’t just happen to poor people either!  Health is also related to family stability.  If someone in their family is sick or had an accident the child will be focused on that instead of schoolwork – how well can you as an adult focus on your work when your close family member is in the hospital or morgue.  Chronic illnesses can wreak havoc on families for indefinite time periods and poor people aren’t the only ones who get sick.

The third item is love and belonging.  Does the child feel loved and part of the family?  This feeling of emotional security isn’t governed by what someone’s paycheck is but by how they act toward their child.  It costs nothing to make your child understand you love them and value them.  Don’t tell me only poor parents fail to meet this need for their children.

It is in the fourth level of the hierarchy that achievement shows up as a need.  Self esteem, confidence, achievement and respect are on this level.  What Maslow discovered is that until the items on lower tiers of the hierarchy are fulfilled higher tier items cannot be fully realized.  I’m frankly amazed so many students make the achievements they do considering how many needs are below this on the list!

If we really want to put forth programs to inspire student achievement I suggest we work on removing impediments to achievement instead of targeting poor people and taking their basic needs away and creating laws to criminalize parents.  Fix our school lunch and breakfast programs to give children healthy food.  Make sure our mandated reporters are following the guidelines for intervention.  Listen to students to know what their needs really are.  Provide opportunities for parents to operate support groups for coping with achievement impediments like: illness, divorce, unemployment, depression and grief.  Bring back the Parent Academy and give presentations about parenting and education issues – we just need to find a venue and reach out to parents in a way that gets them in the door.  I can guarantee that threatening them won’t work and will just create animosity where we do not need it.

We can all agree that parental involvement is key to students valuing their education.  When students value their education they will work harder during the day and be more involved in their school’s culture.  But what is parental involvement and what level is right for you?  Also what are some of the most common roadblocks to involvement and what can teachers, administrators, parent groups do to help overcome these roadblocks?

Parental Involvement is simply caring about your child’s education and showing them through your words and actions that their education is important to them and has meaning in their life.  This begins at home with knowing about your child’s school and the work they are doing.  Make sure they are well fed and prepared for their day.  Make sure their homework is done and they have access to a suitable place to do homework with the resources they need should questions about their work arise.  Keep up with your child’s progress through communication with their teachers through the agenda book, notes, emails, progress reports and report cards.  Attend concerts and plays and community building events like spaghetti dinners and game nights.  There’s plenty more you can do at the school but in reality this is the most important aspect of parental involvement and it is very often overlooked in the conversation about what makes an involved parent.

Some parents seek to be more involved in the schools for a variety of reasons.  Whether you enjoy volunteering or want to know more about the place your child spends 6+ hours a day or you’re looking to network with other parents – volunteering your time to your child’s school is a wonderfully rewarding experience but also can be a lot of work.  This is most typically the type of parental involvement discussed at School Committee meetings or PTO meetings or Site Council meetings but if this level of involvement isn’t for you it doesn’t mean you don’t value your child’s education.  Frankly if every single parent chaperoned every field trip or came in for every task the school would be overwhelmed and unable to handle that volume of people.   Be involved at the level that makes you and your family happy and don’t stress if you can’t do everything!

Not all parents can commit to being in the school on a regular basis due to work or having other children to care for.  If you can only volunteer sporadically you can ask to be put on the special projects list.  Perhaps you can make the time to chaperone the occasional field trip or help set up for a special event?

Some parents don’t feel they have anything to offer the school.  Schools need people for so many things that you really shouldn’t worry about not having a skill set – besides the schools offer instruction to parents too!  Maybe you can help serve pizza at one of the family nights or you can come in and make copies for a teacher or count box top submissions?  One of my tasks this year is shelving books one day a week in the literacy closet at Golden Hill – taking on this easy but time consuming task helps the teacher not have to use her prep time cleaning up the books.  I’ve also run shopping errands before events where the school handed me money and a list and sent me to grab some last minute items – no special skill needed but a huge boon to whomever is setting up the event.  Donations are also a welcome and necessary part of school activities – we recently put together and donated a “family game night” basket to help the fifth grade at Nettle raise money to offset their field trip costs.

Other parents are intimidated by the thought of joining the PTO.  Joining the PTO isn’t the only way to be involved in your child’s school.  You could become involved with your school’s site council or simply let your child’s teacher know you’re available as a resource to come and help the class on occasion.

Often a cultural or language barrier exists that prevents parents from reaching out to their child’s school.  Don’t be afraid to ask to have a translator available at events you wish to attend.  Know that you’re wanted at any and all school activities and there are outreach programs to help with these barriers – if they haven’t found you yet please ask to be connected to them.

When it comes to joining a parent group I can understand anyone’s trepidation.  It’s difficult enough to put your child into school as the new kid but then to become the new parent yourself in a room full of parents who have all been working together for a while can feel intimidating.  One problem I’ve seen is that many schools are pretty entrenched as far as their PTO’s are concerned.  There have been too few new faces for so long that I believe they’ve forgotten how to accept new people and incorporate them into the fold.  One thing I would love to see happen is an annual training in September or October when the Site Council members receive their training to help parents understand how a PTO functions and what is expected of them as well as what opportunities are available to them.

I’ve mentioned Site Council as an opportunity for parental involvement a few times but I would like to address what exactly a Site Council is and what the purpose is.  Site Councils are required by law for each school in our district.  They consist of the school’s administration and a balance of teachers, parents and community members.  They have regular meetings which are open to the public and fall under the rules of open meeting law.  A Site Council’s primary responsibility is development and approval of the school improvement plan.  Site Councils also discuss student achievement and the goals of the school and make recommendations on school policies and budgetary concerns.

If you’re interested in spending time helping at your child’s school and you’re still not sure how to get started try one of these ideas:

Check your child’s backpack for notices about upcoming events and see if they have a request for help and contact info.

Check the website for your child’s school for things they may need and contact information.

When you’re at the school for an event look for tables set up looking to recruit helpful parents!

Talk to your children and see if they are hoping you will help out at an event and follow-up with whomever they said is looking for help.

Talk to parents you’re familiar with and ask them if they volunteer in the school and let them make some introductions for you.

Good luck getting involved.  Let me know if this information was helpful or if there’s something else I need to add.

The Haverhill District Parent Council has finally released their new website.  Please take a moment to check them out at www.haverhilldpc.org.

While you’re there please be sure to visit the section about the Write Away! contest.

I’ve often asked people to be involved in the voting process.  I’ve tried to point out the value in voting and the necessity of making your voice heard in the election process.  I’ve also tried to make people understand that their local elections are possibly even more important than national elections regarding their day to day lives.  With the presidential election primaries happening now I thought I would discuss voting once again.  This time I’m going to share with you one of the most important civics lessons I ever learned and hope you make a New Years resolution to become more involved in your government and most especially to vote.

In the ninth grade I took a class entitled Comparisons of Political and Economic Systems.  My teacher was an energetic bearded man who, on the very first day of class, wrote his name on the board in foot high letters and told us we would never forget it because it was the first three letters in the ideal society.  His name was Mr Uto.  As he promised, I never forgot his name – but not for the reasons he expected.

One of our very first assignments was to elect someone to be class president.  There were three candidates to choose from.  The class was split into districts based on where we actually lived in the city.  Some districts were represented by large groups of students and other districts had just one or two students in each.  We started the process by going home and talking to our parents about issues for our section of the city and bringing those issues into class to discuss with the other students in our districts.  We presented the candidates with our concerns for the city in general and for our areas in particular.  The candidates in turn spoke with the groups and presented their platforms.

I don’t remember all of the details, as it has been a while since I was that 13 year old high school freshman, but there were various constraints placed on the candidates so they couldn’t simply decide to solve every issue for every district.  Two of the candidates did the math like any politician would; they determined quickly which districts they needed votes from to win the election and pandered to the issues in those areas and ignored many of the smaller districts.  One candidate worked hard and did his best to balance the needs from each district – including the smaller districts ignored by the other candidates.

On Election Day we cast our ballots.  I planned to vote for the third candidate – the one who worked the hardest for everyone – but at the very last moment I let my desire to be one of the “popular kids” cloud my judgment and I voted for someone else.  That someone else won by exactly one vote.  My vote.  If I had voted my conscience instead of going along with the crowd the tie would have forced another vote and perhaps a different outcome to the election.

I have never forgotten that lesson.  My vote matters.  I will also never cast it carelessly.  I only cast votes for people I truly want to represent me in their offices.  That is why I did not cast all nine of my possible city council votes nor did I cast three votes in the school committee race.  I know many people are disenfranchised with the voting process and I can understand why they feel that way.  To those people I implore you to take your dissatisfaction to the polls this November and at every opportunity thereafter and remind the politicians they are answerable to all of us – not just those groups they pander to because they are more vocal or populous than others.  If everyone eligible to vote did so I believe we would be able to effect real change in our leadership.