Last night’s BOE meeting was really interesting. First off, it was great they held it at a school, Ponus Middle School, to be exact. The sad part though was that there were so few parents there. The theme of parental involvement permeated most of the meeting. The principal of Ponus made a nice, though somewhat bureaucratic, presentation on how Ponus achieved vanguard status. An explanation of what vanguard status might have been helpful.
The gist of the report on Ponus was that there’s been a sharp increase in ELL (English language learners) population and that there’s many students with severe intellectual deficits. Forgive me my usual empathetic deficiency. What happened to the word dumb? Is this really the issue here, that Ponus has a higher number of dumb kids than other schools? Or do we have something else going on here? There was almost a sense of pride beaming here tonight at how much these students are tested. Great, Norwalk is contributing yet more carefully raised automatons who can point to their public school education as being an endless series of tests. How do they find time to educate these kids?
It got worse, at least for me. The principal described this morning ritual, the P.R.I.D.E pledge. My immediate thoughts turned to those quaint film strips my generation was indoctrinated with involving jingoistic themes against communism. If we let the commies get us, the film strips intoned, we’d be reciting pledges in school instead of worrying abut STDs. Hrmm, maybe I’m mashing together too many filmstrips there. Justice Brandies would know what to say, brainwashing, you know it when you see it.
Then we got to the public portion of the hearing, which as with most meetings, turns out to be an exercise of the public speaks, and the rest listen–No action required. Which makes the next part damnable.
A young parent stood up, Jean Toussand, who has 2 sons who go to Kendall elementary school. He begins a rather impassioned plea for help, after having spoken to Corda, written and emailed about the problems he’s had with the principal at Kendall to Corda and Jodi Bishop Pullan. He describes how his 2nd grader was sent home with homework which had something to do with subtraction but that his son was not taught how to do it.
At this point, I’d have liked to see Corda do something, like gently explain perhaps what the curriculum was and that maybe the subject was indeed taught. But he did nothing, leaving me to conclude that he either ignored this parent, as the parent claimed, or that in fact the subject of subtraction wasn’t taught. Either one is pretty bad when you think of it.
Toussand claims that the principal at Kendall does not want to talk to him. He claims that there is a xenophobic attitude in Kendall. He claims that there are other parents that are afraid to come and talk.
Ok, this is going on for awhile now, and clearly the guy is frustrated. Nothing but silence from the BOE, which in a very obvious sense is exactly the wrong thing to do. Empathy, I have none remember, is needed and even I can see that this parent is just asking for some brief acknowledgment and respect. I’m still not sure what his complaint about this son’s education really is all about, the story got kind of meandering, but like a rabbit popping out of the proverbial hat, Toussand is a teacher too, teaches French and Spanish in high school. Norwalk? He says that active parents are discouraged from participating. He mentions numerous times that he’s written Jodi Bishop Pullan about many issues, with no response apparently. The wheels click over Corda’s head, thought bubble: “perception problem.” Uh yeah, right, the Cambridge report says you guys fail to communicate, and here’s a living breathing example. And better yet, you failed at the meeting too. Perfect score. Fortunately some of the more enlightened BOE members were appalled and plan on following up with Toussand.
Then it was onto boring stuff and the graduation requirements of the Global Studies Program. Much confusion on what they were supposed to be voting on. We in the audience figured it out, a student’s transcript should come from the school who gives them a diploma. Somehow sports was involved. I was amused, great way to transfer in a really talented student athlete to Brien McMahon, 6’7” Japanese language major. Heh. They stall out, no one is talking about the AP class grade scale here. Does Corda look bored here? Yes! So am I. The play by play:
They discuss the graduation requirements in order to receive diplomas either from their home district or CGS, which would be McMahon. This impacts eligibility for sports and what school a student may play for.
Mosby wants to make sure that the policy committee has taken a close look on this. She is concerned about valedictorians.
CGS director responds that the policy committee was to be concerned about transfer students. Someone else chimes in about this solely being about diplomas.
Mosby says that resulting explanation proves her point that there is two different understandings of the policy.
JPB says that her understanding is that the policy committee should only be about transfer students, or something like that but loose her train of thought.
Hamilton is surprised that students can transfer into CGS in the 11 and 12th grades.
Kimmel points out that these types of the schools (schools within schools) are common and that these types of issues have been addressed. He says they need to identify the policy. He adds that if we don’t have a policy on transfer students they should be making one.
Mosby asks that the issue be tabled so it can be discussed in the policy committee.
Apparently one senior is affected by this, and he will not meet his home school diploma requirements. But will meet McMahon’s. Must be those high Norwalk standards.
Motion to table failed 4 -5.
Do we care what they do with this? Maybe, but the way Hamilton has them vote is impossibly confusing. Here’s an idea, call out each name and have them say how they vote. It’s called Roll call vote. Someone can transcribe it. Maybe even me.
The field trip item they are voting on was incorrectly labeled as out of state but it was to Niantic. These are the people in charge of educating Norwalk students. Think about it.
Everyone votes for the approval of the filed trip , now labeled in state but Kimmel opposes it. I wonder why.
The next interesting part was the proposed school calendar. Oh what a show we had tonight. How difficult is putting together a schedule here? You have state mandated number of schools days. State mandates are worthy of a post all on their own. Then you have the calendar. It’s been set since Roman times. Then you have holidays, those religious ones tend to move about but otherwise that’s about it. They have 4 versions. Four because they want to fit in all these professional days and testing days and groundhog days. Ok, I’m guessing on the last one, but you can make an argument for Bill Murray appreciation day or some science class. The official position of the PTO, make the calendar year more compact with more time in class. Hey, what a concept! The BOE instead plans to vote on all four calendars because everyone was busy being too nice to say the obvious. I will. The four versions suck. Draft a better one.
Kimmel has a really interesting point about the calendar, one that bears further investigation. He says that the school day in NYC is 45 minutes longer in New York elementary schools. Plus they manage to have less half days in NYC. At the end of the 5th grade, a student has been in school (150 days) which is like being a year ahead of where Norwalk’s student is. And they all take the same standardized tests too.
What would a BOE meeting be without a senseless behavioral policy adjustment? Efficient, but that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. They move on to a change to the student tobacco policy. The change is to make it an in school suspension if a student is caught smoking. Kimmel says there’s a double standard for adults (nothing happens) and a student gets a 2 day in school suspension and a $10 fine.
In the ensuing discussion there is no other rule that has a monetary amount attached to it. Burnett defends the policy and says that the occurrences of an adult breaking the rule is very low. He compares the fee to like losing a library book. Hrmm, hey Burnett, one is about property loss the other is personal behavior. Talk about trampling over civil rights.
JPB- Says it is necessary to have the fee as a deterrent.
What a shame, it could help with the whole obesity thing, and they could get back to allowing parents to hold bake sales with cupcakes. Make up your minds people, do you want smoke free fat kids, or wheezing skinny kids. This is so painful I feel like lighting up and I don’t even smoke, anymore, at least not since middle school.
The best part happens next. Corda wants to hire an assistant superintendent and board wants to see multiple candidates. Corda is looking very unhappy. Why? Because the BOE is going against the grain and not reaching for the rubber stamp. Even Burnett is interested in seeing multiple candidates for these positions and that there’s a diverse slate of candidates that come before the board. Rivas wants to make sure that internal candidates are considered. Corda looked very unhappy during this. Kind of like Bill Belicheck in the Superbowl. It looks like the BOE is being clear that its not just up to Corda to submit his recommendation. Mosby hammers it home, the BOE will have final decision on even the search firm.
Chiaramonte speaks eloquently about the need for videotaping the meetings, makes plug for openness and transparency and youtube. Iannacone mentions the video of the common council meetings (oh yeah!) and mentioned that NHS students can video tape too. Burnett, wants to make sure that the meetings are done right. He’s concerned about blurriness or fuzzy. I fail to whip out the camera and do the all-so-meta thing of taping this discussion.
The big news was that the PTO meeting was previously taped and is to be aired on channel 78. Way to go PTO and showing the way of being open and communicative to all those who can’t attend your meetings.
