If nobody shows up, I would like to turn this into a time to plan for the future of Unit 4. I want to nail down three things we can be working on (I think we have two; communication/trust/bridge building with the community, and lack of safe environment/support for teachers and school level staff that leads to isolation). I want to work on action steps and not just talk.

Last week we talked about holding open forums. We picked two dates, one in April and one in May. As you know, we moved the April date to April 17th; Chuck has grabbed a room at the library and we have started to advertise it. We tentatively planned May 14th for the next meeting, but if Tuesday works out better we might switch it. We want to see how this first one goes and learn from it.

We also talked about meeting families at the Dodds Soccer Complex; an opportunity to invite a diverse array of parents to open meetings. And maybe even hold impromptu meetings. When talking with Brian Minsker yesterday, I learned that Barkstall used to (still does?) hold quick micro-meetings around already in-place events (school show, rally, sports, etc) to conduct PTA business. I thought that was an awesome idea.

Lastly, we discussed the idea of doing a Ken Robinson video at the open meeting just as a way to instigate conversation. Still thinking about that. One of my action items was to review the video; I think it raises a lot of great questions and it engages critical thinking, which is so necessary, I just don’t know how to weave it into our current context without coming from left field. My other action item was to talk to Chris Span about cross-pollinating with the Rose & Taylor forums. I have contacted him, and he mentioned something about including me in the next meeting. Nothing else, yet.

If there are no other topics brought to the table by others, I am going to suggest “we” (whoever shows up) talk about putting a name to 3 things we can be working on. I am a bit biased towards communication, but I want to be open to other goals we can work towards as well.

Last night’s session with Jamar was good (covered by Meg Dickinson with the NG - no idea when WCIA will air their piece), especially since I truly believe Jamar wants to get out there and listen to what people have to say. I am remind of Sue Grey’s “we have to shut up and listen” sound byte from last year, in which it was hard for me to see how that was implemented (when did the Board actively listen?). Jamar’s demonstration was a good example of that, in my opinion. Jamar made a point to emphasize how the Board hears the push-back on the working cash bonds and they are doing something about it by making the shopping listing shorter and having more discussion (ie, next Board Meeting, April 9th).

My point is that I would like to find three things we can sink our teeth into and take measured steps with. The budget is one item that has been broached recently, and I suggested that we start looking into that more seriously (and provided links to the March 26th Board Meeting in which Gene Logas talks about the preliminary budget).

What else? Do Communication and Budget count as two?

I realize it is Spring Break; but if you are around and want to chat, please drop by.

And finally, I want to wrap up some thought from previous Houlihans gatherings, which I have not yet properly documented. And unfortunately, I didn’t take notes so I am going strictly from memory and using my announcements to jog them.

In attendance at the February 29th Houlihans, we had Greg Novak, Pattsi Petri, Chuck Jackson and myself. Greg made a joke about now being a tyrant (in light of the Feb 27th Special Board Meeting). Also, Tom Lockman dropped by to say ‘hi’ (woot! Two Board Members – a new record), but he was really meeting someone else. He did clarify a couple points for us, but I do not recall them off the top of my head. Greg reiterated points he had been making about the need to address deferred maintenance. We had some back and forth discussion about communication (and the lack thereof), about perceptions and how the Board and the community are not on the same page. We talked about how we thought the pricetag associated with the wireless technology was rather high, and we questioned why one of the schools (BTW? I forget now) had, on average, 3 computers per child.

In a follow-up email on March 6th, I asked Greg and Tom about an update for the wireless. Greg mentioned that he submitted the question to the Administration and expected an answer by Friday. Unfortunately, things happened that week. I will make another post about some of that information I was able to collect from Gene Logas and a Promises Made Promises Kept meeting.

On March 7th, it started off with just Chuck and myself. Pattsi joined a little later. If I recall correctly (I might be wrong), we talked about (again) “formalizing” the Houlihans group a little more, trying to find 2-3 core components to focus on. I think we might have talked about Literacy a little bit and I mentioned the “Great at 8″ event that was held last year. We then turned to talking about getting on the good side of the media. It was suggested that perhaps Dr.  Judy Wiegand could do a segment on WBCP. We also discussed how it would be rather nifty if the Academic Spotlight videos were shown at the Choice Forums and made available on DVD for folks to take home and watch. Those same spotlights could easily be aired on TV. And finally, Pattsi attempted to give Chuck and I a quick lesson in Real Estate and Politics 101; talking about how assessors generally have an expectation for a certain rise in property values, and when the average property values are actually less than the expectation, that can play havoc with tax caps and TIF districts. I wish I had recorded that part of our chat.

Oh, and one other thing about community discussions and communication; it was suggested we could put up signs at grocery stores (after talking to the manager) and the libraries to advertise “town hall” like meetings.

March 14th, it was down to just Chuck and I. Talked about the sad news since March 7th and what to do about it. In one of the last emails that Greg wrote to me, he included a thought he said quite often and I am sure he would say it to anyone interested in making a positive impact; “Feel free to run for the Board”.

However, next week (March 21st) Board President Sue Grey has agreed to join us. And I think she is open to meeting once a month. I have asked that she share a little about what priorities the Board has. And I am hoping that a few of you come and ask questions.

Am kicking myself because I still have not posted a review/summary of last week’s Houlihan meeting….

In typical Houlihan style, I invite you all to come out and talk about this, 11:30 – 12:30. My hope is to get a larger after-hours forum set up for a broader discussion as well. I’ll have a sign-up sheet if you want to sign a petition, but more importantly I want to take notes and ask how people react to this. You are quite welcome even if you do not want to sign.

What we are NOT going to do: we are not going to call anyone tyrannts. I feel strongly that the Board members and Administration staff are hard-working individuals with good intent. I personally sent them a word of thanks and appreciation for how much time they invest into the District after the Feb 27th meeting because I truly feel that way. There is no place, in my opinion, for tossing around adjectives with heavy baggage.

We might disagree (and we do), but I am cool with that; I invite disagreement. I totally agree with Unit 4 that we need to fix, repair and upgrade our facilities. The state is utterly failing, so the burden is on our shoulders. What are we going to do if Pensions fall on our shoulders as well? We need to figure out how to handle this mess the state has so conveniently dropped into our lap. I see this as an opportunity to galvanize the public and get people talking, raise awareness and encourage participation. I do not want to see mud-slinging, pointed fingers and name calling. But I also want the public more involved in these kinds of decisions, and I believe the Board does a disservice to itself by feeding people’s distrust. I don’t think that particular effect is intentional – is it out of habit?

References

News-Gazette (Meg is also interacting with readers): http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2012-02-27/school-board-approves-145-million-bonds-petition-could-force-vote.html

WCIA: http://illinoishomepage.net/fulltext?nxd_id=344852

WICD: http://www.wicd15.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/vid_4949.shtml?wap=0

Halfway Interesting (Greg Novak has a great response from the Board’s POV): http://www.halfwayinteresting.com/Pages/CityofChampaign/tabid/90/entryid/859/Updated-Unit-4-Tax-Hike-Working-Cash-Bonds.aspx

(still waiting for Don Kermath to get a website up and running – have not yet checked facebook, but I am sure there are pages out there for this)

UPDATE (8:22): Meg has a new article focusing on Don Kermath’s efforts:

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2012-02-29/resident-organizing-challenge-champaign-districts-working-cash-bonds.html

Next week (Feb 15th) will either be a week off or I will be heading out to a different location to go to where other people are at. Have not fully decided how that is going to look, yet – still working on it.

Some possible topics of conversation:

• Magnet programs
• Identifying/isolating the “big” issues with Unit 4 (which should lead to action items if done right)

Anything else burning on your mind?

So here is a question to let your subconscious chew on while you read the rest of this. How do people share ideas and information with each other? You and I probably represent somewhat of a niche in that regards in that I am writing a blog post and several of you are reading it, either via an email subscription, rss feed, google hit or syndication. There are many other forms of communication that we use today.

G David has been involved with Unit 4 on the PTA and tech side for quite some time (going to hit a decade in a couple short years ). He gave us  some excellent background and historical context for why we are (almost literally) banging our heads about the current state of websites, and especially PTA websites, within Unit 4. If I may paraphrase, it seems that the general mentality of tech folks in this arena have fallen prey to a couple basic … syndromes, for lack of a better word:

1. more often than not, it is a one-man show
2. combined with a one-trick pony
3. which leads to “my way or the highway”

This is not isolated to the IT staff, we have observed that inevitably this happens with PTA volunteers as well. And in a way, you can see the natural progression; someone sees a deficiency or a hole, they offer to fill the gap but they only know one “trick”. So everything is cast in that mold. Once that person exits stage left, the curtains come down and Google retains their ever-stale work for posterity. There has been a lack of “hand off” or suitable transition. Not that IT Directors have not tried; we were regaled with a story of how one year staff had to go through a 3 or 4 hour training session on creating websites. And where are those websites now?

It is not my intent to be negative, pessimistic or see the glass half empty. I believe G David’s intent is, truly, to provide a foundation based on history that helps to describe where we are now. So where are we? We can keep lighting these little fires that burn for a year or two (thinking specifically of PTA websites). Or we can work on building a furnace (my words – editorial benefit *grin*). The “furnace” applies also to IT in Unit 4; I know they keep trying to come up with a framework that supposedly makes it easier for schools to simultaneously broadcast their individuality while operating under the umbrella of the Unit 4 brand/image. And I’ll give them partial credit, they got at least part of that down.

As frustrating as it seems, G David feels that we must go back to the drawing board to build consensus and get buy-in from various players. I confess I am rather befuddled why this has not happened in the past decade – what is the big obstacle. I realize that the mentality of pushing solutions, regardless of the problem, can lead to fractured and segmented societies. Which is pretty much what we have now. So I have to ask, what really are the problems? We have formed this loose “Tech group” because we really (really really) want to see each school PTA have a website. And we know how to do it. In fact, we were trying to find the meeting times of the PTA Council and… “what, they have no website!?!?!” But as G David reminded us, the age of email is growing older; his perception is that kids these days use twitter and texts, and maybe even Facebook (probably). Only a certain kind of person looks for and expects full-blown websites.

And this got me thinking about how we communicate, how we trade information with one another. I found some fascinating RSA Animate talks that are slightly tangential to this topic (1 and 2 if you are still curious – please stay away from youtube), but the upshot is that while times and technology are changing, the root of what we wish to communicate and the models we fall into doing so pretty much stay the same. Sure, we can build fancy websites with social media hooks (even bi-directional hooks)  - that might be the rave right now. But what about 5 years from now? 10? Perhaps what we need most are people who want to communicate. We can throw up whatever technology best suits, but without the desire to share ideas and connect, you have nothing. Which makes Facebook a most excellent research topic. But what about circles that do not involve computerized technology? (such a thing exists?!?)

I am still a website person. I am going to email 4fr. And I don’t see myself tweeting. But I want to find out how other people plug into the morass of humanity.

One of the issues we discussed is the top-down management style prevalent in Unit 4 Administration. An example at Stratton was used whereby a majority of parent’s wanted to retain the longer school day, but the teachers (allegedly represented by the teachers union, the Champaign Federation of Teachers) did not. It sounds like the CFT approached Administration and eliminated the longer days. From what I hear, the parent’s were not involved in the decision making process at all. In another example, the CFT so constrained the hiring of particular support staff such that only a certified teacher could fill the position, and there is speculation that the position could have been better filled. Granted, I don’t have all the sides of the story. So please feel free to fill me in. Yet, we do observe these types of situations occurring - the Administration makes a decision, and presto-bingo, those are the new marching orders. I am also aware that a previous CFT President occasionally reads these posts…. just saying.

We talked a bit about the role of the ombudsperson, and how it is important for community members to have a safe place in which to release their opinions; not such much to air dirty laundry or rag about anything, but more to show that people are valuable and worth listening to, and to extract key issues from such sessions in which to present to the School District in the hopes of finding compromise or solutions. Comparisons were made to CARE3 and Community Citizens Concerned about Quality Education. I have heard a lot about CARE3, but I was never directly involved and it is difficult to find much information about them via google (although you can follow the rabbit trail to Mark Aber and Access Initiative). In retrospect, our little gathering at Houlihans is just one more example of a group of concerned people that want to make a positive impact on the community, one among many others. Which further makes me think, why is there not more collaboration? Why are we all so isolated?

My one action item is to talk to Wiegand about Grinnip. I am trying to think of how to phrase this. Allow me to diverge on a tangent briefly.

So we have UC2B being rolled out as we speak (you have probably seen crews laying out long orange tubes underground along streets). Unit 4 has made the single largest contribution towards UC2B, over and above the University of Illinois and other vested partners. This is amazing in and of itself. And with two strands of fiber, they will certainly have a heck of a lot of bandwidth. What are they going to do with it? Let us think about the purpose of UC2B (at least, what they publicly say about themselves):

“an open-access fiber-optic broadband network throughout the Champaign-Urbana area”

“This direct connectivity will enable improved access/support to health care, educational and recreational institutions, public safety and government agencies, and social service and religious organizations, as well as increased access to public computing centers. and a sustainable adoption and educational outreach program for vulnerable populations. Training, entertainment, and social networking opportunities will also be enhanced.”

There is a ton of information about UC2B online. Were is the Wiki entry? Anyway, all this focus on bringing a fatter pipe to the internet to “anchor institutions” and various low-incoming housing. And it seems that the sole purpose is merely to “connect” them. I am bit confused why we need this. We have 0$ for computer literacy, but we have over 30$ million to lay down infrastructure and buy a bunch of really cool brand new toys. Interesting.

So bringing this back to Grinnip. All schools will be “connected” to this fat pipe. Unit 4 is planning to not provide public wi-fi. So here is what I propose first and foremost (in this context). Let’s have a sit-down chat with Grinnip and other folks in Unit 4 IT and with the parents of Unit 4 children, and let us, at the same table, figure out what is needed, what is desired and how to achieve those goals. Together.

Personally, I am bit tired of hearing about how we “need” UC2B – from my point of view, it seems like “we” are providing an answer to a question that has not been asked. We should be asking, “what do you need?” What problems are you facing, and what issues make your life rough?

Next week, Jan 18: I will be out of town. Chuck Jackson may or may not will hold a gathering

Two weeks, Jan 25: PTA Tech gather; going to finally take some action on getting PTAs online

Yesterday at Houlihans, Pattsi Petri and I hashed out our thoughts. I am not going to be able to remember everything, so if there are any holes in my story….

I told her about CUWiki (a summary of which I have moved to a new “umbrella” blog) and we discussed the merits of finding community spaces, but we totally lack the understanding of using a wiki to accomplish that. I shared how the CUWiki group has looked at examples like DentonWiki and ArborWiki, and we talked about how similar attempts around Chambana have never really worked out.

We then talked about what is currently happening with Unit 4, the Superintendent, the stuff with the Lottery/Choice/School Assignment. At the time, I had just found out that Unit 4 contracted a Missouri company to work on the FIC website for registration. This afternoon (Jan 5th), I read a rumor (all things are rumor until I hear it from the horse’s mouth) that Unit 4 hired a Houston-based company to do some video spots and develop material for Registration. This totally goes against what ABCD teaches – you use the Assets in your own backyard if you can. There should be a very clear and very strong argument to have to go fishing in another pond. So while I am glad that Unit 4 is moving forward with some improvements, I am wishing that Unit 4 would have considered local people first. Granted, I have no idea what the circumstances are – for all I know, we found resources which are working pro bono. Not very likely, but possible.

The discussion migrated to what is happening in East St. Louis, and the efforts of folks like Martin Wolske to encourage community involvement via internet connectivity and computer literacy; their version of CUWiki is actualized in http://www.metroeastdigital.org/. We then took a turn to The Corner, travelling down dark paths of what happens when people groups are marginalized and the difficulty of building bridges once those bridges have been burned. This related back to our own efforts to building trust within Champaign – so while the two examples of Baltimore and East St. Louis are a bit extreme, they are very poignant examples, and even very real for those in Champaign that traveled down to East St. Louis.

At some point, Pattsi mentioned Mike Pyatok in the context of building sustainable structures. For the life of me, I cannot associate that memory with anything else at the moment. It might have been related to my desire to build sustainable websites for local PTAs. Maybe.

We spent a good chunk of time also discussing the idea of taking this “Wednesdays at Houlihans” thing to the next level. There are a number of grassroots efforts to “do something” about community and Unit 4, and I would hate to see us become stuck in the rut of just talking and not really getting anything accomplished. The work with the John Street Watershed is an excellent, local, recent example of a small group of people clearly identifying a very real problem and taking appropriate steps to get it addressed satisfactorily. Pattsi has given me quite a rather large reading list and I am slowly making my way through it. She has also challenged me. The latest challenge is to set up a real Open Community Forum (one not run by Unit 4) by April. Chuck Jackson, Laura Bleill and I covered this ground last summer, so I feel all the more pressure to bring this thing to life. My biggest hangup (I think) is the need for a bona fide facilitator. Pattsi mentioned “Big.Small.All” as a possible resource for facilitators. She also mentioned Andrew Levy with the Regional Planning Commission (RPC). And maybe even Carol Ammons on the Champaign County Board. At least, in terms of who to talk to next. Lastly, she made the example of how students often can build trust and bridges faster due their complete lack of baggage; as such, maybe I could work with the College of Education to see if they would be willing to do a workshop as I already have contacts via the Rose & Taylor barbershop forums and I-STEM.

Did I miss anything?

This week (Dec 14th), we continued to have some excellent discussion. Again, I fear I am not going to do justice to all that was said, so I am hoping (again) that others pipe up and share their thoughts. We had with us a Champaign Council rep, an EEE Committee member, a Prairie Fields Homeowners’ Association BOD rep, myself and Chuck Jackson. Looking back at that list, I am realizing that all those folks wear multiple hats as well.

Wanna hear what we talked about? 

Pattsi Petrie has encouraged me to read We Make the Road by Walking. I personally love the way these two men think and communicate. Even the title itself is so simple, so basic, so true. One of the sayings that Paulo Freire likes to say is “we start by starting”. This is me starting. The reason why I mention this book will become evident soon.

One of the topics we touched on was how to address issues in our school system. One issue is that our style of educating, our pedagogy, is not tailored to meet the needs of each student; rather, it is a blanket, one-size-fits-all solution that meets the needs of some students. Our style of education appears to be business-based, focusing on the bottom-line of efficiency. Again, while this works for some students, it does not work for all students. Some of the proposed ideas were:

• smaller class sizes
• teachers that understand the needs of each child
• possibly k-8; as opposed to k-5, 6-8, 8-9, 10-12

We also covered the issue of sprawl. The District has utilized the services of a urban planner that is part-time devoted to Unit 4, part-time to the City of Champaign. We realized that it was no big surprise that the planner would encourage and influence any decision to increase building on the outskirts of town, especially north of Champaign. Last night, I took the opportunity to drive Olympian Drive; I was shocked how much is up there already. There is a housing subdivision off Prospect, and massive warehouses and industry over east of Market. The City wants to push for more and more in that direction. Why? One obvious reason is to attract new tax bases. But does this really help us? The logistical infrastructure to support such expansion seems to be a long-lost cousin; look at the mess of Prospect near I-74, it is horrible! We have not proven that we can do infrastructure well, why would we want to incur more of it? Likewise with the planning for the high school, why would we want to find a super-large chunk of land outside of town? I hear arguments about the “need” for 80 acres, the “need” for athletic fields galore, etc. Do we really need that? Sure, it sounds nice, but we must consider the ramifications and base our decisions upon reality, upon how the community is impacted.

For a dose of Reality Check, look at the current school district map and how that compares to where the schools are, and even where Olypian Drive is – it s rather scary how much surface area the school district boundary covers (might take a few minutes to load the first time):

http://lottery.cb-pta.com/other/cu-k-maps.html

Last week we popped the idea of confining ourselves into a synthetic box in which we must creatively explore how to use what we already have. We are not doing enough of that. Dr. Malito broke the ice a little in his latest high school options report (leave comments here), and I applaud that little effort, but we need more of it. We do not need a “planner” who serves two masters and is distracted by how the City wants to grow.

What we do with the high school is going to be big. It is going to be pivotal. It will decide much of our future.

Another influencing factor we discussed is the Teachers’ Union. I did some quick googling and discovered that the Union is called the Champaign Federation of Teachers. Unfortunately the website is growing weeds and the asphalt is breaking up. But I did make contact with Mrs. Deb Foertsch and Greg Novak (a former President). Another sphere of influence (or at least, potential influence) is that of the College of Education. Check – already doing that with the Rose & Taylor forums. I also suggested the PTA Council; I still believe (naively?) that the PTA Council is an awesome position to be a pipe or avenue through which the community engages the Board. There is a ton of untapped potential there. I am starting a conversation with the PTA Council officers about that (emailed them yesterday).

Why is this a big deal? When Imani Bazzell did all her awesome work with Great Campus (it is truly mind-blowing), the Board pretty much put their hands over their ears (note, it was a different Board than what we have now). Why was Imani not listened to? Sure, she is opinionated and perhaps rubs people the wrong way, but that is not a very good justification for throwing an awesome idea out the window. If the Board only listens to certain groups (and maybe in a certain way), it would seem prudent to tap those resources and bend their ears. Granted, all this humdiggery would be unnecessary if the community had a better relationship with the Board. I think we are slowly starting to move in that direction. We just want faster movement.

Two other issues came up during our talks that I found note-worthy.

Currently, busing is a huge deal. We spend a lot of time moving kids all over the place. We are hurting on bus drivers. Is Schools of Choice still really the best option? Even if we do not go 100% neighborhood schools, can we at least open up the can and start talking about alternatives? Again, let’s get the College of Education involved (what do they do again? *grin*).

And lastly, the vacuum of good teachers and good students. On the one hand, we have a Gifted Program that attracts top-performing students out of one school and isolates them in another. We do something similar with teachers; we have an excellent teacher, and all the sudden they become a Principal, slowly making their way up the chain to the Mellon Center. Why do we do this? And this is where Paulo Freire and Myles Horton come into play. Why not keep the talent near those that could benefit from such talent? Why not encourage those that are highly skilled to hang out with the less skilled and collaborate? Why take excellent folks and rob both them and their former companions of the opportunity to engage in a bi-directional learning opportunity that challenges both sides of the equation?

Just saying.

Don’t know who is going to show up, but here are my suggestions for topics:

• The spread of conversations and the Rose & Taylor community forum
• Superintendent Search

But don’t feel limited by those suggestions.

Again, these times are open to everyone. If you have a burning question, a strong opinion or just want to meet others, please join us.

I already know I am not going to do justice to all the topics we covered, so I am hoping the participants do not mind sharing their own perspectives. For now I’ll let you remain anonymous until you are ready to attach your name. *grin*

An underlying theme that we seemed to circle back to a few times was that of perception, which manifested itself in several ways. The Barkstall parent is a recent transplant from out of state; not knowing where to look or how to get information at first, she was frustrated by overly confusing “choice process” and school assignment. Obviously, coming into the school semester mid-semester is going to be a little bit of a hassle, but this parent attempted to get the ball rolling as soon as possible and was simply met with an obstinate wall of policies and procedures. There was very little, if any, sort of “outreach” to help her feel welcome to the new system. The complexity is exacerbated by the high mobility rate (18% was quoted) of students throughout the school year! Meaning that even after school starts, almost 1 out of 5 students are moving from one school to another. Wow! That’s crazy! This conversation led to discussions about Controlled Choice vs Neighborhood schools (maybe have elementary schools be neighborhood schools?), the desire to overhaul the FIC and the date-locked state of the Unit 4 website which does not encourage much community participation at all, and more specifically, the way the school assignment system is presented is very lack-luster.

In one encouraging moment, we were told that the Board and the Administration is aware of the antiquated focus of the website and it is on their radar to do something about it. This is the first I have heard of such an admission, and now I am extremely curious what is going on. As I said, I find this encouraging, but why does there continue to be a disconnect between what the Board is talking about and what the public knows?

Going back to our new community member, it was suggested that new folks could ask around at the College of Education with the University, or even the Champaign County, to learn more about the schools. Funny thing is, I never thought of that. It now makes me want to go and ask just to see what they would say. What would I find out if I started asking Laura Weis at the Chamber of Commerce? Something for my “to do” list.

One of the participants has an extensive background in Urban and Regional Planning, and made a statement I personally thought was noteworthy; if the District had employed an Urban/Regional Planner, there would be no need whatsoever for the School District to pay for an out-of-state consultant to conduct the Demographic Study. As an aside, I happened to stumble upon a local company that could have done the exact same thing back in 2008, and we are scratching our heads about why Unit 4 went out of state for this. But anyway, there is obviously an issue with long-term planning within the BOE and the Administration – most of our schools are clustered near the center of town, inside the ring of outward expansion (think of a donut hole). On the other hand, and this might be counter to the previous statement, I do agree that we have to be very careful about sprawl; we do not want to go building a ton of new buildings on the outskirts of town in an attempt to extend the reach of Champaign municipalities/services. As we talked, I really started to like the idea of artificially land-locking ourselves in an attempt to make us come up with better ideas to use what we have (“to be creative” as a participant said).

The idea of having a true Planner on staff segues into the idea of having a focus on “inter-disciplinary” hiring, as opposed to a more “business-oriented” approach that attempts to capitalize on efficiency and multi-tasking. This idea seems to make sense, but I am not fully aware of the ramifications. Would it be more expensive? Probably, yes. But if at the cost of doing better planning, it seems like a worthwhile investment.

Lastly, I feel compelled to mention something about the high school options. But I am not exactly sure what. Everyone at the table had seen some news and info blurbs about it. This topic did tie into our lengthy coverage of needing to do better planning and sprawl in terms of where to place a new high school, but we did not cover any specific option (ie, move Edison to Central? Go with a 8-9 Prep school?). There was some talk about whether or not this was a good idea, with varied opinions on both sides. There are lots of ways to structure how you group students; the bottom-line question seems to be “What really do our students and community need?” Most of us at the table found that to be lacking in any documented communication from Unit 4 – what question is a new high school going to answer? And exactly how will it answer such a question.

Before I close, I should mentioned “Economic Gardening“. I have not yet had a chance to read it (as I just looked it up for this post), but it was suggested to us. The premise sounds quite intriguing.

To the first, Unit 4 is really trying to gather feedback on what community members want. Do we want a 3rd high school? Where? Do we want a “prep academy” (8th and 9th grade at one campus, 10th-12th grade at the other)? Or do we want to commit to the minimal amount of work to keep the roofs from falling down?

The second topic is closely related, IMO, especially if we consider the prep academy. It seems like Unit 4 is quickly adopting “Common Core State Standards” which attempt to better get students ready for college and the workplace. I believe this is the “rigor” that is being buzzed about.

So feel free to join us this coming Wednesday, December 7th, to talk about these topics. Bring your opinions.

Last week we had a number of discussion about reform, what that means and local efforts. There is a huge desire to step up the accountability for reading levels – no good reason why 3rd graders cannot read.

There is no official agenda today. I did invite folks from our nascent “PTA Tech” group, but only one person responded, so…. a Board Member might stop by. A couple other folks from the community have expressed a desire to come at some point, but no official cameos yet.

So here is where we are at. Not too long ago, a bunch of folks wanted to create a brand-new 3rd highschool up near Olympian Drive. I am not exactly sure who the biggest pushers were, but once the public got involved in the discussions, the BOE was forced to take a step back from their aggressive planning. Which is probably a good thing. Granted, we need to do something about our aging buildings. But what?

I am not sure if Dr. Malito conceived this idea, but in this post, I am going to give him credit for it. Please correct me if I am wrong. The idea is as follows – the traditional method of 6-8 middle school and 9-12 high school goes out the window:

due to the high drop-out rate and the stress of going from middle school to high school (all backed by statistics and test score metrics), 8th grade is combined with 9th grade. They become an independent campus.

10th-12th grade are on a separate campus. They could focus more on vocational/tech skills getting them ready for the workplace. In addition, there is some interest on working more closely with Parkland to start getting kids into the college scene earlier.

After talking with a Board Member, I gained the personal opinion that our current way of moving students through school really sucks. For instance, apparently we do not flunk students between Kindergarten and 8th grade (due to some policitcal/legal brouhaha). What sense does that make?!? Now perhaps I totally misunderstood what was said to me (would not be the first time). But in the current environment, it is entirely possible for a student to land in high school and hardly even be ready for 6th grade. Imagine the stress that puts on teachers (all teachers, not just the luck 9th grade teachers). I would first want to work on a way to promote students from one grade level to another once they are ready to move on. Isn’t that what happens in real life anyway? Think you can get a job in tax preparation without a CPA?

So going back to this idea of breaking off 9th-grade and partnering it with 8th grade. The root problem is not the testing – it is the progression of education. Would a combo 8th-9th grade work? Would placing more of a votech emphasis on 10th-12th be good for us?

That is a game changer for how we look at our buildings as well. Suddenly, if we have smaller populations of students under one roof, it is easier to find seats in existing buildings without having to go to the somewhat expensive process of buying land on the edge of town and building out there. Besides, we are quite cash-strapped at the moment, and I do not think it is realistic at all to buy land and build a new, larger structure.

I invite those who are knowledgeable on this topic to correct what I have said, and/or fill in details I might have left out. And the rest of you…. what do you think? =)

Last week we talked about PTA websites a bit. And we had some really good discussions. We covered the pros and cons of Facebook (ease-of-use and ubiquity vs security and lack of certain features like tracking conversations and static content), as well as things we are looking for in a PTA website. Basically, we prioritize:

1. low maintenance and sustainable
2. central updates; the ability to update one thing and have it propagate to all appropriate outlets (ie, admin email to PTA website which automatically goes to Facebook)
3. Attractive look and feel
4. low cost

I realize this sounds rather Utopian. But hey. It is prioritized so at least we have wiggle room.

I did a bit of research (and continue to do so). Most of the web design professionals I talk to say to use WordPress. WordPress seems like the ultimate sandbox that does a good job of covering the range between newbie webmasters and those who have been around the block a bit. However, there are some catches. For starters, all the rich versatility of WordPress is mostly found in the self-hosted option, wordpress.org. This option requires a lot of hands-on work. The “managed” option is wordpress.com, but the features are a bit more limited. And even at the most basic level, probably still requires wet-behind-the-ears PTA officers to have some fundamental amount of training.

I ran across website builders like ConnectingParents, which focuses specifically on PTA websites. For $350 + $50/month, they will create and maintain a PTA-focused website for you. I looked through their references and I’m sorry, but they suck. In fact, two PTA websites that looked really good (Vista del Mar and First District) are now hosted by WordPress and Website Muscle. What irony. I stumbled upon Andrew Watson’s Planning a PTA website, which has a couple interesting comments, but I sure wish he had not locked the comments! Last but not least, I came across the Spring Valley PTA website. Of those that I have mentioned, they are using professional-level services and obviously, set the bar rather high. I am not opposed to using a professional service as a means to show off the school. However, I rather use these “high standards” as a goal to aim for when forming a group of volunteers. If we can do a WordPress implementation that achieves our goals with 50% volunteer effort and 50% professional help, let’s do it!

In other news, I am still waiting to hear back from G. David Frye and hoping to get a u4friends.org subdomain going so I can explore.

Again, the gathering is open to the public. We will most likely talk about PTAs and websites today, but don’t let that discourage you. I am still on the look out for more teachers to join us. And in the back of my head, I am still chewing on ideas of going to other locations to attract different folks.

Yesterday (two days ago for most of you reading this) we were honored to have a bona fide Unit 4 teacher with us. And I personally think this was one of our better discussions yet. The new perspective of a teacher, even just one, brought a new dimension to the table.

Prior to the Teacher’s arrival, we started off talking techy stuff; Grinnip is waiting on deliver of “carts” to get laptops to Jefferson and Stratton, but otherwise they are ready to go; Grinnip has already partitioned the BTW WAN (VLans), but has stated they simply do not have the resources to monitor and maintain such a setup for every single school building; and we didn’t really talk much more about what would be nice to put on a “teacher” website until The Teacher showed up.

With The Teacher there, our topics ranged a bit but I’ll highlight what I remember here:

• When I asked what teachers really need (outside the narrow scope of computers), the response was that teachers need more time – they “waste” too much of this precious resource in meetings, committees, etc. What’s worse, even a potentially good meeting can be destroyed when an Administrative member is present and proceeds to dominate, turning what could be a useful dialog into a monologue.
• The Teacher stated a perspective that the Administration attempts to box in teachers a bit too much, presenting an overly rigorous and stifling curriculum. The Teacher’s experience is that breaking out of that mold relaxes tensions, frees innovation and creates satisfaction.
• On the topic of how to make education in general better, we discussed how the modern delivery and typical method of information dissemination focuses on one active center of knowledge filling up an audience of passive, empty buckets. What is interesting is that this model is extremely pervasive in our society. This is how the Administration doles out information to teachers and the community. This is how most meetings in the workplace are run. And this is how you can kill any desire to learn. Teachers need not so much to transfer knowledge into their pupils’ minds as to give them a hunger to grow, an appetite of curiosity, of reaching, exploring and discovering.
• Teachers want to be heard. Specifically by the Administration. The Teacher gave one example of how hard it is to find support in a structure that is meant to support them, especially when there is no trust.
• Back on the topic of technology, it is not yet clear to me what would be most helpful to teachers. Since teachers are already constrained in the time budgets, adding yet one more responsibility of maintaining a web presence seems impractical. But yet at the same time, there is the allure of reaching out to the segment of society that consumes information via online mediums. How best to do that? Moreover, teachers do not want be judged based on their adaptation of technology; there should be no aspect of their job description that dictates assimilation in that regards. Personally, I see this as a gaping hole, especially as we race forward with UC2B and watch the explosion of social media. All segments of society are uprooted as the digital divide grows larger.

Our talk on Wednesday inspired me to seek out more teachers to invite to sit down with us. I also want to find others “not like us”; those of different backgrounds, different circumstances, and even those that disagree with us. But I have a feeling we are going to have a find a new venue closer to those we want to talk with.

In any case, you, the reader, are invited to join us for Wednesday Open Forums.

Where: Houlihans (First and St. Mary’s Road)

Chuck Jackson and I are going to start meeting on Wednesdays over the lunch hour at Houlihans, and we are inviting anyone to come join us. The topic? Unit 4. What are we going to talk about? Our motivation and impetus is that we want to play an active role in addressing some of the issues surrounding Unit 4. There are lots of good things going on, and there are also challenges to be faced. We want to provide an open forum format where folks can bring their ideas and share them with others, with a focus on doing something about it. I for one am not content to merely throw salty criticisms from the peanut gallery – I want to hear what other people have to say and then get moving.

There are lots of ways for community members to get involved in the school system. But perhaps one major hindrance is the perception of the Administration and the Board. If folks feel a lack of trust or if they fear the System, they are not going to want to take part in it. I am hoping these discussions can move us past those barriers, either by dissolving the cloudy myths or tearing down communication walls. And I readily admit that those feelings may be quite valid, and in such cases, I want to get to the root of those valid feelings and bring them before the Board of Education. This is a two-way street and I plan to walk it both directions.

So you are going to be there. Right?