Think about this. Has anyone noticed that no one from the board has been at the meetings, or at least they were not at the one I attended, and was there someone there taking notes of concerned parents....not at the meeting I attended... so I must say, why is our county holding these meetings???? Seems to me just to let parents feel they have a sayso in what will happen... but if the information is not specifically relayed to the board... then how will they know your concerns??? They won't.. Appears to me parents are just wasting time standing in front of a microphone sharing pros and cons when no one from the voting board is there to listen... but what better way to make your targeted audience feel as if you are listening to them??? hmmmm.
if y'all want to see the eog scores, here's last year for johnston county http://abcs.ncpublicschools.org/abcs/abcVol1List.jsp?pYear=2009-2010&pSchName=johnston you should be able to search previous years on the abc's home page, linked on the left of that page.
Thought this might be interesting to some, this may be a copy of the flier that was passed out and contains many interesting questions. On top of these I would also be interested to know if Johnston County will get rid of the more than 4 abscences per quarter and automatic fail rule if middle and high schools are not also switched to the same modified calendar, because if families are struggling to balance schedules between their kids they may need to miss more than that occasionally. It would be nice to see them switch back to something more reasonable like 8 per semester or just a total per year. Below is the flier: Reasons/Need for Change 1. What was the specific need or reason identified for ECES that required a change in school calendar to year-round calendar? 2. Why is ECES trying to drastically change the school calendar when the 2011-2012 school year calendar has already been accepted and approved? 3. When was this drastic change to the school calendar presented to the ECES advisory board, did the advisory board vote to approve the new calendar, and what were the percentages for and against the new year-round calendar? 4. Who proposed this year-round calendar to Johnston County School board, which school board members have voted in favor of this proposal and which ones voted against this proposal? 5. What evidence is there that a year-round calendar provides any tangible benefits or academic improvements to students who are not at an under-performing or non-Title I school? 6. Will there be enrichment programs during the breaks and, as with the remediation programs, will enrichment programs be at no cost to a parent? Voting 7. For the ECES staff voting for the year-round schedule, who was included in the staff voting? Was it only qualified teachers included in the staff vote or was the entire ECES staff allowed to vote, even if they didn’t have a child at the school? If the entire ECES staff allowed to vote, what percentage of the qualified teachers voted for and against the proposed year-round schedule? 8. If a family has more than one student attending ECES, and therefore there will be a greater effect on that family, why doesn’t that family get more than one vote for this proposed year-round schedule? 9. If a teacher who has a student attending ECES, isn’t that teacher getting two votes in two separate surveys? 10. What was the reason that ECES or the Johnston County School board changed the voting/passing requirements from 75% of teachers to 50% of school staff? 11. What percentage of families need to return voting/survey sheets for the year-round schedule proposal for ECES to consider the survey valid and/or accepted? 12. What percentage of families need to return voting/survey sheets stating that they approve of the proposed year-round schedule in order for the school to submit a request to change the currently approved 2011-2012 calendar from a traditional calendar to a year-round calendar? 13. If the percentage needed for returned surveys must equal at least 70% of ECES families in order for the survey to be considered valid or accepted and the school only requires 50% of these families to vote in favor of the new year-round calendar, doesn’t that mean that it only requires a minimum of 35% of ECES families to allow the school to submit a request for a change to a year-round calendar for ECES? Also, if we measure the percentages not based on the number of families but based on the number of elementary school kids in each family and if there are more children in the families that vote against the proposed change than vote for it, wouldn’t the minority percentage that voted for this change drop even further? 14. How many ballots will be sent out for the voting/survey regarding the proposal for ECES to go on this year-round schedule? 15. Why are families with 5th graders being allowed to participate in this survey when it won’t affect them? 16. Why hasn’t ECES planned on including in the survey those parents who have rising kindergarteners? What has ECES done to notify those parents about this proposed changed to the school calendar? Cost 17. Will there be additional costs because of this proposed new school calendar and if so, what are the? 18. Where are these new funds coming from? 19. In the current economic times when tax revenues are down throughout the state and when each county and county school system is getting less and less funds from the state and county and after we have lost so many TA positions due to budget cuts, why are we embarking on a program that we know will require increased costs? 20. If there are new costs associated with this new school calendar proposal and we are taking funds from other programs to apply to this new calendar proposal, why don’t we take these funds and apply them to getting more TAs for each grade and classroom? 21. What programs are being cut or reduced in order to free up funds to be used to pay the additional costs for the new year-round calendar? Are any funds being taken from the “remedial” teaching programs? Will those positions be eliminated? What is the plan to provide remedial services for those who need it (absences, sicknesses, etc.) if the funds for these services are gone? 22. If there are sufficient additional funds to pay for the increased costs, why don’t we apply these funds to a more pressing need, like fixing the problem of inadequate number of textbooks in certain schools? 23. What is the anticipated total cost to families for transportation, food, and child care during the remedial intersession training weeks and how are the families supposed to pay for these costs? 24. How can parents see a detailed budget for the currently-approved 2011-2012 school year and a detailed proposed budget for the school year under the proposed modifications? 25. Will the school provide academic enrichment programs during the two or three week breaks? If so, are the plans for these programs formulated and in writing? What are the costs for any such enrichment programs? Particular aspects 26. For the one week remedial “intersession” terms, isn’t it true that this will be completely voluntary attendance, since under North Carolina statute a school year calendar can only be 220 days? Would the remedial intersession weeks be in addition to the 220 days in any NC school calendar? 27. For ECES (or for Johnston County in general), what criteria will be used to identify those students who will be invited to attend the voluntary one week intersession terms? What percentage of “invitees” is anticipated to come from low-income or economically disadvantaged families? 28. How many ECES students in K-4 last year were required or asked to attend summer school? What is the plan to pay for summer school if there are students who might need it the following year? If none are anticipated, why do we need a year-round school calendar? 29. Will transportation (school busing) be provided for those students who will be invited to the remedial intersession terms? 30. For the two Johnston County elementary schools that use this year-round calendar, how many students were “invited” to attend an intersession term and how many invitees actually attended? Isn’t it true that school transportation for these two schools’ intersession terms is being paid for by a temporary grant? 31. What was the estimated increased cost attributed to school busing, gas, utilities, etc.? How many “invitees” does Johnston County and/or ECES anticipate will not come to an intersession because no transportation or school busing would be provided? 32. Will ECES TAs or ECES employees be required to drive a school bus during the two or three week “breaks” under the new proposed year-round school calendar? 33. If the ECES TAs or ECES employees will still be required to drive a school bus during the two or three weeks (for middle school and high school routes), how will the proposed school calendars provide any “breaks” for those employees? 34. Wasn’t the new school starting times for middle school and elementary school based partially on the concept that the older middle school kids should arrive home first so the older kids can be waiting for the younger kids when they get home? Doesn’t the new proposed year-round schedule go against this reasoning? 35. Given that ECES is not categorized as an underperforming school in Johnston County, what percentage of “invitees” does ECES or Johnston County expect not to attend any remedial intersession term? 36. What other Johnston County elementary schools have voted not to go on this type of modified school calendar, which schools are they, and are some of them ranked lower academically than ECES? 37. If there is a tangible, measurable benefit to this proposed year-round school calendar, why isn’t this year-round calendar made mandatory for all Johnston County elementary and middle schools? 38. Isn’t it true that in Wake County, the “track-out” day care costs are greater than for an identical number of days in the traditional summer vacation? 39. What problem or problems is this proposed schedule meant to resolve? How will any such improvement be tested and measured? How will ECES or Johnston County publish the non-student identifiable data to ECES parents or the general public to demonstrate that there is any such improvement that is directly related to this proposed year-round schedule? 40. For the two schools that used this new proposed school calendar, what percentage of invitees that attended the intersession remedial training had improved math or reading scores, what were the pre-training scores, and what were the post-training scores? Same question for those who were invited to attend the intersession training but elected not to do so? Same question for those students who were not invited to the intersession training? Did any test scores drop for those schools? 41. If there was any improvement in the test scores for the two schools that used this new proposed school calendar, what other factors affected or improved test scores? Was any additional money provided to those schools, any additional personnel hired, etc.? 42. Does ECES have time to implement the new school system for 2011-2012 and to give families time to change any vacation plans that have already been made? 43. If we are starting the new school year at the end of July, how will that affect the cutoff birthdate for new kindergarteners? Will the cutoff date be pushed earlier, before August 31? 44. Will middle schools be required to follow this proposed school year system? 45. Has ECES and/or Johnston County School Board considered the effects that this proposal will have on families that have students in ECES and in another middle school? 46. Why is this school system doing this on a school-by-school basis and not on a single county-wide basis? Is it because this is an unpopular proposal? 47. What percentage of qualified teachers will attend the remedial intersession to teach the remedial students? If it is proven that the lower the student/teacher ratio the better the education, why not require all teachers and staff to be present during the intersession training dates? If the teachers require additional planning time, why not require them to attend the intersession training dates? 48. Will each student who attends a remedial intersession training week be taught by the same teacher that the student has during non-intersession training periods? 49. What is the anticipated emotional and/or psychological effect on those students who will have to attend an intersession training term when their peers are not? How about when their peers find out about those students who attend the intersession training periods? 50. When will ECES publish or announce the results of any survey, including the number of ballots returned to the school and the results of each ballot? When will the school decide on whether to recommend a change to the school calendar? When will the school announce if it will recommend a change to the school calendar? When will the school board vote or decide on any change to the ECES calendar? 51. Does the school system understand that if this proposed change is put in place, this will cause a huge rift between the school and a currently cohesive and supportive group of people at ECES?
As to note 1, you assume that more teachers will be available than needed. I have seen no evidence of that. Teachers will be paid their hourly rate for 4 hours per day. If budget is a concern, I don't see the school having extra teachers that are not utilized. As to note 2, I have seen no evidence that enrichment or enhancement will be provided except for those needing remediation because they are failing to progress. If your kids are at level or above, no services will be provided. Don't be misled.
Based on the lack of response from the board members, which speaks volumes about their open and transparent method of interaction with the voters who elected them, I would have been surprised if any of the CO or board showed up. That way, they can let the blame fall on the individual schools for failure to achieve overwhelming success at selling this snake oil, and will grab credit for any success at the level of people swallowing the mularkey and rhetoric- hook, line and sinker.
............................. In addition to these, here are the ones that have been communicated to me: .............................................. AEC Questions 1. A. IN the info sheet, there is a question of cost. (Q12) It says that some additional money will be available to defray some but not all of the costs. B. Given the current budget concerns, where does the remainder of costs come from? IS this source of funding guaranteed, given the uncertainty of school funding? C. What programs and other funding items are being diverted to fund this? AIG Center, funds allocated for technology or improvements? D. What will be in the increased costs of utilities for the sessions, and for having schools open in July and June for air conditioning? E. Why won’t transportation be provided? If my child needs remediation and I can’t provide transportation, what then? F. Will after session childcare cost me? 2. A. If my child is struggling for the previous 9 weeks, how will ½ day for 5 days make an impact? B. If my child is doing OK, but not recommended for remediation, can he still attend? IF not, why not? C. How do the schools using this calendar compare to PES? I thought that they were not making AYP to begin with, and received more emphasis and funding. Will these assets be available for PES? D. The scores at one school used as an example of improved schooling went down. What is the point of changing schedules if the scores don’t improve? E. My take is that the Cleveland area schools were the examples used to show other schools how to get better. Is PES a bad school? Where do we stack against the other elementary schools in the area? F. If Cleveland ES is so highly rated, and their teachers and staff voted against this, what do they know that our staffs did not consider? G. I have children in elementary and/or middle school and/or high school. How do we adjust our family schedule to support all of our children’s activities? This calendar seems that it will be hard for us to combine school and extracurricular activities to support all of our children, even though my elementary school child will not need remediation. H. What if I want my children on the traditional calendar, and PES goes to the new one? Can I be assured that my child can get into Westview or Cleveland ES? What if there are too many kids for the other schools to absorb? I. I keep seeing references to two schools in Smithfield? Are they the same as PES? J. I’ve read on 4042 about this discussion. Why wasn’t information provided early on to keep the level of confusion down. It seems that someone was trying to get this done without wanting anyone to ask questions? Is this the kind of communication I can expect from the school? K. I don’t see why there can’t be a discussion, with Q&A? You’ve asked for questions to be sent to you, but without having any more than the information on the sheet you sent, I don’t know what to ask? L. If my child is recommended for remediation but can’t attend, what then? M. I’m worried that my child will be embarrassed or made fun of for having to attend remediation and then go back into his regular class. If my child needed summer school, they went to a different class at the start of school and I was not worried about them being teased. N. Based on my children’s ages, I would have a child home during the intersession that I feel isn’t old enough to be by herself, yet I can’t afford childcare? What do I do? O. I read that this had been considered and rejected in the past. Why does it keep coming back? Why was the criteria lowered from 75% of votes last time to 50? 3. A. I have a special needs child? What will happen to them over the school breaks? Will they be in remediation with the other kids? B. How will the cotes be counted? Are only the yes and no votes counted, or do the non-votes count as a yes or no? C. How can we be sure that the voting will be done in a fair manner? D. My child is in AIG. They already get few of the services they need? How will this change benefit or affect them? E. If my children are not recommended for remediation, but I’d like for them to participate, is this available for them? If so, at what cost? F. What kind of participation/utilization is expected, especially for those kids who we all know need the help, but whose parents won’t use the services provided? Our tax dollars can’t stretch far enough for us to become surrogate parents, especially when there is a need for AIG support.
Still in for the wife. Forgive my lack of web site copy and paste skills. "Hat" tells me; "As to note 1, you assume that more teachers will be available than needed. I have seen no evidence of that. Teachers will be paid their hourly rate for 4 hours per day. If budget is a concern, I don't see the school having extra teachers that are not utilized. As to note 2, I have seen no evidence that enrichment or enhancement will be provided except for those needing remediation because they are failing to progress. If your kids are at level or above, no services will be provided. Don't be misled. " End of "Hat" message The meeting I attended last PM informed me that there will be teachers available for enrichment classes for a full day, each day they are open. If they were not telling us the truth, I cannot speak to that, or prove that I was being misled. Have you been to any of the meetings? I only ask this question as it is very easy to read where you stand on this matter. On Saturday night in a discussion with several friends with "skin in the game". I was 180 from where I am now. I may not be in all the way, but I am quite capable of figuring it all out as if affects my family. No matter, if this county continues to see the growth it has, we will need more schools QUICKLY, or we will be faced with these types of schedules where we may have no say at all. Pay now, or pay later, but it will still cost all of some coin and disruption in the near future. Irish
The posted schedule calls for remediation for half a day, from 0830 until 1130 for 5 days. Teachers will be paid their hourly rate from 0800 - 1200. Again, I have seen no evidence that students at or above grade level will be in remediation. My accusations have never been directed at our lack of information. I am LOUDLY critical of the poor out reach utilized, so far. It's a good thing this method wasn't used for the two most recent bond sale campaigns. I shudder to imagine how poorly that would have gone over. As far as the future goes, we're having a difficult time getting factual information on which to make decisions for events starting this summer, much less farther down the road.
Hat,6 What I understood, was that while the school is open for remediation, enrichment classes wil be offered for the entire day. For ANY child that choses to attend. What those hours are at present, I do not know because I failed to ask. There is another meeting before ballots go out. I ak again, have you been to a meeting yet? Irish
If I'm not mistaken, parents sending their children to the enrichment classes during the intersession must pay for that service. The only thing "free" to the parents will be remediation for only the students selected for it (with no transportation provided). Does anyone understand this differently?
Hi Bronco. It is, "pay as you go". You are correct, it ain't free. As I posted earlier, for my family, it may work. I pay for care if they are not in school any how. It's quoted last night as $2.50/hr, per child. About what I pay for care when school is out, and a lot less than I pay for a "sitter" in the summer which gets them to the pool and more DS and TV than I would like. Regards, Irish
I am personally not for this year round garbage. And before I even get started, I wanted to say I'm kind of upset at so many people on this board assuming that kids who need remediation have no parent involvement at home. NOT true. There are many of us out there that have struggling children, that are getting help for their kids or are helping them at home. This calender does NOT benefit them despite the hype around it doing so. Trust me. I have a few that are not on grade level but try really, really hard. They do not fit into the category of self-contained so MUST be considered part of regular ed even though they don't really belong there either. I now have high schoolers & this kind of thinking by the county to just drag them along w/ no understanding of the concepts provides them no benefit whatsoever & is extremely detrimental to their future. For those of us that work, despite our kids needing help, we may not be able to provide the transportation to & from school in the middle of the day. I think half day remediation is stupid. Too many people are not going to be able accomodate that. I think this was not very well thought out b/c from what I've heard is they were still doing round table discussions about a 4 day school week. I think at this point they are grasping at straws. The whole thing just makes no sense to me. I don't really see a cost savings bit to this but maybe that's b/c I haven't read every single entry on this thread. My vote is no. I don't care how they try to spin it. And, what are they doing for the people who work in the elementary, middle & high schools?? What about THOSE teachers? I know of someone who is in that position. When would their break be? Too much to think about. Just tired of this county trying different things and getting nowhere fast with it. Don't even get me started on just how stupid all the inclusion classes are. They claimed those were going to be the best thing since sliced bread. Teachers AND parents agree it has done way more harm than good. Especially, at the high school level. So, me even remotely seeing how yet another "new" thing is something great for this county..not a chance. Vote is still 100% NO. Stephanie-- mom to 7
i thought year round was a bad idea, butnow ive changed my mind. it opens up a lot more family vacation options.
I saw that too. My daughter brought a letter home yesterday. It said there are two meetings, and he'll be at the first one.
Stephanie, I dont assume that kids that need remediation have no parental involvement. I might have missed it somewhere but I didn't catch anyone saying that. There is no denying that there are a lot of students who do not have parental involvement at home. I posted that kids are starting kindergarten not knowing their ABCs. I posted their are lots of students that never get read to or get taken to a library. I posted a Spanish speaking child no matter how hard he/she tries is at a disadvantage academically if placed in an all English speaking classroom. Others posted similiar comments. We all know you and many other parents work really hard with their children. Unfortunately there are many parents who dont and sadly that is just a fact. DB's wife
"It is my belief that many children that need the remediation assistance already have poor parental involvement at home and the turnout for the classes will be poor if the school is not providing transport. If so, then the benefits for mine may become more desirable (2)." DB's wife, this is more of what kind of stuff I was talking about. It was from Irishbymarriage. Not you. I think this debate is heated enough. I've tried to stay out of it but when people say stuff like that, it gets to me as you can imagine. I have many friends w/ special ed kids in one form or another. parents are probably doing even more than the teachers are aware of. Many get tutors for their kids over the summer for extra help. I hate the idea of year round. The bottom line is everyone is going to vote the way they want based on own personal feelings & beliefs. I do think folks are scared. I think part of the reason for that fear is poor planning by JCPS. Really, something of this magnitude should have been expressed to parents months ago about the possibility. This last minute garbage really was low in my opinion. I guess we'll find out soon how this turns out if they want to implement July 28th. Is anyone aware when the final vote will be? Stephanie-- mom to 7
