Dave Tomlinson, the current BOE President, has disclosed that Sue Grey will be taking up the mantle after (during?) tonight’s Special Board Meeting.
Jamie Oliver and Nutrition at Unit 4
27 April 2011 11:54 am — charlesdschultzA couple weeks ago I pinged our Food Service experts (both in the Administration and at our local school) in the context of Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution”. I was very impressed by the responses I received.
However, I am now extremely impressed. Ms. Mary Davis has posted answers to Jamie Oliver’s questions. Huge kudos to Ms. Davis and her team!
http://www.champaignschools.org/foodservice/Food_Revolution_Questions.pdf
In the one episode that I watched, Jamie Oliver made a dramatic presention of pouring 3 tons of sugar into a school bus (loaded with cardboard cutout children). His point is that this is the sugar we serve on a daily basis via flavored milk. So I was not exactly happy to learn that flavored milk is so often served in our schools. Worse, white milk gets tossed a lot. Of course, if there is a choice between milk with sugar and milk without, kids are going to choose with.
One question that seemed to be pointedly dodged was “where does the food come from?” I am not sure why it was not answered outright, I’ll have to follow-up on that.
Overall, a great presentation of information. Ms. Davis rises to the challenge and puts it all down in black and white. She knows there are certain challenge areas, but she also seems confidence in the strengths of the existing practices.
Good stuff.
Carrie Busey Groundbreaking announced: Friday, May 27 at 3 PM
26 April 2011 3:38 pm — charlesdschultzPlease join us for
the ceremony to break ground at
Carrie Busey Elementary School
304 Prairie Rose Lane
Savoy, Illinois
Friday, May 27 at 3 PM
2011 Kindergarten Lottery data made available
26 April 2011 1:45 pm — charlesdschultzBusy day today. 
I have imported this into the online database, but I have not yet built up the php pages to query it. In the meantime, you can download the spreadsheet yourself and browse it. This could be like group-sourced analysis.
The data is now available in the database:
http://lottery.cb-pta.com/lottery/2011/
Some of the predefined queries do not work 100% because the data changed around a little, but most of them do. Enjoy.
STEM: the new not-new “is this really education?”
25 April 2011 12:22 pm — charlesdschultzre: http://partialobjects.com/2011/04/405/
I am really torn about how we do education in our modern day. On the one hand, there is all this global pressure to prove to the world that the USA can produce top engineers and scientists. On the other hand, science can be downright boring, both in the classroom and in the Real World™. There are some really awesome projects you can do with all branches of science. Yet so often we dumb it down to having to memorize and regurgitate the Periodic Table or the Family and Genus of the “common dog”. History is the same way, spitting back a bunch of dates and alleged important events. We have these standardized tests that we use to measure our academic yearly average progress, and we end up “teaching to the test”.
I mentor a kid at Edison, and I have asked him a few times what he wants to do when he grows up. By now, he is tired of adults asking this question. He simply does not do. I told him what I do, and I could not keep his attention for 10 seconds. He wants to do something with sports. That’s great – he is a very athletic, competitive and driven young fellow. But the line between learning about music, math, english, history, drama and science and a career in athletics is very ill-defined. Basically, if you get “good” grades you can ignore education altogether. Or can you?
On the flip side, I can look at the current job market and see where the big bucks are. Or I can even find where the hot jobs are. Google and Microsoft are currently having a war to see who can hire the most people in one year. Do you really want to program your child’s learning such that you funnel them into this kind of career? Will your child even want to follow that lead once they can make their own choices?
I want an education, and an educational system, that puts on emphasis on learning how to live. I would love to see kids excited about school. Kids who are so into the science projects, kids who are loving band, kids who think their teachers are the next best thing since hot pizza! Our modern school has become boring, and our school districts have become rigid businesses who function it is to have the highest percentage of their students take a test well.
Last, I need to shout out to our teachers. They are doing an awesome job! (at least the ones I know of) Keep it up! And I am sorry for all the crap you have to put up with.
In other news, Kenwood votes to go with school uniforms
21 April 2011 11:26 am — charlesdschultzhttp://champaignschools.org/News/1011/2011-04-20_kenwood_uniforms.pdf
The PTA voted 60% YES to go with Uniforms. Now, I am involved with a PTA so I now first hand that the school’s PTA website is usually pretty dismal (that is a different story), so I was not too surprised to find the Kenwood PTA website completely blank.
I would be curious to know how many people actually voted? What were the reasons for and against?
Here is my base concern. Knowing our own PTA, there are usually a lot of folks that are not represented. Surely Kenwood got the word out and contacted parents about the upcoming vote. Surely there were absentee ballots that students could return from mom and dad. I would be super excited to see near 100% parental involvement on this! And if that did happen, I want to know how they did it! Seriously, getting a lot of parents together to talk things out is awesome.
And seriously, I am trying to keep the sarcasm and cynicism out of my written words. “Benefit of the doubt”.
2011 Kindergarten Lottery results trickling in
21 April 2011 10:06 am — charlesdschultzUnit 4 has received the results of the 2011 Kindergarten Lottery, and a small portion of my FOIA has been satisfied so far:
I am still waiting on the rest of the data and the subsequent analysis.
More on Culver and DeKalb
18 April 2011 9:29 pm — charlesdschultzAfter reading several comments in the NG and other local blogs, I got to thinking what other media outlets (and their fans) are thinking. After a bit of searching, I hit upon Maureen Downey’s “Get Schooled” blog, http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/. There are several recent articles about the DeKalb Superintendent position, but what I was specifically digging for are the comments from the user base. So far, their code of conduct and general online behavior is far superior to comments made in our NG. And I find the comments to be telling to a degree; you still have to watch out from trolls and idiots, but for lack of any other pulse, it serves its purpose.
Along those lines, I also found the Dekalb School Watch blog. This blog makes a lot of references back to AJC, but seems to fill the the role that our local bloggers due with our NG. For instance, in the Superintendent news, the author references an article about public trust, which strikes dear and near our own thoughts here in Champaign. Again, I find the comment section to be most interesting. And for the most part, much more informative and insightful than what I find in the comment section of our own NG.
The impression I get is that folks, whether they be in DeKalb, Hickory or Champaign, are in a mood for big changes with their school district. It seems to be the kind of anxious feeling you might get if you are on a basketball team stuck in a loosing streak and everyone is eying a particular player, waiting to see what the coach is going to do. So much so that the problems become inextricably tied to that person, which is problematic in itself because the assumption then becomes that the problem either goes or stays, as the person goes or stays, which is just plain wrong. The Fall guy.
If Culver does end up being awarded the DeKalb job and accepting, there is an obvious opportunity for a new superintendent in Unit 4. My bigger concern is Plan B. On the one hand, Culver is giving us the impression that he is shopping around for a new challenge. The Consent Decree is over with (or is it, really?), and he wants to add that to his resumé. I personally believe it is paramount for us to be looking through the lens of hindsight only with the intention of improving the future, regardless of how long Culver is with us. I would hate for us (in general) to moan and groan and give up if Culver is not offered the job. But who is going to fight that fight, who is going to swim against the strong current of public opinion?
Bottom-line, let us agree to do things right. Starting now. No more excuses.
Busy busy busy
15 April 2011 8:06 am — charlesdschultzFor the past couple of weeks, I have been stumbling upon various initiatives, groups and “works in progress”. A whole lot of good things going on. And it leaves my head spinning – who can possibly keep track of all this?
[Warning, the following is link-heavy]
In previous posts, I mentioned the ACCESS Initiative, CUSF, IIRC and StudentsFirst. Recently, I have come across some more.
Voices for Illinois Children: I forgot who mentioned this to me (maybe papaathome?). I really like what I read on the website so I subscribed to the RSS feed. They recently published “Great at 8“, and again, am really impressed by what these folks are putting out. The focus of this particular paper is to highlight how important it is to build a solid foundation for a child’s education future. This foundation is not merely the ability to take a standardized test well, but moreoever having the tools and skillsets trained from an early age to deal with many of life’s issues. I recently emailed several of the folks involved with this project, and the Director responded with a thoughtful summary of what Voices does; in particular, they raise awareness and encourage citizens to become involved by contacting all forms of elected officials and representatives in an effort to persuade them to lobby on behalf of our children. While I agree that this is probably one of the most direct forms of active participation we can take, some times it feels like a no-win situation, given our national tendency to dump (waste) money in pork-barrel projects, paying off a billion+ interest charges on our debt and a crazy Defense budget.
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution: This was a tricky one to include. Let me say that I am using this as a segue to two other somethings more local and currently in-use.
My wife and I caught this on TV a couple days ago. As some of the reviewers have stated, this show might be sliding down a slippery slope with their recent inability to connect to school systems and attract large crowds. But what I took away from this idea is very similar to messages I have heard from documentaries like “Food, Inc” – basically, we are feeding ourselves absolute CRAP! Worse, some of it is federally subsidized crap. So this got me looking around to see what Unit 4 is doing about food….
CATCH: (Coordinated Approach to Child Health) This is not new at all, but my questions led me to how Unit 4, and especially Carrie Busey, has embraced CATCH. Our family has learned about foods that fall into three buckets; “Go”, “Slow” and “Whoa”. When talking with the CATCH coordinator at Carrie Busey (Ms. Wendy Starwalt), I was impressed by her passion for the program, but also her realism and honesty as she admitted various challenges. For instance, the economy and lack of state funding is making it impossible to implement all the CATCH ideas fully. I also made contact with the District Food Coordinator (Ms. Mary Davis) – she will be getting back to me later as this is an extremely busy time for them, but she seems very upbeat and excited. Ms. Starwalt had a lot of good things to say about Ms. Davis and all she has done in our district; for example, “She has consistently changed us to whole grains, fresh fruit, and vegtables as much as possible”.
Ready. Set. Grow!: While this did not directly come from my Jamie Oliver search, it did catch my eye from a recent Chambanamoms.com post about snacking (loving the RSS feed). This is very much in line with the “Great at 8″ idea, focusing on early childhood development.
PTA Council (no website?): As I become more involved in the school system, as I read more blogs and whitepapers, as I talk with more parents, teachers and administrators, I cannot help but want to make a positive impact on our society, specifically upon our children. When talking recently with a PTA Council member whom I have seen at many Unit 4 functions, I was impressed by her dipiction of what the PTA Council does. Believe you me, the last thing I want is yet another meeting! But I am now exploring this as a possible way to invest my time and energy. I like how the PTA Council represents all the district PTAs, and how they play a big role in keeping the Board and the Administration accountable to various promises and issues.
In light of the the last election, I really did not like character assassinations that went on (the NG’s treatment of Lynn Stuckey and even the UC-IMC, which I respect and like, did some dirt-digging on Chalifoux). I do not like the highly political nature of how the Board turned out, and as much as I want to become involved, I have a hard seeing myself sitting in all those meetings. If anything, I would want to totally reform how the Board interacts with the community and the Administration, but I simply cannot carve the necessary time away from family right now. So my next option is two-fold; 1) maintain my contacts and keep badgering (*sly grin*) the members individually and as a group, 2) join the PTA Council.
In some ways, all that you read above is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other efforts, both at the individual level and at a larger, coordinated group level, going on in our school district that it is staggering. I chatted with the District’s Community Relations Coordinator (Ms. Lynn Peisker) about how it would be a full-time job simple to maintain an index of it all. She has been doing an excellent job of highlighting various schools, staff, students and programs, and I look forward to seeing how she continues to put a bright face on Unit 4.
PS – Also, I realize that I only use two wordpress “categories” for all my posts. I have thought about using many more and retrofitting past posts, but…. I simply have not done it yet.
Another invitation to come talk about Climate in Unit 4
4 April 2011 10:45 pm — charlesdschultzI still have not found this in the NG – grrr!! And while Unit 4 technically added an agenda to the website, it is buried and not even announced!
http://www.champaignschools.org/EEE/agenda_2011-04-07.pdf
Thursday, April 7th
4:pm
Mellon Center
Later (ie, tomorrow) when I feel more awake, I’ll elaborate more on the questions I have been chewing on. My two big questions are:
- When is Unit 4 going to respond to this? Not in words, but in action.
- I want to get a few forums started. When and where? Not at the Mellon Center! But it would be great if Unit 4 folks came out.
If you want to come prepared, here is what I suggested to the EEE Committee members:
If you have not had a chance to take a peek at it, I strongly urge you to do so. Even if you only have time to read over the Recommendations (pages 5-7) and possibly the section on Discussion (pages 36-59).
Please tell others.
ACCESS Initiative
4 April 2011 10:34 pm — charlesdschultzIt’s late, and I have another post I want to put up, but I’ll discuss this more later. Mark Aber suggested I look at this, and I really like what I see so far.
http://www.ccrpc.org/socialservices/cds.php
The ACCESS Initiative focuses on diverting juvenile offenders or high risk youth from involvement in juvenile courts. We do this by taking referrals of youth involved in delinquent activity and providing an alternative to prosecution through case management. Our Case Managers screen juvenile offenders referred to our program to identify issues that may have influenced the offense. They link these youth to services to best address presenting issues.
What I like about this, if I read it correctly, is that it attempts to break of pattern of those who might normally cycle in and out of jail. This cycle is sickening to me, since our current prison facilities are not “correctional” nor rehabilative in any sense of the word – they are merely stewing pots that harshly punish folks for breaking laws and spit them back out.
To take this a step further, what I really want to see is the community embrace children who have different learning styles, those who do not excel in our current, hi-tech, modern, standardized teaching format. I would love to see mentors and volunteer tutors explode a hundred-fold, all in an effort to give caring attention to our future leaders. I do not want us to depend on some big, heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all bureaucracy.
Oops, I digress. Anyway, go read that stuff about ACCESS Initiative and form your own opinions.
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