Please Introduce Yourself What's your connection to St. Paul public schools? mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________ Hello, my name is Cachel Hoglund and I grew up in Como Park.
<Hi Cachel> I also am a product of the SPPS, with experience at Como Elementary, Museum Magnet, Murray Jr. High (for 2 wks), Capitol Hill, and Arlington High School. I think that my history, while ecclectic, has given me a great sense of diversity and the tools I need to face the world. I am now a full-time undergrad at the College of St. Catherine, studying theology and political science (controversial, no?) I am living on campus, but I still vote in my precinct at North Dale Rec Center, which turned into a lovely place! As far as my work (other than homework) with SPPS, I can be found many days visiting my alma mater, and helping out in the Multi-Cultural Resource Center. My mother works in the library as an Educational Assistant, and so I am pretty well known at AHS. The idea of accountability has produced a few conflicting attitudes in my mind. Yes, it is important that each school is made accoutable for teaching their students, and doing so in a way that allows for kids to graduate. However, I do not think this should come at a cost to finding new, hard-working students to enroll. In the case of Arlington particularly, I CHOSE AHS because of the programs offered, the staff, the diversity and the newness of the building. When "academic probation" was implemented, we lost students. We lost any prospect at garnering new students, and we became a dumping ground for the "problem children" Is that the way to raise accountability? Punish a school according to testing measures, especially when more than 50% of the population doesn't speak English as their primary language? Will sending more "bad" cases to a "bad" school make it improve? Arlington has done an admirable job at wading through the mess, and dealing with problem cases, and also raising test scores. Yet, the improvement on the scores were marginal, and not good enough, in spite of the added junk. I am proud to be an Arlington graduate, I am proud to have gone to a very diverse school, I am proud to be a product of public schools in general. I give thanks to my teachers and mentors from Arlington and also major kudos! Keep it up, they can't keep us down forever. My ideas for budget change? Cut busing (neighborhood schools RAH!); cut area superintendents (they create more red tape, and more red tape=more money spent); Cut the Superintendent's salary and car allowance(it is ludicrous that the position makes more than the governor); allow schools more control over things like catering, security, etc. (possibly saving the disrict more money by bypassing the middleman contractor). Case in point: It is my understanding that the district has a full-time employee that all they do is set up seminars for site-councils and continuing education for staff. Is it really necesssary to have this person on board full-time, drawing a salary AND benefits to set up a few get-togethers a year? We could contract this out to companies that do this for a living on an as-needed basis, and save some money. If we are down to the nuts-and-bolts of saving money., like turning down the heat a degree (and save worth maybe a teacher's salary) , we need to think about cutting higher-ticket items. Cachel Hoglund Erstwhile Como Park Currently Highland Park _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/ _____________________________________________ For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract
