Please Introduce Yourself What's your connection to St. Paul public schools? mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________ When got back this afternoon I realized I hadn't read Tim's Intro instructions. Adding more detail.
I graduated from a college prep (albeit public) high school in Omaha, Nebraska. Went to school at CU-Boulder (mostly to ski), but managed to get out with 3 majors and would have had ~9 minors (if they'd offered them). Important only because I LOVED school; had absolutely no clue what I would do with my life. First contact with SPPS/school choice was enrolling oldest in K. Trauma! Had no clue about the system, missed Kindergarten roundup, had no idea about school choice, and were appalled that our little boy had to "take a test" to go to school (early childhood screening). By the time we got to the first day of school, I was a mess. Felt a lot better after conference with the teacher. Was also pivotal. I sort of vaguely knew that "good mom's" were supposed to help out and so that was one of the things I wanted to ask about. But I've always been a "big picture" kind of person, so I asked, "Of all your hopes and dreams, of all the things I could accomplish for you - in the classroom or schoolwide - what would you like for me to make happen this year?" She paused (perhaps startled; okay, not perhaps, clearly startled), then said, "A playground." A year later, with the help of a lot of other people, the school had a playground. Feels like I've been building playgrounds ever since. My children are all now teenagers. I have them at ALC, Johnson, Central and Crosswinds. I'm looking at a couple of charter schools for the Crosswinds one, but am inclined toward Central where her birth brother is (we're blended; 2 + 2 still = 4!). We also have a German Exchange student at Johnson for the year. So that makes 5 teenagers and mayhem at our house. My oldest stepson is a prime example of the system failing children, but more Ramsey County than the schools. From the time we filed for custody it took 2-1/2 years to get the boys out of an emotionally and verbally (only randomly physically) abusive home environment. By the time it happened, we'd lost the oldest one to the street. (Maybe it was our fault for waiting so long to get the process started, remember the frogs?) I was really hoping to see more news coverage when they opened up the courts because I think we tolerate WAY too much abuse/neglect in Saint Paul. Dinner at our house regularly seats nine with the addition of two from the "hood" with appalling home environments. My husband and I spend A LOT of time with these kids. What else can we do? I would say 98% of the teachers I've had contact with are incredibly professional, goodhearted people. It's not often I run into someone who seems to have their own self-interests/agenda ahead of the needs of the kids. I would say what these people need more than anything else is the time, energy and dollars to their jobs and do them well. I think the first thing they'd do to carve out time is reduce paperwork, the second would be reduce class sizes. (I get sort of irritated about "super teachers" when I think about this.) Son #2 is a prime example of an SPPS success. He's a 2x kid (twice exceptional). Learning disabled (dyslexic) & GT. Didn't learn to read until the 5th grade (very smart, frustrated, angry little boy). He's in the IB program at Central now. I absolutely would not have the son I have today but for the efforts of his elementary classroom and special ed teachers. There is no way to repay the debt I owe them. It can't be done. I've worked on various projects for different departments in the district since 1996. Mostly I do freelance writing. It's gotten harder to concentrate since they became teenagers (I really am routinely traumatized) and so have been doing less writing work and more other kinds of things for other people. (I despise video editing!) I was last in a school building last Thursday night at Rondo. I'm the one that talked WAY too long about big picture issues. (Tom Minder and Roxy Foster are very gentle in their coaching, so I survived actually, it was only the 2nd ppt I've ever delivered, so I don't feel too worried about the learning curve). But I really DO think we need to quit letting the state "frame the conversation" by relegating the public to responding to discrete issues. We'll see a flash point in the media about the star rating system or the standards or reconstituting districts and then everything will quiet down until the next issue rises up. I want to know the overall plan. Awhile back I set out to find the mission of the DoE and found they've changed it. (See NEAT > ...> DoE Mission Change ) (Can we embed links on this board?) And I've tried to make logical arguments that the central purpose of the data is to identify needs so that educators can implement new programs (best practices/revised curriculum strategies), gather more data, and repeat in an ongoing cycle of improvement. Instead, we're using the data to portray MN schools and teachers as failures. I think that's an unethical misuse of the data and I can't believe we're not doing more to challenge the establishment that's deliberately working to undermine our schools. There's actually a site that looks like it's trying to do this at www.just4kids.org) I also think it's inappropriate to hold public education accountable for all of society's ills. The economic viability of families is the most significant predictor of a school failing to make AYP in the state of MN. Shouldn't we be talking about economic solutions, like jobs? (See www.schoolresults.org > MN > 2003 Snapshot) Shouldn't we be looking for community-based solutions? We talk about safe schools, what about safe homes? Where kids can count on things like food, clothing, shelter, transportation and medical care? In our neighborhood it feels like it's at our house. Enough of my soap box. This is connected to the district's budget situation because the data shows the most signficant contributing factors are community-based and the locus of the decision making resides with the state. We can argue until we're blue in the face about the cost of high-level administrators at 360, but in my mind the leadership over the past several years has been extraordinary. The district has done a really good job of figuring out how to celebrate diversity and engage the community in conversations about issues like the accountability plan and school choice. (Even if they do get their shorts in a bundle when it comes to talking about the budget. I guess I would be nervous too.) Even so, I do wonder about salary and vacation increases in the context of substantive cutback. I also wonder about the compensation of executives in the context of globalization. I'm a big fan of capitalism, but shouldn't we be holding our corporations to the same fair labor laws as we hold ourselves (aren't these principles we arrived at? e.g., paying less than the minimum wage of the country they're doing business in). But maybe that's why the labor movement is by and large relegated to the examples in the proposed social studies standards. Sometimes I wonder how much of the macro is reflected in the micro. By the way, my understanding is Minnesota is the only state in the union that legislates its curriculum. Did you know that by making the standards law, it's against the law for a teacher to decide not to cover a particular standard? Every other state has a different structure/process in place to accomplish the standards. Why don't we? My understanding is the district is planning to look more closely at school choice sometime soon to see if there are ways we can better align resources to meet student/community needs and that that's why transportation wasn't on the docket so much this year; because the substantive changes to transportation need to be made in the context of what's best around school choice. (Watch for St. Paul Issues Forum discussions to come!) My understanding of the cuts to ELL is that they're a reflection of where they're at in the process of shifting to an inclusion model of instruction. At the same time, after hearing how Arty's staff is a "lifeline" for some parents Thursday night, I do wonder about what the district's doing to address the essential barriers/disconnects for our immigrant/non-English speaking families. If, as the data shows, our problems are community-based, shouldn't we be intensifying community outreach efforts, not reducing them? I have to admit that feels like a better idea than a good PR campaign. >>I don't volunteer much in the schools these days. Hit the skids with secondary when they'd cry "no fair" if I spent too much time in any one building. That's one of the reasons I got involved with NEAT. Another is that I really do believe we have the capacity to build the infrastructure to be able to responsibly represent the St Paul parents and community. We're big and we sit on the capitol steps. AND we're doing well. The LEP students in SPPS are doing better than the state. It's our economically disadvantaged students that don't do as well. That's not to say we shouldn't continue ELL efforts. I do think though that the incredible progress that's being made is a testament to leadership. It seems to me Pat's job is to chart the course and it's the area supes jobs to make it happen. Good leadership is when it happens. It just seems to me that these are folks who have the leadership skills and authority to make things happen. I think if we took them out of the loop we'd be in a muddle, which I wouldn't want to do given the data. I consider myself to be relatively well informed about the school district. I think its come a long ways, and the fact that we have budget recommendations to look at in February is a demonstration of that. (Does anyone know, is this a first?) I'm a neighbor of Johnson Sr High, 5 blocks? Tim, you ask too many questions. --Jennifer Armstrong, President NEAT - the St. Paul Network of Education Action Teams Payne/Phalen 651/774-2957 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.stpaulneat.org NEAT engages, strengthens and empowers all St. Paul public school parents, parent organizations and community members working together to improve public education in St. Paul. _____________________________________________ 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
