[Note that this column has changed since it was originally posted. After viewing the District Staff's presentation, it is was made clear that the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students shown as being turned away from HES are, in fact, new applicants to the school rather than existing HES students being expelled."
Yesterday, thanks to Ted Triebel, I received a final draft of the Orange County Schools' HES Registration and Student Expulsion Plan. This is the presentation OCS Staff will give at tomorrow night's Board meeting.
This presentation provides data collected during the HES "registration" process, and finally tells us how many current 6 and 7 year-olds our elected "representatives" have ordered expelled from the only school they have ever known.
There are some really repulsive things here, yet more fodder for outrage.
If the Board continues forward with Ted Triebel's debacle, the District will expel 34 children from HES.
In a surprising show of fairness for the children of Orange County (clearly lacking in our elected Board of Education), the District staff has also prepared a "modified" student expulsion plan. This alternate plan would return every current HES student to their chosen school - while also surpassing the Board's SES diversity goal.
According to this "modified" plan, only those children with no experience at HES would be denied admission. While the vast majority are newly arriving Kindergarteners, a hand-full are new applicants for the upper grades.
Given the insanity of this situation, I entirely understand why the parents of so many HES students made alternate arrangements for their kids, and simply chose not to reapply.
But, the surprises aren't just for parents of children at HES. Central Elementary parents are in for a pretty big surprise next fall.
Hidden on the last page of the District's presentation is a bitter prize for the Central Elementary community. The District Staff is proposing cutting the total number of CES teachers by 25% (and I presume an equal number of teaching assistants). Accommodating this cut, will require nearly doubling the size of each kindergarten class and increasing the size of 1st grade classes by 50%.
As if that wasn't enough, it isn't all.
After the Board robbed the children at its poorest elementary school of $140,000 in federal education funds, it would be logical to think that any new spending the District Staff proposed for CES would go to restoring funding for Reading Recovery and at-risk student programs. Oh, no. Instead, the District recommends spending $115,000 at CES, not for academic programs, but for renovating the school entrance and main office, and for lighting upgrades. I'm sure the children who failed to pass their EOGs last spring can't wait.
How exactly is doubling class size for the county's poorest students while renovating the school staff's offices supposed to help them succeed? Oh, it's a good thing that student performance isn't a concern any more, now that Central is no longer in School Improvement. Isn't it interesting how a lack of oversight changes things?
I can't wait to hear the spin Denise Morton puts on this tomorrow night. It should be a good show.
20 comments:
Well...I have one observation about this:
I believe that Pathways Elementary's FRL is at about 22%-24%. Therefore, the Board could actually accept ALL current students AND ALL those who applied - and the HES FRL would be equal to, or slightly better than Pathway's at 23%.
Even if the Board decides to accept the modified plan - HES FRL would be 26% - above that of Pathways.
So now we will see if balance is really what the Board is after. If they allow all back in, including all who applied for Kindergarten, they can meet their goal of balance. However, if they choose EITHER the modified or original plan, we will all know that this has nothing to do with balance - and everything to do with "punishing" the families and kids at HES.
We will all know that those editorials and blog postings were correct: that this Board continues to act in retaliatory ways toward HES parents and children.
Ashley Ward
That is not necessarily true. The stats for the FRL at HES are only K-2. We don't have the stats for 3-5. Their FRL numbers could actually bring down the overall percentage totals for HES.
The Board and Superintendant want to make the least disruption possible. If this was a redistricting situation, they would not have been so lenient.
Can we get this to WRAL?
"The Board and Superintendent want to make the least disruption possible. If this was a redistricting situation, they would not have been so lenient."
You think the Board and Superintendent are being lenient? I would call it discriminatory. Expelling a fraction of children from one school based solely on their economic status is discrimination no matter which way you look at it.
To anonymous 4/7 at 9:22a.m.:
Please explain how this is lenient, not disruptive and not discrimination especially to current HES students?
Here are the phone numbers I got off of WRAL's website. Maybe we would actually get a response if we called rather than email!
Switchboard: (919) 821-8555 or (800) 532-5343
Newsroom: (919) 821-8600 or (800) 245-WRAL
News Tips: (919) 821-8590
Any change will be disruptive. Change is necessary but not easy.
That is life.
Does anyone else feel like they are on a plane that has been hijacked?
Change is necessary to do what? Not to better educate our children, so please explain yourself. And PLEASE explain why it is "necessary" to forgo $300,000 in funding and then spend $115,00 to paint the office. "that's life" is pretty easy to say when it isn't your life, huh?
Some change is retaliatory and UNNECESSARY!
How are the students at CES going to benefit when their K-2 class sizes are almost doubling??? Is this conducive to achievement? I thought the Board's 'charge' was to keep small class sizes intact at CES?
Several times I have heard this compared to a redistricting. This is absolutely NOT a redistrict, and is nothing like it. The fact that this is not a redistrict has been acknowledged by several members of the BOE as well. Redistricting does not involve moving a select number of students - a relatively small number of students from select grades - and distributing them over a couple of other schools in the district - based only on their parents income.
So, please...stop associating this plan with a redistricting plan when it is clearly not.
Secondly, it is not change that people are opposed to with this plan. The truth is that many folks at HES feel targeted. They feel their children are being targeted. Like any other parent from any other school, they are upset and opposed to the direct targeting of their children.
This feeling does not make these parents elitists - it makes them just like everyone else who doesn't appreciate it when a BOE oversteps their boundaries and targets their kids...it makes them angry!
If you fail to change, you fail to grow.
1. Things change, yes. Is all change good, no. There are diferent ways to change in most cases. Is change in this situation for the better, maybe. Is the approach to this change fair, no. Only new K children should have been affected to eventually achieve social diversity.
2. Seems to me that if they just move one 1st grade teacher from CES to HES a lot of the problems would go away. Instead of moving kids, move a teacher or two.
Anonymous said...
"If you fail to change, you fail to grow"
I agree, we need CHANGE on our school board in order for our schools to GROW!!! So don't forget to learn about the canidates and vote!
How is this postive "growing" when a select few HES students are forced out of their school of CHOICE??? These children are being forced out of the ONLY school they have ever known and LOVE because they do not receive FRL and their parents make too much $. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!!
A student who loves school, constantly receives 3's and 4's on their report card are possibly going to be forced out of HES b/c of this idiotic plan-HES IS A SCHOOL OF CHOICE-IF YOU WANT TO COME TO HES-PLEASE APPLY! IF YOU DON'T-THEN DON'T APPLY. Please allow the students that want to stay at this wonderful school to do so!!! We welcome any and all new students to join the current ones.
Ashley Ward - you are exactly right!!! The BOE's ultimate plan is to punish HES families.
Don't just vote, but also let everyone in your circle of family and friends know who the canidates are and who you support. Many people in our community without elementary aged children are like most of us were before the merger talks. They don't know who is on the BOE or who is running, and assume it isn't an "important" election. Well, if we have learned anything over the last year it is that BOE member is a very powerful position and probably affects most families more than other elections we will be making in the next few months. I for one will take my opportunity to vote very seriously from the top of the ballet to the bottom, because I know now that this is the only place I can guarantee that my voice will be heard.
Please be careful when you walk in AL Stanback this week. Liz got her teeth knocked out, and we don't need any of our kids to step on the contamination.
BTW Liz, not all of the people in the audience are bloggers. Perhaps you should look around in the audience and see what the "browning of America" is all about!
Down goes Liz! Down goes Liz! Down goes Liz!
Other Board members: Don't get intimidated!
I selected HES because my child had attended a yr round preschool. Most adults I know struggle with change and hopefully have the resources to deal with that change. Brand new students to elementary school are stepping into a whirlwind of change, mostly natural...so why would anyone deliberately IMPOSE change on a process that is so delicate to a child. I choose HES because of the support the kids receive not only from staff and teachers, but mostly from other parents and kids that have had such positive experiences at HES.
Think about the special needs childern that much planning and strategy is needed to "normalize" the school experience. Has anyone thought about the added impact it can and will have on those children?
I am ready to get real loud, so where do I start?!?!?!?!
Conniption- An hysterical fit of emotion or anger- See also Liz Brown at Monday's Board meeting.
No matter how it is defined there is no substitute for witnessing an elected official suffer a mental conniption at a public meeting. Adios muchacha y ojala que tenga dias muy felicidades en el futuro.....is that diverse enough for you?
Liz has no clue what she was talking about. First of all, she tries her best to intimidate some of the Board members with her rhetorical BS. The Blog expresses our concerns, which, believe it or not, is within our rights! Maybe she's harboring resentment because she was not the bathroom monitor in her third grade class.
Second, She acts like she's so caring about CES (hey Liz, don't forget ECES!). Remember, this is the person who said that she could care less about test scores, but instead, had a problem having a majority minority school. When I heard that comment, I wondered if I was back in the Jim Crowe era.
Third, she knows NOTHING about education. Yes, she went to Harvard, but guess what? NOBODY REALLY CARES!! This is the elitist attitude that she tries to spin on the HES parents. Truth of the matter is that she has been a thorn in Orange County education. She insults everyone with her "facts", even if her "facts" are more "inaccuracies" than anything else.
Fourth, she hates HES and what it stands for. She doesn't like that middle income parents has the choice between schools. She believes that she, the government, can make a better choice than you can. See, Liz believes that government solves everything. She believes we can eliminate years and years of inequalities by having the government step in and throw some money to the problem without solving the problem itself.
Fifth, Liz has not tried at all to improve the actual quality of education at CES or ECES. Instead, she's tried her best to make sure that these schools fail so she can blame their woes on HES.
Sixth, Liz is confused. She thinks that Orange County is a big Montessori school. She is wrong. We don't pay tuition to a school that allows our kids to explore their inner self. No, we actually use textbooks and educate our kids the old fashioned way. I laughed so hard when she mentioned Montessori at the meeting that I had to bury my face into my coat. Liz must have thought she was a Trustee instead of a Board member.
In conclusion, Liz is now powerless. Her buddy in CRIME, Dennis Whitling, is now a mere spectator. While he empowered her to be an idiot, he can now only look from afar and admire her thoughtless smirks and her annoying aspirations. Orange County Education is about our kids. If you don't like us Liz, that's your own problem. Work it out yourself. Luckily you only have less than 3 months until you term expires. Don't let the door hit you on your way out!
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