Learning Experience in Orlando

I recently spent five days attending work sessions at the National School Boards Associations annual conference to improve my skills as a Board Member. Here is my schedule: Friday March 28
01:30 PM - 04:30 PM	Early Bird #7 -- Leading a Culture of Success
Saturday March 29
08:00 AM - 09:15 AM	What Brain Research and Neuroscience Tell Us About Educational Facilities and School Design
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM	The First General Session -- Sandra Day O'Connor, Speaker
01:00 PM - 01:30 PM	Luncheon Concert Series
02:00 PM - 03:15 PM	Blogging School District Leaders: Directly Engage Your Community Using the Internet
03:45 PM - 05:00 PM	Sharpening the District's Leadership Through an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) for the School Board
Sunday March 30
07:15 AM - 08:30 AM	Fellowship Gathering -- Lee Woodruff, Speaker
08:30 AM - 10:30 AM	Council of Urban Boards of Education -- New Urban and Large-Size School Board Leadership Training
08:45 AM - 10:00 AM	21st Century Skills: The Importance of Professional Development
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM	The Second General Session -- Sidney Poitier, Speaker
12:30 PM - 03:30 PM	Walk of Excellence
12:30 PM - 04:00 PM	Exhibit Hall and Exhibition of School Architecture
01:00 PM - 01:30 PM	Luncheon Concert Series
02:00 PM - 03:15 PM	Working with Difficult People Can be as Much Fun as a Trip to Disney world
02:00 PM - 03:00 PM	Releasing Leadership Brilliance with Simon T. Bailey
03:45 PM - 05:00 PM	Successful Careers of Tomorrow Must Be Nurtured Today
03:45 PM - 05:00 PM	Ossining Creates a Culturally Competent Learning Community: Students Soar
03:45 PM - 05:00 PM	Strategic Planning for Increased Student Achievement: A Guide to Increase Community Engagement
Monday March 31
08:00 AM - 09:15 AM	The First Amendment in Schools -- What Can You Do With Free Speech and Religion?
08:00 AM - 09:15 AM	Creating a System Where There is Never a Gap to Close: Early Learning Centers for Ages 3 to Kindergarten
08:00 AM - 09:15 AM	Automate -- Empower your School Board to Go Paperless
08:00 AM - 09:15 AM	Bullying and Harassment in Schools
08:00 AM - 09:15 AM	Barriers to Effective School Leadership: The Autonomy Gap
09:30 AM - 11:00 AM	The Third General Session -- Jim Lehrer, Speaker
11:00 AM - 02:00 PM	Exhibit Hall and Exhibition of School Architecture
11:15 AM - 12:30 PM	Using the Baldrige Quality Indicators: A New Path to Committed Continuous Improvement
02:00 PM - 03:15 PM	High Tech Communication Strategies Make the District an Open Book
02:00 PM - 03:15 PM	National Teacher of the Year Focus on...Beyond One Subject at a Time -- Educating the Whole Child
03:45 PM - 05:00 PM	How Does a School Board, and the District it Governs, Go from Good to GREAT?
03:45 PM - 05:00 PM	Leap Ahead! One District's Steps Toward Full-Day Kindergarten
Tuesday April 01
08:00 AM - 09:15 AM	The Multiple Roles of a School Board -- What Are They and When Do They Apply?
08:00 AM - 09:15 AM	Public Commentary Going Global: The Good, the Bad and How It Can Get Ugly
09:30 AM - 11:00 AM	The Fourth General Session -- Garrison Keillor, Speaker

Comments

[CatoctinParent]

Did you know?

Number of students in 9-12th grade as of September 2007:

Briar Woods- 1101
Broad Run - 1439
Dominion - 1263
Freedom - 1217
Heritage - 1746
Loudoun County - 1373
Loudoun Valley - 2165
Park View - 1288
Potomac Falls - 1518
Stone Bridge - 1709

The average enrollment of Loudoun high schools is 1406. Loudoun Valley has over 750 MORE students than the AVERAGE Loudoun county high school enrollment!

Each high school gets 1 valedictorian, 1 class president, 1newspaper editor-in-chief, 1 varsity team, 1 set of many types of scholarships, etc....

Do you believe these numbers show a reasonably fair distribution of education-related opportunities?

Does it seem to you Tom like Loudoun Valley's overcrowded conditions won't reach the critical stage for 2 more years, as has been stated multiple times by Dr. Hatrick?

Please:
1. make development of fair interim solutions for Loudoun Valley High School students one of your highest priorities, because conditions are critical now.

2. develop contingency plans in the event the VA Supreme Court decides that Woodgrove HS can not be constructed as planned.

3. extend western Loudoun parents the courtesy of a status report to present planned interim solutions before the end of this school year because the last official word sent to parents by LCPS was a packet showing the results of the Woodgrove boundary process and a projected opening date of January 2009.

Thank you.
SmallTownSchools.net

[ed myers]

I'm curious what you learned at "Public Commentary Going Global: The Good, the Bad and How It Can Get Ugly" session.

I want to encourage more feedback mechanisms for the school system but I think the ability to post anonymously should be turned off except in rare cases. This is the style that most newspapers have learned is needed to keep the discussion civil.

[Sarah Stinger]

Ed,
What do you view as uncivil in CatoctinParents' comment?
Sarah Stinger

[Ed Myers]

My comment was about the Orlando conference and wasn't at all regarding CatoctinParent's post which seems off-topic but otherwise civil. It seemed like the place to start a discussion on whether the large number of anonymous comments as a replacement for comments at a public hearing is a good or bad thing.

(Regarding CatoctinParent concern: I joke with friends that those who want to game the college application system by resume stuffing should move to a poor SW Virginia school in their senior year. That way they can rank higher than all the local kids because of all the AP courses they took in 9-11 grade in a NoVA high school not available in a small rural school. Since VA colleges want representation from all areas of Virginia they would be noticed even with SAT scores that would be passed over in a larger suburban school. If someone tries this trick I hope it becomes the true "character building" experience they need to learn to look beyond themselves. )

[M. Prell]

I agree with Mr. Myers. This post would be much more useful if it included at least an overview of the insights or innovative ideas that Mr. Reed brought back from the conference.

As to CatoctinParent, it is off topic. But since it duplicates an off topic post at Mr Stevens blog I assume someone is trying to make a point. My question for the person posting is how much is LVHS over capacity? That is the relevant number, not amount above the average. That number may help or hurt the argument, I don't know. But the appearance of hiding behind averages and lists of numbers detracts from the point of the post.

[Tom Reed]

Mr. Meyers: I don't like anonymous posts so I don't allow them. We can disagree about ideas, without personal attacks. The "Public Commentary" session at NSBA discussed the First Amendment considerations and the pitfalls of broadcasting and web-casting Board meetings. The presenter, an attorney, said that there isn't much in the way of case law concerning broadcasts. She urged School Board's to copyright their broadcasts if they wanted to prevent them from showing up on YouTube. We don't copyright our meetings yet...Another issue involved blogs and how they could actually constitute an illegal meeting if a quorum of School Board members posted on another Board member's blog. Loudoun may be the only School district with two School Board members having blogs.

[Tom Reed]

I will post more details on the sessions I attended. This has been a rather busy and long week. Monday we reconciled the $48 million operating budget. Tuesday, we had a regular school board meeting and reconciled a 75% cut in the budget to maintain our capital assets (i.e. facilities). Wednesday night, I attended the Loudoun Education Alliance of Parents meeting and heard about School Security and the latest addition, the AIPhone. Today, we had the Joint Meeting of the School Board and the Board of Supervisors and discussed the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and 21st Century Educations.

[Taylorstown Mom]

Ed,
I think you are missing the point regarding LVHS overcrowding. Its not about fire hazards, although its a wonder the Fire Dept hasn't called LVHS one. If students in one part of the county have more opportunities because they are in significantly smaller populations, then there is not parity. Forget about tennis courts being resurfaced or white boards to go around, opportunities are being limited to western children, and have been for many years. Western Loudoun children have far fewer opportunities than every other population in the County, and Dr. Hatrick doesn't think conditions will reach the tipping point for 2 more years, that is the point you don't seem to grasp.

[ed myers]

Your parity argument is very narrow and self-serving. Eastern Loudoun, during periods of high growth, had very crowded schools. Western Loudoun at that time said keep growth east of Goose Creek because we like our small uncrowded schools and don't even think of busing those kids out here. We don't want them.

(Speaking of busing, are you counting the extra cost of bus service at $4/gal diesel that rural Western Loudoun requires when you are calculating parity? I suspect not.)

We have vacant foreclosed property here in Eastern Loudoun. Why don't you consider moving if you think that will give your child the education edge you desire. Or, as I suggested above, move to SW Virginia to get a real sense of what economic injustice means to public education.

{After that harsh assessment--deserved because you identify yourself via a blog handle and not as a real person--I will concede that educational parity is a goal that I share provided we look at it from a higher level than the complaint that one student's chances of getting into the college of their dreams is diminished because they are ranked second in a class of 500 instead of first in a class of 350.)

[Leah Sidler]

Interesting topic. $4/gallon does seems like a good argument for more smaller schools instead of the these big ones where people from wide areas have to travel further to attend. I had to jump in on this discussion because not all children go to college. Many of them just want to play a high school sport, but can't because the shear numbers intimidate them. Are you saying crowding has been this bad in other parts of the County before, with similar class sizes? Please explain. Times are different now, kids are under more stresses with drugs and promiscuity. Violent computer games have bred children who have a poor grasp of reality and resort to gangs and guns for revenge (e.g., Columbine and Virginia Tech). Crowded conditions is more than not fair, it is an accident waiting to happen. Some people I know are afraid to speak out and especially use their names because they don't want the school system to target their children. My family moved here because we couldn't afford a house anywhere else in the County. Everyone seems to think western families are all rich horse people - nothing is further from the truth. I just want my 6th grade son to have a nice high school experience, is that too much to ask for? He has special needs and being in the crowded conditions at Blue Ridge is taking its toll. The teachers are real nice but it is just so intense for him. I'd put him in private school if I could afford it. The public school system is just not meeting our needs. Many of my friends at church are talking about home schooling because we have lost faith in our system. It's such a shame. No one at the top seems to really care about these kids enough or they would figure out a way to work things out.

[ed myers]

Would you be willing to adopt a staggered school schedule where students are subdivided into smaller groups and go to school 45 days followed by 15 day vacation year-around? This allows a high school building to accomodate 2000 students but have only 1500 students present in the building at any one time.

Real estate affordability is dependent on real estate taxes. Real Estate taxes fund schools. Spend a lot on schools and only the rich can afford to live in the county in large houses. The poor have to move out of the county or live in denser smaller houses like townhouses and condos.

Sprawl construction makes it expensive to provide government services. Western Loudoun wants the same services as Eastern Loudoun (see above complaints on parity) but doesn't recognize that it costs more to supply those services in a rural setting. Why should Eastern Loudoun subsidize poor land use planning in the west?

Leah, you choose to live in a larger house and pay less taxes than the residents on the east side. What is fair about you consuming a larger share of county expenses?

BTW: search for the CDC report on school violence and you'll see that it has declined by more than half since the 1990s. Maybe violent computer games have actually helped give boys have a non-violent outlet in an increasingly feminized society. Note also declines in drug use and out-of-wedlock babies.

P.S.S I hope someone has the enrollment numbers for Park High school during the early 90's. I think our local elementary had more than 30 students per class at that time.

[Leah Sidler]

I’m a nurse and live in a townhouse Mr. Myers that is older and smaller than you seem to think. I guess I'd go for a staggered schedule to handle the crowding here if the east does it to handle crowding there. But that'll happen when pigs fly since no ones mentioned other intermediate schools out there. Why does my son have to take the heat because someone messed up the plans and approved more houses than they had room in the schools for? Who is subsidizing who? Hey I moved here w/ my eyes open, most of our roads are dirt - that's OK w/ me, we don't have any new community centers - that's OK too, schools out here have way more trailers - fine, but I got a flyer that said we've got something like a 45 year old high school, a 35 year old middle school and a 5 year old Intermediate school for 15% of all 6-12th graders while you have ~20 high+middle schools and most of those cost a fortune because they've opened in the last 5-10 years - yep we should quit whining because our kids have it so good. Listen, I don't need new fancy stuff - I just wish my boy could be in a little bit smaller class, it could be 30 kids in there from the looks of it. Does Mr. Reed know class sizes for all the schools?