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Elsewhere Pg. 2
Pg 1
8/30/06 - 8/26/10
Pg 2 12/22/10 - current
"The Ingrained Nature Of The Educational World Is So Much Different From
The Free Enterprise World" (12/22/10)
(The above is actually an observation of a soon-to-be
retired school board member. The quote appears in the article "Overmyer,
Straeter Given Send-off" by Christina Seiler and first appeared in The
Rochester Sentinel on Tuesday, December 21, 2010. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the
Webmaster.)
Rochester School Board
feted two longtime members Monday as they retire from their service to the
school community’s taxpayers and stakeholders.
Dale Overmyer finishes his most recent term on the board at
the end of the year. He’s served 16 straight years in the Richland Township
seat and will be replaced by Tom Schwenk. Prior to Overmyer, Tom’s father,
George, was the 26-year Richland Township representative.
Jim Straeter also leaves the board after serving eight years.
Former Rochester Community Schools superintendent Bob Poffenbarger will replace
him.
The board gave both retirees plaques and then hosted an open
house for them.
“I was in second grade when Dale came on the board,” said
board Vice President Joe McCarter. “Sixteen years is quite a commitment. Many
in this community don’t venture to do this four years,” he said.
Overmyer is
extremely evenkeeled, with a good perspective and sound voice of reason,
McCarter said.
He said he also asked the other board members to describe
Straeter. Persuasive, a good leader
and of good financial mind were some of their descriptions.
“The thing about Jim is … he’s
set a tone for this board we all have adopted. We can agree to disagree,”
McCarter said, noting board members can state their opinions, popular or not,
but then everyone moves on.
“This school board is much better off than it was eight
years ago because of Jim and his dedication,” he said.
He pointed out both
sat on the board while also taking on other responsibilities in the community,
including fair board membership for both, Whippoorwill Community Church for
Overmyer and Woodlawn Hospital’s campaign for Straeter.
The retirees addressed their colleagues. “I apologize if I
got too carried away now and then,” Straeter said, adding he
appreciates board members can say what they think and move on. He
said he hopes Schwenk carries on open, honest and professional discussions.
Straeter noted he never once used his gavel. He was board
president five times for a year at a time.
“I’ve learned a whole heck of a lot and I’m going to
take what I learned and do more,” he said.
Overmyer said serving on the board broadened his mind and
noted there have been some tough discussions during his tenure about building
programs, policies, and funding and he
felt as if his opinion was considered, if not agreed with.
“We all can make waves in the wrong direction. But
hopefully they don’t splash anyone too hard,” he said. “I don’t think
you can be sentenced to community service any harder than being on this
board.”
Both were asked the biggest accomplishment during their terms
and the biggest hassles.
Straeter said
“The process that led us to bringing a community college to the area,” was
the biggest accomplishment and learning “the ingrained nature of the
educational world is so much different from the free enterprise world,” was
the biggest hassle. (Jim Straeter owns and operates New
Holland Rochester. - Webmaster)
Overmyer couldn’t name just one accomplishment. He listed
three: The addition to Rochester High School that included a new agriculture
wing, New Tech High School and the Rochester Learning Center.
The biggest
hassle, he said, was dealing with Honeywell Inc. guaranteed energy savings
contracts and a subsequent lawsuit filed against the company by the school
corporation.
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Does A District Need A Superintendent? (Robert Gelchion and Nancy Mitchell,
2/9/11)
(This article
was originally published in Colorado
Education News on Monday, February 7, 2011. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the
Webmaster.)
A school district east of Colorado Springs is poised to test the reaches of
the state’s Innovation Schools Act, which allows waivers from state laws and
collective bargaining agreements.
School board members in the Falcon 49 School District are buying out the
contracts of their top four district administrators – including the
superintendent, a job that would be eliminated – as they scrap a traditional
governance structure for something completely different...
...“We have a traditional top-down structure,” said district and board
spokeswoman Stephanie Meredith. “Where we want to go is to take an
administrative top-heavy district and push down resources and decision-making to
the school level.”...(more)
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Is Greenfield-Central High School Graduation Rate Inflated?
(IED, 6/14/11)
Kristy
Deer, Daily Reporter
NEW
PALESTINE — Before she went off to public school at Arsenal Technical High
School, Angel Grunden spent time being home-schooled as a middle-schooler. The
experience was so positive that when she had children of her own, Grunden
decided they would be homeschooled, too.
“We determine what we do,” she said about setting up the daily curriculum
for her children, Ethan, Elianna, Emilia and Evangeline. “There are certain
subjects that each of the kids does independently like math and English, at
their grade level. But, other than that, it’s a normal school environment.”
Grunden is actively involved in community home-school programs in Hancock
County. It’s a fairly small community, she said: She
knows of only about a dozen families in Greenfield who home-school their
children.
And so, the dramatic increase in the
number of students leaving Greenfield-Central High School to be home-schooled is
shocking.
G-C reported 70 students who entered high school in the fall of 2006 transferred
to home school before their class graduated in 2010. If that figure is true, one
in five families home-schooled their children.
“It does happen, but I don’t know that the numbers are as astronomical as
you’re seeing,” Grunden said.
With limited state laws governing home school, Grunden and other home-school
advocates fear fallout from what appears to be an effort to disguise dropouts as
transfers to home school in an attempt to boost the school’s graduation rate.
“This isn’t a home-school problem. This is a school problem, a public school
administrator’s problem,” Grunden said.
“I don’t want my freedom to be lost or hindered.”
As more attention is focusing on
G-C’s home-school figure – it recorded the fifth-highest total of such
transfers in the state for the class of 2010 – attention also is turning to
the home-school community here. It’s also focusing on how other school systems
are handling dropouts.
An investigation by the Daily
Reporter suggests that G-C may have artificially lowered its dropout rate –
and increased its all-important graduation rate – by classifying dropouts as
home-school transfers.
Such transfers don’t hurt a
school’s graduation rate; dropouts do.
Home-schoolers concerned
Lisa Heady is the Hancock County regional representative for the Indiana
Association of Home Educators, an organization that represents home schoolers
across the state.
She said classifying dropout students as home-schooled is happening.
“It’s a concern in the home-school community,” she said.
“When a student is a problem
student and drops out, we are getting information that some school systems are
saying, ‘Oh, don’t drop out. We’ll just say you are home schooling,’ and
that helps them.”
Heady home-schooled her six children from an early age and said most home
schooling starts when children are young.
“It’s unusual to get high school students starting home school,” Heady
said.
“Generally, if the parents have been pleased with a public education all the
way through elementary school and middle school, it’s rather unusual to get
dissatisfied with a high school.”
Yet, that’s what G-C’s numbers suggest. District
administrators say a growing movement of alternative-education opportunities may
help explain why some students decide to leave the structured high school
environment. Students interviewed by the Daily Reporter, however, maintained
they were told their transfers would be classified as home-schooled even though
they had no intention of pursuing such a course.
Heady contends school districts should not be allowed to use home-school
students when calculating graduation rates, which are helped when they classify
dropouts as home-schooled.
“I don’t know why they would connect the two,” she said.
Micah Clark, legislative liaison for the Indiana Association of Home Educators,
agrees. “I think there should be another avenue so that this doesn’t indict
home education,” Clark said. “I think some of the schools have said, ‘If
you want to drop out, just say you’re home schooling.’ ”
Study in contrasts
A look at other schools’ home-school transfers – and how the schools deal
with
them – contrasts with G-C’s.
New Palestine’s home-school classifications have dropped each of the past
three years, to 10 in 2010. Mt. Vernon High School’s home-school numbers have
ranged from 32 in 2009 to 12 in 2010. Eastern Hancock, the county’s smallest
school district, has had single-digit transfers each year since a new accounting
method for the graduation rate took effect for the class of 2007.
Randy Harris, superintendent at
Eastern Hancock, said the district tries to take a holistic approach to keeping
kids on track.
“Once we have a student in school, whether it be first grade or a high school
kid, we work very hard to –number one – educate the student; and – number
two – keep that child in school all the way in Eastern until they graduate.”
For the class of 2010, EH had one student drop out from a cohort of 82.
Having a high school student leave school to go to home school during the final
few years of his/her education is something Harris said hardly ever happens.
“It is unusual for us to have a student withdraw from Eastern to be home
schooled,” said Harris.
Greenfield-Central Principal Steve Bryant says it’s best not to compare G-C
with other county schools. A better comparison is with larger, more diverse,
metro-area schools when dissecting school figures.
“They (urban schools) are more like us,” he said.
But when it comes to home-school rates, G-C’s numbers are much higher than
those at other schools.
To get the most accurate comparison, the Daily Reporter looked at the percentage
of the 2010 graduating class that had transferred to home-schooling.
Using
data from the Indiana Department of
Education, the comparison shows G-C had more home-school transfers (20.6
percent of the class) than, for example, Warren Central (9.8); Franklin Central
(6.7); Lawrence Central (3.5); Lawrence North (1.8); and Pendleton Heights (0.4
percent).
A lofty goal
The pressure for a school district to have a high graduation rate is high.
“Our goal for all high schools is 90 percent,” said Emily Acklin, a
communications specialist with the Indiana Department of Education.
“Dr. (Tony) Bennett (Superintendent of Public Instruction) set that when he
came into office for all schools to increase their graduation rate.”
While there are no repercussions from the state should a district not hit the
mark, the bar has been set.
It’s a pressure Southern Hancock Superintendent Jim Halik admits
administrators feel.
“There is an expectation from the state of Indiana and an expectation from the
parents when they send their children to school that they are going to graduate
and that the graduation rate is going to be competitive,” Halik said.
He knows quality schools are measured on end-of-course assessments and
graduation rates.
“People look at graduation rates when they are shopping for schools,” Halik
said.
He said Southern Hancock officials start targeting at-risk students in
elementary school, then take extra precautions to make sure students who are in
danger of dropping out get extra attention.
“You can’t wait until the senior year to prevent dropouts; we start working
with those at-risk students their freshman year,” Halik said.
This includes dealing with students who say they want to be home schooled. Halik
said administrators feel a sense of responsibility to make sure if a student
leaves for home schooling, they’re still getting an education.
New Palestine High School Principal Kyle Kirby said while the DOE does not
require homeschool parents to register with the state, NPHS officials ask that
they do.
Kirby
said, “What their parents have to do is apply through the DOE to become a
homeschool parent, and they have to show us that documentation.
“We don’t have a whole lot of kids going to home school, and when we do,
most of our parents already have that documentation, because that is what they
want to do.”
Greenfield-Central handles this type of student differently, according to Dan
Jack, an assistant principal who counsels potential dropouts.
Jack said G-C assembles a packet for
parents who are interested in home schooling. Most of the material comes from
the DOE’s website and offers advice on resources families can use to
home-school their children.
However, of eight students interviewed by the Daily Reporter who have been
through the withdrawal process in the past few years at G-C, six of them never
received the information Jack described.
A seventh also received the short shrift at G-C. Audra Tutrow moved from to
Greenfield from Anderson in February in hopes of attending Greenfield-Central.
She never got in the door.
Admittedly, said Tutrow’s grandmother, Dinah, Audra had attendance problems at
her old school. But she was hoping for a fresh start in a new environment.
It didn’t happen.
Jack, Dinah Tutrow said, immediately suggested home school as an alternative.
However, when Dinah Tutrow said she told Jack she didn’t feel qualified to
teach the classes, Jack insisted she sign her granddaughter up anyway.
“He said, ‘You don’t do anything; you don’t do anything. If anybody
notifies me, as far as I’m concerned, she’s homeschooled,’” Tutrow said.
Jack has declined to comment about specific students. Dinah Tutrow, however,
said she was crestfallen.
“I don’t know how to home school her,” Tutrow said. “I didn’t graduate
myself.”
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School Choice In Rural Indiana: Cutting Costs Leads To Closing School Which
Causes Parents To Take Kids To Another School System (Russ Phillips, 7/25/11)
"School choice" has been considered by
some to have
little relevance in rural Indiana. However, parents in the Monterey
community (Culver Community School
Corporation) are showing otherwise.
Background info on this story that began to develop this spring will be found here
and here. Updated information is
here.
Dr. Robert Klitzman, Superintendent of Eastern
Pulaski Community School Corporation, located next to the Culver System,
referred to this situation in his monthly radio interview with WROI Rochester.
His comments (about 3 minutes) will be found here. His entire
July report of
about 18 minutes is here.
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Lawsuit: Ex-Wayne Superintendent Defrauded District (Ind'pls Star, 11/23/11)
(This article
by William Booher was originally published on Tuesday, November 15, 2011 by The
Indianapolis Star. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the
Webmaster.)
The Wayne Township School District filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking
monetary damages against former superintendent Terry J. Thompson, claiming
that he defrauded the district of millions of dollars in salary and
compensation.
In the 33-page lawsuit filed in Marion Superior Court's civil division,
the district detailed what it believes were actions taken by Thompson to
commit an "elaborate, complex, and deceitful scheme" to increase
his income while superintendent.
The lawsuit comes in the wake of findings by an investigator hired
earlier this year by the School Board, after its earlier decision to grant
Thompson a retirement package of more than $800,000 raised a public
outcry.
The complaint claims Thompson, who was superintendent of the Westside
district from April 1996 to December 2010, used false statements,
elaborate contractual formulas and multiple complex contractual changes
never discussed or properly explained to the School Board to increase his
taxable year income from about $218,000 in 2003 to $2.2 million in 2010.
Those increases, the complaint maintains, caused his retirement
benefits, severance and deferred compensation to be dramatically increased
as well.
"The District did not learn about or fully understand the extent
of the former superintendent's fraudulent conduct until after a full
investigation was conducted by independent legal counsel," according
to the lawsuit filed on behalf of the district by attorneys Linda Pence,
David Hensel and Julie Smith.
The lawsuit requests a jury trial and seeks compensatory, treble and
punitive damages proven at trial.
After learning of the lawsuit filing, the Ice Miller law firm, which
according to the lawsuit Thompson utilized for his personal legal advice
while superintendent, issued a statement on his behalf.
The statement called the lawsuit "totally inappropriate" and
said Thompson was "deeply disappointed" to learn that he was
being sued by a School Board that he had served for 16 years.
"Dr. Thompson is extremely proud of the leadership he provided and
is proud of the unparalleled success that the School District achieved in
education and fiscal responsibility.
"One of the duties of the school board is to review and ratify
contracts for all personnel, including the Superintendent. Understandably,
as to his own contract, Dr. Thompson and his legal counsel negotiated with
the School Board and the School Board's legal counsel," the statement
continued.
"None of Dr. Thompson's employment contracts, including the ones
involved in this lawsuit, were completed until signed by both the School
Board and the School Board's attorney. It wasn't until early 2011, while
Dr. Thompson was transitioning into retirement that the Board decided to
breach its ongoing contract with Dr. Thompson without legal
justification."
(Related
article - Webmaster)
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One Size Does Not Fit All: Another Indiana Cure For What Ails Indianapolis
Public Schools? (retitled, Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette, 12/29/11)
(This blog
by senior editorial writer, Karen Francisco, was originally published as "Another
Indiana Cure For What Ails Indy?" in The Journal Gazette on
Saturday, December 28, 2011. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the
Webmaster.)
Saul Steinberg's iconic New
Yorker cover comes to mind when I read of state policies handed down from
Indianapolis. The views of too many Indy leaders resemble Steinberg's
depiction of New Yorkers' view of the world.
It would be nice to dismiss the Indianapolis-driven policies as harmless,
but 30 years of observing Indiana government has made it clear to me that the
Circle City is the proverbial tail wagging the dog. Indiana's harmful property
tax caps are the best example of a one-size-fits-all fix to a problem
contained almost entirely to Marion County, but there are many more. In
education, the criticism of lavish school buildings isn't based in statewide
reality; it's the Indianapolis view of the city's suburban schools.
Consequently, all Hoosiers should take note of a new report recommending a
redesign of Indianapolis Public Schools. Steve Hinnefeld does a nice job of
explaining it at his School Matters blog.
The Indiana Department of Education pitched in about $500,000 for the
$700,000 report, which should anger any parent, educator or student feeling
the effects of K-12 budget cuts. The school board at New Harmony Town and
Township Schools in southwestern Indiana made the tough
decision this month to consolidate with another district. School officials
expected to receive just $956,000 in state support next year. That's to cover
all student instructional costs, not the cost of a study.
I haven't examined the 160-page Mind Trust report (yep, that's $4,375 a
page) in great detail, but Hinnefeld's impression mirrors my own: "(T)he
Mind Trust paid $700,000 to have its plan produced by Public Impact, a North
Carolina consulting firm," he writes. "That seems like a hefty price
for a product that appears to involve no original research, and with its
executive summary packed with reformist jargon about bold visions, reinventing
education, empowering parents, great leaders, great teachers, ad nauseum."
But it is a great-looking report. What else would you expect from
a consulting firm production staff with experience on the J. Crew catalog?
Hinnefeld is right. The report mostly seems to be a compilation of existing
studies and IPS financial figures. It sets out the groundwork for replacing
the current district structure with a set of "opportunity schools."
As is typical of current reform proposals, there's no evidence backing the
success of such a large-scale plan, but the "opportunity" for
education entrepreneurs certainly is guaranteed.
"The Mind Trust proposal for Indianapolis is shocking," writes
education historian Diane Ravitch in an email. "It will lead to
privatization of public education, turning over public dollars to private
management, across the city. … What a coup for the privatizers."
The Mind Trust was founded by the former Democratic mayor of Indianapolis,
Bart Peterson, and the first director of his charter school office. But the
board now includes key advisers to Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, whose aims
might not be the same as the founders' even if they find agreement on how to
address IPS issues.
It's not hard to imagine legislation that begins by changing the rules for
Indianapolis schools. An amendment or legislation in a subsequent session
pushes the plan statewide and, once again, all of Indiana is subjected to an
Indianapolis fix.
Now would be the right time for Indiana taxpayers to question the
half-million in public dollars spent on The Mind Trust report. Did it help a
single student?
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