Churchill calls for a BB gun ban at schools. (Hat tip: McHenry County Blog)
A number of school districts across Illinois have banned BB guns, pellet guns and gun look-alikes, or toy guns. HB 4391 seeks to provide further support to school boards and administrators who have been left to create a mix of policies ranging [...]
The Mayor of Round Lake, Bill Gentes, has a great chart on his blog. I am linking it below for to see where your property tax money goes. He also has the original Daily Herald article linked.
Look at this chart and tell me how schools are underfunded. 68% of every taxpayers [...]
CRAFT has a great article on new legislation that was started because of a media series on the hidden costs of tenure.
State Sen. Todd Sieben introduced legislation Thursday that he said will enhance school accountability and improve teacher quality.
The Geneseo Republican said his legislation was inspired by The Hidden Costs of Tenure, an [...]
There is a School Board meeting tonight. They will be discussing the policies of the district.
TENTATIVE
SCHOOL DISTRICT 46
SPECIAL BOARD MEETING AGENDA
MIDDLE SCHOOL
JANUARY 30, 2006
CALL TO ORDER: 7:30 p.m.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
PUBLIC COMMENT – The Public has the opportunity to address the Board at this time.
I. Board Questionnaire/Discussion Regarding Policy Manual IASB representative, Andrea Dolgin, will [...]
The best high school in New Orelans has reopened. It’s name is Benjamin Franklin High School. It reopened on January 17th despite much red tape and political games by the Public School District. The school district to which this Magnate school belonged did not want them opening. In fact, they would [...]
I received a newsletter from Grayslake Community High School District 127 in yesterdays mail. In it there is a message from the Superintendent, Catherine Finger. She is asking the community to answer the following questions:
What do you really like about Grayslake Community High School District 127?
How is the transition from a one-high school [...]
If the Round Lake District 116 referendum fails in March, the school finance authority can still raise taxes and borrow money. The referendum is for $17 Million and will be used for construction that will include new construction at the High School and Magee Middle School.
The difference comes in that the finance authority can [...]
Here is a copy of the Press Release
The school board tonight ratified the teachers contract tonight with no discussion. A statement from the board was read before and after the vote. There were approximately 90 people in attendance tonight with about 70 of them being teachers.
I spoke with Board President Cheryl Davis after the meeting, she will try to get [...]
This was just posted on District 46 website. This meeting is for the public too.
On Real Clear Politics there is commentary by John Stossel. It is a segment from his latest show, Stupid in America. I want to highlight a few excerpts (Emphasis mine):
Illegally. False pretenses. Sounds like the kids are criminals. All they’re doing is trying to get a good public-school education. Don’t the public [...]
Since so many people are being told to contact the School Board about the contract negotiations, I thought it would be appropriate to list the contact information for the Teacher’s Union President. Please feel free to contact the Union and express your opinion to them as well. This information was taken from the [...]
I received a couple of phone calls this afternoon about the Teachers wearing buttons today in school. The buttons supposedly said, “Working without a contract.” I have not seen one yet, but both callers confirmed this. They also stated the teachers were telling the children who asked about them, to tell their parents [...]
There is another special closed session meeting scheduled for this week. Here are the details as listed on the District website. Go here to read more about why this meeting is taking place.
BOARD MEETING NOTICE
A Closed Session meeting of the Community Consolidated School District 46 Board of Education has been scheduled for 7:30 [...]
Here is an accountability suggestion from Charles E. Breiling, He is a teacher in Philadelphia and host of www.reformk12.com (Hat tip: CRAFT). In his article, he discusses what happens when a student graduates who can’t read. I have excerpts below. Read his entire post here.
The usual suspects are trotted out: the [...]
Mike Riopell has 2 articles in the Daily Herald concerning the state of the Teachers Negotiations here in District 46. The first concerns the delayed vote at the Board meeting Tuesday night. The second concerns the Emergency meeting called for tonight between the Board and the Teacher’s Union.
Offering little explanation of its hesitation [...]
These are my notes for the School Board meeting on 1/17/2006. If there are any corrections or additions please let me know. My comments are in [italics].
The agenda was approved after the Union Contract and the Sale to the Village of Hainesville were removed. It was stated that there were still some [...]
I’ll get the meeting notes typed up later tonight. It was a very interesting meeting.
The teacher contract aproval was delayed.
Great discussion on Class sizes and Board Goals.
Below is the D46 Board of Education Agenda for thier meeting tomorrow night at Avon. I have a couple of comments about this prior to the meeting. You can view the original agenda along with past meeting agaendas and notes at the District BOE website.
Action Item 1: Why can’t the public at [...]
I would like to talk about some of the highlights I saw in the John Stossel report Friday night. Here is a list of those things:
Teaching playing monopoly in World Geography class
Public Schools are give an A or B by 57% of the public
Grandmother, ex-teacher taught her granddaughter to read and add in a [...]
“Are American Kids Stupid?” No, I’m not asking this question. John Stossel of ABC News is asking. The program by this title is airing Friday night at 10 PM Eastern, 9 here in Chicago. I received the synopsis below from several people. Thanks to all of you.
I won’t [...]
What happens when taxpayers say enough is enough to school districts? Do you think school districts realize they have to make do with what they have? No, they go to court. They have now successfully done this in Texas where they got the court to rule property taxes were unconstitutional. They [...]
I am not sure if you saw what Palatine District 15 is now doing in regards to putting much of their documentation on the web. Here is an excerpt from the article (Highlights mine):
Dist. 15 public documents can be seen online
Daily Herald
Saturday, Dec. 24, 2005
By Nadia Malik
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Everything from the teacher salary [...]
The Opinion Journal entitled Teacher’s Pet is reporting that the NEA gave $65 Million to left-liberal groups in 2005. This money was given to:
Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups
Many of the organization’s disbursements–$30,000 to the Central [...]
Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn is proposing that the State purchase and provide every 7th grader in the state a laptop. The students would get to keep them for 6 years. This would be 169,000 computers this year for the estimated cost of $50 million.
Starting in the fall, junior high school students [...]
Since I have not been able to blog lately, I thought I would catch everyone up on some of the articles I have found of interest lately.
CRAFT has several articles of interest:
Letting literacy slip – Great opinion piece on the drastic drop in literacy over the past decade. The basics are being left out [...]
