Summer break should be in the winter

I am in favor of a year-round school calendar, with three-week breaks in between ten-week sessions. I don't see that happening though, so don't panic, I'm not pushing for it.

Today though, as I was walking my dogs in bright sunshine and pleasant temps at 6:30AM, it occurred to me that this is a lousy time for a long vacation from school. It's easy to get up early and get the day going when the sun rises long before school starts. It's easier to wait for the bus when it's 70 degrees than 30 degrees. Summertime commuting is rarely interrupted by snow storms.

Contrast this with the dark and cold month of January... the perfect time of year to sleep in late and avoid shivering in the dark at a bus stop. The perfect time of year to head for warmer, sunnier places.

If we're going to have a 10-week vacation between academic years, let's have it in the winter time, taking off from just before Christmas until the end of February. Think of how many snow days we'll avoid.

No? Oh well. It was just a thought while I was walking my dogs.

Comments on Ting-Yi Oei Reimbursement

My comments on reimbursment of Assistant Principal Ting-Yi Oei for legal expenses incurred when he was wrongfully prosecuted for doing his job in a 'sexting' incident.

Quite a night

At tonight's School Board meeting, the Board voted to:

• Implement a 0.5-point grade weight to all Honors, AOS and Dual-Enrollment courses
• Reimburse Freedom High School Assistant Principal Ting-Yi Oei for his legal fees in the amount of $167,621.64
• Appoint Mr. John Duellman, Assistant Principal at Potomac Falls High School, as principal of Mercer Middle School
• Appoint Dr. Marianne Hardebeck, currently the Director of High School Education at LCPS, as Assistant Superintendent for Personnel Services
• Revise its policy on Student Expression
• Delay motion on a revised Code of Ethics

Teacher Leave update

The Superintendent last night withdrew his suggestion to the Board to change its policy to prevent teachers from taking personal leave on the days immediately preceding or following a holiday. The Personnel Services committee (Marshall, Reed, Geurin, Stevens) was reviewing the proposal and expressing considerable skepticism. Board members had received a considerable amount of email from teachers in the past two weeks opposing the new restriction.

Instead of the Superintendent's proposal, the Board will consider removing the current policy which only allows principals to deny leave based on availability of substitutes. This would free principals to make decisions on leave based on instructional impact on students.

Grading Arms Race

A reader commented:

"The reality is, students in other counties already receive the additional weighting."

From the Grade Weighting Committee's research:

County	Honors weighted?
Frederick	No
Prince William	No
Fauquier	No
Arlington	No
Montgomery	No
Fairfax	Starting next year
Albemarle	Yes

Loudoun will be part of starting the arms race for higher grades, other counties will be compelled to follow suit.

Grade Weighting

Tomorrow night the School Board will vote on whether to add points to the GPAs of students who take honors classes, dual-enrollment courses at universities, or are enrolled in the Academy of Science. A committee of LCPS administrators, educators and parents met over the course of the spring and studied the question very closely. The Grade Weighting Committee's Recommendations (PDF) are worthy of your time if you are interested in this subject, and judging by the email traffic many of you are. A summary of the issue, including possible motions for consideration, is available on the electronic agenda.

So many who have written to the School Board consider this decision to be a no-brainer, a slam dunk. Many view this as a GPA arms race with Fairfax County. Many think it is a natural extension to the 10-point grading scale. Many just say "these courses are harder, they ought to be worth more." Mr. Ohneiser has an absolute fixation on one AOS course in particular with regard to this last point.

I'll discuss some basic pros and cons here, only briefly, in the hope that you'll read more in the committee's report if you're interested.

1. AOS Courses. This seems like the easiest of all. Very tough courses, no AP credits, give them the weighting, right? Wrong, say the AOS faculty, who unanimously oppose weighting their own courses. They don't want students who are motivated only by a grade boost. I find it difficult to believe that students who do everything they need to do to get into AOS would do it for an extra half point on those courses. Better to stay at the home school and get the full point for AP. In any case I look at the list of schools that AOS grads attend and know they don't need a boost.
2. Dual Enrollment. If a student takes a college-level course they should get extra credit for it, right? No, says the committee. Reasons: students already get college credit just for passing the course (unlike AP courses, where students take a risk that they'll get no college credit). In addition, poorer kids don't have the resources to take dual enrollment courses so it's discriminatory. Finally, some college courses just aren't that hard as a challenging LCPS course.
3. Honors Courses. Discussion of LCPS honors courses in the wake of the committee's report reveals a disconnect between the Administration and community perspectives on honors courses. State law requires a degree of distinctness between weighted and unweighted courses that LCPS honors courses just don't consistently have with their "academic-level" counterparts. Honors courses are focused in social sciences and English courses, which gives some students an advantage over those more inclined toward math, science and arts.
   

Now, because I list the reasons against weighting doesn't mean I don't favor it. I just believe that everyone advocating needs to understand that reasonable people can and do oppose an increase. The truth is that I favor something more nuanced than a simple yes-or-no. We'll see what happens when the votes come down.

Summertime

Penned by Gershwin, elevated to immortality by Janis Joplin

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Oh, Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky

But until that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mammy standing by

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

Teacher Leave

Full-time LCPS Employees who do not have annual leave (mostly those who don't work year-round) are allowed three days of personal days each year by School Board policy. There are three times when policy prohibits use of that leave:

1. The first five instructional days and the last five instructional days of the school year
2. On any teacher in-service or orientation workdays
3. When in the judgment of the immediate supervisor a qualified substitute cannot be secured

The administration has asked that the Board add a fourth restriction, and that is that personal leave my not be used "to extend any holiday period by taking personal leave on a student day before or after the holiday."

This is a result of the Board's cutting the substitute budget by over 20% for the next school year. The Administration is trying to cut down on the spikes in leave that create a high demand for substitutes. Teachers argue that this is too broad a brush, that principals will be able to deny leave based on availability of substitutes. The Superintendent counters that many of these leave plans, particularly around holidays, are made months in advance before the availability of substitutes can be known.

I'm not sure where I stand on this one; it has been sent to the Personnel committee for further review and there I'll have opportunity to ask questions and float some ideas before this comes to the full Board again. I'll ask the perspective of some of the principals and teachers I know also. I believe there are options for implementing this without a policy change. For instance, the Superintendent can direct principals not to approve leave more than 1 week in advance during the upcoming school year, or by however much lead time substitute availability can be known.

In any case, the LEA has asked its members to weigh in, and the School Board is getting dozens of emails from teachers as a result. This led me to contemplate the differences between public and private employment. My employer implements changes in HR policies in reaction to various conditions fairly commonly, and it would be simply bizarre for me to write to the President or the Board and lobby against the recent changes in paid time off that they implemented. On the one hand they aren't a public body as the School Board is, their deliberations are in private. On the other hand, this is a publicly traded company in which I own stock, so I do have a vote in the Board's membership.

The expectations for employment are different as well though... it isn't uncommon for private sector employees to switch companies, but public employees are to some degree expected to make a career of it, and much of our HR policies are intended to encourage long-term (even career-length) employment. In addition, LCPS has a virtual monopoly on K-12 education in Loudoun County. So an LCPS teacher can't contemplate switching to a different employer with the same freedom that I can.

This was just something I was thinking about as I go through these many teacher emails.

LCPS Grad Rate

A parent referred me to this story today...

Local school systems among tops in nation

...

Loudoun County led the region with 89 percent of its high school students estimated to earn a diploma within four years, according to federal data compiled by the trade publication Education Week. The survey tracked trends between 1996 and 2006, using the most recent nationwide information available.

...

I believe the LCPS graduation percentage has increased since the data used in that study.

On Tap for Tonight

The School Board meets today starting at 4pm for a closed meeting and approval of the consent agenda. We break for dinner and then reconvene at 6:30pm, beginning with three recognitions:

1. Award for Mary Kearney, Director of Special Education
2. New National Board Certified Teachers (17 of them by my count)
3. Shenandoah University Teacher of the Year

We have just one action item tonight:

• Attendance grandfathering of Mercer MS rising 8th graders whose neighborhoods were moved to Stone Hill MS.

Then on to some interesting information items:

• Recommended change to Personnel Leave Policy

This policy change would prohibit LCPS employees from extending holiday periods by taking personal leave immediately before or after. The Loudoun Education Association is lobbying against this change.

• Further discussion of grade weighting recommendations

The question of whether to add additional grade point weighting to honors, dual enrollment and Academy of Science classes has had additional input since our last meeting. The Board will discuss tonight and vote on June 23rd.

• Appointment of Ad-Hoc committee to study boundary policies

In the wake of a very difficult round of boundary changes, and in anticipation of an Ashburn-Area High School boundary decision this fall, some members have proposed new boundary policies. The Legislative/Policy committee last week recommended a review of existing policies in their entirety instead of taking these on one by one. Expect to see a vote to suspend the rules and enact this recommendation tonight.

• Updated review and changes to a number of other policies:

1. Policy 2-3, Code of Ethics for School Board members
2. Policy 2-6, Oath of Office
3. Policy 2-8, Compensation
4. Policy 5-45, Classroom placement of twins
5. Policy 8-61, Student Spech and Expression

These changes are largely just to bring our policies up to date with existing legislation. There are also a number of changes to Policy 2-3 raised by Mr. DuPree.

Somewhere in there we'll break for another closed meeting at 8:45.

School Bonds

While we have many commenters talking about school bonds, I thought I'd clarify something. A school bond vote is not a vote on whether or not to build a school. Schools cost so much to build that the county borrows money in the form of bonds, and pays interest as it repays the bond. The interest rate is dependent on a number of factors including the county's credit rating. A discount on that interest rate is available when the community votes on the bond, in effect joining the pledge to repay the loan. Lenders prefer this added endorsement, and hence cut the interest rate a bit if the bond passes.

The Supervisors and the School board vote on what schools to build, where and when. The community wants enough schools to educate its kids without crowding, and anyone who cares enough about the school system to devote their time to serving on the School Board will work to ensure that those schools are in place. I am confident that the community will continue to support the bonds, guaranteeing the lowest interest rates available in order to save our tax dollars. Remember that everyone who serves on these two boards is a neighbor, a long-time community volunteer and part-time official who pays the same taxes as everyone else.

School Board to study boundary process?

At last night's policy committee meeting, a majority of the school board indicated its desire to have a special committee to study the existing boundary policies and make recommendations to the full Board prior to the next boundary process, which is expected this fall. After Tom Marshall raised potential policy changes at a goal-setting session on Monday night and Bob Ohneiser raised two more at the Legislative/Policy committee last night, I suggested that we review the boundary policies in their entirety instead of tacking on changes one at a time. Others concurred and the committee unanimously passed a resolution recommending the establishment of an ad-hoc committee to the full board, which I would expect to affirm the recommendation.

As I explained to one die-hard parent in attendance last night, the Board hasn't had a forum to conduct a review of all that happened during the most recent boundary process, and what can be done to improve the next process. I hope the committee will do a thorough job of deciding what was done well, what can be done better, and whether our policies need modification.

Graduation Speakers

I always look forward to learning who will speak at Loudoun's High School graduation ceremonies. LCPS has announced this year's list:

• Academy of Science: Nobel Laureate John Mather


• Briar Woods High School: Jeff Kinney, author: "Diary of a Wimpy Kid"


• Broad Run High School: Former BRHS Teacher Dan Kent


• Dominion High School: Anibal Avalos, DHS teacher


• Freedom High School: Mike Moss, WTOP News


• Heritage High School: Brett Leake, Comedian


• Loudoun County High School: Patricial Philips, LCHS teacher


• Loudoun Valley High School: Renee Oricchio, freelance writer and media consultant


• Monroe Technology Center: John Wood, CEO of Telos Corporation


• Park View High School: Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, brain surgeon at Johns Hopkins University


• Potomac Falls High School: Eddie Mason, former Redskins Linebacker and CEO of MASE Training


• Stone Bridge High School: Tina Wells, founder of Buzz Marketing