Committee Considers Grading Policy

The Curriculum and Instruction committee met last week to hear information regarding LCPS grading policies, specifically the "10-point scale" currently being promoted by many Loudoun parents in coordination with the Fairfax "Fairgrade" effort. I wrote about this back in June (New Grading Scale? Patience), in February (What Should a B Be?) and in April (Following Fairfax).

I was out of town on vacation last week and could not attend the meeting, but committee Chairman Warren Geurin sent a report of the meeting by email and granted permission to post it here:

One of the agenda items before the Committee on Curriculum and Instruction on Thursday evening was the school system's grading scale and follow-up information from the Department of Pupil Services as to whether Loudoun County high school graduates are disadvantaged in college admission by our grading scale.

The staff presenters were Dr. Mary Kealy, Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Services; Mrs. Anne Lewis, Director of Student Services; and Mrs. Pat Allenson, Guidance & Health Services. Mrs. Lewis reviewed the 2001 grading scale study and presented an example of a student transcript.

Mrs. Allenson provided information gleaned from a survey of college and university admissions offices.

I also distributed materials provided by the parent group known as FairGrade Loudoun, who want us to adopt a 10-point grading scale. Within the next few days, I expect to schedule a special meeting of the Committee on Curriculum and Instruction to received from the Department of Pupil Services their reaction to the the materials prepared by FairGrade Loudoun and to receive a presentation from FairGrade Loudoun.

Reforming the Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee

I'm on a little roll talking about minority student achievement this week. Today I thought I'd fill you in on an upcoming decision by the School Board to reconstitute the Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee starting this fall.

At our June 24th meeting we received a recommendation from the administration to create MSAAC Bylaws to restructure and revitalize the organization. Until now, MSAAC has had a steering committee made up of whoever showed up. Aside from MSAAC President Herb Bryan no steering committee member has children in Loudoun Schools, and Herb's youngest graduated last month, leaving no members with students at LCPS.

While I have sat in on two or three MSAAC steering committee meetings, I haven't ever been able to attend a regular MSAAC meeting because they take place on Thursdays, a night that I commit to my family. As it has been relayed to me though, the meetings are universally frustrating for everyone involved. No parent, administrator, civil rights activist or School Board member has ever relayed to me their satisfaction with an MSAAC meeting. Each has a different perspective on why things don't go well, but at least there is universal agreement that dramatic change is needed.

According to the briefing our Board received, it was MSAAC President Herb Bryan who suggested that MSAAC have Bylaws, and the administration responded by modifying the Bylaws of another successful group, the Loudoun Education Alliance of Parents (LEAP). Full disclosure: My wife Lori is LEAP's Vice President for Programs.

The basic structure is this: the Parent-Teacher Organization at each school selects two members to represent it as delegates to the monthly MSAAC meetings. These delegates elect officers from among themselves. The delegates are responsible to represent the concerns of their schools to MSAAC, and report back to their schools on the information they learn at MSAAC. The full text of the Bylaws are available online, starting on Page 80 of our June 24th Board Book (PDF).

Since they were published last month, I have received some feedback regarding the proposed Bylaws from minority advocates, and I hope to receive more. I expect that with some possible minor modifications the new Bylaws will pass at our August meeting, and an exciting new chapter will begin for MSAAC this fall.

The Break's Over: This week's schedule

Welcome back everyone, I hope Spring Break was restful for our students, parents and staff.

Update: The action items for tomorrow night's meeting will be moved to our April 8th meeting. The School Board will attend the Board of Supervisors meeting as our budget will be under discussion.

Where I'll be this week:

Tuesday, 3/25: School Board meeting, 6:30pm. Major items:

• Changes to teacher evaluation policies
• Use of East Gate proffered site (Staff recommends rejection of site)
  
• Grandfathering rezoned Hutchison Farm ES fifth graders.

Tuesday, 3/25: Board of Supervisors voting on Capital Improvement Plan, 6:30
Wednesday, 3/26: Technology Steering Committee Meeting, 6:30pm.
Thursday, 3/28: Loudoun Education Foundation, 8AM
Saturday, 3/29: Night at the Falls, Potomac Falls High School

Where I won't be:
Tuesday, 3/25: Finance, Construction & Site Acquisition Committee, 6:00
Tuesday, 3/25: Board of Supervisors voting on Capital Improvement Plan, 6:30
Tuesday, 3/25: Internet Safety forum, Potomac Falls High School, 7pm
Wednesday, 3/26: Diversity In Education College And Career Fair, Dominion HS, 6:30pm

Joint Committee Meeting #1

The first meeting of the joint committee of the School Board and Board of Supervisors was this evening, and was an interesting affair. Each board appointed three members to represent it at the beginning of this month, fulfilling a campaign pledge made by all of the Democratic candidates in the 2007 election.

I took a lot of notes on what was said by everyone, and I’m a little reluctant to transcribe them for some reason, but I shouldn’t be. It was a public meeting, audio recorded and with citizens and a reporter present. I’m not offering any comment here, just the notes I took. Discuss.

By the way, you won't see many comments from me below, because I didn't take notes while I was speaking.

• Tom Reed raised the issue of himself and Sally Kurtz being co-chairs instead of Sally as Chair and Tom as Vice Chair.
• I commented that I thought the best hope for this committee was an improved familiarity between members of the boards that would foster communication and trust. I mentioned that some School Board members are also reaching out to their counterparts on the Planning Commission.
• Priscilla Godfrey focused on land and towns, and the interdependence that we have with the county for programs and use of facilities.
• Susan Buckley spoke of the two boards being habitually in roles where the Supervisors are playing offense with the schools playing defense. She recounted watching previous work sessions that "started with conclusions" that weren't changed by discussion, and were a waste of everyone's time. She talked of feeling like we're "in the same book but on different pages."
• Kelly Burke expressed hopes for a less rancorous budget process
• A skeptical Jim Burton asked "Are things goint to be different?" and said "I'll give it a try." He talked about our fundamental differences in responsibilities, and opined that the relationship between the two boards has improved steadily over the past eight years. "I don't buy that we've been at loggerheads recently." He talked favorably about the western Loudoun Schools joing planning exercise presentation, and said that BOS concerns about school building costs had fallen on deaf years in the past.
• Tom Reed talked about a Ven Diagram of overlapping areas of concern and said that the intersection of our responsibilities basically boils down to money. He said we need to concentrate on the kids.
• Sally Kurtz said "we need to be at the table." She agreed with Tom Reed's money assessment, saying it often felt like that was the only reason that the School Board ever talks to the Supervisors. She asked how our similar departments can work together in areas such as finance and planning. She said a priority for her was "fiscal clarity... I can't read your budget." Sally remarked on the perception of the Board of Supervisors as "scrooges" and talked about this joint committee being "a new animal." She mentioned the membership of a business person and mentioned having a business perspective at the table. She isn't worried about perceptions of being equal, and wants to focus on concrete decisions that can be brought back to our respective boards.
• Jim Burton (I'm paraphrasing) "I should not have been a skeptic about this, after looking at the task force over the course of the year. There is genuine communication occuring that had never happened before. The mayors have asked to continue to meet."

Discussion of Fiscal Clarity

• Kirby Bowers spoke of the long term liability for retirement obligations, about getting more funds and a change in the retiree health plan.
• Dr. Hatrick suggested that a good starting point would be to educate ourselves about all of the joint endeavors between the two organizations. He listed several: trash collection, recycling, use of facilities, accounting system, health care plan, turning old schools into community centers.
• Susan Buckley asked for recommendations of opportunities for collaboration.

Discussion of 21st Century Global Education

• Sally said this was of great interest to the EDC
• Tom Reed suggested moving the topic to the front "Start with the end in mind"
• Dr. Hatrick spoke of educating kids for their future, not our past. "We have the first class of truly world citizens." He talked about our welding students having their highest paid opportunities in China and Dubai, and needing to prepare them for jobs and lives in other parts of the world. He recounted the comment earlier in the day of a Maryland public school official, who noted that today's kids are entirely plugged in to technology... coming into school with iPods in their ears and cell phones texting messages back and forth... and as soon as they hit the school door we make them turn it all and put it all away, it's like sending them back in time.

Discussion of Staff Liaison Role (mostly addressed by Asst. County Administrator Paul Brown)

• Provide data, analysis, research
• Bring daily/practical issues to the committee
• Capital facilities are the County's biggest concern. We need to have a serious heart to heart about land acquisitions. We share a common ground in our difficulty in acquiring land for fire stations, community centers.
• There are serious concerns about debt andthe ability to deliver critical public facilities at the right time. "It's the elephant in the room."

A public hearing format was established. Speakers will be heard at the beginning of each meeting for a maximum of three minutes, with a 15-minute time limit.

Future meetings will be held on second Thursdays of the month from 4pm-6pm.

Belts on Buses

Last night's Health, Safety & Wellness meeting focused on the topic of seat belts on buses. Committee chairman Joe Guzman has been pushing for seat belts and stressing school bus safety for quite a while now, and I also believe that seat belts makes sense. After actually sitting in a seat belt-equipped bus however, I may need to rethink my position.

First though, some stats:

• A school bus is just about the safest place for a kid to be. Safer than teens driving themselves, safer than parents driving their kids, safer than kids who walk to school.
• The insurance cost on a school bus is less than for a car, even though a school bus is carrying dozens of people.
  
• The national school bus accident rate is 0.02 per 100 million miles traveled, compared to 0.94 for cars
  
• The National Transportation Safety Board is currently reviewing possible school bus seat belt recommendations and will release standards (or choose not to) this fall
  
• Our insurance carrier is pro-seatbelt but prefers we not do anything until NTSA makes recommendations
• 200 LCPS buses already have some sort of restraint system for use with Special Education students
• LCPS is on a 12-year cycle to replace school buses. We place orders every year for about 50-60 new buses. We are waiting until January to order next year’s buses to give the NTSA time to issue its findings.
  
• It will cost an additional $12-15K each to install new seats with 3-point anchors in each bus.
  
• Once seat belts are in place, 100% Enforcement is not really possible. Usage goes down with age... kindergarteners are better at following directions than High School seniors.

So how is it that school buses are so safe, without seatbelts? In two words: size and compartmentalization. First, a school bus is a very big, very heavy vehicle. In the words of Transportation Director Mike Lunsford, "in a collision with a school bus, a car or a pickup will lose every time. The danger comes from dump trucks and tractor-trailers." The second concept, "compartmentalization," means that the seats are tall, padded and placed close together. The result is that in a collision a child may be thrown, but will not have far to fly and will have a large, soft surface on which the force of impact is dispersed. Buses are designed well for front & rear impact, not so well for side impacts or roll-overs.

So after learning all of these facts and discussing the implications for an hour, we went outside and toured a brand new school bus with seat belts loaned to us by a manufacturer. I sat down in a seat and buckled in, just barely. I'll tell you this much: if we're going to insist on our kids sitting in these seats together, we'd better solve the childhood obesity problem FAST. I'm not an especially wide guy, but my butt had seat belt buckles poking me on both sides. The seats are designed to fit three across, but once these kids hit adolescence that's just not going to work.

No decision has been made, but my prediction is that unless the NTSB says it's safer to forgo the seat belts, you'll start seeing them on our buses for the 2008-2009 school year. Get ready kids.

Upcoming Committee Topics

With the arrival of August, we're back into committee meetings again after taking a short break. This is the ground floor of policy, if you want to influence how things are done, this is the place to be. By the time it gets to the full School Board meetings there isn't much chance of making major changes.

On Monday the Health, Safety & Wellness committee gets a deeper look at seat belts on school buses and on Tuesday the Curriculum & Instruction committee reviews No Child Left Behind. Most committee meetings are held at the Administration building in Ashburn, see the LCPS website for details.

Technology Steering Committee

In tonight’s meeting, we talked about the technology in the classrooms of the Juvenile Detention Center. Unlike our other classrooms, which are on a regular (if infrequent after the latest budget cuts) schedule of new PCs and software, the JDC has several PCs that were purchased with funds donated by an individual some years ago. The JDC is operated by the County, and so the County’s IT department supports those PCs. We’re finding out whether the County has a budget to renew those PCs or whether LCPS should take over that responsibility.

What is certain is that the kids in the JDC are still our students, and we still owe them (and ourselves) our best attempts at keeping them on track academically. That can’t happen if we view them as somebody else’s problem just because they’re attending class in somebody else’s building.