Ideas to Work On - Anyone Interested

[concerned]

I am noticing that some of these threads are getting so long that some ideas are not getting responded to because I think they get lost in all the additional responses.....

So, I thought I'd summarize some of the ideas I brought up. Maybe others could do the same on this thread. My ideas were discussed primarily between the Library Information Thread and the Sept. 15 Thread in case any one wants to go back and see the details....

1. A lobbying campaign by e-mail to our Albany friends. I had said it generally gets the most support from people when the link is already there. FRAWG88 initially brought up the matter and I built upon it a bit.

2. A coffee hour focused on salaries instead of it being all so secretive during budget meetings. JDAVALO had opinions why it couldn't work....what do others think?

3. A voting registration drive which we start now! Back to school night is Sept 28 for at least one school. What a great time to get people to register. I thought it should really be a joint effort with our BOE and PTA. Let's double our voter turn out for next year.

4. All the discussions about the test scores.....since our new Asst. Superintendent used to be a Director with Standard and Poors (the title may not be 100% accurate) perhaps she'd be a great person to lead the discussion.....JDAVOLA - you never responded to that idea we had discussed....what happened?

Thanks. There all just ideas......



1.

[techie]

I think a voter registration/participation drive is a very good idea.
Why stop with just the School and PTA though?
As we do have a large group of affected community members(the children) maybe we can get some volunteers to do a door to door campaign throughout the district to heighten voter awareness. Why not use some of the signs in front of the schools? The Library also could be used as a place to forward information about registering to vote and the civic responsibility to do it.
Now that it is election time, we could try to get a commitment from the candidates running to help us with voter registration and education.
What about making the voting area more accessible, or, having the voting area ALSO back in John H West to make it more convenient for voters?

[techie]

Perhaps another way the community can be involved,

All of us are involved in our works with different skills.
What if we use the skills that we use in our jobs,(although they may not be the same in the jobs that the Administration and Board members have) as a "sounding board" for what could be agreed upon or enhanced.

In this district we have many Accountants, Bookeepers, Business Owners, Technology Personel, Lawyers, Educators, etc,... Why not find a way to let the community be involved and help. Not for the purpose of slighting someone's position, but, to help and give more of an involvement with people that do this in Industry.

In IT, one of the things that was brought to my attention recently was a program called "MOODLE" (review in Linux Magazine Oct. 2005) It is a program that can do many of the things that the APPLE program can, BUT, MAYBE, not all. MAYBE it can do features that the School and Administration would prefer.
For Product Evaluation, why not let some of us give a heads up or not as sort of a prereview to let the CIO have more time for the demands that are needed at the current time.
WE would not give what the "Marketing Team" wants the CIO to hear but would be more partial to the needs of the School.

This is only a small example.
What about "NEW" Education venues. Educators/Residents, in our district would be hearing a lot of the same marketing hype geared to their schools and could help to "weed out" the good from the bad and give a report back and not waste time and effort with our staff.

Each position in the school could have a "Mirror" help force.
Not to tell or instruct the person of position what to do, but to help with a little of the leg-work to make more time available for the person of position and to get better results for our children.

IMHO

what do you think?

[yruohk]

Count me in. Great beginning! ;D

Brainstorming gives rise to the best ideas. It's important to think of what's best for all. That's not difficult to determine if discussions include ideas from all and then brought together to reach the same goal: educating our children to bring out the potential of each student from the lowest grade to the highest!

A community that nurtures it's youth reaps great rewards in their accomplishments. Those whom I know are diligent in bringing out the best in all people even if we must swim upstream as the salmon do.

[concerned]

Techie-I didn't quite understand your entire concept, but again the good thing is that we are using this forum for productive ideas. Let's see how many others indicate a willingness to meet and see what we can do. Maybe it's time to have our own meetings somewhere and talk about the things we can do.....it would be nice if the Board of Ed. joins in and supports the registration drives, etc. But, if not, maybe we can do it. If the Parents of Athletics group was formed, why not a Parents group to discuss School District Issues?

[frawg88]

To “Concerned”, “Go Plainedge”

I think you have to focus on these things in priority order. My suggestion would be:

1. I’d start with voter registration first, and I agree that the PTA should provide notices and announcements at each PTA meeting. I imagine people have to show proof of residency so there’d have to be someone checking that, so I don’t know if that could be accomplished at the PTA meetings. The district has open registration daily from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the HS administration office. (It’s on the school calendar.)

2. A lobbying campaign to Albany, and not by just 20 people. The Superintendent & BOE have to lead this one, as they have the contacts and relationships with the legislators and various organizations that lobby on behalf of school districts. There should be a link on the website with the whole plan/timeline of what needs to be done to be most effective. (This probably would have to coincide with when the governor and legislature begin their budget deliberations.) Flyers, announcements, etc. would all be good, but will people get motivated, or will they be apathetic and leave it to the next guy? The community can’t have it both ways - they can’t complain about paying higher taxes, and not be willing to put the effort in to do something about it.

3. More awareness about the district’s test scores and academic performance of students. Plainedge has impressively climbed in rank against other districts in state test scores over the past few years. The problem is that even though these statistics are given out at meetings, on the website, and in the newspapers, most people don’t find this a valuable topic of conversation. (This forum is a prime example.) If enough people don’t value education, then they are not going to support the schools, and budgets will always be in jeopardy. If people have a greater awareness and understanding of what their tax dollars are paying for, then they will be more likely to be supportive. The suggestion was made to have the new Asst. Superintendent explain this, but she was hired to run the business office and all the non-instructional departments, so in my opinion would not be the one to address this. The Asst. Superintendent for Curriculum looks like a better choice. (See district org. chart on the website),

4. I don’t know what a coffee hour on salaries (I’m presuming administrative salaries?) would accomplish as the salaries are already public and available to the community. I think this would tend to bring about more confrontation than productivity. I think a better discussion would be what do the people who earn those salaries do and how to they contribute to the academic success of the school district? There’s always lots of talk about cutting the top administrative positions but it’s strictly from a financial point of view. Is there really a true understanding on the part of the community about the need for each person? School districts do not run the same way as businesses do. In a private company, if you have 8 regional managers and you need to cut overhead, you can reduce to 7 and re-distribute the geographical territories. If you have 8 sales reps you can reduce to 7 and assign the additional accounts to the remaining reps. Or if you have 8 people handling tech support, you can reduce to 7 and divide the additional maintenance load to the remaining support people. You can do this because they all do the same thing and have the same training. In the school district you’re talking about a handful of people whose job functions are very specialized, and require very different training and knowledge, including knowledge of law, and a lot of other things that are mandated by state and federal regulations. (They also do not operate under a profit/loss scenario – their end product is a high school graduate who has met all the state standards). If you cut an Asst. Superintendent for Curriculum, you can’t assign those job responsibilities to the Business person or to the Technology person. If you cut the Technology person you couldn’t then have a Curriculum person take over managing technology. If you cut the Business person, then aside from the obvious, you have less oversight of taxpayer money and more potential for fraud or abuse.

[justfacts]

This is a followup on a thread from a new member cunextuesday (New Board Member Appointed)

This present Board, with the exception of two new members is the same Board that rubber-stamped its approval of Richman's flawed and illegal Contingency Budget plans given in the two failed Budgets of last year.

What was flawed and illegal? His plan for cutting absolutely no money from planned Administration costs and putting all the cuts of a Contingency Budget into the Programs and Sports areas of the Budget. Twice he did that, with the head-nodding approval of all those on the Board at that time! Nary a question nor a dissension was raised by a Board member each time that Budget came before the public for their vote![/b]

It wasn't until they received a copy of the Appeal I sent to the Commissioner of Education about this illegal action that a quickly revised Contingency Budget (in small print) was sent around the District on the weekend before the second vote. Do you even remember seeing it? The legal change to the Contingency Budget took $307,000 from Administration and used it for Programs and Sports.

Lord knows if the actual Contingency Budget they adopted does follow the legal requirements! Did all of the $307,000 go to Programs?

Legal requirements are that the Administration costs can't be more than 12.42% of the total of Programs, Sports and Administration costs. Has anyone on the Board championed the public's interest by taking the step of providing and distributing those details of the Contingency Budget to the public at large? Or, do they still tell you that the details are "up in the office, we don't have them here" when you go to a meeting and ask for these figures? [/i]

One would think that a Board wanting to have public support for next year's Budget would provide more support and openness to the public than they presently do. At least, a show of a little contriteness after their two failures to jam the Superintendent's flawed Budget down the throats of the community last year!

Well, this year three seats on the Board are coming up for election. It's time to take these three seats away from persons who backed and approved the illegal Contingency Budget plan of the Superintendent. We, Plainedge, need to have three new Board members who are willing to give the Richman Budget plans a thorough hard look and review when he proposes them this year.

He has already laid down the gauntlet about the Budget! To "restore" planned budgetary items he didn't get last year he has said he needs a 12% increase this year - about half again what was planned for last year! And he will allow the public only one vote on the matter! Approve it the first and only time - or I'll make you go on a Contingency Budget again!

Since the present Board does little to keep him and his ego in check, isn't it now time to take action to replace as many of that Board as we can?

Stir up qualified persons who would not be flim-flammed by his flawed plans for this District - having growth in Administration at the expense of the programs and Sports.

Why and how else would he dare to say that there would be NO cuts in Administration and All cuts made from Programs and Sports as he did for his Contingency Budget plans for last year - except that he now has a weak and cow-towing Board

It's time for others in Plainedge to step up to the plate and hit a home-rule home run for this community!

I, for one, will actively support and help gather others to aid Plainedge residents that will run for the Board. Not just any resident, but those who put the children and the community interests above the Administration interests.

After all, this present Administrative staff costs the community $1 Million more in salaries under Richman's reign than it did before he came to us - let them earn their higher levels of monetary rewards by running a much tighter, more responsible School District! And have them do it under the control of a strong community responsive School Board.[/i]