The KCMO School District

[aknowledgeableperson]

Yeah, well the charter school has the option of kicking the problem kids to the curb as soon as they start doing anything to disrupt the positive environment. The public schools don't really have that option until the kids start committing like major felonies on campus. This is where you lefties ( ) are supposed to object to charter schools - doesn't that poor hooligan kid who just wants to tear shit up and cause problems deserve all the same opportunity and assistance society can offer? Surely you wouldn't want him to wind up in some school that's basically just for fuck ups and hooligans would you - he might wind up slipping through the social net?

The Sumner success begs an interesting question; by removing the best students from the district and putting them in a magnet school like Sumner, are we not artificially concentrating mediocre and worse students in the other high schools in the district? The downside, it would seem, would be that at the other schools that have there top 15% or whatever it is creamed off, the mediocrity and the lack of interest in education would be accentuated and difficult to overcome. I really do not have any answers for our educational woes, the problems are part of the same vicious circle that afflicts a growing segment of american society.

Lincoln Prep. is the KCMO equivalent. The "secret" to both schools is the entrance exam and the behavioral/performance standards. They simply kick the problem students back into genpop. Its called "tracking", and it works pretty well for a segment of the student population. It's also, not surprisingly, how private schools stay "good".

While hand-picking the good students for an advanced school and curriculum is great for those students and for that school, it may have the opposite effect on the other schools. While Lincoln can raise its standards, other schools can lower theirs. I think part of what makes good schools successful is the competitive atmosphere of the student body, trying to get better grades, better scores, and more extra curriculars than your peers. When you take away the top students, you sometimes lower the standard of excellence for all other students.

That, and a preference for genuine concern that a voucher system would decimate the public school system and all those kids of parents not interested enough in picking a good school for them are screwed. To which I say - how is that any different than the current system?

[FangKC]

The Kansas City School District has more challenges than suburban schools. One example I can think of is that at Northeast High School, children come from families that speak 27 different languages at home.

The district attempts to educate kids from families where the parents don't value education, or don't care about their kids, or aren't capable emotionally because of mental illness or drug abuse. It attempts to educate children who don't feel valued, weren't wanted, or have self-esteem issues. Some of these children also have learning problems that might have come from being born to alcoholic, or drug-taking mothers, living in homes where they were repeatedly beaten, sexually-abused, houses that were full of mold or lead paint, or nutritional problems during their brain development. Things that can be attributed to cognitive deficiencies. Some of the children grow up in an atmosphere were violence is normalized, so they model that behavior.

The kids from more normal families are often simply scared while they are at school.

Anyone who has ever raised a child knows that even good kids are influenced by troubled kids if they spend enough time around them. So 10 percent of kids acting out in any classroom can turn that number to 30 percent pretty quickly.

So the schools also act as social service agencies, for which they aren't really equipped. Teachers have to act as surrogate parents as well. On top of all these challenges, we have politicians who are talking about cutting the food stamp program, which might be the only thing propping up some of these kids.

I think whether it's a public school or a charter school, they have these problems to deal with. The challenging kids don't get into private schools -- even if they had a lottery or voucher. If they are problematic kids, they are usually phased out of the private school in no time.

I think one of the problems with KCPSD, and others like it in other cities, is that we treat all the kids the same. Society is not willing to recognize that their parents are failing them, and act on their behalf. We don't separate the troubled kids out and put them in remedial schools, or "reform" schools. Some of them might even benefit from military school.

Any teacher in these districts will tell you that it's the trouble-making kids that ruin the environment for the kids they can reach. I would go so far as to say that if the kids are troubled enough by their home environment, that they should be enrolled in an on-campus boarding school of some kind, so that the absent, non-caring parent has less effect on them daily. That doesn't mean they have to be sent to some faraway school, but in-city Monday-through-Friday boarding school where they are fed three times a day, and given a clean, safe environment with professional services and guidance.

That's not to say that all parents are deliberately absent or non-caring, and that their kids are troubled or having a hard time in school. If you are a single mother working two jobs to survive, it's hard to be present all the time. Even if you are, you are probably tired. If you are immigrant family who don't speak English well, or never received education yourself, it's hard to help your kids with school problems.

The reason for this is because kids model behavior to other kids. The first thing a good parent does it to get their kid away from a kid who's a bad influence. We don't do that in public schools.

What's been done so far isn't working.

The other thing I would submit is that we have to take responsibility as a society for our neglect of children in public schools. As a country, it's in our national interest that all our children get the best education. However, when a school district reports bad performance, you don't see the outrage from everyone. As long as it's not our kids' schools, then we are silent. If it is our kids' schools, and we have the means, we just move away. And the fact that it's gotten to a point that public education as a principle is under attack. That it's viewed with disdain among many. That it's not worthy of solutions or attention. That's on all of us. The fact that you can pay for private education doesn't mean you are released from responsibility for the other kids.

The attitude that it's not my responsibility will evaporate when you are beaten half to death by some young kid that was neglected by society, and left in an environment that has no hope, or a way out.

We also have to quit putting so many people in prison for minor drug offenses. A fairly large majority of inner city kids have had a parent go to prison, and our prisons of full of people convicted of minor drug offenses. It's takes a parent out of the picture, and normalizes prison for their kids. It affects families because once a person gets sent to prison they are basically unemployable.

I'm personally tired of it costing $50,000 a year to house someone convicted for having got caught with pot, or cocaine. Again this is a class thing, a white suburban person caught for the same thing rarely goes to prison. But young black men almost always do.

[taxi]

Fang for President of the school board!

[chaglang]

Get into the real world.

Are you using that phrase in a general sense, or should I ask others how they use it?

[aknowledgeableperson]

You referred my comment as being racist. Well, maybe in your world all you see is race this or this that. You appeared that my comment could not be applied to something else? Just open your eyes to the "real world" where there are white families, Hispanic, whatever, that are just as dysfunctional as black families. Especially when it comes to education.

Yeah chaglang, get out of your inner city fantasy and join the Belton real world!

BTW, there are dysfunctional in Belton and other suburbs as well. It is not confined to KCMO or to the KCMOSD.

[aknowledgeableperson]

We also know that in 2007, both Independence and Kansas City constituents overwhelmingly voted to allow Independence to annex a part of Kansas City Public Schools, including 2,600 of its students in seven schools. One school was closed. The others remained open, and the students continued to be enrolled in their previous school buildings but in a new district.

What happened after the annexation is near-miraculous.

Van Horn High School, which was the only high school involved in the annexation, had at that time the second highest dropout rate in the state of Missouri. Only about a third of the students graduated from high school.

Today, the graduation rate at Van Horn is about 90 percent.

These students, whose poverty rate is sky-high, are not all that different from the remaining students in the Kansas City district.

What did the suburban district do that Kansas City Public Schools did not do?

“We gave the students hope,” said former Independence superintendent Jim Hinson, now the newly appointed superintendent of the Shawnee Mission School District.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/08/17/44 ... rylink=cpy

[phxcat]

The Kansas City School District has more challenges than suburban schools. One example I can think of is that at Northeast High School, children come from families that speak 27 different languages at home.

The district attempts to educate kids from families where the parents don't value education, or don't care about their kids, or aren't capable emotionally because of mental illness or drug abuse. It attempts to educate children who don't feel valued, weren't wanted, or have self-esteem issues. Some of these children also have learning problems that might have come from being born to alcoholic, or drug-taking mothers, living in homes where they were repeatedly beaten, sexually-abused, houses that were full of mold or lead paint, or nutritional problems during their brain development. Things that can be attributed to cognitive deficiencies. Some of the children grow up in an atmosphere were violence is normalized, so they model that behavior.

The kids from more normal families are often simply scared while they are at school.

Anyone who has ever raised a child knows that even good kids are influenced by troubled kids if they spend enough time around them. So 10 percent of kids acting out in any classroom can turn that number to 30 percent pretty quickly.

So the schools also act as social service agencies, for which they aren't really equipped. Teachers have to act as surrogate parents as well. On top of all these challenges, we have politicians who are talking about cutting the food stamp program, which might be the only thing propping up some of these kids.

I think whether it's a public school or a charter school, they have these problems to deal with. The challenging kids don't get into private schools -- even if they had a lottery or voucher. If they are problematic kids, they are usually phased out of the private school in no time.

I think one of the problems with KCPSD, and others like it in other cities, is that we treat all the kids the same. Society is not willing to recognize that their parents are failing them, and act on their behalf. We don't separate the troubled kids out and put them in remedial schools, or "reform" schools. Some of them might even benefit from military school.

Any teacher in these districts will tell you that it's the trouble-making kids that ruin the environment for the kids they can reach. I would go so far as to say that if the kids are troubled enough by their home environment, that they should be enrolled in an on-campus boarding school of some kind, so that the absent, non-caring parent has less effect on them daily. That doesn't mean they have to be sent to some faraway school, but in-city Monday-through-Friday boarding school where they are fed three times a day, and given a clean, safe environment with professional services and guidance.

That's not to say that all parents are deliberately absent or non-caring, and that their kids are troubled or having a hard time in school. If you are a single mother working two jobs to survive, it's hard to be present all the time. Even if you are, you are probably tired. If you are immigrant family who don't speak English well, or never received education yourself, it's hard to help your kids with school problems.

The reason for this is because kids model behavior to other kids. The first thing a good parent does it to get their kid away from a kid who's a bad influence. We don't do that in public schools.

What's been done so far isn't working.

The other thing I would submit is that we have to take responsibility as a society for our neglect of children in public schools. As a country, it's in our national interest that all our children get the best education. However, when a school district reports bad performance, you don't see the outrage from everyone. As long as it's not our kids' schools, then we are silent. If it is our kids' schools, and we have the means, we just move away. And the fact that it's gotten to a point that public education as a principle is under attack. That it's viewed with disdain among many. That it's not worthy of solutions or attention. That's on all of us. The fact that you can pay for private education doesn't mean you are released from responsibility for the other kids.

The attitude that it's not my responsibility will evaporate when you are beaten half to death by some young kid that was neglected by society, and left in an environment that has no hope, or a way out.

We also have to quit putting so many people in prison for minor drug offenses. A fairly large majority of inner city kids have had a parent go to prison, and our prisons of full of people convicted of minor drug offenses. It's takes a parent out of the picture, and normalizes prison for their kids. It affects families because once a person gets sent to prison they are basically unemployable.

I'm personally tired of it costing $50,000 a year to house someone convicted for having got caught with pot, or cocaine. Again this is a class thing, a white suburban person caught for the same thing rarely goes to prison. But young black men almost always do.

I teach in a school with a similar dynamic, I would assume, to Northeast. We have a huge refugee population on top of a generally inner city neighborhood. I don't know how many languages are spoken, but it is probably similar. Some of those kids come from war torn places such as Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq, and have seen things that no child (or adult) should ever have to see. Many had never been in school before 8th grade. On top of the issues that Northeast has, we have a larger non-refugee ELL population and the added issue of having a large number of separated families, with parents often being picked up by Sheriff Joe and put in tent city or deported. Walking around campus, though, you really wouldn't know that it wasn't a normal suburban school (racial profiling aside) and we perform well. I have substitute taught in Kansas City Kansas, which has similar schools, but is under control. Good teachers and good administration can have a very large effect- walk into any school, urban or suburban, and you will see a huge difference from classroom to classroom. It is true, though that the students also have a large impact. I think that it is important to have a strong AP program at each school. Even if the school is not able to attract enough strong AP teachers (which will be hit or miss wherever you go), at the very least those classrooms will be under control and will allow students who want to learn to learn. On the other end of the spectrum, especially in KCMO, there needs to be a place for the kids who are not going to behave the way they need to to go. At a lot of poorly performing schools, there will be maybe three kids per classroom who will control the room and prevent learning from happening. Those kids either need to change or leave. And I think that KCMO needs to be aggressive in doing this, but it needs to be LRE and any tracking needs to be permeable because you can't just dump these kids into the streets and you need to give these kids the opportunity not to have already ruined their lives before they are old enough to vote. First, there needs to be strong technical education offerings to keep kids who just are not college bound engaged and career oriented. School has to have meaning, and to many students, it doesn't. There needs to be a strong school within a school program for credit recovery and for a site-based program for students who are choosing not to behave in a way that is conducive to classroom based instruction to fall into. There also needs to be a strong off site alternative program. IN addition, at every step of the way there needs to be social workers and psychologists who can intervene and try to save the kids that can be saved. Everybody behaves the way they do for a reason. If we can determine the reason, that makes it possible to change the behavior, but we need the resources to change the behavior.

For those who want to talk about the cost of doing all of this, yes, it would be expensive, but Fang's last statement puts the cost in perspective.

[chaglang]

You referred my comment as being racist.

No. Absolutely wrong. What I asked is if you were saying that all charters are inherently racist. That's completely different and a contention I've heard made before. I was trying to figure out what the heck you meant when you talked about further segregating a certain class of kids. Given the context of the KCMSD, assuming that "certain class" was a euphemism for blacks, and "segregation" was racial isn't much of a leap. You'll have to excuse my ignorance for not knowing that you were speaking "a general sense... [about] those left behind".

[phxcat]

We also know that in 2007, both Independence and Kansas City constituents overwhelmingly voted to allow Independence to annex a part of Kansas City Public Schools, including 2,600 of its students in seven schools. One school was closed. The others remained open, and the students continued to be enrolled in their previous school buildings but in a new district.

What happened after the annexation is near-miraculous.

Van Horn High School, which was the only high school involved in the annexation, had at that time the second highest dropout rate in the state of Missouri. Only about a third of the students graduated from high school.

Today, the graduation rate at Van Horn is about 90 percent.

These students, whose poverty rate is sky-high, are not all that different from the remaining students in the Kansas City district.

What did the suburban district do that Kansas City Public Schools did not do?

“We gave the students hope,” said former Independence superintendent Jim Hinson, now the newly appointed superintendent of the Shawnee Mission School District.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/08/17/44 ... rylink=cpy

That is an interesting article. Two things stood out to me- removing the security guards and metal detectors, and a competitive process for hiring new staff. One thing about my school is that the students know what is expected when they come on campus, and that we we have a feeling of community. Despite the neighborhood, we do not have metal detectors or SROs. I think that those things send a message to students as they come on campus that they are not trusted. Now, some schools may need them, but if you are borderline, they may do more harm than good (although SROs can be a helpful part of the community if used correctly). I would also imagine that, in this case, the changes that were made were visible enough to show the kids that something was being done which, if you study I/O psychology, can have a large effect, and I think that the statement above, "We gave the students hope" is evidence of this. Bottom line, though, is that if you want to have a good staff, you have to pay for it. And if you want to hire a good staff in KCMO, you will have to pay considerably more than Blue Springs, Lees Summit or KC North, and the salary schedule will need to be structured in such a way as to retain those teachers for the long haul.

[chaglang]

Thanks for posting that, AKP. Rose makes the whole things sound really easy. Maybe it is, but it also sounds like a silver bullet for the KCMSD. 35 years in and around the district make me think that such a thing doesn't exist.

If that article was 3x as long (it really could have been), I would have liked him to ask:
-What went into giving kids hope?
-Which schools did neighboring districts offer to take?
-Would they be willing to take on more?

I haven't been tracking the August 28 date too closely. Does anyone have a sense of whether this might actually happen?

[shinatoo]

Thanks for posting that, AKP. Rose makes the whole things sound really easy. Maybe it is, but it also sounds like a silver bullet for the KCMSD. 35 years in and around the district make me think that such a thing doesn't exist.

If that article was 3x as long (it really could have been), I would have liked him to ask:
-What went into giving kids hope?
-Which schools did neighboring districts offer to take?
-Would they be willing to take on more?

I haven't been tracking the August 28 date too closely. Does anyone have a sense of whether this might actually happen?

Good questions, and more importantly, what schools were Blue Springs and Lee's Summit wanting to take, since they aren't geographically adjacent to the district? And what of Hickman Mills? Do they just have to many problems of their own?

I'm holding my breath for August 28th.

[pstokely]

We also know that in 2007, both Independence and Kansas City constituents overwhelmingly voted to allow Independence to annex a part of Kansas City Public Schools, including 2,600 of its students in seven schools. One school was closed. The others remained open, and the students continued to be enrolled in their previous school buildings but in a new district.

What happened after the annexation is near-miraculous.

Van Horn High School, which was the only high school involved in the annexation, had at that time the second highest dropout rate in the state of Missouri. Only about a third of the students graduated from high school.

Today, the graduation rate at Van Horn is about 90 percent.

These students, whose poverty rate is sky-high, are not all that different from the remaining students in the Kansas City district.

What did the suburban district do that Kansas City Public Schools did not do?

“We gave the students hope,” said former Independence superintendent Jim Hinson, now the newly appointed superintendent of the Shawnee Mission School District.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/08/17/44 ... rylink=cpy

That is an interesting article. Two things stood out to me- removing the security guards and metal detectors, and a competitive process for hiring new staff. One thing about my school is that the students know what is expected when they come on campus, and that we we have a feeling of community. Despite the neighborhood, we do not have metal detectors or SROs. I think that those things send a message to students as they come on campus that they are not trusted. Now, some schools may need them, but if you are borderline, they may do more harm than good (although SROs can be a helpful part of the community if used correctly). I would also imagine that, in this case, the changes that were made were visible enough to show the kids that something was being done which, if you study I/O psychology, can have a large effect, and I think that the statement above, "We gave the students hope" is evidence of this. Bottom line, though, is that if you want to have a good staff, you have to pay for it. And if you want to hire a good staff in KCMO, you will have to pay considerably more than Blue Springs, Lees Summit or KC North, and the salary schedule will need to be structured in such a way as to retain those teachers for the long haul.

Did the teacher salaries change after the Van Horn takeover? How were they able to fire tenured staff?

[pstokely]

Thanks for posting that, AKP. Rose makes the whole things sound really easy. Maybe it is, but it also sounds like a silver bullet for the KCMSD. 35 years in and around the district make me think that such a thing doesn't exist.

If that article was 3x as long (it really could have been), I would have liked him to ask:
-What went into giving kids hope?
-Which schools did neighboring districts offer to take?
-Would they be willing to take on more?

I haven't been tracking the August 28 date too closely. Does anyone have a sense of whether this might actually happen?

Good questions, and more importantly, what schools were Blue Springs and Lee's Summit wanting to take, since they aren't geographically adjacent to the district? And what of Hickman Mills? Do they just have to many problems of their own?

I'm holding my breath for August 28th.

Hickman Mills has the problems of the KCMSD on a smaller scale, so do Grandview, Center, and Raytown

[aknowledgeableperson]

What went into giving kids hope?

Have a long time friend who is working at one of the elementary schools absorbed by Independence SD. She is a retired ISD teacher. From what I can tell ISD saw what they were getting and needed to get the kids caught up. They put resources, like her, to give the kids some extra instruction to help them get up to grade level. Plus the did fix up the facilities so the buildings were bright instead of depressing. Guess, showed that someone cared.

How were they able to fire tenured staff?

Different employer.

Hickman Mills has the problems of the KCMSD on a smaller scale, so do Grandview, Center, and Raytown

Center has turned things around. Last I heard it passed all 15(?) areas in the state evaluation. Not up-to-date on Grandview and Raytown but have grandchildren in the Grandview SD. At least for their elementary school things are going great. Friends in HM SD say it has a f***ed up Board like the KCMO SD.

[FangKC]

I teach in a school with a similar dynamic, I would assume, to Northeast. We have a huge refugee population on top of a generally inner city neighborhood. I don't know how many languages are spoken, but it is probably similar. Some of those kids come from war torn places such as Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq, and have seen things that no child (or adult) should ever have to see. Many had never been in school before 8th grade. On top of the issues that Northeast has, we have a larger non-refugee ELL population and the added issue of having a large number of separated families, with parents often being picked up by Sheriff Joe and put in tent city or deported. Walking around campus, though, you really wouldn't know that it wasn't a normal suburban school (racial profiling aside) and we perform well. I have substitute taught in Kansas City Kansas, which has similar schools, but is under control. Good teachers and good administration can have a very large effect- walk into any school, urban or suburban, and you will see a huge difference from classroom to classroom. It is true, though that the students also have a large impact. I think that it is important to have a strong AP program at each school. Even if the school is not able to attract enough strong AP teachers (which will be hit or miss wherever you go), at the very least those classrooms will be under control and will allow students who want to learn to learn. On the other end of the spectrum, especially in KCMO, there needs to be a place for the kids who are not going to behave the way they need to to go. At a lot of poorly performing schools, there will be maybe three kids per classroom who will control the room and prevent learning from happening. Those kids either need to change or leave. And I think that KCMO needs to be aggressive in doing this, but it needs to be LRE and any tracking needs to be permeable because you can't just dump these kids into the streets and you need to give these kids the opportunity not to have already ruined their lives before they are old enough to vote. First, there needs to be strong technical education offerings to keep kids who just are not college bound engaged and career oriented. School has to have meaning, and to many students, it doesn't. There needs to be a strong school within a school program for credit recovery and for a site-based program for students who are choosing not to behave in a way that is conducive to classroom based instruction to fall into. There also needs to be a strong off site alternative program. IN addition, at every step of the way there needs to be social workers and psychologists who can intervene and try to save the kids that can be saved. Everybody behaves the way they do for a reason. If we can determine the reason, that makes it possible to change the behavior, but we need the resources to change the behavior.

For those who want to talk about the cost of doing all of this, yes, it would be expensive, but Fang's last statement puts the cost in perspective.

The other thing I think we should change is our policy of allowing kids to drop out of school once they reach age 16. This is an antiquated idea, and no child of that age is old enough to make that decision about their life.

I think many troubled kids give up before age 16, because they know they can drop out a in a couple of years, and are just coasting until they can. They have no parent telling them they can't in many cases.

This falls into your statement about "School has to have meaning." I think some kids see this dropout thing as a solution in their life. If we want kids to see school as having meaning, that means we can't let them drop out at 16 just because they want to. The State has to place more meaning on education by not allowing kids that young to drop out.

We no longer have situations where farm kids need to drop out to help on the family farm, or kids needing to go to work in sweat shops to help their family survive.

Dropping out isn't necessarily a choice based on kids not wanting an education. Some kids might drop out because they are afraid to go to school, or are threatened in the environment.

I have a cousin whose son is gay. He wasn't in the worst school of all time either. He was bullied every day at school to the point that he wanted to kill himself. The school did nothing about it, even though it was brought to their attention. My cousin's son dropped out at age 16 just to get way from the bullying and violence towards him. Being a teenager, he wasn't responsible enough to follow up and get at GED, and he's struggled since keeping a job. He realizes now that it was a mistake to drop out of school, and not get a GED. However, he's caught in that cycle of needing to survive in a minimum wage job situation. He hasn't yet been able to right himself financially to be able to devote time to getting a GED. His mother is not in the position to help him either, because she struggles financially herself.

In sure in some urban schools, there are kids who drop out just to get away from the stressful environment.

My point is that kids, and their irresponsible parents, shouldn't be given such an easy out. By law, kids should have to stay in high school until they graduate, or unless they can legally prove there is some reason why they can't (functional learning disability). I am even hesitant to put an age limit on this because some kids might need to attend school past the age of 18. If they fail to attend school to order to graduate, then the parent must be called in front of a family court judge, and their children are then sent to a state-run boarding school that they cannot leave until they do.

The "out" must be finishing their education.

But again, we have to place a value on education to fund the alternatives.

The thing I always think of is the commonly-cited: "American imprisons more of its' own citizens than any other country." Is this really the country we want to be?

And that's mostly because of drug offenses. When I was in college, a fairly large number of students in my dorm were doing various drugs regularly--mostly pot, but also cocaine, LSD, and mushrooms. Probably the vast majority got blasted out of their minds on alcohol regularly as well, and I saw drinking cause as much trouble as doing any other drug.

Drug usage is not always a fair indicator of anything. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both did LSD in college.

http://theweek.com/article/index/248371 ... o-do-drugs

[Eon Blue]

I often wonder about year-round school. We spend quite a few resources on efforts over the summer to keep kids engaged and out of trouble when they have all of that extra free time. There are also a few studies about how much kids lose over summer from the previous year and how much time is spent at the beginning of the next just getting them back to where they were before summer started. Summer vacation is still likely a necessity in rural areas, but is there any good reason to have it in urban and suburban districts? I know the cost of operating schools for those three months is not insignificant, but not having to spend the money on summer extracurriculars would offset some of that, as well as hopefully not having to spend $50,000 a year to keep many of these students in prison later on.

[phxcat]

I often wonder about year-round school. We spend quite a few resources on efforts over the summer to keep kids engaged and out of trouble when they have all of that extra free time. There are also a few studies about how much kids lose over summer from the previous year and how much time is spent at the beginning of the next just getting them back to where they were before summer started. Summer vacation is still likely a necessity in rural areas, but is there any good reason to have it in urban and suburban districts? I know the cost of operating schools for those three months is not insignificant, but not having to spend the money on summer extracurriculars would offset some of that, as well as hopefully not having to spend $50,000 a year to keep many of these students in prison later on.

I've never taught year round, but I know people who have, and they have generally liked it. That being said, I don't think you would want to increase the school year much, if at all. Teaching is kind of like the buffering when downloading a video- you start out a little bit ahead of the game, and then you catch up with yourself and then you work to stay just ahead of the students, then you get a break where you can get ahead of yourself a little bit. Also, there needs to be an opportunity for kids to catch up when they fall behind.

What went into giving kids hope?

Have a long time friend who is working at one of the elementary schools absorbed by Independence SD. She is a retired ISD teacher. From what I can tell ISD saw what they were getting and needed to get the kids caught up. They put resources, like her, to give the kids some extra instruction to help them get up to grade level. Plus the did fix up the facilities so the buildings were bright instead of depressing. Guess, showed that someone cared.

How were they able to fire tenured staff?

Different employer.

I agree with much of this. I also think that it can be done with the rest of the district, but it may take these same wholesale changes. One thing I do wonder about, though, is that the article said that it is the same kids- I wonder how many VH kids had been using various means of doing so to attend WC or Truman and then went back to VH after the takeover? Or KCMO kids who had been going there who stayed in KCMO? I do not know the ethnic breakdown while part of KCMO, but the stats on the DESE website indicate that VH is an overwhelmingly white school, which seems like it would have been unlikely that that would have been the case in light of de-seg issues in KCMO.

[pstokely]

I often wonder about year-round school. We spend quite a few resources on efforts over the summer to keep kids engaged and out of trouble when they have all of that extra free time. There are also a few studies about how much kids lose over summer from the previous year and how much time is spent at the beginning of the next just getting them back to where they were before summer started. Summer vacation is still likely a necessity in rural areas, but is there any good reason to have it in urban and suburban districts? I know the cost of operating schools for those three months is not insignificant, but not having to spend the money on summer extracurriculars would offset some of that, as well as hopefully not having to spend $50,000 a year to keep many of these students in prison later on.

they'd have to pay teachers 12 months a year, they currently only pay them for 9-10 months, many teachers get part time work during the summer

[pstokely]

I often wonder about year-round school. We spend quite a few resources on efforts over the summer to keep kids engaged and out of trouble when they have all of that extra free time. There are also a few studies about how much kids lose over summer from the previous year and how much time is spent at the beginning of the next just getting them back to where they were before summer started. Summer vacation is still likely a necessity in rural areas, but is there any good reason to have it in urban and suburban districts? I know the cost of operating schools for those three months is not insignificant, but not having to spend the money on summer extracurriculars would offset some of that, as well as hopefully not having to spend $50,000 a year to keep many of these students in prison later on.

I've never taught year round, but I know people who have, and they have generally liked it. That being said, I don't think you would want to increase the school year much, if at all. Teaching is kind of like the buffering when downloading a video- you start out a little bit ahead of the game, and then you catch up with yourself and then you work to stay just ahead of the students, then you get a break where you can get ahead of yourself a little bit. Also, there needs to be an opportunity for kids to catch up when they fall behind.

What went into giving kids hope?

Have a long time friend who is working at one of the elementary schools absorbed by Independence SD. She is a retired ISD teacher. From what I can tell ISD saw what they were getting and needed to get the kids caught up. They put resources, like her, to give the kids some extra instruction to help them get up to grade level. Plus the did fix up the facilities so the buildings were bright instead of depressing. Guess, showed that someone cared.

How were they able to fire tenured staff?

Different employer.

I agree with much of this. I also think that it can be done with the rest of the district, but it may take these same wholesale changes. One thing I do wonder about, though, is that the article said that it is the same kids- I wonder how many VH kids had been using various means of doing so to attend WC or Truman and then went back to VH after the takeover? Or KCMO kids who had been going there who stayed in KCMO? I do not know the ethnic breakdown while part of KCMO, but the stats on the DESE website indicate that VH is an overwhelmingly white school, which seems like it would have been unlikely that that would have been the case in light of de-seg issues in KCMO.

VH is nearly 60% white, but still has 77% Free/Reduced Lunch, probably still more whiter and higher income than most KCMSD schools, Will they ever change the boundries of VH to include some of the Truman or WC attendance areas?

http://mcds.dese.mo.gov/guidedinquiry/D ... lYear=2010

[phxcat]

VH is nearly 60% white, but still has 77% Free/Reduced Lunch, probably still more whiter and higher income than most KCMSD schools, Will they ever change the boundries of VH to include some of the Truman or WC attendance areas?

http://mcds.dese.mo.gov/guidedinquiry/D ... lYear=2010

Right, what I was wondering is if it was always that way, if KCMOSD had to do some racial leveling within the district to account for race?