After years of not supporting public kindergarten, the School Board voted at the 5/21/07 meeting to study the options for implementing public kindergarten in town!!!!
One of the agenda items for the meeting was School Board Goals. We have a standard process each year to implement yearly goals, and this agenda item was a part of the normal process. A typical process flow is to set annual goals shortly after the election, set action items and schedules a month or two later, monitor the action items during the year, and then summarize the results at the end of the year. This agenda item was part of the step for setting action items and schedules.
We started the process this year by setting the goals shortly after the election. During that step in the process, I had proposed that the District study the implementation of public kindergarten in Milford. The purpose of the study was to identify the costs of the various options to see if there was a way to implement public kindergarten at a modest cost. This proposal was defeated by a vote of 2-2-1, with Bert Becker and I in favor of the study, Len Mannino and Bob Willette against the study, and Peter Bragdon abstaining due to his wife working at a private kindergarten. This lack of a three vote majority has been the norm for years on the Board.
I submitted a new proposal during this past meeting. The new proposal was very similar to the previous one, but there was a significant difference in the timing that led to it's passage. The key point was that after the previous motion was defeated, the state House of Representatives added half-day public kindergarten to the definition of an adequate education. The bill is now winding it's way through the legislative process and is currently undergoing review by the state Senate.
As of today, it seems reasonable to forecast that the bill that defines an adequate education will include half-day public kindergarten in the final language. There are two significant unknowns about this result: 1) if this will mean that half-day public kindergarten will be required to be offered by each school district, and 2) if the state will be required to pay for this requirement since it is an "unfunded new mandate."
Because there is a now a reasonable chance that the Milford School District will be required to offer half-day kindergarten to all students that want to attend, it makes sense for us to figure out how to accomplish this requirement. Len and Bob both changed their minds because of this potential looming requirement, and they voted in favor of the study.
The final language of the motion was "I move that the board adopt as a goal for the year that we investigate the costs, feasibility, advantages and disadvantages of potential public Kindergarten options. The purpose of this goal would be for the board to be able to have a proposal ready in the event that public Kindergarten in Milford is mandated by state law. The goal shall not make any recommendation for or against public Kindergarten."
The last sentence was added to my original motion to make it clear that the purpose of the investigation was to study the options, not to advocate for public Kindergarten. Both Len and Bob are philosophically against public Kindergarten, and they wanted it made clear that they were not voting in favor of public Kindergarten. They both voted in favor of the amended motion to show their support for being ready if we are required to move forward with offering public Kindergarten.
We will set up the action items and schedules for the goal at the next meeting. It is likely that this will take the form of appointing a committee to study the task with a report due by late October or so. This will give us the information needed to place a warrant article on next year's ballot.
There are three basic kindergarten options that will be reviewed:
1. Renovate the Bales Annex for use by First grade or Readiness classrooms, and put Kindergarten classes in the west end of the Jacques school. This needs to be done in this sequence since Kindergarten classrooms need to be slightly larger than First grade classrooms to qualify for building aid. This option would be the least expensive by far. The big negative for this one is that this will be a tight fit. There are only four classrooms in the Bales Annex, and for long term needs, five or six classrooms may be needed. The space issues need to be closely reviewed to determine if this option is viable, or if there is just not enough space to make it work.
2. Build a new Kindergarten building, probably on the Brox property somewhere near Heron Pond. This option will create the nicest facility, but would be the most expensive.
3. Find a facility somewhere in town that could be purchased and renovated into a Kindergarten facility. I have no idea if there is anything that is suitable that would be available, so this one might not even be a real option. We need to do a survey to determine if something is possible or not.
All in all, I was very pleased with the vote. I have been in favor of public Kindergarten for a very long time, and it now seems like we are on a path that will eventually lead to public Kindergarten in town.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
School Board Meeting May 21, 2007
The big news for the School Board meeting on 5/21/07 was the discussion about public kindergarten in Milford. I am going to make a separate post about that topic. This post will cover the rest of the meeting.
Superintendent’s Report
There were two student groups that made presentations during the meeting.
FBLA – Future Business Leaders of America
Chris McBrien gave the introduction for the group. Five members of the FBLA entered the state competition, and two of them did well enough to move on the National finals.
Andrew Curtis was named Who’s Who in FBLA, Thomas Finan finished third in Accounting II, and Lauren Lambert finished second in Word Processing I.
Hilary Scott placed first in Computer Applications, and Kendall Maggelet placed second in Accounting II. Both of them are moving on to the National Leadership Conference in Chicago at the end of June.
Congratulations to all!
Peace Jam
Beth Powers introduced the Peace Jam group from the High School. This is a new group at the school that has grown to about 20 members. I didn’t get all the names of the students that attended, but some of them were Ryan Willette, Zoe Torres, Zake LaFontaine, and Haley McCormack. (I may have spelled their names incorrectly, and I apologize in advance if that is the case.)
The Peace Jam group seems to have been very active. These are some of the activities that they have done this year:
The goals and objectives of the Wellness Committee were presented. There are a relatively large number of people on the committee, and they have been meeting on a regular basis. Bob Willette discussed his views that the goals and objectives are too weak and lacked specifics. He mentioned that he had voted against the document, but that most of the rest of the committee supported the document.
RSEC Committee Membership
Superintendent Suprenant asked for volunteers from the board for membership on the Regional Services Educational Center committee. Bob Willette had been a member previously. Milford belongs to the group, but we do not use their services very much since we mostly handle our special education needs in-district. No member volunteered for the committee at this time.
Capital Plan Review
Peter Bragdon reviewed our mid-range capital plans. The town does a capital plan each year, and they ask for input from the school district. We have limited near term capital expenditures planned, with most of the larger items such as Bales renovations, more high school renovations, and the middle school roof replacement, scheduled for around 2012 or so when some of our existing bonds are retired.
Asbestos Removal
We awarded the contract for asbestos removal at the high school as part of the renovations project to the low bidder – MARCOR Remediation. They have done work for us in the past, and they are a good outfit.
Policy Proposals
The policy review committee is proposing a fairly large rewrite of many of the Personnel policies. There are a lot of changes being proposed, but in total it seems straight-forward and non-controversial.
School Board Goals
The school board goals for the year that had been previously adopted were reviewed. Peter Bragdon presented a basic timeline for each for us to review and approve. Some were approved as-is, and others were modified somewhat. The five goals were:
At the conclusion of this discussion, I made a motion concerning Kindergarten, and there was a lot of discussion on the topic. I will cover this in a separate posting.
High School Renovations
The architect has met with Construction Manager candidates. He will make a presentation at the next board meeting, where we may select the CM.
Superintendent’s Report
There were two student groups that made presentations during the meeting.
FBLA – Future Business Leaders of America
Chris McBrien gave the introduction for the group. Five members of the FBLA entered the state competition, and two of them did well enough to move on the National finals.
Andrew Curtis was named Who’s Who in FBLA, Thomas Finan finished third in Accounting II, and Lauren Lambert finished second in Word Processing I.
Hilary Scott placed first in Computer Applications, and Kendall Maggelet placed second in Accounting II. Both of them are moving on to the National Leadership Conference in Chicago at the end of June.
Congratulations to all!
Peace Jam
Beth Powers introduced the Peace Jam group from the High School. This is a new group at the school that has grown to about 20 members. I didn’t get all the names of the students that attended, but some of them were Ryan Willette, Zoe Torres, Zake LaFontaine, and Haley McCormack. (I may have spelled their names incorrectly, and I apologize in advance if that is the case.)
The Peace Jam group seems to have been very active. These are some of the activities that they have done this year:
- Fundraising to support various activities.
- Sold fair trade coffee as a fundraiser
- Donated money to kiva.org. This is a group that makes microcredit loans to people around the world. They donated at least $500 to the group, and the money was loaned to about 8 different people around the world. All 8 are paying back their loans on schedule.
- Holding a meeting on Thursday night to highlight the problems in Darfur.
- Attended the national conference with several Nobel Laureates. Met the Dali Lama at the conference.
The goals and objectives of the Wellness Committee were presented. There are a relatively large number of people on the committee, and they have been meeting on a regular basis. Bob Willette discussed his views that the goals and objectives are too weak and lacked specifics. He mentioned that he had voted against the document, but that most of the rest of the committee supported the document.
RSEC Committee Membership
Superintendent Suprenant asked for volunteers from the board for membership on the Regional Services Educational Center committee. Bob Willette had been a member previously. Milford belongs to the group, but we do not use their services very much since we mostly handle our special education needs in-district. No member volunteered for the committee at this time.
Capital Plan Review
Peter Bragdon reviewed our mid-range capital plans. The town does a capital plan each year, and they ask for input from the school district. We have limited near term capital expenditures planned, with most of the larger items such as Bales renovations, more high school renovations, and the middle school roof replacement, scheduled for around 2012 or so when some of our existing bonds are retired.
Asbestos Removal
We awarded the contract for asbestos removal at the high school as part of the renovations project to the low bidder – MARCOR Remediation. They have done work for us in the past, and they are a good outfit.
Policy Proposals
The policy review committee is proposing a fairly large rewrite of many of the Personnel policies. There are a lot of changes being proposed, but in total it seems straight-forward and non-controversial.
School Board Goals
The school board goals for the year that had been previously adopted were reviewed. Peter Bragdon presented a basic timeline for each for us to review and approve. Some were approved as-is, and others were modified somewhat. The five goals were:
- Administrative Compensation Review – this will be done soon as we will be doing the Superintendent’s review soon, and we need this to set up his plan for the next year
- Contract Negotiations – We are negotiating with the new Milford Educational Support Staff Association bargaining unit. The goal is to have an agreement in place in time for the March ballot.
- Provide Oversight to Capital Projects – This is managing the high school renovation project
- Study Leftover Facilities Issues from Prior Year – this goal is to have something in place to be able to have a warrant article on the March ballot, if that is what we determine we want to do. One project is to create two building lots out of excess land near the Heron Pond school, and the other project is the potential purchase of the lot just north of the high school.
- Determine the future of the Bales building – We are going to have a committee work on this. The committee will be named in September or so, and be given about a year to review the options for Bales and to make a recommendation. Funding for renovations (if that is what is recommended) will probably not be available until 2012 or so.
At the conclusion of this discussion, I made a motion concerning Kindergarten, and there was a lot of discussion on the topic. I will cover this in a separate posting.
High School Renovations
The architect has met with Construction Manager candidates. He will make a presentation at the next board meeting, where we may select the CM.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
School Board Meeting Monday 5/7/07
Attendees
This was a fairly well attended meeting since there were several groups making appearances to ask for donations for trips to national contests.
Superintendent's Report
- The Milford Women's Club is disbanding, and they donated $150 for art supplies at Jacques.
- We received approval from the state to keep the last day of school for Seniors at 6/8, which allows the Graduation to stay on Saturday 6/9. We needed a waver since the recent no-school days due to flooding resulted in the Seniors being short by two days from the mandated amount.
- The last day of school for everyone else is Thursday 6/21.
- Rachel Arnold won the NH Letters About Women contest.
- The Southwest Music festival was held last Saturday at the Middle School, and was a big success.
- The Milford Christian Academy has had some financial difficulties in recent years, and as a result, they are changing their organizational structure to place an emphasis on home schooling. There are 21 Milford residents at the school spread out over many grades, so the impact would be low if the school closed and some students changed over to Milford Public Schools.
- Brittany Alperin won the Kaley speaking contest last year with a talk on Alzheimer research funding. After a series of events, she won a trip to Washington DC where she read her speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial to a large crowd.
Donation Requests
There are several groups that won state competitions that are moving on to national competitions. Some of them can to the board to ask for financial support for their trips.
1. There are three students that won History Club events. Judy Zaino (group advisor) gave an overview of the program.
A. Israel Piedra won first place Senior Individual Documentary for his 10 minute film "The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." He showed the film at the meeting, and it was extremely well done.
B. Mollie Staretorp won first place Senior Individual Paper for "Alfred Nobel: Explosive Tragedy to Humanitarian Triumph."
C. Adam LaGro won second place Senior Individual Documentary for his film “Bletchley Park: The Triumph of Allied Codebreakers.”
2. There are two teams going to the Destination Imagination Global Finals in Knoxville, TN. The Middle School team are performing in the CarDIology problem area, and the High School team is performing in the Extreme DI section. There are a total of 11 students going to the event. Cathy Chevalier (Elementary School Program Coordinator) gave an introduction to the group. Josh Clemons, Jillian Dargie, and Michael Dargie talked about their experiences on the Middle School team. Most of the other members were out fund-raising at the Fisher Cats concession stand and did not make the meeting.
3. There are two students going to the Skills USA championship in Kansas City. Ed Miller (Advisor) gave an overview of the program. A.J. Solon won for Machining, and Michael Jorgenson won for Extemporaneous Speaking. A.J. had received the highest score (937 out of 1,000) ever achieved by a Milford student. A.J. showed his Sterling engine model that he has been building from raw stock.
High School Renovation Project
David Lauren (Architect) reported on the status of the High School renovation project. It was decided that we will manage the program using a Construction Manager rather than by using a General Contractor. The driving force to this decision was that there is a possibility of receiving in-kind donations for the project, and this doesn't work very well with a GC approach. The other issue is that we might have to phase the project to work around school requirements, and this also does not work well with a GC approach.
We are going to have just one CM for all projects. This has several advantages - it lowers the overhead by eliminating duplication of various items such as bonding, and it minimizes the finger pointing when there are warranty issues after the jobs are complete.
We decided to postpone the appointments to the building committee until after the CM is chosen. Several of the people that have expressed interest in the committee work for CM companies, and they might have a conflict of interest.
David Lauren is going to develop a short list of CM candidates to present to the board. The board will choose the CM from the short list.
One of the critical path items is the site disturbance approvals needed from the state. The Football field/Track is the most complicated from an approvals standpoint. We will probably start work on the multipurpose field as the approvals process is much cleaner for that area.
It now appears that we will not be able to hold home football games this fall. The team should be able to practice on some area of the field, but it will not be suitable for an actual game. The administration is looking into alternate field availability for home games. The field should be done by the fall of 2008.
Lori Pitsas and Ron Carvell gave an update on the fundraising activities.
Perkins Funding - Career Development Specialist
Rosie Deloge gave a presentation on the need for bringing the current part-time Career Development Specialist to full-time status. The increase in the costs for this position will be covered by Perkins grant funding for at least three years.
Rosie made a convincing case for the justification of this position. After considerable discussion, the board voted to adopt her recommendation.
Heron Pond Building Fund
The fifth grade wing addition is complete, and there are only a few items that remain to be completed on the project. There is more money left in the fund than is needed to complete all the projects. The intent of the board is to return any excess funding to the taxpayers as soon as practical.
Steve Bancroft (Whitten Rd resident near the school) discussed his recent flooding problems from the pond next to the school. Steve has had water issues just about every year since Heron Pond was built, where he never had problems before then. Initially the problem was the beavers that were clogging the drainage culvert, and now it is just that the culvert is too small of a diameter to drain the swamp at times of high water.
When Heron Pond was first built, the culvert was designed with two larger sized pipes. The Army Corps of Engineers reviewed the plans, and required that the two larger pipes be replaced by one smaller pipe.
We have been discussing this problem every year, with the intent of finding a solution to the flooding problems. Money was allocated for the culvert fix in the budget for the fifth grade wing addition, but had not been spent for various reasons. It was decided to continue to allocate money for the culvert project, and the board encouraged the administration to try to fix the culvert this summer. This may not be feasible due to wetlands permitting time requirements, but they will try to get it done.
Up to $5k was also allocated to a study of the potential for a geothermal heat source project.
It was decided to not increase the height of the retaining wall on the slope at the rear of the school.
The administration was asked to find out if there was some way to add lighting to the Heron Pond road that would not be too expensive, and which could be used only on those few times each year when there are large functions at the school that require parking on the dark section of the road.
The administration was asked to get more details about the potential fixes for the windows that are difficult to open. We want to have a more definitive costing plan in place prior to deciding whether to fix the windows, and how many to fix (one per room or all of them).
Collective Bargaining
After the formal meeting was complete, the board held a "non-meeting" to discuss collective bargaining. Per the State RSA's, discussions of collective bargaining are non-meetings, and are not subject to Open meeting requirements.
The meeting lasted about three hours.
This was a fairly well attended meeting since there were several groups making appearances to ask for donations for trips to national contests.
Superintendent's Report
- The Milford Women's Club is disbanding, and they donated $150 for art supplies at Jacques.
- We received approval from the state to keep the last day of school for Seniors at 6/8, which allows the Graduation to stay on Saturday 6/9. We needed a waver since the recent no-school days due to flooding resulted in the Seniors being short by two days from the mandated amount.
- The last day of school for everyone else is Thursday 6/21.
- Rachel Arnold won the NH Letters About Women contest.
- The Southwest Music festival was held last Saturday at the Middle School, and was a big success.
- The Milford Christian Academy has had some financial difficulties in recent years, and as a result, they are changing their organizational structure to place an emphasis on home schooling. There are 21 Milford residents at the school spread out over many grades, so the impact would be low if the school closed and some students changed over to Milford Public Schools.
- Brittany Alperin won the Kaley speaking contest last year with a talk on Alzheimer research funding. After a series of events, she won a trip to Washington DC where she read her speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial to a large crowd.
Donation Requests
There are several groups that won state competitions that are moving on to national competitions. Some of them can to the board to ask for financial support for their trips.
1. There are three students that won History Club events. Judy Zaino (group advisor) gave an overview of the program.
A. Israel Piedra won first place Senior Individual Documentary for his 10 minute film "The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." He showed the film at the meeting, and it was extremely well done.
B. Mollie Staretorp won first place Senior Individual Paper for "Alfred Nobel: Explosive Tragedy to Humanitarian Triumph."
C. Adam LaGro won second place Senior Individual Documentary for his film “Bletchley Park: The Triumph of Allied Codebreakers.”
2. There are two teams going to the Destination Imagination Global Finals in Knoxville, TN. The Middle School team are performing in the CarDIology problem area, and the High School team is performing in the Extreme DI section. There are a total of 11 students going to the event. Cathy Chevalier (Elementary School Program Coordinator) gave an introduction to the group. Josh Clemons, Jillian Dargie, and Michael Dargie talked about their experiences on the Middle School team. Most of the other members were out fund-raising at the Fisher Cats concession stand and did not make the meeting.
3. There are two students going to the Skills USA championship in Kansas City. Ed Miller (Advisor) gave an overview of the program. A.J. Solon won for Machining, and Michael Jorgenson won for Extemporaneous Speaking. A.J. had received the highest score (937 out of 1,000) ever achieved by a Milford student. A.J. showed his Sterling engine model that he has been building from raw stock.
High School Renovation Project
David Lauren (Architect) reported on the status of the High School renovation project. It was decided that we will manage the program using a Construction Manager rather than by using a General Contractor. The driving force to this decision was that there is a possibility of receiving in-kind donations for the project, and this doesn't work very well with a GC approach. The other issue is that we might have to phase the project to work around school requirements, and this also does not work well with a GC approach.
We are going to have just one CM for all projects. This has several advantages - it lowers the overhead by eliminating duplication of various items such as bonding, and it minimizes the finger pointing when there are warranty issues after the jobs are complete.
We decided to postpone the appointments to the building committee until after the CM is chosen. Several of the people that have expressed interest in the committee work for CM companies, and they might have a conflict of interest.
David Lauren is going to develop a short list of CM candidates to present to the board. The board will choose the CM from the short list.
One of the critical path items is the site disturbance approvals needed from the state. The Football field/Track is the most complicated from an approvals standpoint. We will probably start work on the multipurpose field as the approvals process is much cleaner for that area.
It now appears that we will not be able to hold home football games this fall. The team should be able to practice on some area of the field, but it will not be suitable for an actual game. The administration is looking into alternate field availability for home games. The field should be done by the fall of 2008.
Lori Pitsas and Ron Carvell gave an update on the fundraising activities.
Perkins Funding - Career Development Specialist
Rosie Deloge gave a presentation on the need for bringing the current part-time Career Development Specialist to full-time status. The increase in the costs for this position will be covered by Perkins grant funding for at least three years.
Rosie made a convincing case for the justification of this position. After considerable discussion, the board voted to adopt her recommendation.
Heron Pond Building Fund
The fifth grade wing addition is complete, and there are only a few items that remain to be completed on the project. There is more money left in the fund than is needed to complete all the projects. The intent of the board is to return any excess funding to the taxpayers as soon as practical.
Steve Bancroft (Whitten Rd resident near the school) discussed his recent flooding problems from the pond next to the school. Steve has had water issues just about every year since Heron Pond was built, where he never had problems before then. Initially the problem was the beavers that were clogging the drainage culvert, and now it is just that the culvert is too small of a diameter to drain the swamp at times of high water.
When Heron Pond was first built, the culvert was designed with two larger sized pipes. The Army Corps of Engineers reviewed the plans, and required that the two larger pipes be replaced by one smaller pipe.
We have been discussing this problem every year, with the intent of finding a solution to the flooding problems. Money was allocated for the culvert fix in the budget for the fifth grade wing addition, but had not been spent for various reasons. It was decided to continue to allocate money for the culvert project, and the board encouraged the administration to try to fix the culvert this summer. This may not be feasible due to wetlands permitting time requirements, but they will try to get it done.
Up to $5k was also allocated to a study of the potential for a geothermal heat source project.
It was decided to not increase the height of the retaining wall on the slope at the rear of the school.
The administration was asked to find out if there was some way to add lighting to the Heron Pond road that would not be too expensive, and which could be used only on those few times each year when there are large functions at the school that require parking on the dark section of the road.
The administration was asked to get more details about the potential fixes for the windows that are difficult to open. We want to have a more definitive costing plan in place prior to deciding whether to fix the windows, and how many to fix (one per room or all of them).
Collective Bargaining
After the formal meeting was complete, the board held a "non-meeting" to discuss collective bargaining. Per the State RSA's, discussions of collective bargaining are non-meetings, and are not subject to Open meeting requirements.
The meeting lasted about three hours.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Factoid from Milford's Past
This is from page 170 of the History of Milford N.H. 1738-1901 by George Ramsdell.
1805. Caleb Jones died April 16, aged seventy-nine years. He was one of the early settlers locating upon the Mile slip soon after he became of age, and was one of the most eccentric persons ever residing in town. He planted and cultivated a cherry tree for the purpose of furnishing boards for his own coffin. After it had grown to sufficient size, he cut the tree and had it sawed into boards, from which the coffin in which he was buried, was made. He was succeeded on his farm by his son, Zadoc Jones, who in turn was succeeded by his son William, who now occupies the ancestral acres.
I first read this passage a couple of years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since. It's hard to imagine anyone doing something weird like this today.
I can just picture good ole Caleb looking out the window of his house and thinking to himself, Gee, I just had a great idea! I'm going to plant a cherry tree out there right now, and then cut it down in twenty years and make my own coffin!
I think that he took the old saw "If you want something done right, then do it yourself" to a new level.
1805. Caleb Jones died April 16, aged seventy-nine years. He was one of the early settlers locating upon the Mile slip soon after he became of age, and was one of the most eccentric persons ever residing in town. He planted and cultivated a cherry tree for the purpose of furnishing boards for his own coffin. After it had grown to sufficient size, he cut the tree and had it sawed into boards, from which the coffin in which he was buried, was made. He was succeeded on his farm by his son, Zadoc Jones, who in turn was succeeded by his son William, who now occupies the ancestral acres.
I first read this passage a couple of years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since. It's hard to imagine anyone doing something weird like this today.
I can just picture good ole Caleb looking out the window of his house and thinking to himself, Gee, I just had a great idea! I'm going to plant a cherry tree out there right now, and then cut it down in twenty years and make my own coffin!
I think that he took the old saw "If you want something done right, then do it yourself" to a new level.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Full-Day vs. Half-Day Kindergarten Programs
There has been debate for years in Milford regarding the inclusion of public kindergarten. However, I remain convinced that Milford needs to offer public kindergarten, and the sooner the better.
I think that one issue that has held back the incorporation of public kindergarten into Milford is that some voters have wanted to see convincing evidence that public kindergarten is advantageous as compared to private kindergarten. The problem with this is that it is difficult (perhaps impossible) to find any relatively recent peer-reviewed scholarship that identifies the value of offering public kindergarten as compared to private kindergarten. The reason for this is that public kindergarten has long since been considered by mainstream educators to be an integral part of public education, and that there is no controversy regarding the value of public kindergarten that needs studying. It is unfortunate that there remains a need for this type of analysis in New Hampshire.
There have been some studies that compare the value of full-day versus half-day public kindergarten programs since this is a topic that does not have a consensus opinion among educators. One fairly comprehensive analysis of data from the 1998-99 school year was published in 2004, and can be found at this URL:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/2004078.pdf
The title of this study was “Full-day and Half-day Kindergarten in the United States, Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99.” This 154 page document is chock full of all types of analysis about various kindergarten issues.
This is the beginning of the executive summary of the study:
“A major trend in kindergarten programs that has occurred in the past few decades is an increase in the prevalence of kindergarten classes that meet for the entire school day rather than just a part of the day. The increase has been attributed to various social, economic and educational factors. Increases in the number of single parent households and households with both parents working are commonly cited as important factors contributing to the need for full-day programs… Arranging childcare during the workday is less costly and less complicated for these families when the child is in school for the whole day rather than half of the day. Another rationale in support of full-day kindergarten is that children who have spent some of their pre-kindergarten years in nursery school classes or child care arrangements (often full-day) are ready for the cognitive, social and physical demands of a full-day kindergarten… Proponents of full-day kindergarten also emphasize the potential educational benefit—teachers have more time to get to know their children and individualize their instruction, and children have more time to acquire the early academic skills taught in kindergarten… In some cases, the move to full-day classes has been made to provide sufficient time for children to complete kindergarten curriculum that has become increasingly rigorous…”
One section that I found of particular interest was a chart that showed that from 1970 to 1998, there was a steady rise in the nationwide percentage of students attending full-day kindergarten as compared to half-day programs. The percentage going full-time rose from about 18% to about 56% during that time period.
Another finding of the study was that students attending full-day kindergarten programs had slightly better cognitive gains during the school year as compared to half-day programs.
The implication of the study is that full-day kindergarten programs provide benefits that make them worthwhile. It seems that the trend towards full-day programs will continue due to these advantages.
From my perspective, I would be happy to simply institute a half-day public kindergarten program in Milford, and leave it at that level for a long period of time. There is a large difference between no program and a half-day program, while the difference between a half-day program and a full-day program is much smaller.
I think that one issue that has held back the incorporation of public kindergarten into Milford is that some voters have wanted to see convincing evidence that public kindergarten is advantageous as compared to private kindergarten. The problem with this is that it is difficult (perhaps impossible) to find any relatively recent peer-reviewed scholarship that identifies the value of offering public kindergarten as compared to private kindergarten. The reason for this is that public kindergarten has long since been considered by mainstream educators to be an integral part of public education, and that there is no controversy regarding the value of public kindergarten that needs studying. It is unfortunate that there remains a need for this type of analysis in New Hampshire.
There have been some studies that compare the value of full-day versus half-day public kindergarten programs since this is a topic that does not have a consensus opinion among educators. One fairly comprehensive analysis of data from the 1998-99 school year was published in 2004, and can be found at this URL:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/2004078.pdf
The title of this study was “Full-day and Half-day Kindergarten in the United States, Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99.” This 154 page document is chock full of all types of analysis about various kindergarten issues.
This is the beginning of the executive summary of the study:
“A major trend in kindergarten programs that has occurred in the past few decades is an increase in the prevalence of kindergarten classes that meet for the entire school day rather than just a part of the day. The increase has been attributed to various social, economic and educational factors. Increases in the number of single parent households and households with both parents working are commonly cited as important factors contributing to the need for full-day programs… Arranging childcare during the workday is less costly and less complicated for these families when the child is in school for the whole day rather than half of the day. Another rationale in support of full-day kindergarten is that children who have spent some of their pre-kindergarten years in nursery school classes or child care arrangements (often full-day) are ready for the cognitive, social and physical demands of a full-day kindergarten… Proponents of full-day kindergarten also emphasize the potential educational benefit—teachers have more time to get to know their children and individualize their instruction, and children have more time to acquire the early academic skills taught in kindergarten… In some cases, the move to full-day classes has been made to provide sufficient time for children to complete kindergarten curriculum that has become increasingly rigorous…”
One section that I found of particular interest was a chart that showed that from 1970 to 1998, there was a steady rise in the nationwide percentage of students attending full-day kindergarten as compared to half-day programs. The percentage going full-time rose from about 18% to about 56% during that time period.
Another finding of the study was that students attending full-day kindergarten programs had slightly better cognitive gains during the school year as compared to half-day programs.
The implication of the study is that full-day kindergarten programs provide benefits that make them worthwhile. It seems that the trend towards full-day programs will continue due to these advantages.
From my perspective, I would be happy to simply institute a half-day public kindergarten program in Milford, and leave it at that level for a long period of time. There is a large difference between no program and a half-day program, while the difference between a half-day program and a full-day program is much smaller.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Virgina Tech - Lessons for Milford Schools
The tragic occurance at Virgina Tech was a horrible experience, but there are some lessons to be learned from it for Milford.
1. The key lesson to learn is that this could happen anywhere, at any time. It could just as easily have been Milford instead of Virgina Tech. There are people with mental defects everywhere, and they can snap at any time. Therefore, we need to continue to create and implement contingency plans to deal with as many situations as we can envision.
At least since Columbine, the Milford School District has worked each year to upgrade our overall security. There have been a series of initiatives to try to make things safer, and we need to continue to make safety improvements.
Some of the initiatives have been to add video cameras at each school, designing the Heron Pond School to enable effective lock-downs, requiring photo ID’s for everyone at the High School, signing up for the emergency phone system, locking the doors at all schools to limit access, and requiring all visitors to be buzzed in by office personnel.
One significant safety initiative will be implemented soon as one portion of the High School upgrade bond that was recently passed. This renovation will replace most of the doors in the building with new doors and hardware that allows the rooms to be locked from the inside each room. This is a key feature that will enable the school to safely go into an effective lock-down mode. Right now the doors can only be locked from the hallway side, which means that the person locking the door to the room would be exposed to a threat in the hallway. After the renovation, the rooms could be locked from inside the room without being exposed in the hallways. The windows on the new doors will also be limited in size, which will allow them to be covered so someone in the hallway would not be able to look into the room from the hallway.
Perhaps it makes sense to revisit some of our decisions to see if additional security upgrades are warranted. One possibility would be to add a second SRO (School Resource Officer) to the one that we have now. Officer Durham does a great job, but he can only be in one building at a time. He spends most of his time at the Middle School and that seems to work very well. Maybe we need to have another full-time SRO at the High School to be on hand to act quickly in an emergency. Another possibility is metal detectors at the High School. I have been adamantly against them in the past since they have a large operational cost and they don’t work very well, but they do work to some extent and perhaps they would make the difference. It is certainly worth discussing the pros and cons on them again to see if they would help.
2. Another lesson to learn is that it is better to over-react to a safety issue rather than try to find the best solution. There is a lot of second-guessing going on regarding the Virgina Tech response to the initial shootings. From my perspective, it seems that their response of just locking-down the building where the initial shooting occurred was reasonable based on what they knew at the time, but in retrospect, was the completely wrong answer. They would have been much better off if they had hit the panic button immediately instead of trying to be logical.
How does this relate to Milford? I think that it would be a good idea to have the administration make it known to everyone in authority that they should assume a worst case scenario whenever they are confronted with a situation that they don’t understand fully, and to act accordingly. The old saw “it is better to be safe than sorry” really applies to these types of situations. In today’s world, no one is going to second-guess a decision to go into lock-down mode when the evidence that prompted the lock-down is flimsy. Some judgment needs to be applied so that the panic button is not hit indiscriminately, but the message is that one should not try to be too logical and instead should focus on the potential downsides.
3. A third lesson is that we all need to be vigilant regarding potential warning signs that individuals may exhibit that point to future problems. In every population there are people with varying levels of mental problems, and we need to try to identify as soon as possible those that need help. Some people are a danger to others, and some are a danger to themselves. We need to worry about both scenarios and try to make a difference if possible.
I’m not sure what to do about this from a practical perspective. The district does have a solid special education department that works with students with apparent issues, but it is much more difficult to identify those students and faculty that seem to be progressing well on the surface, but have underlying issues that can surface at any time. I guess that the message is that we need to look below the surface, and probe when something seems amiss.
1. The key lesson to learn is that this could happen anywhere, at any time. It could just as easily have been Milford instead of Virgina Tech. There are people with mental defects everywhere, and they can snap at any time. Therefore, we need to continue to create and implement contingency plans to deal with as many situations as we can envision.
At least since Columbine, the Milford School District has worked each year to upgrade our overall security. There have been a series of initiatives to try to make things safer, and we need to continue to make safety improvements.
Some of the initiatives have been to add video cameras at each school, designing the Heron Pond School to enable effective lock-downs, requiring photo ID’s for everyone at the High School, signing up for the emergency phone system, locking the doors at all schools to limit access, and requiring all visitors to be buzzed in by office personnel.
One significant safety initiative will be implemented soon as one portion of the High School upgrade bond that was recently passed. This renovation will replace most of the doors in the building with new doors and hardware that allows the rooms to be locked from the inside each room. This is a key feature that will enable the school to safely go into an effective lock-down mode. Right now the doors can only be locked from the hallway side, which means that the person locking the door to the room would be exposed to a threat in the hallway. After the renovation, the rooms could be locked from inside the room without being exposed in the hallways. The windows on the new doors will also be limited in size, which will allow them to be covered so someone in the hallway would not be able to look into the room from the hallway.
Perhaps it makes sense to revisit some of our decisions to see if additional security upgrades are warranted. One possibility would be to add a second SRO (School Resource Officer) to the one that we have now. Officer Durham does a great job, but he can only be in one building at a time. He spends most of his time at the Middle School and that seems to work very well. Maybe we need to have another full-time SRO at the High School to be on hand to act quickly in an emergency. Another possibility is metal detectors at the High School. I have been adamantly against them in the past since they have a large operational cost and they don’t work very well, but they do work to some extent and perhaps they would make the difference. It is certainly worth discussing the pros and cons on them again to see if they would help.
2. Another lesson to learn is that it is better to over-react to a safety issue rather than try to find the best solution. There is a lot of second-guessing going on regarding the Virgina Tech response to the initial shootings. From my perspective, it seems that their response of just locking-down the building where the initial shooting occurred was reasonable based on what they knew at the time, but in retrospect, was the completely wrong answer. They would have been much better off if they had hit the panic button immediately instead of trying to be logical.
How does this relate to Milford? I think that it would be a good idea to have the administration make it known to everyone in authority that they should assume a worst case scenario whenever they are confronted with a situation that they don’t understand fully, and to act accordingly. The old saw “it is better to be safe than sorry” really applies to these types of situations. In today’s world, no one is going to second-guess a decision to go into lock-down mode when the evidence that prompted the lock-down is flimsy. Some judgment needs to be applied so that the panic button is not hit indiscriminately, but the message is that one should not try to be too logical and instead should focus on the potential downsides.
3. A third lesson is that we all need to be vigilant regarding potential warning signs that individuals may exhibit that point to future problems. In every population there are people with varying levels of mental problems, and we need to try to identify as soon as possible those that need help. Some people are a danger to others, and some are a danger to themselves. We need to worry about both scenarios and try to make a difference if possible.
I’m not sure what to do about this from a practical perspective. The district does have a solid special education department that works with students with apparent issues, but it is much more difficult to identify those students and faculty that seem to be progressing well on the surface, but have underlying issues that can surface at any time. I guess that the message is that we need to look below the surface, and probe when something seems amiss.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
School Board Meeting Monday 4/16/07
I've read several of the blogs in town for the past few months, and I've decided that I'd like to make some occasional postings on my own rather than just reply to the postings of others.
I expect that I will post on a variety of topics, but I plan to focus on school issues.
My first posting will be a summary of the school board meeting held on Monday 4/16/07:
Attendees
School had been canceled on Monday due to the floods in town, so the meeting was cut back somewhat. Some of the regular attendees did not make it to the meeting for various reasons and some of the scheduled topics were postponed.
The regular meeting attendees were Bob Suprenant (Superintendent), Peter Bragdon, Bob Willette, Len Mannino, and Paul Dargie. Bert Becker was sick and did not make the meeting. Tim Finan (our new Selectman) was the only member of the public in attendance.
High School Graduation Date
At the first April meeting, the board had decided that the High School graduation would be held on June 9th. It is standard practice to wait until the beginning of April to set the graduation date to ensure that the snow days were behind us. However, this year was different, with three no-school days since then. The Superintendent reported at the meeting that he is planning to petition the state to allow us to keep the graduation date on the 9th, despite the extra no-school days. He said that he was hopeful that the petition would be approved, since having no-school days at this time of year is rare. The main issue is that a graduation is a big deal, and people make plans around it. It is common for some relatives to have to travel a long distance to attend, and they have already started making arrangements. It is a major inconvenience to change the date once it has been established. So the net result is that the graduation is still scheduled for June 9th at this time.
High School Art Exhibit
The Superintendent reported that the annual High School Art Exhibit would be held on Thursday April 19th. There will be displays set up in the lobby to showcase a variety of art presentations.
Summer School Plans
An effort is being made to coordinate the district summer school plans with the Library. Meetings have been held with Michelle Sampson at the Library to try to improve the reading activities that are offered during the summer. The main focus is on helping students that are struggling with reading to try to minimize the loss that normally occurs over the summer months.
Student Management System
The current computerized student management system that is used by the district is having support problems, and the District is looking to switch to a different system. We are looking to switch to Powerschool, which has 32 users in New Hampshire and seems to be on more solid footing. It looks like most of the cost for switching over will be supported by entitlement grants.
One interesting feature that the new system would offer is the ability for parents to log into a password-protected area and view what their children are eating for lunch.
Full Time Career Development Specialist Request, Perkins Fund
Rosie Deloge, Director of Technical Studies, was scheduled to make a presentation on her request to fund a Career Development Specialist position using Perkins grant money. This presentation was postponed due to the bad weather.
Several members of the board made the comment that even though the position would be grant funded and would be at no charge to the taxpayers, that the position would need to be justified as if it were a new permanent position. The reason for this is that the Perkins funding will only last a few years, and it is likely that once a position is integrated into the system, it is hard to eliminate the position when the funding runs out.
Hearing to Receive and Expend Unanticipated Revenue
This is a standard procedure that is done at this time each year. When the budget for a school year is put together during the fall of the preceding year, an estimate is made of the revenues and expenses that will occur in areas that do not relate to property taxes. The two main areas are Food Service and Grant spending. There are always variations to the budget in these areas, and if money in excess of the budget is received, then we are not legally allowed to spend it without a hearing.
This year we received about $126,171 more than we had budgeted, so we needed to hold a hearing to allow us to spend the extra money. This money is grant money and can only be used for the specific purpose defined by the grant. If we do not spend the money as detailed in the grants, then we would just have to return it. Getting more grant money than expected is a very good thing for us, as it allows us to accomplish a variety of things that we would not normally be able to do.
Meeting Location
The Selectmen are upgrading the Selectman’s meeting room in town hall, and they informally offered to allow the School Board to hold their meetings there instead of the High School Library.
We discussed the pros and cons of this, and no decision was made. The biggest pro is that the room will soon have a very nice PEG access setup. The biggest negative is that the room is small and does not handle a large crowd.
Heron Pond Building Fund
No action was taken on this since Mike Trojano was not able to make it to the meeting. The basic idea is that 5th grade addition is mostly complete, and we want to wind up this fund.
Policy Proposals
Dispute procedure # 2409 was approved to a second reading with some minor modifications from the first reading. There was a lot of discussion surrounding the language describing the rights of individuals to contact the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights, with the net result being that the language was left in as drafted.
High school graduation requirements # 3531 was approved to a second reading with some minor modifications from the first reading.
High School Renovations - Architectural Services
Purchasing policy 2330 requires that there be three bids for purchases over $10,000, if feasible, unless waived by the School Board. Based on a number of factors, the board decided to waive this requirement for the hiring of the Architect for the High School renovation project. The main issue is that David Lauren has been working on the high school for years, and he has intimate knowledge of the issues surrounding the school. Since this is primarily a renovation project and not new construction, this specialized knowledge is very important in being able to cost effectively design the renovations that need to be done. The board authorized the Superintendent to negotiate with David Laurin to create a contract that is advantageous to the District.
The meeting only lasted for 1-½ hours due to some of the items on the agenda being postponed.
There was no need for a non-public meeting.
I expect that I will post on a variety of topics, but I plan to focus on school issues.
My first posting will be a summary of the school board meeting held on Monday 4/16/07:
Attendees
School had been canceled on Monday due to the floods in town, so the meeting was cut back somewhat. Some of the regular attendees did not make it to the meeting for various reasons and some of the scheduled topics were postponed.
The regular meeting attendees were Bob Suprenant (Superintendent), Peter Bragdon, Bob Willette, Len Mannino, and Paul Dargie. Bert Becker was sick and did not make the meeting. Tim Finan (our new Selectman) was the only member of the public in attendance.
High School Graduation Date
At the first April meeting, the board had decided that the High School graduation would be held on June 9th. It is standard practice to wait until the beginning of April to set the graduation date to ensure that the snow days were behind us. However, this year was different, with three no-school days since then. The Superintendent reported at the meeting that he is planning to petition the state to allow us to keep the graduation date on the 9th, despite the extra no-school days. He said that he was hopeful that the petition would be approved, since having no-school days at this time of year is rare. The main issue is that a graduation is a big deal, and people make plans around it. It is common for some relatives to have to travel a long distance to attend, and they have already started making arrangements. It is a major inconvenience to change the date once it has been established. So the net result is that the graduation is still scheduled for June 9th at this time.
High School Art Exhibit
The Superintendent reported that the annual High School Art Exhibit would be held on Thursday April 19th. There will be displays set up in the lobby to showcase a variety of art presentations.
Summer School Plans
An effort is being made to coordinate the district summer school plans with the Library. Meetings have been held with Michelle Sampson at the Library to try to improve the reading activities that are offered during the summer. The main focus is on helping students that are struggling with reading to try to minimize the loss that normally occurs over the summer months.
Student Management System
The current computerized student management system that is used by the district is having support problems, and the District is looking to switch to a different system. We are looking to switch to Powerschool, which has 32 users in New Hampshire and seems to be on more solid footing. It looks like most of the cost for switching over will be supported by entitlement grants.
One interesting feature that the new system would offer is the ability for parents to log into a password-protected area and view what their children are eating for lunch.
Full Time Career Development Specialist Request, Perkins Fund
Rosie Deloge, Director of Technical Studies, was scheduled to make a presentation on her request to fund a Career Development Specialist position using Perkins grant money. This presentation was postponed due to the bad weather.
Several members of the board made the comment that even though the position would be grant funded and would be at no charge to the taxpayers, that the position would need to be justified as if it were a new permanent position. The reason for this is that the Perkins funding will only last a few years, and it is likely that once a position is integrated into the system, it is hard to eliminate the position when the funding runs out.
Hearing to Receive and Expend Unanticipated Revenue
This is a standard procedure that is done at this time each year. When the budget for a school year is put together during the fall of the preceding year, an estimate is made of the revenues and expenses that will occur in areas that do not relate to property taxes. The two main areas are Food Service and Grant spending. There are always variations to the budget in these areas, and if money in excess of the budget is received, then we are not legally allowed to spend it without a hearing.
This year we received about $126,171 more than we had budgeted, so we needed to hold a hearing to allow us to spend the extra money. This money is grant money and can only be used for the specific purpose defined by the grant. If we do not spend the money as detailed in the grants, then we would just have to return it. Getting more grant money than expected is a very good thing for us, as it allows us to accomplish a variety of things that we would not normally be able to do.
Meeting Location
The Selectmen are upgrading the Selectman’s meeting room in town hall, and they informally offered to allow the School Board to hold their meetings there instead of the High School Library.
We discussed the pros and cons of this, and no decision was made. The biggest pro is that the room will soon have a very nice PEG access setup. The biggest negative is that the room is small and does not handle a large crowd.
Heron Pond Building Fund
No action was taken on this since Mike Trojano was not able to make it to the meeting. The basic idea is that 5th grade addition is mostly complete, and we want to wind up this fund.
Policy Proposals
Dispute procedure # 2409 was approved to a second reading with some minor modifications from the first reading. There was a lot of discussion surrounding the language describing the rights of individuals to contact the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights, with the net result being that the language was left in as drafted.
High school graduation requirements # 3531 was approved to a second reading with some minor modifications from the first reading.
High School Renovations - Architectural Services
Purchasing policy 2330 requires that there be three bids for purchases over $10,000, if feasible, unless waived by the School Board. Based on a number of factors, the board decided to waive this requirement for the hiring of the Architect for the High School renovation project. The main issue is that David Lauren has been working on the high school for years, and he has intimate knowledge of the issues surrounding the school. Since this is primarily a renovation project and not new construction, this specialized knowledge is very important in being able to cost effectively design the renovations that need to be done. The board authorized the Superintendent to negotiate with David Laurin to create a contract that is advantageous to the District.
The meeting only lasted for 1-½ hours due to some of the items on the agenda being postponed.
There was no need for a non-public meeting.
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