What Matters Most? The Students, or....
Sometime between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning (entries on the District's website are not time-dated, and I do not check it daily), the Elwood School District posted a very important notice.
Those of you who followed the activities of this year's extraordinarily difficult budget-setting process know how hard the Board worked to creatively find ways to retain as much educational content as possible, even while being forced by economic circumstances to cut back the Kindergarten program from Full-Day to Half-Day.
But, you may also remember the dialogue, chiefly among former Ass't Sup't for Human Resources Ron Friedman, and Superintendent Peter Scordo, and Trustee Dan Ciccone, regarding the possibility of teachers union impediments to the Board's creative proposals.
In other words, for the proposals to succeed it would require the consent -- or at least the non-objection -- of the teachers union, which also means that they would have to put the interests of the kindergarten students, and their parents, and the welfare of the District and its residents, ahead of their own parochial interests.
Interestingly, though I'm not sure whether it is from a sense of realizing the irony or instead a more disturbing observation of the possible cynicism, you may also recall that when Full Day Kindergarten was being pushed, very hard, from a Harley perspective, former Principal Virginia Cancroft invited a number of her teachers, on various occasions, to address the Board and the community. Several of those teachers expressed a view that a Full Day Kindergarten program was important for those children who might otherwise lag a bit behind their peers, and that having additional time and an opportunity for extra learning could be essential.
However, with the teachers union's recent rejection of any "no-strings-attached" creative use of teaching assistants, to educationally supplement the necessitated reduction to a Half Day Program, one would have to question whether the original rationale was actually more important for the students, or more important for the teachers union and their members.
The memo, in its depressing candor, is provided, below, in its entirety, for your convenient reference.
As is made clear in the referenced letter from attorney John Gross, which one can obtain by clicking the link through the website announcement, in order to achieve this creative modification, the District would instead have to negotiate a separate agreement with our teachers union, Elwood Teachers Alliance, and I would roughly translate that as "give the union something else" in order for the kids to get a break.
So much for the role of creativity and caring about the children.
.................................................
[Notice posted on the District website]
Sometime between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning (entries on the District's website are not time-dated, and I do not check it daily), the Elwood School District posted a very important notice.
Those of you who followed the activities of this year's extraordinarily difficult budget-setting process know how hard the Board worked to creatively find ways to retain as much educational content as possible, even while being forced by economic circumstances to cut back the Kindergarten program from Full-Day to Half-Day.
But, you may also remember the dialogue, chiefly among former Ass't Sup't for Human Resources Ron Friedman, and Superintendent Peter Scordo, and Trustee Dan Ciccone, regarding the possibility of teachers union impediments to the Board's creative proposals.
In other words, for the proposals to succeed it would require the consent -- or at least the non-objection -- of the teachers union, which also means that they would have to put the interests of the kindergarten students, and their parents, and the welfare of the District and its residents, ahead of their own parochial interests.
Interestingly, though I'm not sure whether it is from a sense of realizing the irony or instead a more disturbing observation of the possible cynicism, you may also recall that when Full Day Kindergarten was being pushed, very hard, from a Harley perspective, former Principal Virginia Cancroft invited a number of her teachers, on various occasions, to address the Board and the community. Several of those teachers expressed a view that a Full Day Kindergarten program was important for those children who might otherwise lag a bit behind their peers, and that having additional time and an opportunity for extra learning could be essential.
However, with the teachers union's recent rejection of any "no-strings-attached" creative use of teaching assistants, to educationally supplement the necessitated reduction to a Half Day Program, one would have to question whether the original rationale was actually more important for the students, or more important for the teachers union and their members.
The memo, in its depressing candor, is provided, below, in its entirety, for your convenient reference.
As is made clear in the referenced letter from attorney John Gross, which one can obtain by clicking the link through the website announcement, in order to achieve this creative modification, the District would instead have to negotiate a separate agreement with our teachers union, Elwood Teachers Alliance, and I would roughly translate that as "give the union something else" in order for the kids to get a break.
So much for the role of creativity and caring about the children.
.................................................
[Notice posted on the District website]
Kindergarten Update
As many community members are aware, the 2011-12 budget approved by voters in mid-May calls for a reduction in the district’s kindergarten program from the current full-day program to a half-day session.
An innovative and cost-effective solution was sought by the Board of Education that would minimize this partial loss of program by moving forward with a supplemental half-day “Kinder-skills” session that utilized teaching assistants instead of teachers. The teaching assistants would appropriately be supervised by a teacher as well as building and central administration.
Unfortunately, this program met opposition from the Elwood Teachers’ Alliance, and after extensive investigation and consultation with legal counsel, we have been advised that this option is not possible because it would be formally challenged as an improper work practice under the existing collective bargaining agreement (you can read the attorney memo here). Furthermore, based on precedent, it is likely that defending this challenge would be costly and, ultimately, unsuccessful.
We are disappointed by the loss of our full-day kindergarten program, but acknowledge that difficult choices must be made under the financial circumstances that exist. We will continue to explore creative ways of implementing important programs for our students and hope that the entire school community will embrace new endeavors in the future.
