What Are You Doing About Becoming Tech Savy?

Edutopia has a good article about what you can be doing to become technology savy. Read all about it by clicking here.

Should Rock Hill School Board Cut Out National Board Pay?

The Rock Hill School Board will meet tonight (Monday, July 27, 2009) beginning at 6 pm in the School District Office. Primary items for discussion will be continuing National Board Pay (for newly certified) and the Superintendents annual evaluation (executive session). The agenda is as follows:

Meeting of the Board of Trustees
Monday, July 27, 2009
6:00 p.m. – District Office Board Room

A G E N D A

I. Call to Order Approval of Agenda
(Under consent agenda, all action items will be voted on after one motion and second to approve them without discussion. If a board member wants any action item discussed or voted on separately, the board member, before the agenda is approved, must ask that the action item be moved to the discussion item section.)

II. Citizen Participation

III. Executive Session - Personnel (Administrative Recommendations)

IV. Special Business

V. Consent Action Agenda
A. Approval of Minutes
1. June 22, 2009 business meeting
2. July 13, 2009 board retreat
B. Approval of Personnel Recommendations (23 new teachers)
C. Approval of Overnight Field Trip Requests (5)
D. District Corrective Action Plan (required by law)

VI. Communications

VII. Report of the Superintendent
A. Announcements
B. Summer School Report
C. WIA (Workforce Investment Act) Grant

VIII. Review of Board Retreat

IX. Action Agenda
A. National Board Supplement for New Applicants
B. Long Term Facility Use for Central Child Development Center Annex
C. Build America Board Resolution (To get reduced bond rates)
D. School Law Conference approval for Ann Reid

X. Other Business

XI. Executive Session - Personnel (Superintendent Evaluation)

Supplemental information on National Board Pay:

As a means of being able to determine an amount to budget for state National Board supplements, the state legislature voted to limit the number of $2500 loans that will be issued in a given fiscal year to 1,100. The purpose of this action was solely for budgeting purposes and not for the purpose of discouraging teachers to achieve NB status, especially since individuals who pay their own application fee and achieve NB certification can still
receive the state supplement. In the past, there was an unlimited number of loans available during a specific time frame, or "loan window," in which a teacher could apply, making an estimate of the amount to budget for supplements difficult to project. With this adjustment in the law, the state will include each year an additional $8,250,000 (plus fringe) for new National Board teachers to receive a $7,500 supplement.

Since 1999, this district has awarded National Board teachers an additional $3,000 supplement over what they received from the state. While it is difficult to project the number of new candidates in a given year, the district does have knowledge of existing candidates from year to year and can estimate an amount to include in the budget by looking at historical data. For instance, the number of National Board teachers has grown from 9 in
1999 to around 225 in 2008-09, with an average of 22 new teachers being added each year. Thus, the amount necessary to apply the local supplement has climbed from $32,400 (including fringe) in 1999 to around $810,000 (including fringe) in 2008-09.

New Addition of Shift Happens

New Addition of "Shift Happens"

Terry Holliday Picked as Top Educator in Kentucky

Terry Holliday, former Fort Mill band director and Rock Hill Associate Superintendent has been selected as Kentucky's State Commissioner of Education. Read the announcement in the Statesville Record & Landmark.

Rock Hill School Board To Discuss National Board Pay

The Rock Hill School Board, possibly as early as the July Business Meeting, may be deciding to drop the National Board supplemental pay for "newly" certified teachers. The pay is currently $3,000 per year (from the district). Fort Mill has already dropped their supplemental pay for new teachers and most districts do not offer additional incentives. The driver for this action is finding a way to balance the budget in future years.

What Do Rock Hill Schools Mean By Balance?

The recent Rock Hill School Board activity on developing a school assignment policy based on "balance" requires a discussion on what "balance" is. The dictionary says:

2: a means of judging or deciding3: a counterbalancing weight, force, or influence5 a: stability produced by even distribution b: equipoise between contrasting, opposing, or interacting elements c: equality between the totals 6 a: an aesthetically pleasing integration of elements

A lot of folks would think if the schools are "balanced", they would have the demographics that represent the district. Unfortunately, this is not possible because our district is not evenly distributed, coupled with the fact some of our elementary schools are small. Variation in our elementary schools can be quite a lot, even when we say they are "balanced". The district has used a difference of +/- 15% to indicate balance for elementary schools. Using this variation, we currently have two schools out of "balance", Belleview(H) and Northside(H). If you change the parameter and use a one sigma variation, we'd have six additional schools out of "balance":, Mt. Gallant(L), Oakdale(H), Old Pointe(L), Dutchman Creek(L), Rawlinson Road(L), and South Pointe(H). The one sigma variation for schools (based on free & reduced lunch) would be 12.5% for elementary schools, 7.2% for middle schools, and 2.2% for high schools. But, do these numbers really give us balance? Experts say there is a lot of difference between free lunch and reduced lunch - should we be making a distinction between the two? And what about non whites (the new minority)? Should that be taken into consideration?

As you can see, the answers are not clear cut.

Should Parents Pick Their Child's Teacher?

Teacher Magazine has an interesting article on picking your child's teacher. You can get to the article by clicking here. I believe you will have to register to be able to read the entire article. A portion is below:

"After doing some research, including sitting in on classrooms, Valerie Gilbert thought she knew which third-grade teacher would be perfect for her son, Stanley.

Impressed by that teacher's creative, visually stimulating style, the Berkeley, Calif., mother lobbied on Stanley's behalf. "I did my best to make my opinion known," Gilbert said.

The school, however, placed Stanley in a different class. And to his mother's surprise and delight, the year wound up being so successful for him that Gilbert said she is approaching his pending entry into fourth grade in a new way: by vowing to stay out of the process."

"Children learn important life lessons — how to be resilient and adapt to a range of situations — when required to roll with the punches, Donahue said.

"Our kids are capable and they can cope," he said, adding that in general parents should do less for their kids to help make them stronger as individuals. While a small percentage of children with special needs may benefit from more parental involvement, most kids are bound sometime in life to be in situations that are less than ideal and "they have to learn to deal with it.""