2 + 2 = 4
Today is the last day of a regional conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Educators from as close as Oklahoma City and as far as Australia have been leading upward of 200 workshops since Wednesday to examine how to analyze what students do and don’t understand about math and then use that information to teach them in more effective ways.
Among the presenters is Taft Middle School’s Heather Sparks, who became the state’s Teacher of the Year last month. She led a session yesterday involving robots, and is leading one this afternoon incorporating puppetry into algebra, spokeswoman Gaye Dillin told me.
What creative ways of learning math do you use or remember learning in the classroom?
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Stories that caught my attention: layoffs, boycott and confusion
-PERSONAL LOOK AT DISTRICT LAYOFFS: More than 60 central office employees in the Dallas school district were shown the door at the start of this week, and more cuts – including teachers - could be on the way later today as officials try to remedy an $84 million budget shortfall. Here’s a view on the situation from Donald Claxton, who briefly headed the communications department at Oklahoma City Public Schools under former Superintendent John Porter after working in the Dallas district.
-BOYCOTT MOVES TO THE BALL FIELD: An Illinois state senator from Chicago 
took his stab at school funding reform to last night’s playoff game between the Cubs and the Dodgers last night. Sen. James Meeks also led a student boycott of lower performing schools at the start of the year.
-CONFUSING STUDENT ASSESSMENTS: This Washington Post story talks about a literacy program’s assessments that start on a seemingly arbitrary scale of 2 to 16 and then switch to the letters J through P. I’m not questioning the scale or the program there, but the article did make me think about whether parents can always understand how their students are evaluated.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
A little brown bear and other favorite childhood books
State schools Superintendent Sandy Garrett is reading Don Freeman’s book “Corduroy” to students at Oklahoma City’s Mark Twain Elementary this morning.
The reading time with students is part of a national effort to break the world record for the number of children reading the same book with adults on the same day.
A nonprofit organization called Jumpstart is spearheading the “Read for the Record” event. Jumpstart also raises money to provide books to children in low-income families.
Some of my favorite books to read at the age of Garrett’s audience today — prekindergarten through second-grade children — were the “Amelia Bedelia” stories.
What are your favorite childhood books?
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Teaming up: Making a big school feel smaller
I reported for a story in today’s Oklahoman about single-grade centers and smaller teams within schools.
My middle school in Texas operated with a team system that was similar to what Charlie Bushyhead described as the setup at Union.
The sixth-graders at my middle school were on the “Energizer Team,” and the eighth-graders were on the “Power Team.” The seventh-graders were split between the two. Each team had its own set of core teachers, and we intermixed for electives and lunch.
What do you think of the teaming concept, or of breaking students in specific grades out into their own buildings? (Any incentive from a parent’s perspective to keep their freshmen daughters away from senior boys, perhaps?) Share your thoughts here.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Locked down: Too long or worthwhile precaution?
I talked to national school security experts yesterday for this story in today’s Oklahoman about the lockdown at Oklahoma City’s U.S. Grant High School.
Now that you know their views, share your own here. How do you feel about the ongoing lockdown?
(Comments are also still coming in about whether school shootings worry you. Scroll down or click here to add your thoughts on that subject.)
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Do school shootings worry you?
U.S. Grant High School student Hodauri Latifu McCoy was arrested Monday on a felony complaint of carrying a firearm in a school. An officer removed ammunition from the pistol, according to a police report.
No one was hurt, but all of the Oklahoma City School District is now on high alert.
And this morning, almost 5,000 miles away in Finland, a 22-year-old gunman killed 10 students in a classroom at a trade school before taking his own life.
Do school shootings worry you? What would ease your fears?
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Houston schools plan mirrors OKC ice storm recovery
Houston administrators plan to reopen about 120 of the district’s 300 schools tomorrow, and will roll out the rest as electricity is restored and damage repaired from Hurricane Ike, according to this Houston Chronicle story.
The list of open schools will be updated on the district’s Web site, and officials are thinking about how to make up the lost time.
This is similar to how Oklahoma City Public Schools recovered from the devastating ice storm last December – cancelling classes for a week, then opening all the buildings that were safe for children as they were ready.
Meanwhile, many commenters on the Chronicle story sounded off about what’s expected of teachers, and if it’s realistic or fair to expect them to all be back in the classroom at a moment’s notice while they’re still coping with the personal impact of the storm.
What advice would you share from your ice storm experience with parents and teachers in southern Texas as they roll out their school reopenings? Post it here.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Dinner time!
My family, when my brother and I still lived at home, used to eat dinner together most nights. This is a scenario that’s becoming more common, according to state Superintendent Sandy Garrett’s last weekly column.
Monday is “Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children,” a movement by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse and supported by Gov. Brad Henry by way of a proclamation, she wrote.
Click here to read the whole column. She puts out columns like this every Friday, so a new one will be out later today. To keep up, visit this Web page.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
What’s the purpose of a school board?
I blogged yesterday about the role public comments play at school board meetings. Today I’m following up with an answer for Kandis, who commented on the entry to ask for a defined purpose of a school board.
To answer her question, I called Jeff Mills, the new executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association.
I’ll start with his response about what a school board is: a local governing body of a school district whose members are either elected or appointed to represent the public. Now on to what they do.
“One of their main functions is to hire a superintendent or a CEO to run that organization. … Their other major responsibility is setting policy,” Mills told me.
He went on to explain: “If I’m a superintendent, I can set a directive or I can set an interoffice activity, but the board is responsible to set legal and legislative type policy to manage the district. … A school board wouldn’t necessarily be involved in the day-to-day operations — that’s what the superintendent or CEO is for.”
Now if you’re wondering just what types of policies he’s referring to, don’t worry, he elaborated. Such policy responsibilities can include everything from school safety to budgeting and expenditures, he said.
Oklahoma City School Board meeting, Sept. 2, 2008 / By Wendy K. Kleinman, The Oklahoman
Mills also talked about the public comments issue that started this conversation.
“There are public participation policies out there, and some of those may limit (comments) to three minutes or so — each one will vary — and they may limit the number of people who may speak on one topic,” Mills said, “for the simple reason that if you have no order you could be there all night.”
UPDATE: To answer a question this entry prompted, school board members’ phone numbers and addresses, at least for Oklahoma City Public Schools, are available to the public. They are listed on this site.
Keep the comments and questions coming!
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Who does a public school board meeting belong to: the board or the public?
Back at the Oklahoma City School Board’s Sept. 2 meeting, Chairman Kirk Humphreys said he doesn’t think patrons should be able to raise personnel issues during public comments, upsetting the few parents in attendance.
Although his comments were made a few weeks ago, I’m bringing them up now because of a column in the most recent issue of The School Administrator magazine, which I just received.
The column is by Nicholas Caruso with the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. You can read the whole piece here, but one line in particular intrigued me. He wrote:
The board meeting is a meeting held in public,
not a public meeting.
It seems to me that view aligns with Humphreys’ comments, while the parents I spoke with afterward said they feel as though the meetings belong to them.
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
