Robin Hill celebrates playground completion
Robin Hill School District’s parent-teacher association will host a grand opening for the school’s new playground 11 a.m. Feb. 23 at the school, 4801 E Franklin Road.
Parents and students have spent the last two years raising the more than $50,000 needed to purchase and install the new equipment. The old equipment was beyond repair, according to school officials.
Robin Hill School District is located between Moore and Norman. The school has about 200 students enrolled in prekindergarten through eighth grades.
The playground’s color theme is red, white, and blue. Students will release balloons in the same colors at the grand opening.
“We are very proud of our group’s accomplishment in reaching our goals for this playground project and want to share this joy with our community,” said Betty Chagaris, PTA president.
Children join walk to school effort for a day
I was up earlier than usual this morning to cover International Walk to School Day. I went to Western Village Academy, a charter school in northwest Oklahoma City that accepts all students in the neighborhood.
The morning weather was brisk – cool enough that I could see my breath when I reached the school just after 7 a.m. – but invigorating, too.
You can read more about the walk at Western Village and watch a video about it tomorrow on NewsOK.com.
In the meantime, I’d like to know: Did you walk to school growing up, and do you let your children walk now?
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
Hurricane Ike and the Teacher of the Year
Hurricane Ike’s waves are still rippling.
Toyota representatives who came to Oklahoma City to present a hybrid Prius to the 2009 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year today weren’t present at the ceremony.
They were with Gulf States Toyota — based in Houston — and had to return home to clean up from Ike, said Tim O’Toole, president and general manager of the Oklahoma State Fair.
O’Toole extended some words of thanks and hope to the representatives and others in the hurricane’s path before stepping aside for the teacher recognition program to continue.
Check out NewsOK.com and tomorrow’s Oklahoman for more about the state’s new Teacher of the Year, math teacher Heather Sparks of Taft Middle School in Oklahoma City.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Gun-free, idle-free schools
Schools already are designated gun-free, drug-free zones, and West Virginia is moving toward adding “idle-free” to the list.
The state’s Department of Environment Protection is entering the second year of a program that provides school boards, Head Start programs and private schools with signs declaring them idle-free, according to this Charleston Daily Mail story.
The state already prohibits school buses from idling unless it’s below 40 degrees outside. Officials hope the signs will encourage parents to do the same.
Are financial or environmental concerns enough to convince you to cut your engine while you wait for your children to get out of school? Share your comments here.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
New York, New York
When New Yorkers say that 90 degrees is sweltering, I’ll no longer look at our weather map of triple-digit temperatures and scoff.
Here, we go from an air conditioned house to an air conditioned car to an air conditioned workplace.
In New York City at an education seminar this past weekend, I went from an air conditioned hotel to a subway station more appropriately referred to as a sauna, then up the stairs to conquer a few more blocks of pavement before reaching my air conditioned destination.
All with my laptop bag on my shoulder. So heat is all relative. This is one of the things I learned at the Hechinger Institute’s seminar for new education reporters.
Lifestyle differences aside, I learned an incredible amount about reporting on education. I was an eager student for three days, absorbing everything I could from the speakers and taking copious notes for everything I could possibly need to review later on.
I want to share a few interesting notes with you.
Oklahoma singled out
First, Oklahoma got a shout-out in a session about prekindergarten.
Albert Wat with Pre-K Now cited the Sooner State in his presentation for having at least 70 percent of eligible students enrolled statewide. We’re one of only three states (Georgia and Florida are the others) to enroll more than 50 percent of all 4-year-olds.
He specifically talked about Tulsa, where a study showed that all races of students gained from one year of enrollment, and noted that Oklahoma pre-K teachers are paid equivalent to K-12 teachers, which he said doesn’t often happen.
A few degrees of separation
There was another Oklahoma tie in the presentation about academic rigor, even if by a stretch.
One of the two presenters was Jerry Weast, superintendent of Montgomery County Schools.
If that school district sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the last place John Porter worked before moving from Maryland to Oklahoma for his abbreviated tenure as superintendent of Oklahoma City schools.
Working in uni(s)on
Another highlight was hearing from Randi Weingarten, who was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers just five days earlier.
Weingarten advocated for “real collaboration” — politically and practically.
Politically, that means doing reform with teachers, not to teachers, she said. And practically, she’d like to see a collaboration of services that put after-school enrichment, medical clinics and parent help in the school building.
‘Physicians of the mind’
During the Q&A afterward, I asked Weingarten what she thought the union’s role is in recruiting enough teachers in the first place.
“In this instance, money does matter a lot,” she answered. After boosting starting teacher salaries in New York City by more than $5,000 in 2005, the hiring halls were filled and the number of uncertified teachers fell from 17 to 2 percent, she said.
Teachers want to be treated as professionals in their quest to better the lives of their students and the institutions in which they work, she said, adding that “teachers are physicians of the mind.”
Upon reflection
I’m thankful for the opportunities I had to learn from and network with experts and colleagues across the nation, and I can’t wait to start putting all my newfound story ideas and tips to work.
It was all made possible by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University’s Teachers College, which is supported by various philanthropies, including the well known Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Oh, and I’m also thankful I won’t have to wait in underground, un-air conditioned subway stations again any time soon.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Lights out
An economic squeeze and environmental awareness are generating incentives for schools to cut back their energy usage.
For instance, a Texas-based program called Watt Watchers encourages selected students to monitor classrooms, rewarding those that turn off lights at times like lunch and recess and leaving reminder notes on the doors of energy offenders.
In Hawaii, the education department recently notified more than 100 schools that they can receive rebates of between $2 and $45,000 for saving electricity. Another hundred-plus schools, though, have to reimburse the state thousands of dollars for excessive energy usage.
In Oklahoma, two education centers are listed on BuildGreenSchools.org as being registered with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design): Oklahoma City Educare and Fort Sill’s Child Development Center.
What kind of incentives do you think would get Oklahoma schools to cut back their energy consumption?
I’d like to hear your ideas – especially from students – so share them here on NewsOK’s Education Station.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
Putting down roots
One week. It’s how long Oklahoma spends observing Arbor Day, and it’s how long people have left to get a free tree for fourth-graders to plant for the occasion.
I’ve never been very good at keeping indoor greenery alive. It seems I don’t put them in a place to get enough sunlight or I forget to water them one day. But outdoor trees get all the light there is from sunup to sundown and get water from either the rain or, in a dry spell, the sprinkler put out for the lawn.
Now, for the cost of shipping alone — $1.59 — Fourth Grade Foresters USA will send schools an individually packaged evergreen tree seedling to give a student to take home and plant.
Any person, organization or company can sponsor a tree, which will be sent with the sponsor’s name to a nearby school.
The trees are unsold seedlings that would otherwise be destroyed, and they are packaged by adults with disabilities through the Free Trees and Plants project (www.freetreesandplants.com).
Oklahoma Arbor Week is the last full week in March, and the deadline to sponsor a tree for a youngster is Feb. 23. To do so, contact Sarah Henne at 866-390-1428 or sehenne@neb.rr.com.
And if you have any tips on how I can improve my own green thumb, send them to me at wkleinman@oklahoman.com.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
E is for Ecology
Some Stillwater third-graders are growing green thumbs while they boost brain power.
Two volunteers from the Oklahoma State University Botanical Garden are leading the Literature in the Garden program at Skyline Elementary School. The curriculum aims to engage students through garden and ecology-themed children’s books.
Volunteer Merry Alexander said she wants to instill in students a love of reading and plants. She said children don’t always understand how important plants are to their lives and the earth.
Student activities have included touring the OSU garden, creating seed balls to grow and eating “dirt,” a mixture of candy and crackers that simulated the earth’s layers.
I’m not much of a green thumb myself, so those activities sound like a fun way to encourage interest in plant life. Too bad my flower beds aren’t full of M&Ms.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
Pomp and Pageantry
UCO President Roger Webb generated chuckles today when talking to faculty about the university’s many accomplishments.
Chief among them was the crowning of UCO student Lauren Nelson as Miss America 2007. The reigning Miss Black Oklahoma and Mrs. Oklahoma also were UCO students.
The Edmond campus attracts brains AND beauty, Webb said.
“If you’ve got a son that’s a senior in high school, this is the place to be,” Webb quipped at the annual fall meeting of staff and faculty.
Executive Vice President Steve Kreidler had beauty on the brain as well. Before touting the university’s environmental efforts, he gave the signature Miss America wave to the audience — hand cupped then rotated slowly.
Thank goodness it wasn’t the ballgown competition.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
