Ypsilanti Voters: Vote Yes Tuesday May 2nd, 2017

Did you know there was an election coming up this Tuesday, May 2nd? Well, there is. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Both Ann Arbor schools and Ypsilanti schools have proposals on the ballot. [So if you live in the school district, you need to vote. It's not about whether you live in the city.]

Find your polling place here.

If you are a voter living within the light purple boundaries, you need to vote!

Key Facts About the Ypsilanti Community Schools Proposal

1. Ypsilanti's proposal is really pretty simple. It is a renewal of a millage. It is basic maintenance of the status quo.

2. IF THE MILLAGE DOES NOT PASS, YCS will lose $2,370 per pupil each year.

3. 100% principal residential dwellings are not affected. This is a millage on what are called non-homestead uses. Non-homestead=industrial, business, second homes.

So please--vote yes.

This proposal will allow the school district to continue to levy the statutory rate of not to exceed 18 mills on all property, except principal residence and other property exempted by law, required for the school district to receive its revenue per pupil foundation allowance.  The remaining .5 mill is only available to be levied to restore millage lost as a result of a reduction required by the “Headlee” amendment to the Michigan Constitution of 1963, and will only be levied to the extent necessary to restore that reduction. 

Shall the currently authorized millage rate limitation on the amount of taxes which may be assessed against all property, except principal residence and other property exempted by law, in Ypsilanti Community Schools, Washtenaw County, Michigan, be renewed by 18 mills ($18.00 on each $1,000 of taxable valuation) and also be increased by .5 mill ($0.50 on each $1,000 of taxable valuation), for a period of 5 years, 2018 to 2022, inclusive, to provide funds for operating purposes; the estimate of the revenue the school district will collect if the millage is approved and 18 mills are levied in 2018 is approximately $25,816,000 (18 mills of the above is a renewal of millage that will expire with the 2017 levy and .5 mill is an increase in millage which will only be levied to the extent necessary to restore millage lost as a result of a reduction required by the Michigan Constitution of 1963)?

VOTE YES! PLEASE! 

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Spotlight, P.R., & the State of the Schools

Generally speaking, I am not a movie person.

It's rather ironic, then, that I am talking about movies twice in one week!

[The first time was last Friday, where I gave the Welcome at the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice fundraising breakfast, and talked about how Sandra Bullock's character in Miss Congeniality wants world peace, and how we know we can't just want world peace, we have to act on it. Check out ICPJ here.]

Probably my favorite movie of last year was the movie Spotlight. That's the movie about the Boston Globe reporters who uncovered the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. I was fascinated by the work the reporters did to uncover the story, to build the case. If you were watching, though, there was a part that horrified me. (And no, it's not what you think--of course the scandal itself is horrifying--this is more subtle.) There's a part in the movie when 9/11 happens. (And yes, that too is horrifying--but again, this is more subtle.)

What happens to the reporters working on Spotlight when 9/11 happens? They get pulled off their project. Every one of them. [In the process, they upset many of the survivors/witnesses they had interviewed.] The project, uncovering the abuse scandal, languished.

And if that was the case in 2001, that is even more the case now.

Look at what happened in Flint! If not for the dedication of an investigative reporter hired by the ACLU (not the usual path for investigative journalism, to be hired by a nonprofit), who knows when this story would have seen the light of day! After it broke, some Flint MLive reporters and Detroit Free Press and Detroit News reporters have turned their attention to the story in Flint (and they've done an excellent job)--but I imagine that in doing so, they have been pulled off some equally important story, that in turn may never see the light of day.

We need to do a better job supporting investigative journalism. The model we have is not working, and investigative journalism is critical to our democracy.

Right now we have a single, new to town, education reporter for MLive in Ann Arbor. (Welcome, Lauren Slagter.) And yet in Washtenaw County we have over 46,000 K-12 students in our county, and thousands of school teachers/staff.

Meanwhile, Monet Tiedemann has been live blogging as many of the Ann Arbor school board meetings as she can at annarbivore.com.

But that's it.

The situation is similar, or worse, in Dexter, Chelsea (they have Chelsea Update, at least), Saline, Ypsilanti...

*************************

So if you've been paying attention, you will notice that Ann Arbor school administration--and to a lesser but notable extent, Chelsea, Dexter, Saline, and Ypsilanti school administration--have been putting a lot of effort into their own P.R. machines. You can see evidence of this on twitter, and facebook;  in emailed newsletters; and on their school web sites. Each of them, in their own way, are trying to promote their districts, share the good news about their districts, draw attention to their districts. And who can blame them? Journalists are few and far between.

So last week, Jeanice Swift organized a "State of the Ann Arbor Schools" event. She had the Community High band Tempus Fugit play, she had Rep. Jeff Irwin and County Commissioner Andy LaBarre speak, and she herself spoke.

Tempus Fugit playing at the State of the Schools.
L to R: Aidan Wada-Dawson, Jonathan Lynn, Aaron Willette,
Seamus Lynch, Danny Freiband, Avery Farmer.

Rep. Jeff Irwin speaking. He had my favorite line:
"Education is economic development."

And I think that organizing this event, from the point of view of promoting the school district, was a good idea. I do hope that next year the event will be held in one of our schools, and not on the second floor of a hotel with no easy parking. I do hope that next year the event will be widely promoted to parents, PTOs, etc. In other words, I'd like to see 200 citizens in addition to the 50 or so administrators and blue ribbon panel members that were there.

In full disclosure, I left before Jeanice Swift spoke, so I'm not sure what she said exactly. But based on the handouts, I imagine she talked about happy things, like the fact that graduation rates are improving, and that she discussed some of the new district initiatives.

**************************

In case you are wondering, I don't expect Jeanice Swift, in a State of the Schools event, to dwell on issues that are significant problems, and even if she does or did, I would expect her to give a PR perspective on it, because essentially, this is a PR event.

It's reasonable to expect that not everything is hunky-dory, and that it might require someone from the outside to look in and see what's not working. 

For instance: I think it's worth mentioning that the teachers I have spoken to are still quite upset about the time consuming and (in their opinion) ridiculous evaluation process they are now required to go through; still upset about the way the school board treated them last year during contract negotiations; worried about the way contract negotiations are going this year. And--many of them are afraid to speak out, feeling they have been implicitly threatened.

The point is this: there are a lot of great things going on in the Ann Arbor schools (and in the other local districts, too). But there are also things that don't fit the narrative of a PR machine, and they don't show up in a State of the Schools event. 

We expect that we will learn about them through the media--and at this point, I'm not really sure that's possible.

So who knows what we are missing?!

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Ypsilanti History: The Desegregation of Ypsilanti Schools

While it's still Black History Month I thought I would feature this interesting blog (and history of Ypsilanti schools) that I recently stumbled upon.

The information here comes from a blog about South Adams Street at the turn of the twentieth century. As the blog notes, "South Adams Street @ 1900 was created by Matthew Siegfried as a Masters project of Eastern Michigan University's Historic Preservation Program. Readers are encouraged to write with any questions or additions. Walking tours and presentations are available.

Email: southadams1900@gmail.com."

A special shout-out goes to the Ypsilanti Historical Society Archives, which provided a lot of the information Matthew Siegfried used. They welcome visitors, and I've done some research in them (particularly around Begole School). The archives have lots of great information. Find out more about them here. 

Today's topic is the First Ward School, and the full web site about it can be found here. [The author of the web site, Matthew Siegfried, has written about a lot more than just the First Ward School.]

The old First Ward School, on Adams Street, was built during the Civil War specifically for the purpose of educating black children. 

On September 10, 1897, the Ann Arbor Argus reported that "Ypsilanti has 1778 children of school age of which 155 are colored, a gain of three colored children and 10 white over last year."

Recorder, August 1916.
Photo by Matthew Siegfried.
Used under a Creative
Commons license.

As Siegfried characterizes it, "What began as a statement of support for black residents during the Civil War" became a symbol of segregation by the early 1900s, exclusively educating black students through sixth grade.

The school was not in good condition and things came to a head in 1916, when the black residents of Ypsilanti petitioned the prosecuting attorney, as taxpayers, for better schools. They objected to paying for the new Ypsilanti high school when their school was in such poor condition. 

The petition began:

We, the undersigned colored citizens of the city of Ypsilanti, residing in the First ward of said city, hereby petition you as an officer of the county to investigate the action of the school board of the city of Ypsilanti. We are paying a large tax for the building of a new school house. It is used for white to the exclusion of colored children. Our school, a ward school in the First ward, has no connection with the sewer, it is unsanitary and not healthful, but we are compelled, because we are colored and the board of education is white, to put up with whatever they hand us.

The school house is not sufficient or satisfactory. Do we get new? No, simply get an old discarded and poor building moved from another part of the city and placed out in the dusty street, or nearly so. It is within five feet of the street line, and thus cuts off our view down the street. Part of the time we have had undesirable teachers, part of that time poorly qualified, but we have to take it. 

Notes Siegfried, 

A bond was proposed by the [sic--but I think it was proposed by the school board and] voted down, with support of the black community, that would have rehabilitated the school while increasing the grades taught, effectively expanding segregation under the guise of aiding the school. The community was adamant; it wanted an end to segregation... Detroit attorney and NAACP leader Charles Mahoney, who later worked on the Ossian Sweet Case, led the legal challenge. The bond initiative was also opposed at the ballot box and defeated. The case was won in Judge Sample’s Circuit Court and Ypsilanti schools were formally desegregated in May, 1919. The First Ward school closed that year. 

The 1919 American School Board Journal explained things like this: 

The important question, in the court’s judgment, was whether the school was being conducted by the board for the children of negro parents of the ward In such a way as to compel the children, because they are colored, to attend the school, and at the same time to permit white children of the district to attend outside schools.The court maintained that the maintenance of the school was an act of discrimination against the colored children and that in view of the provisions of the Michigan law, it was a violation of the common law of the state and of the statutes of the state. The court cited a number of important decisions from Supreme Court cases to support its contention that all residents of a state have an equal right to attend any school and that they may not be discriminated against because of race or color.

The building is now the New Jerusalem Church.

Here are some more newspaper articles from the South Adams Street 1900 web site. 

Three additional notes:

1. Nearly one hundred years later, Ypsilanti Community Schools is a majority African-American district. Four years ago, I wrote: "It is important to remember that school segregation--though banished by law--still exists in many many schools around the nation." I wouldn't exactly call YCS a segregated district, but there are plenty of people who live in the district who send their children to schools--public, charter, or private--in other districts--and many of those families are white.

2. The First Ward School was referred to as the Adams Street School. This is not to be confused with the current Adams Elementary--which was originally named Prospect School. It was renamed in 1963 after Olive M. Adams, who was retiring from the school after being principal there for 29 years.

3. I knew about efforts to desegregate the Ann Arbor schools--in fact I've written extensively about them--but I never heard of this really significant (and successful!) lawsuit in Ypsilanti.

[And that, by the way, is in my opinion a signature of Ypsilanti--there's lots of super-interesting history, stores, museums, and parks in Ypsi--and unless you look closely, you might miss them.] For instance, do you know where this statue of  Harriet Tubman can be found? 

Sculpture by Jane DeDecker,
photograph by Dwight Burdette
[CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

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July 2015 News and Notes

Congratulations to Two New Nonprofits!

First of all, let's give big congratulations to two important, new local groups that recently got their non-profit status.

1. The E4DS Foundation, Excellence for Dexter Schools, is focused on raising money for regular operating expenses in the Dexter school district. There is also an Educational Foundation for Dexter.

Question of the Day: Is E4DS Different than the Educational Foundation of Dexter?

Yes. E4DS is the only group whose mission involves funding normal operating expenses associated with regular programming in our schools. The Educational Foundation of Dexter (EFD) provides financial support for teacher grants for innovative and creative educational projects that cannot be funded through the school district. E4DS supports the EFD and shares some Board members between the two Foundations. It is our sincere hope that the information you learn about the limitations of available funding will also move you to contribute and support the great work of the EFD!

Find out more at www.E4DS.org or like them on Facebook.

2. The CivCity Initiative (headed by Mary Morgan, formerly of the Ann Arbor Chronicle) also got non-profit status recently. What do they do? "CivCity is working to crack the nut of civic apathy, increasing awareness of how local government works and how each of us can participate in civic life."

I am hopeful that eventually they will take on some civic initiatives related to the schools--and considering that Linh Song of the Ann Arbor Education Foundation is on the CivCity board, I think that's a real possibility!

Find out more at www.civcity.org or like them on Facebook.

National News

The US Senate has passed a version of the Every Child Achieves Act (successor to No Child Left Behind). According to Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teacher Association, who is quoted in this piece on Diane Ravitch's blog:

“The bill continues yearly testing in grades three through eight and once in high school, but leaves it to states to determine how to use those tests for school accountability. It removes the authority of the federal government to demand that teacher evaluations be connected to student test scores and gives more authority to states to determine specific standards and curriculum.“ 

In giving more authority to states, the bill loosens constraints on how funds will be spent, though fortunately the Senate rejected a voucher amendment. The Senate measure now goes to a conference committee, where senators and members of the House will mesh their bills and develop a final piece of legislation. If approved, that bill will have to be signed or vetoed by President Barack Obama. If Obama vetoes it, Congress would have to override the veto for the bill to become law.

Per Madeloni,

“It is a bittersweet victory to applaud the power of school accountability going back to the states, should this bill become law. While it would allow us to organize locally and make the demands we want for our students and our schools, others have noted that it would mean we have 50 battles to fight instead of one – and that some states are especially weak in their readiness to fight.”  

And the House version [which is called the Student Success Act] is different, but it also provides a means for students who opt out to not count against the 95% rule for participation. In other words, based on federal law, parents opting out their children will not affect Title I funding (to be clear--currently this has not affected Title I funding anywhere in the country, but theoretically, it could).

Do you want the details about the differences between the two bills? This blog post, by Mercedes Schneider, does a good job of explaining the differences around testing. She's got other good stuff on her blog too!

I won't pretend to have read the bill, but at least about this piece of the bill--which gives the ability to parents to opt out--I am pretty happy.

Michigan News

We've got a new State Superintendent of Education, Brian Whiston. Read more about him in Lori Higgins' Detroit Free Press article.

The number of new charter school authorizations is going down. Maybe charter school authorizers are starting to realize they actually need to be accountable for the schools. [Hope springs eternal.]

We have yet another new state law that will negatively affect schools. According to this press release from Miller Canfield:

PA 109 of 2015 amends the Revised School Code to require any district without a positive general fund balance of at least 5% for the two most recent school fiscal years to report annually by July 7 the budgetary assumptions used when adopting its annual budget to the Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI). The budgetary assumptions must include the district’s projected foundation allowance, projected membership, estimated expenditures per pupil for the immediately preceding fiscal year and the projected expenditures per pupil for the current fiscal year. Based on the report, the State Treasurer may determine if the potential for fiscal stress exists within the district.

Local News

And that new state law (PA 109) is one of the reasons why the Ann Arbor superintendent and school board have been so focused on fund balance. Here is the list of local schools (including charters) that need to report. [Most of our local charters are for-profits, and their management companies could be manipulating their fund balances to take as much as they can--maybe they'll leave a little more in the bank now.] Ann Arbor was at 4.9% fund balance this past year, and are projecting to be higher in the coming year.

Ann Arbor has a third in-district transfer/schools of choice window. This might be good news for you if (as happened to a friend of mine) your landlord decided to sell the place you are renting and you might want to not be restricted to a single school area, but you want your kids in the same school as last year...

In the past several months, Ann Arbor has now hired four principals from other local school districts--two from Plymouth-Canton (Megan Fenech for Ann Arbor Open and Karen Siegel as assistant deanat Community High School), one from Northville (Alison Epler for Bach Elementary), and one from Farmington (Jerry Morrissey for Forsythe Middle School). I wish them all good luck! [Fenech and Siegel both live in Ann Arbor.] The Community High assistant dean position was filled in April, and is a new position that is being funded because Community High is adding students, and evening classes.

Ben Edmondson

Ypsilanti Community Schools hired Ben Edmondson as their new superintendent. (He is a former Ann Arbor principal, as well as candidate for Ann Arbor superintendent.) Read his 90-day plan here. (It looks ambitious to me, but it probably needs to be.)

Summer Fun: play.aadl.org

Are you playing the Ann Arbor summer library game? I am! If you are, I am going to give you five six! leads on ways to get some points and codes. [If you're not, it's not too late to start! Visit play.aadl.org, there are both traditional and online versions.]

1. Visit http://www.healthcarecounts.org, which is the Washtenaw Health Plan's site about health care coverage. Specifically, visit this blog post for a code, and a clue for another code.

2. Help out with Arborwiki, our local wikipedia. There's lots of work to be done, and lots of points to be gotten. And I registered and updated a page--it really was pretty easy! (On the page, it explains how to get the points.)

3. CivCity is "sponsoring" a bunch of badges. I think you have to go to meetings to get them... Go to http://play.aadl.org/badgelist and scroll down to CivCity.

4. Go into any local branch, walk around and look for the different codes. That's what I did today at West Branch, and here's a clue to one of the spots.

5. Read. Yup. Whatever you want. You can also get points for commenting on the books, rating them, and tagging them.
The last four books I read? (Which is probably more than I read January through April!)
1. Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind by Sarah Wildman (non-fiction/memoir/genealogy search)
2. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
3. Battle Magic by Tamora Pierce (young adult fantasy)--I liked some of her others' more
4. I'm in the middle of The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart (kids' book, part of the Mysterious Benedict Society series)

6. Staff codes--some of the library staff have special codes they can give you. Ask them!


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Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent Interviews This Week!

Ypsi's famous landmark. Picture taken from wikimedia,
Creative Commons license. 2007, cmadler.

I know most of my readers are Ann Arborites, but we all know that good schools are key to having a vibrant society. I've been working in Ypsilanti for several years, and I have kind of fallen in love with the place. And the Ypsilanti schools have a very important decision coming up--the choice of a new superintendent!

So here are the list of interviewees, dates, and times--if you live in Ypsilanti, please try to attend!

There are two local candidates: Ben Edmonson, an Ann Arbor principal (he's been principal at Scarlett, Roberto Clemente, and no is co-principal at Pathways, and he's been a candidate for Ann Arbor superintendent in the last go-round), and Sarina Shivers, who is an assistant superintendent at the WISD (she is asst. superintendent of student achievement, and at the WISD I'm not exactly sure what that means--go listen to her interview, and find out!).

POSITION OF YCS SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS

Location: YCS Administration Building; 1885 Packard Rd.; Ypsilanti, MI 48197

Interviews open to students, parents, staff and community members.

Monday: June 8, 2015 @ 7:00 p.m.
Dr. Denise G. Saddler, Assistant Superintendent for Education Services of Berryessa Union School District; San Jose, CA

Tuesday: June 9, 2015 @ 6:30 p.m.
Dr. Benjamin Edmonson, Co-Principal of Pathways to Success Academic Campus; Ann Arbor Public Schools

Tuesday: June 9, 2015 @ 8:15 p.m.
Dr. Josha Talison, Superintendent of Beecher Community Schools; Flint, MI

Wednesday: June 10, 2015 @ 6:30 p.m.
Dr. Sarena M. Shivers, Assistant Superintendent of Student Achievement at the Washtenaw Intermediate School District; Ann Arbor

Wednesday: June 10, 2015 @ 8:15 p.m.
Dr. Terry Barker, Superintendent; Mishawaka, IN

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Guess Who's Evaluating Those Standardized Tests? (I Wish This Were a Joke!)

From an ad on Craigslist:

"The starting pay is $10.70 per hour." For that sum, I'm sure they are getting
some highly skilled staff. Screenshot from Craigslist.

Who? Measurement Incorporated

We are a diverse company engaged in educational research, test development, and the scoring of tests administered throughout the world. 

What? Reader/Evaluator Position

If you qualify as a reader/evaluator, you will be eligible to work on a number of our projects. Many projects require readers to score essays for content, organization, grammatical convention, and/or the student's ability to communicate and to respond to a specific directive. Other projects involve scoring test items in reading, math, science, social studies, or other subject areas. The tests you will score come from many different states and from students at all grade levels, elementary through college, depending on the project.

Where and when? 

Starting in March of 2015 , day and evening shift, in Ypsilanti!

REQUIREMENTS

Bachelor's degree in any field
Ability to perform adequately on a placement assessment

HOURS: Temporary, but 5 days/week.

PAY: The starting pay is $10.70 per hour. 

Yet we are going to use these temporary employees to evaluate our students' work, and our teachers. Yippee.



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The Governor's FY 2015-2016 Budget: What Does All This Mean To You?

This is a guest post by A3 Teacher:

As the State lays out its K-12 budget for the 2015-16 school year, there are some interesting things to note.  

First, Governor Snyder is claiming a $75 per pupil increase across the board for all schools.  

While on the surface this seems wonderful, the reality for some school districts is that this will result in a net loss.  While increasing the per pupil amount, other aspects of funding are being reduced or disappearing (for example the “best practices” incentive and performance incentive). 

 According to MLive’s article and database, Ann Arbor Public Schools would stand to lose $55 per pupil, Ypsilanti Community School would stand to gain $176 per pupil, Saline Area Schools would lose $10 per pupil, Dexter Community Schools would lose $44 per pupil, Chelsea would gain $28 per pupil, and Whitmore Lake would gain $25 per pupil.

[Ed. Note: Here is a nice piece about the implications of this so-called increase for one school district, written by the Superintendent of the Godfrey-Lee Public Schools.]

Now for the 2014-2015 fiscal year, there is a surplus in the K-12 School Aid Fund to the tune of $284.4 million; conversely the General State Budget is short $454 million.  Right now the Michigan legislature is figuring out ways to take that K-12 surplus to pay for our general fund shortfall. 

[Ed. Note: See my post from yesterday about this year's budget machinations.]

Wouldn’t it make sense that money allocated for K-12 education should go towards education?  

A surplus in the K-12 School Aid Fund should be reinvested in students, not used to pay a general fund deficit.  

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Five Updates: Who's Covering the First Elected Board, What's Your First Choice, Where's the Money Gone, Who's Listening Anyway, Why Keep Testing

1. Ypsilanti Community Schools board voted 4-3 not to do a superintendent search--their superintendent's contract will automatically renew in April for another year if they don't do anything.

It's not that I have an opinion about whether the school board should continue with Laura Lisiscki as superintendent, but I first heard about this issue on a facebook group. As a rumor. The rumor turned out to be true.

It also turned out that heritage.com did cover the school board meeting, but that is not always a sure thing.

Who is routinely covering the school board meetings now? (Good question.) Does it matter that a discussion like this ends up with a 4-3 vote? (I would say that it does.) What is the best way to keep the community informed?

2. Ann Arbor schools has opened its doors to students from other districts. Part of me feels that this is poaching. On the other hand, the other school districts had already opened their doors to schools of choice.

But also--perhaps more interesting--you can also choose to send your kids to a different school within the district. Here's some information, the "window" for applications ends February 27th: http://a2schools.org/aaps/ins.child_accounting/space_available_transfers.

3. Local state representative Jeff Irwin explained how we can follow the money the other day on Facebook: 

I just finished my first meeting of the Appropriations committee. Chairman Al Pscholka offered some thoughtful and well-offered commentary at the beginning of the meeting focused on encouraging committee members to get educated on Michigan's budget. Then, we received a report from the House Fiscal Agency on state revenues.
This report highlights the impact of the massive changes that were made to business taxes in 2011. In summary, business taxes are expected to net just over $180M in the next budget. This represents only about 2% of the state's general fund. Just a few years ago, corporate taxes brought in around $2B per year in state taxes (about 25% of the GF). If you're wondering why tuition is going up, class sizes are going up and taxes on individuals are going up, now you have your answer. (Emphasis added.)

4. Ann Arbor Superintendent Jeanice Swift is on her second listening tour. I thought the first one was pretty successful, and I'm planning to attend at least one of these. I hope you will go to one too--so you can bring up your most important issues, whether they be transportation, testing, trimesters, trigonometry, tenth grade, or (I'm running out of "t" words here)...

All discussions run from 6:30-8 pm unless otherwise noted:

Clip art taken from:
http://www.clker.com/cliparts/0/6/8/6/11971488431079343407barretr_Pencil.svg.hi.png

Monday, February 9 at the Administration Building hosted by the PTO Council
Tuesday, February 10 at Scarlett Middle School
Thursday, February 12 at Slauson Middle School
Monday, February 23 at the Downtown Library, 4th Floor at 12noon-1:30pm
Tuesday, March 3 at Tappan Middle School
Monday, March 9 at Peace Neighborhood Center
Thursday, March 12 at A2 STEAM at Northside
Thursday, March 26 at Pathways to Success Academic Campus
Monday, March 30 at Community High School
Tuesday, March 31 at Ann Arbor Open

5. Last, but not least, we come to testing. 
This spring there will be the M-Step, which is Michigan's "not" Smarter Balance and "not" the MEAP and "not" the ACT [but 11th graders will still ALSO have to take the ACT]...the last minute, untested, unvalidated, uncomparable to last year's MEAP but being used because state officials couldn't agree on using Smarter Balance standardized test. And this will probably be replaced by something else next year. Read all about M-Step here.

Well--if you want to know what is going on with testing at the state level, then I suggest you subscribe to the Michigan Department of Education's Spotlight on Student Assessment and Accountability. 

If you were paying attention a few months ago, you might remember that several local superintendents voiced the concern that there was too much testing in the 11th grade. And so I was interested in this tiny concession that was published in Spotlight: 

Due to concerns around testing time, the Classroom Activity andPerformance Task components of the 11th grade M-STEP are optionalfor high schools. While there are some benefits to administeringthese components, they will not be required. There will be noaccountability penalty in terms of participation or scoring for highschools that choose to not administer the classroom activities andperformance tasks. This does not apply to the classroom activitiesand performance tasks in grades 3 through 8 — those are required.

Anyone want to opt out? Here is an article about some strategies.
Also, you can find some local resources (people!) at the Facebook page, Ann Arbor STOP: Stop Overtesting.

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Ypsilanti Community Schools School Board Election: Candidate Background Information

Below, you will find my first foray into the Ypsilanti school board candidates in the upcoming election. There will be more to come, and as I add information, some of it will be added in separate posts, but this will be the "source post." By which I mean, come to this post and you should find links to the information that you need.

You might recall that in the same election in which the Willow Run and Ypsilanti districts consolidated, the voters voted on Ypsilanti and Willow Run school board candidates--in case the consolidation didn't go through. But it did go through, and as a result, the WISD appointed the current school board. So this will be the very first election for the Ypsilanti Community Schools!

Six of the seven incumbents are running together (although they don't call themselves a slate, they have one web site so I think I would call them a slate): http://www.ycsfirstchoice.com/

Another group of five candidates that is running together is: Meredith Schindler, Sharon Irvine, Ellen Champagne, Bill Kurkjian, and K.J. Miller. They will be having a meet and greet on October 16th, 7 p.m. at the Arbor Brewing Microbrewery (formerly the Corner).


NOTE: Ypsilanti Community School Board Candidates Forum, 
sponsored by the League of Women Voters and Fora Better Ypsi, 
was held on October 13th.

WEMU Coverage here. (You can listen to the audio of the forum.)

Mlive Coverage here.

Four Candidates for Two Six-Year Terms

Ypsilanti Community Schools - Board Member - 6-Year Term

Vote for two

MLive Candidate Comparisons: As of 10/14/2014, Gregory Myers had not responded to the survey.

Name	Mailing Address	Phone	E-mail
Brenda Meadows	410 N. Harris Rd. Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-972-2764	bmeadows42@gmail.com
Maria Sheler-Edwards	51 Colony Ct. Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-547-5557	mariasheler@gmail.com
Gregory Myers	1219 Stamford Rd. Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-218-4547	gmmyers526@gmail.com
Bill Kurkjian	405 Oak St. Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-255-4288	makuavalley@comcast.net

Bill Kurkjian:

Brenda Meadows:

Gregory Myers: http://www.ycsfirstchoice.com/

Maria Sheler-Edwards: http://www.ycsfirstchoice.com/

Eight Candidates for Three Four-Year Terms

Ypsilanti Community Schools - Board Member - 4-Year Term

Vote for three

MLive Candidate Comparisons: As of 10/14/14, Linda Snedecar-Horne had not responded to the survey.

Name	Mailing Address	Phone	E-mail
Anthony VanDerworp	1309 Kingwood Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-485-4910	tvanderworp@gmail.com
David R. Bates	1208 Pearl St. Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-646-0527	drbates@me.com
Djeneba Cherif	948 Jefferson St. Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-645-5735	djeneba.cherif@gmail.com
Celeste Hawkins	2399 Draper Ave. Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-274-0694	chawkins@emich.edu
Linda Snedacar-Horne	205 Oak St. #1 Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-678-1051	horne4ypsd@gmail.com
Ellen Champagne	12 N. Wallace Blvd. #1 Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-355-9531	ellecham@umich.edu
Sharon Irvine	2411 Burns Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-678-8517	sirvine12@gmail.com
Mark Wilde	1707 Hamlet Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-533-9453	markwilde@provide.net

Anthony Vanderworp: http://www.ycsfirstchoice.com/

Celeste Hawkins: http://www.ycsfirstchoice.com/

David Bates: http://www.ycsfirstchoice.com/

Djeneba Cherif: www.electcherif.com

Ellen Champagne:

Linda Snedecar-Horne:

Mark Wilde: www.electmarkwilde.com

Sharon Irvine:

Six Candidates for Two Two-Year Terms

Ypsilanti Community Schools - Board Member - 2-Year Term

Vote for two

MLive Candidate Comparisons As of 10/14/2014, Don Garrett Jr. and Ricky Jefferson had not responded to the survey.

Name	Mailing Address	Phone	E-mail
Daniel L. Raglin	6825 Textile Rd. Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-483-8266	dlraglin@yahoo.com
Don L. Garrett Jr.	1369 Stamford Rd. Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-730-9650	dgarrettjr05@comcast.net
K.J. Miller	405 Oak St. Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-904-6278	kjmiller@dickinson-uright.com
Sharon Lee	577 Desoto Ave. Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-484-1493	scasey2006@hotmail.com
Ricky Jefferson	211 W. Ainsworth Ypsilanti, MI 48197	734-276-4832	rjeffersonypsi@comcast.net
Meredith Schindler	305 Maple St. Ypsilanti, MI 48198	734-476-6277	ypsimer@yahoo.com

Sharon Lee: Important Note--Sharon Lee has withdrawn her candidacy due to illness. She will remain on the ballot but she asks you to vote for two other candidates who would actually be able to devote the time and energy to the position. I hope she has a speedy recovery!

K.J. Miller: https://sites.google.com/site/kjmillerforycsschoolboard/

Daniel Raglin: http://www.ycsfirstchoice.com/

Don L. Garrett Jr.:

Meredith Schindler:

https://sites.google.com/site/meredithlschindler/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Meredith-Schindler-for-Ypsilanti-Community-Schools-Board-of-Trustees/516111981858408Sharon Lee:

Ricky Jefferson:

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