Halloween Windows

I grew up in a town with a vibrant downtown. Every October, the local merchants would give up their window space so that elementary and middle school students could paint Halloween-ish figures on a 3'x5' (or so) piece of glass real estate. Of course there were prizes for the best paintings--which I never won. But it was fun anyway, and it brought a lot of people downtown. I've never seen this anywhere else.

Anyway, it turns out that they are still doing this, and last year I was in town a few weeks after Halloween. I took a picture and--can you believe it--I'm actually remembering to post this a year later!

And I was thinking. . . Ypsilanti. . . Saline. . . Dexter. . . Chelsea. . . Manchester. . . Milan. . . even Ann Arbor. . . maybe you would like to adopt this tradition?

Send me a private message if you want the name of the town so you can find out the details regarding how the project is run.

Happy Halloween!

Budget Notes: How Would Sharing A Principal Work?

I've got two posts on the AAPS budget proposal, but let's start with this: all of the local school districts are having budget forums. At the Ann Arbor forum on Monday, the majority of parents were parents of elementary school students. Besides me, there was only one other Ann Arbor Open parent. Parents of middle and high school students. . . interested community members. . . PLEASE. SHOW UP! Share your thoughts. The next forum in Ann Arbor is this Thursday (tomorrow!) at 6:30 p.m. at Skyline. You can also write the Board of Education at boe@aaps.k12.mi.us.

One of the ideas that has been floated by the administration is that four schools would have to "share a principal." The proposed pairs are Abbot/Wines (both on the northwest side of town) and Angell/Pittsfield. At the Monday budget meeting, I sat with a table that was (aside from me) all Angell parents. The table next to us appeared to be nearly all Abbot parents. They were none too happy. They were extremely skeptical that the savings projected by splitting a principal would materialize. I'll explain why, but let's start with the way it was sketched out to us by the Interim Deputy Superintendent for Instruction, LeeAnn Dickinson Kelly.

1. The principal would split his or her time between the two schools, perhaps--but not necessarily--50/50. The "savings" is generated by saving the salaries of the two principals, estimated at about $100,000/year.

OK, so they're saying this will save $200,000. I assume that it might not be 50-50 because, for instance, Wines is quite a large school. So that would then mean that Abbot would suffer even more, right?

2.  Right now the teachers' union contract stipulates that if there are reductions in staffing, that ten teachers who would have been laid off will be retained as in-building subs. That way there is no cycle of layoff and recall for those teachers when a position opens up. SO: In this scenario, four of those teachers would be assigned as in-building subs to those four schools. Ostensibly, there is no cost to this, because those teachers would "need" to be assigned anyway.

Not so fast, I say. First of all, it is much more likely that these in-building subs would typically be assigned to a big school (say, Huron or Tappan) than a small school like Angell. Second of all, they don't really know the number of retirements/leaves at this point. IF, instead of retaining those ten teachers, they actually needed to retain twelve or fourteen teachers because of this scenario, there goes the savings (figure $50,000/teacher--these are typically low-seniority teachers). This would typically happen if they needed to recall teachers with a certain certification, or more teachers than they expected. In past years, I think most of those teachers have been re-assigned by October, at least into long-term sub classrooms.

3.  Dickinson-Kelly says that they will increase teacher-clerk time in those schools. Teacher-clerks are paid in the range of $15-$17/hour. This, she implied, is a cheap alternative to having a full-time principal.

Really? I like the teacher-clerks in my kids' schools, but I don't think they are up to the task of being principals! (And if they are, they should get paid better.) Are we really expecting them to intervene in cases related to discipline; calm down upset parents; assist with the child having an emotional outburst; plan with, and supervise teachers? Are we expecting them to do some of the endless paperwork related to No Child Left Behind? Oh, I didn't think so.

4. When a principal is out of the building, there is a designated lead teacher who is responsible for "overseeing" the building. This is true in every building. If a principal has to go to an afternoon meeting at the Administration, the lead teacher is in charge. And that's fine every once in a while, but in this situation, we'd be talking about the lead teacher being in charge at least half of the time--and in reality, likely more, because the "shared" principal will still have to go to meetings in Administration buildings or have the occasional doctor's visit. Well, those "lead teachers" will then often need to be pulled out of their classrooms, which means that someone will need to sub for that teacher.

Whether that is an in-building sub, or another sub, I'm sure that is going to mess up that teacher's classroom. 

Here is another thing that parents brought up. For instance, all of the savings are predicated on the idea that families will stick with "their" schools, even if they lose (half) a principal. The parents from Angell felt it was quite possible that they could lose 10 or 15 students to private schools. I would guess that could also be true at Wines, another school with many wealthy families. So if 20 students left the school district over this, we would lose close to $180,000 in revenue.

Do you see the savings start to evaporate? 


So much so, that I actually have to wonder if this was proposed as some kind of a red herring. In the same way that last year the Saline Superintendent proposed cutting all of the high school math department, and going to an all-online program.

Why do I say that? The idea would be: a) distract people by getting them focused on something that "we" (the administration) already know is a really bad idea, and that we can retract, and then b) all those other things. . . like cutting 70+ teachers (or in Plymouth-Canton, 269 teachers). . . like cutting high school transportation out. . .

Well, all of a sudden those don't look so bad, do they?

Yeah, I'm an optimist usually, but today? Today, I'm a cynic.

Asking the Right Questions

Rick Garlikov describes the Socratic Method as "Teaching by Asking Instead of Telling."

He has an extremely interesting experiment teaching third graders binary numbers* and writes,  

This was to be the Socratic method in what I consider its purest form, where questions (and only questions) are used to arouse curiosity and at the same time serve as a logical, incremental, step-wise guide that enables students to figure out about a complex topic or issue with their own thinking and insights. 

You will find the experiment here. (Read it! It is fascinating.) 


*By the way, it's okay if you don't know what a binary number is. First of all, if you read about the experiment, you will understand what they are by the end of the article. Second of all, the experiment is not about binary numbers, but it is about asking questions and using the Socratic method.


Memory: When I was in high school, I had a biology teacher who wrote many outlines on the board. Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. . . all nicely outlined in copperplate handwriting. (Yes, she had been raised in Catholic schools and like so many of my public school teachers, I believe she had been a nun.) All of that outlining explained the "what," which we dutifully copied. But it didn't explain the "why." I was always asking "why," and one day, my teacher asked me if there was trouble at my home. (No! Why was she asking? Clearly the line between having an inquisitive mind and being trouble for her was a fine one.) I realize now that she probably did not have a strong biology background, and she knew the basics--but she found questions that she did not know the answer to, to be threatening.

Of course, the great irony of this is that good scientists are not driven by answers--they are driven by questions, and their favorite kinds of questions are the ones that cannot be immediately answered.

Name That School!

Recognize this school?

I know what you are thinking: "That postcard says "Tappan!" But I know that's Burns Park!"

According to the Burns Park school website:

Burns Park is named after Professor George Burns who was the Ann Arbor Commissioner for a time. In 1910 the old [county] fairgrounds, located here, were changed to a park and named in his honor. Before 1925, there were trolley barns here. In January 1925, they burned and this school building was built as Tappan Junior High. In 1951, Tappan moved and took its name with it. This building then took its name from the park. (Emphasis added.)

So I guess that really, we should call Tappan Middle School: Tappan Middle School II.

By the way, this picture was found on the Ann Arbor District Library's web site, where there is a lovely and large selection of historic images and information from and about Ann Arbor.

Could These Ideas Save Local Schools Money?

I spent last weekend in the Boston area at a bat mitzvah and seeing my family. My sister's children go to a public school system that--size-wise and demographically--looks a lot like the Ann Arbor school system. I heard about two things that this school system does that might be worth implementing locally.

1. For elementary school children, Tuesdays are an early dismissal day (12 or 12:30, I don't remember). For teachers, Tuesday afternoons are time for planning meetings and professional development. Professional development days are not scheduled throughout the year, and local child care settings (including the public school's own) are set up to accommodate the short Tuesday. That would seem to simplify things for parents. Would it also save money? Sometimes subs are hired for planning or professional development.

2. In the elementary and middle schools, substitute teachers are called on for both short-term and long-term assignments, as they are here. But in the high school, it's a different ball game. The only subs there are long-term subs. If a teacher wakes up with a sore throat, she or he calls in sick, but no substitute is called, no emergency lesson plan called upon. For the students, that class is cancelled. Instead, students go to study hall. The study hall is a large room (fits about 100), supervised by one teacher (teachers apparently take turns like you would for lunch duty). Overflow goes into the commons (although I believe that 11th and 12th graders are allowed to leave campus). My niece tells me a class is cancelled for her approximately once a week, and she likes it because it gives her extra study time.
Think about it--how much do substitute teachers, there for 1-2 days, actually teach? Based on my experience as a high school sub, precious little.
The cost savings, I would imagine, are pretty significant.