From the "Let's say no" Facebook Group

Subject: Editorial in Thursday's Register

For those of you who didn't see Thursday's editorial in the Register, here it is.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com%2Farticle%2F20090212%2FOPINION03%2F902120348%2F1110

I don't know what they think "quality education" and "prudent" use of taxpayers' money is, but if they're trying to hold up Des Moines Schools or most other large schools in this state as an example, then they're sadly mistaken.

Senator Matt McCoy wants to close rural Iowa's schools. Let's say no.
I encourage all of you to write a letter to the editor or comment on the Register's website for this editorial. Blatant disregard for facts cannot be allowed to go unnoticed.

For my part, I penned a rather lengthy Op Ed (I used to work at a student newspaper in college), the text of which I am posting to the group within the next few minutes. If people would kindly send me the email address of their local newspaper, I would like to get this out to as many publications in the state as possible, in order to attempt to get the facts straight on this issue.

Senator Matt McCoy wants to close rural Iowa's schools. Let's say no.

If you haven't seen, Iowa State Senator Matt McCoy (D-Des Moines), is going to introduce legislation that will force all Iowa schools with an enrollment of less than 750 students to consolidate by 2013. That would involve closing a tremendous number of school districts in this state. Not surprisingly, most of these are in the vast rural areas of this state. Apparently Senator McCoy doesn't quite understand who he's prepared to mess with. From what was said on the news today, he's prepared to consolidate all school districts with fewer than 750 students. The list of schools on the block under this plan is available from the Des Moines Register's website: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090211/NEWS/902110359/1001/NEWS?GID=JXSieveEMdRN5vs/fodlDqD+57rDV0k0LWryRjdRhrQ%3D

Senator McCoy represents the 31st district, a 12-square-mile area in south-central Des Moines (http://www.legis.state.ia.us/GA/83GA/Senate/DistrictInfo/31.pdf). Draw your own conclusions.

Find your legislators:
http://www.legis.state.ia.us/FindLeg/

Contact your legislators:
http://www3.legis.state.ia.us/ga/legislators.do?ch=s&ga=83- state senate
http://www3.legis.state.ia.us/ga/legislators.do?ch=h&ga=83- state house

INVITE YOUR SMALL-SCHOOL FRIENDS!!!

OUR LIBERTIES WE PRIZE, AND OUR RIGHTS WE SHALL MAINTAIN. -State motto

Email McCoy and complain: matt.mccoy@legis.state.ia.us


Map showing the schools that Senator McCoy proposes to close and consolidate, as well as the extent of his Senate district
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=117206579805872086762.000462a9d0ce83f32268f&ll=41.547131,-93.594246&spn=0.178321,0.44632&z=12

Rural Iowans denounce school-district merger idea
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090211/NEWS02/902110364

Iowa Lawmaker Proposes Forced School Mergers
http://www.whotv.com/news/who-story-school-consolidations-021009,0,5465007.story

School Merger Bill To Impact Most Districts
http://www.kcci.com/education/18682071/detail.html

Iowa lawmaker proposes forced school mergers
http://www.myabc5.com/Global/story.asp?S=9819834&nav=menu115_2_5

Legislator wants to force rapid school consolidations
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009902100400

The Des Moines Register had a couple of pieces about this in today's paper. What are they THINKING? Schools are a vital part of the economy of small communities. But more importantly, Iowa's once great reputation for excellence in education was due to it's small schools! Individual attention from teachers, accountability, involvement in more activities and sports, tight knit communities... Need I go on?

Please join this Facebook group, even if you're out of school- even if you're not in or from Iowa. We HAVE to make a stand http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=68006796920

Commence Addressing

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, May 17, 2007 – Page 3

Here’s a sensitive subject that I’d like to address, commencement.

Commencement is supposed to be a ceremony after which people who have just become former high school seniors commence with the rest of their lives, sometimes known as adulthood.

Really, it’s a ceremony after which these adolescents who are convinced that they are no longer children, have to be coerced by their mammas to commence addressing a stack of thank-yous for all the cards and money and stuff that people gave them as a reward for somehow surviving high school.

Commencement remains a rite of passage for young people in a time when rites of passage pass sooner then they used to because kids think that they somehow have a right to their rites of passage earlier.

Kids these days start drinking and smoking and “experimenting” with sex and drugs in junior high. Remember when kids used to “experiment” with smoking in junior high and drinking in high school and “discovered” sex in college? Remember when people who used drugs generally dropped out of college, and “discovered” that life was pretty hard when you couldn’t hold down a decent job?

Some of us “experimented” with smoking and “discovered” drinking in college. We’re the same squares who experimented with cussing in junior high and keep hoping to rediscover sex after years of marriage. Today, kids are cussing and fighting, dating, and threatening laws suits, in early elementary school.

Which begs some questions; when does adolescence commence, and when does it end? When does adulthood commence? With so few rites of passage left to pass through at the end of what we used to quaintly consider childhood, what exactly does it mean to be an adult anyway?
What got me thinking about this is that Ellen, my five year old up and asked me one day, “Daddy, inside your brain, do you sometimes think you’re still a kid? Like, are you the same person inside your brain as you were you were when you were a little kid, like MY age?”

Honestly? I didn’t want to tell her that inside I wish I didn’t have work and responsibility and bills and all the pressure and expectations that we adults all have. All I want to have to do is watch Saturday morning cartoons and eat breakfast cereal. But I didn’t tell her that. I don’t really know what I told her, some grown-uppy thing about how you’re always the same person inside, you just grow and get smarter and more mature and blah blah blah.

One of the ways to know you’re an adult is if you recognize that the behavior of other adults is hopelessly adolescent. Like politicians, musicians, professional athletes, celebrities of both the big and small screens calling people names, lying, cheating, stealing, gossiping, arguing, flaunting their toys and clothes, throwing tantrums when they don’t get their own way or paying hundreds of dollars for a haircut.

But you REALLY know you’re an adult when you feel it’s important (even if it’s nearly impossible) to try to explain to your children WHY the things those supposed adults are doing are so inappropriate, hurtful, self-destructive, or just plain immature.

I know that in some ways the class of 2007 is a lot more worldly and road-worn than most that have gone before them. The September 11 attacks happened when they were in seventh grade, we invaded Iraq when they were in eighth grade. But let’s hope that the rest of they’re life lessons don’t have to be so hard-learned.
Let the commencements commence!

Rural Schools should be more prepared

Rural Schools should be more prepared
Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, October 12, 2006

The Congressman Foley instant-messenger sex with teenage pages and the apparent House cover-up eclipsed Bob Woodward’s new book, “State of Denial,” that scrutinized the Bush Administration’s handling of the war in Iraq. Before that, Woodward’s book overshadowed the National Intelligence Estimate that revealed many of the problems that those policies wrought.

No doubt by the time you’re reading this column, yet another story will be dominating the headlines. That’s the problem with writing for a weekly newspaper, the news cycle is 24/7 so there’s no way to know what will be relevant if you’re writing for October 12, but writing on October 5th.

But something tragic happened recently that we shouldn’t take for granted or become calloused to. Nor should we let it be lost in the media feeding-frenzy of political intrigue and personal indiscretion.

Kids were killed. Kids were killed all over the country. Not in big cities, but out here, “ out in the country.”

An October 4 story on National Public Radio (NPR) reported” Violent crime is far less common in rural areas than in cities. Rural people are four times less likely to be victims of violent crime. Yet all three school shootings in the past week occurred in rural places.”

There was a similar rash of shootings after the Columbine shootings in 1999. Virtually all of the shootings in the 90’s occurred in small cities and rural towns.

It doesn’t make sense that the safest places to live could be the most dangerous place to go to school. We feel somewhat insulated.

Schools in small towns make easier targets.

Urban schools have tighter security and more experience working with violent and troubled teens.

In rural areal guns are more easily accessible than in cities, although they’re less likely to be used in a crime. But rural kids are far more likely to be able to get a hold of a weapon easily.
In a smaller community, if a student lives on the social fringes, they have a harder time finding a place to fit in.

We’d like to think that it’s a good thing to live somewhere where everyone either knows you or knows someone who knows you, but that also means that if you’re teased or ridiculed, it’s harder to hide and it’s harder to reinvent yourself.

After the Columbine shootings, the vast majority of students identified with the victims, but a small percentage identified with the shooters because they not only got even with the bullies and the mean teachers, they also got famous.

In the years since Columbine many schools have worked hard to crack down on harassment and bullying. Districts have drafted policies and implemented programs to prevent sexual harassment, hazing and initiations of underclassmen, and discrimination based on race, religion and sexual preference.

It still may not be enough. School hallways, locker rooms, buses and classrooms are still places where it’s accepted behavior to “talk trash,” and “rip on each other.”
But it’s also not enough to work at being pro-active. Schools have to craft, review, train for and implement serious emergency management plans.

One teacher in a one-room school 80 miles from the nearest sheriff’s station suggested to an NPR reporter that they should equip schools with sirens, so that when a catastrophic event occurs, parents and neighbors will know about it for miles around.
Schools in Brown, Rock and Holt counties in North Central Nebraska were in low-down last week after a local newspaper received an anonymous call from someone who said there would be a shooting at one of the schools.

What exactly is “lock-down?” I’m a teacher and I don’t know. I’ve heard of large city schools where all of the classroom door can be closed and locked at once in case of an emergency. Sort of like battening down the hatches on a ship.

We’re told where to take kids in a tornado and for a fire drill. We know who our team leaders are for cleaning up blood, vomit, and bodily fluids. We’re trained in first aid. But what if someone was in the library with a shotgun?

Maybe my district has such a plan and I’m the one who’s negligent for not knowing it, but as a parent I’d want every teacher to know it backwards and forwards.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools suggests a framework of the four phases of crisis planning: prevention/mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

They held training sessions this April in Colorado and this May in Pennsylvania, but they only had room for 125 school administrators and personnel.
I believe that our states should offer this kind of training for as many teachers, administrators, and school-board members as possible.

I may sound paranoid or alarmist to some, but I believe that every school board should develop an emergency and crisis management plan and make sure that teachers, staff members and students are a helluva lot more familiar with it than they are with the school mission statement or fight song. Lives may depend on it.

Meeting the needs of a community

Meeting the needs of a community
Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, August 31, 2006

We hear a lot of crusty veteran teachers complain that the profession just isn’t what it used to be. Often they point out that it’s the kids. Kids just don’t respect their teachers like they used to or learning just isn’t as important to these kids anymore.

To some degree that’s true. Society has certainly evolved over the years so that what we used to call its basic fabric seems to be worn thin. Divorce is twice as prevalent as it was fifty years ago. Television, games and the rest of the media have desensitized youth to sex and violence to the point where both are taken for granted. The world itself and its economy seem to have forever altered what used to be thought of as “the American Dream.”

High School teachers are especially frustrated when their students don’t seem to be prepared enough for them to learn the subjects in their class. High pressure from new un-funded laws make things more complicated, as do special needs students being added to the mix of already over sized and under equipped classrooms.

Elementary teachers are frustrated because they feel like they have to become all things to all their students. It’s not enough that they need to teach their subject matters, but they need to teach manners, civility, conflict-resolution, drug prevention, abstinence or sexual responsibility and a host of other responsibilities that fifty years ago were the responsibility of the nuclear family, extended family, or church and civic organizations to address.

But maybe instead of wishing for the good old days, we all need to recognize the society we live in today and start addressing the needs of our kids here and now.

For some of us, teachers and communities alike, this may require major adjustments to our thinking and how we do things.

I’d bet that more than half of all kids don’t have what used to be traditional “nuclear family” situations anymore. How then, could we begin to imagine, let alone expect that they’d have “family values?”

For many kids, their “values” are down right primal. An over-simplified explanation might look like this: If you’re “family” makes more than $250,000 per year, you probably value influence and status. Between say $40,000 and $250,000 and you’re probably valuing things, conveniences, clothes, gadgets, vehicles, etc. Your stuff. Under $40,000 and you’re going to value things like your next meal, your security, your safety, and people who accept you and are loyal to you.

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist that almost every teacher is taught about. He had a theory that every human being has some very basic needs. I think that it’s time that all of us, not just teachers, considered the needs of our children.

Maslow was the first of seven children born to his parents, who were uneducated immigrants. He ended up being the chairman of the psychology department at Brandeis University throughout the 1950’s and 60’s.

Abraham Maslow broke down people’s needs into two categories, “deficiency needs” and “growth needs.” If the deficiency needs aren’t being met, the person is in survival mode. Once the deficiency needs are met, then we can start to address the growth needs.

Here are Maslow’s first four, or “deficiency” needs:

1) Physical: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.

A kid can’t learn if they’re malnourished. Their brains and bodies literally aren’t able to, besides that it’s hard to concentrate.

2) Safety/security: being out of danger.

How can you learn and behave well, when you don’t have a place to sleep, or you’re constantly threatened? For many kids, school is the least volatile place they spend time at. Alcohol, inappropriate sexuality, illegal drugs including meth, and physical violence are all routine parts of many children’s lives.

3) Belonging and Love: being accepted or part of something.

4) “Esteem:” to achieve and become competent, gaining approval and recognition.

It does seem unreasonable to expect classroom teachers to have to fulfill all of these needs for all of their students before they ever begin to address “growth needs” like thinking and learning skills, and aesthetic judgements, let alone academic subject area content like math and reading.

But the needs remain. Schools and communities need to adjust and adapt in order to be able to address these needs. Whether because of ignorance, circumstance, poverty, or impatience, fewer and fewer parents seem to be managing to.

Boyer Valley School District has added a day care, and a family-community coordinator. Our library is shared with the city and soon we’ll have a community based fitness center on our campus. The Area Education Association helps provide psychological and social services.

Many school buildings host things like recovery group meetings or community college classes in the evenings. I wouldn’t doubt that the Denison Schools offer adult education classes or at least English as a second language classes on their campus.

We as communities, church congregations, and civic organizations need to open our eye, our hearts, and perhaps our schedules or at least pocket-books to the needs of the children who live around us.

School districts, boards, administrators, and teachers need to open our minds to new ways of approaching these needs. That may include collaborating with cities or businesses, or with other districts. It will certainly take patience and compassion.

All of us need to consider ways that we can help provide for these most basic needs of our neighbors. If we don’t we’ll all pay a heavy price.

___________________________________________________________
Ted Mallory is a resident of Charter Oak and a teacher and coach at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. He has taught History, Art, Journalism, and Religion over the last 13 years at Trinity Lutheran Middle School in Reseda, CA, Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High School in Sylmar, Ca and now at Boyer Valley MS/HS.

Class of 2005

This Sunday, Charter Oak- Ute will commemorate the graduation of another class. Boyer Valley Seniors walked across the stage last week. I’m not quite sure when Denison-Schleswig or Maple Valley hold their graduations, but I’m sure it’s that time of year for them as well.

I’d like to dedicate this week to those members of the class of two-thousand and ought five.

I feel a special connection to your class. I’ve been a high school teacher now for 12 years, just shy of what sociologist call a “generation” (13 yrs) and most of you were born the year that I graduated from high school, 1988.

You were eighth graders when I moved here to Iowa, so I’ve really got to see you change if you’re in St. John Lutheran, Charter Oak’s youth group or a student where I teach in Dunlap.

I want to talk to you as if you were my own child or at least a niece or nephew. I want to give you some meaningful, practical advice that you can use.

First, if you’re sticking around here and going right into the job force: my advice is the same for freshmen coming into high school. Get involved, only obviously I don’t mean in school, I mean in your community. The only way to make a place better is for you to help. The best way to make sure that other people will be willing to lend you a hand when you need it is to lend a hand.

You’re really lucky to live somewhere where people know each other, look each other in the eye and actually talk to each other. Take advantage of it. No matter how well or how poorly you did in school, you will do well if you get involved and participate in your town, local clubs and civic organizations, and of course your church.

You won’t regret it, you’ll earn respect and help contribute to our quality of life.

Next, if you’re entering into the armed services, either active service or in the Guard or Reserve. I know way too many of you. First of all, thank you in advance. You may be in it for a job or for money for college, but you’re working, standing, sacrificing, risking and fighting for all of us.

The best advice I can give you is what my dad, a Marine sergeant told me. “They can tell you what to do, where and when to sleep, what to eat, how to speak and act, but no matter how much they try, they can’t tell you what to think unless you let them.”

People who’ve been through Basic tell you that the most important thing to do in basic is to be a team player- the whole goal of Basic training is to break you down as an individual so that they can rebuild you as part of a unit. Help your fellow soldiers and don’t be ashamed to ask them for help and you’ll not only survive but thrive.

You CAN support the troops and still not support the war, so don’t resent people who do, you’re fighting for their freedom to do so. Remember you are a citizen soldier. You serve at the pleasure of your Commander in Chief, but that doesn’t mean you have to vote to please him too.

And most importantly, "6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." ~Deuteronomy 31:6

Now, those of you headed for college. College can be a pretty scary place (at least for the first couple of weeks) and it will probably be more challenging than high school was. Don’t quit after the first semester. You can do it.

To survive at college, you will need to follow the same advice that I give to 7th and 8th graders the first day of school: show up to class, do your work, put your name on it, and turn it in. If you do that much, you can at least expect to pass. Your grades may not be stellar, but you’ll pass.

Next, keep perspective. For some kids, the first semester of college is as emotionally intense as all four years of college put together. Don’t let that panic you. It feels cool to know that all of a sudden you’re out on your own and legally a grown up, but keep in time that you’re still learning, growing and maturing and you don’t know everything yet. So let yourself make mistakes.

Some people seem to think that college is all about pizza, beer and sex. Keep fun in it’s place. Are you having a drink? Or does the drink have you? Are you having sex, or does it have you? It’s normal to try new things, it’s normal to want to fit in with everybody else, and it’s normal to want to have fun, but always remember that your decisions determine your destiny. Most of the people who drop out of college can’t blame grades or money- the grades and money get eaten up by poor choices.

Finally, to all of you. Enjoy the ride. Life is a journey, not a destination. Use things and love people, don’t use people and love things.

“Success is the peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” ~John Wooden, UCLA

A lot is said about kids today. Mostly critical and cynical (by me included) but I want to be the first to tell you that most of you make me feel very secure about the future.

Congratulations, and good luck.

Protect our greatest resource

Once again, Governor Vilsack and a few state legislators in a special “governance committee” are threatening Iowa’s greatest assets, her rural schools. If they want to encourage us to cooperate and share resources, why don’t they just ask? Why do they have to threaten us with forced consolidation or elimination?

Iowa's 367 districts are already under extreme pressure to increase academic standards. I appreciate that Vilsack and “Tommy’s Dozen” want the state to take over more of the cost of public schools from local property taxpayers.

According to a Monday, March 21 story in the Des Moines Register*, Vilsack and the legislators concocted a school plan last week while talking about efficiency of state and local government. It’s all fine and good for county and local governments to share services, and I’m even in favor of neighboring schools cooperating and pooling resources, but why does the “governance committee” have any business meddling in the future of Iowa public schools?

Part of it has to do with the fact that schools have traditionally been supported by property taxes, but Vilsak and the governance committee want to cut those taxes for commercial and industrial property owners. I suppose that they don’t think that farmers and homeowners bear enough of the burden.

Tommy’s Dozen want to have a commission “study the issue,” and recommend a minimum size for school districts to the 2007 Legislature.

Could you imagine students living within two miles of Dunlap having to drive to Castana to their county high school? Could you imagine students living within two miles of Ute having to drive in to Denison? Kids in Dunlap would have to drive to Mondaiman.

Charter Oak-Ute wouldn’t have an opportunity to win another state basketball title, there won’t be a Charter Oak-Ute. I know one COU graduate who became a university dean, another is the student body president of one of the states universities. You can’t tell me that small schools don’t offer opportunities and challenge their students in ways that even large schools can’t.

According to the Register Vilsack thinks that high schools with under 200 students should reorganize. If they did, he thinks that the new super-districts could pay teachers more, buy more computers and offer more of advanced math and science classes.

Get real. By having fewer schools, they’d cut expenses. What they’d really do is; layoff teachers and increase student-teacher ratios, cannibalize the obsolete computers of the axed districts for the new bigger-districts, and complain that not enough students qualify to take more advanced math and science classes.

More than a third of Iowa's 365 high schools have less than 200 students. Iowa’s proud tradition of educational excellence was forged in the one-room school house. Small schools are our foundation.

We’ve gone through this before. It seems like every few years, somebody wants to snuff out small schools.

There’s nothing wrong with pooling resources, and establishing regional academies so that students can take advanced placement classes that otherwise wouldn’t be offered at their school. But why are schools even considered an easy way to cut costs. Shouldn’t our children be where we want to focus the lion’s share of our resources?

They want to threaten that if small schools don’t show enough progress at sharing resources, they’ll be forced into regional districts. Sharing teachers, superintendents, transportation, food service and maintenance operations aren’t bad ideas, but why do I suspect that there are those who are just looking for an excuse to cut out the small schools?

I’ve admired the valiant efforts that so many legislators (led by our own) are engaging in to encourage business development in Iowa with things like the Iowa values Fund. It’s time that we apply the same kind of creativity, enthusiasm and tenacity to protecting and promoting our state’s greatest resource- small schools.

*Panel urges schools to share
The legislative committee supports a minimum size for school districts. March 22, 2005

Someone needs to educate our Governor about small schools

Ted's Column Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper Thurs. Sept. 23, 2004
Link to a quickoverview.com of tom-visack

I apologize if many of you were offended by last weeks column. Like I said last week, you’re more than welcome to disagree with me. Believe it or not, I think President is a good man and I appreciate, even agree with many of his espoused values. Let me make up for last week, I mean it. I want you to know that I’m an equal-opportunity offender. This week I my rant is against our Democratic Governor.

I think that Tom Vilsack is off his gord. I’m so irritated with him for something he told a group of Iowa school superintendents last Monday that he may have lost my vote if he runs for re-election. No, believe it or not, I’m not just a party wonk. I occasionally break ranks and vote Republican.

Let me tell you why I’m so irked by Governor Tom. He wants to save the state $10 million dollars per year. “How can you be angry about that, Ted?” I hear you saying “Just last week you were complaining about skyrocketing deficits, I thought you might be a at least a FISCAL conservative?”

I’m angry, because he wants to save that money by consolidating small high schools, making them share principals and superintendents, even developing regional or high schools, as in one per county. Vilsack proposed an incentive plan to merge small high schools back in 2003, fortunately the legislature didn’t pick up his cause… yet

One small school superintendent told the Des Moines Register that at least one thing the Governor obviously overlooked is that consolidation would not be cost effective because of how much transportation costs go up.

"I can see where…sharing of administrators might be able to save both districts some money, but it would be at the cost of a quality education," said the superintendent. That’s because class sizes would be much larger.

If Iowa has been known for it’s excellent education, much of that reputation is because of it’s smaller schools, a legacy that began with one-room school houses.

Smaller schools like Charter Oak-Ute offer an optimum teacher to student ratio of one teacher with 13 to 17 students, or even better. Larger schools, like Denison are lucky to maintain "regular" class sizes consisting of one teacher with 22 to 26 kids. Schools in L.A. have as many as 45 kids in a class.

There is tons of research that indicates that smaller class sizes produce better results in reading and math skills. Small schools are amazing. Students achievement more, the gap between poor and affluent students is narrowed. Students are known as real people by their teachers. There is less absenteeism, maybe because people know you and notice when you’re missing. Did you know, even the cost per graduate is lower in small schools compared to large high schools?

Teachers will smaller classes are able to concentrate on teaching better because they spend less time in behavior problems and disruptions. They can deal with problems quicker than teachers with large classes, before they became serious. A school with fewer discipline problems makes it easier for younger students to adjust and older kids form a stronger social bond.

Students in small classes through most of their school years are less likely to be held back. Every kid in a small school is known by more than just one adult, and those relationships are sustained over several years.

Of course, the community itself, as well as parents and alumni are critical allies. Small schools tend to do a better job of finding ways to include them in the life of the school.
Vilsack claims that if Schools with less than 200 students merged, the new, bigger districts would be able to pay teachers more, and offer more advanced math and science classes. Of course, hundreds of us would lose our jobs, so what good is it of other teacher got paid more?

And we don’t need to consolidate to offer more classes. Boyer Valley has joined forces with Woodbine, Logan and West Harrison to offer Advanced Placement and college classes not only in math and science, but in English and History as well. Pooling resources does not have to mean consolidating.

Almost 40 % of Iowa high schools have fewer than 200 students. Does Visack really want to eliminate that many schools and lower the caliber of those remaining by straining their resources with huge class sizes? Especially so soon after introducing the Iowa Quarter that celebrates our great tradition of quality learning through small town schools?

I know that our schools aren’t perfect. I’m also realistic enough to know that our population is decreasing, therefore, so are our tax revenues. I’m just saying that consolidation should be the last resort. We can survive, we just have to think outside the box. Like Boyer Valley and those three other area schools banning together to offer more.

We should also be willing to think ahead. I for one would much rather see COU go in with Maple Valley or Boyer Valley or Schleswig, rather than get sucked up into Denison. The worst thing we could do is to sit and do nothing or fight amongst ourselves until it’s too late and we have no input anymore, like what seemed to happen to East Monona.

But I think that Charter Oak-Ute should have greater vision than that. Maybe we need an endowment fund like colleges, or maybe if worse came to worse, we should consider becoming a “charter school” or a parochial school.
No doubt, COU needs to be aggressive about finding grants. I want to suggest a couple of websites for school board members and administrators to check out:

www.smallschoolsproject.org and www.gatesfoundation.org/Education

This fall, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation opened 250 new or redesigned schools, mostly in New York, but also in 29 states nationwide. They realize that the best schools have less than 400 and even fewer than 200 students. They know that the best schools are locally controlled. Even if it shares an administrator, or sports or co-curricular activities with other schools they retain authority to make important decisions.

We’re all vulnerable to Vilsack’s consolidation plan. Dunlap, Woodbine, and Mapleton need to be creative too. Maybe Des Moines has it backwards. They seem to think that if we attract businesses with tax breaks then population will grow and education will eventually benefit. I say focus on our strengths. Focus on small-school education, and business will come seeking employees.

If you have a goose that lays golden eggs, you wouldn’t starve it to death to save money would you? That’s what Vilsack wants to do. Iowa’s small schools have been one of Iowa’s strengths. You don’t cut your arms off to make your legs stronger. We shouldn’t let them eliminate our small schools in an il-conceived scheme to help our large schools.

Noah’s Ark still afloat with Bramley at the helm

I was driving my two year old, Ellen to the babysitter one morning when we had an interesting conversation.

“Where’d Hewen go?” she asked.
“Your sister GRACE is with Mommy, Mommy is driving her to preschool, and by the way, YOUR name is Ellen,” I replied.
“She go schoooowel? Me wan go schooowel,” she said.
“Well, I know you’d love to go to school, but you’re not old enough yet, by the way, how old are you, Ellen?” I quizzed her.
“Me five!” she announced.
“Nooo, you’re two,” I explained, holding up two fingers.
“NO! Me FWIVE!!!” she screamed.
“Honey, listen, calm down, think about it,” I reasoned (temporarily forgetting that reasoning with a two year old is about as smart as trying to train your cat to heard sheep). “Your older sister, GRACE, is only four, and you’re the LITTLE sister, you’re just two, get it?”
“Oh-tay,” she relented.
“So how old are you?” just wanting to make sure I had gotten through.
“ME TWOO!” she grinned and held up two fingers.
I smiled and sighed, apparently I’d gotten somewhere.

I love the fact that she longs to learn and has finally gotten to an age where she’ll slow down long enough to climb on our laps for a us to read to her.
We’re really fortunate that Grace loves school too. Although, many is the evening when we ask “Grace, what did you learn about in school today?” only to have her shrug and answer “things.” I thought that kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen till at least junior high.

Research has established that preschool education can produce substantial gains in children's learning and development. Christian preschools not only give kids a head start, they also lay a foundation of faith and relationships for children.

The Barna Research Institute discovered that a person’s lifelong behaviors and views are generally developed when they are young – particularly before they reach the teenage years. A person’s moral foundations are generally in place by the time they reach age nine (fourth grade). A majority of Americans make a lasting determination about the personal significance of Christ’s death and resurrection by age 12 (seventh grade).

It always boggles my mind when parents proudly proclaim that they’re not forcing their religion on their child, they want them to make up their minds for themselves when they’re old enough. Obviously these parents don’t genuinely believe whatever faith they claim to profess because if you KNOW and BELIEVE that God is real and that the Bible is true, why would you treat that knowledge as if it were merely an option, a choice. We inoculate our children with vaccines to protect them from deadly diseases, why not share with them that God loves them and wants what is best for them while they’re young too?

This is National Lutheran Schools Week. Martin Luther once argued that schools were more important than even homeland security.:
“Even though only a single boy could thereby be trained to become a real Christian, we ought to give a hundred dollars to this cause for every dollar we would give to fight the Turk, even if they were breathing down our necks,” he wrote in a sermon promoting education.
The main reason Luther encouraged parents to make sure their children received an education was so that they could one day read the Bible for themselves and thereby develop a personal relationship with God. That’s a value that Methodists, Catholics, Baptists, and every Christian can appreciate.

Many people remember that St. John Lutheran Church in Charter Oak once had a Lutheran elementary school, but how many realize that they still have a Lutheran school?

St. Johns Lutheran’s preschool, “Noah’s Ark” has been blest by the loving care, and instruction of Mrs. Sandy Bramley since 1981. This Lutheran Schools Week, I want to recognize Sandy for her important work. Sandy has introduced generations of Charter Oak children to Jesus and the Bible. She has started them on their life’s journey of learning and working together. Thank you, Sandy and may God continue to bless the work He does through you.

Lynn Hoffman is someone who also played a major role in Noah’s Ark for many years. If you or one of your children have been a student of Sandy or Lynn over the years, why not send them a note and let them know what a difference they make and what they mean to you?

Smaller is Better

Years ago when I was in college to become a teacher and dating an Iowan, I was impressed with Iowa. Iowa was famous for the high quality of its education. Iowa was known for quality schools, quality teachers, and successful students. Oh that it were still so. Schools are struggling to stay open, good teachers are leaving our profession in droves in hopes of making a better living. Students have taken on a fatalistic attitude, believing that they haven’t got much of a future and if they do, it must be in a bigger city in another state.

Boyer Valley and Maple Valley passed bond issues to build new facilities, but they’re freezing budgets and cutting their staffs and programs. East Monona is facing its extinction. What challenges does Charter Oak-Ute have to face?

The best thing Iowa has always had going for it is size. Smaller is better. There seems to be an idea going around that we should eliminate all Class 1A schools (any under 2-300 students). Some people see the natural evolution being that there should only be one public high school per county.

In California parents are adamantly fighting to reduce class sizes. The idea being that a lower teacher-to-student ration means more individual attention. The Glory of Iowa was the one-room schoolhouse.

In a March 31, 2003 Editorial, the Des Moines Register argued that we could offer students a broader variety of elective courses if the smallest schools were merged into regional Über -schools. Students get lost in huge institutions. Teachers and administrators become bureaucrats.

More students have more opportunity to be involved in more extracurricular activities, in smaller schools. Students who might never have been in Student Government, plays, Band, or Cheer and Drill at a school of over a thousand students are often involved in not just one but two or three of these activities in a school of 200 or less. Athletes who’s ride the bench along with fifty other third-stringers get to be starters at small schools. Simply put, would you rather your child be a little fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a little pond?

Small schools can broaden their offerings in a number of ways. The best could be simply by partnering with our small towns and small businesses. Internships, field trips, workshops, seminars, clinics, work study programs, these are all things that non licensed teachers can offer and if they do, they will benefit as much as the students. Hospitals, nursing homes, caterers, retailers, accountants, manufacturers and machine shops all have something to offer.

Another way would be for neighboring school districts to cooperate with one another. In suburban Phoenix, some schools operate as "magnet" schools. In other words, if there are three schools within so many miles of each other, one may have a great Fine Arts program, (music, drama, etc), another may have the strongest Industrial-Ed program, still another might offer the most advanced computer courses. By coordinating their schedules, students enrolled at one school can shuttle to another to take classes not offered at their own school.

Not to mention the satellite video learning network already in place. Students who’s school only has a French teacher can take Spanish classes in the ICN room (Iowa Communications Network).

The Register made the argument against their own position by accusing proponents of smaller schools of measuring "quality more by dedication of the staff, sense of community and safety, low dropout rates" and better ACT scores.

There is a way to help maintain and maybe even improve small schools. There is legislation in the Statehouse right now that hopes to help get a fairer share of money to smaller schools and cut your property taxes in the process. Many communities fund their schools through property taxes. This leads to serious differences in the quality of school building and resources. In the L.A. area for example, Beverly Hills has much nicer facilities than Compton. It’s not because of segregation, it’s because properties in Beverly Hills are more valuable, so there are higher tax revenues in their school district. Poverty breeds poverty.

House File 626 will level the playing field. After a small increase in state wide sales tax provides property tax relief it’s revenues will go into a pool and distributed to all schools on a per student basis. Advocates claim that this will help guarantee a good education for kids, regardless of their family’s income level, or where they live.

Please write your State Representatives and Senators and ask them to fight and vote for "Infrastructure Equity and Property Tax Relief.