The Wichita school board meet Monday and it’s a full agenda.
The consent agenda, which is usually a list of bills to pay and is voted on all at once, has some interesting items including renewing licenses for SchoolNet, a network that allows teachers to have a clearinghouse for all the information they need to know including student test scores. The cost to renew is $640,000.
Another item is the increase in student lunch prices by 10 cents starting July 1. Adult lunch prices increase by 15 cents.
Most of the rest of the agenda, which is usually voted on separately, are adjustments and changes to policies including the student code of conduct, the voluntary early retirement program, and providing unpaid leave for victims of domestic violence or sexual assault.
Probably the most anticipated item is the memorandum of understanding between city and the school district on school resource officers. The document formalizes each entity’s role when it comes to school resource officers. Mainly, it says that the officers are city employees, the board can’t make any policies to hinder the use of any of their equipment and, with permission from their bosses, the officers can do a summer program at their school.
This past Monday there was no Wichita school board meeting because they only meet every second and fourth Monday. But this week, board members attended the retirement and longevity banquet honoring employees who have served in the district for several years.
Among this year’s retirement list are some pretty big heavy hitters. Galen Davis, the district’s safety services executive director will be leaving. Along with Mary Ellen Isaac who is in charge of the district’s curriculum focus and Emile McGill in charge of early childhood education. John Updegrove, who is one of the district’s statistics guru will be retiring as well. Updegrove is best known for reciting numbers such as enrollment, percentage of minorities students, and how many parents deferred in the busing lottery, by memory.
The next board meeting is May 21 and the agenda for that will be available the afternoon of May 17.
In their second day of meeting, the Kansas State Board of Education appointed Alexa Posny as the state’s new education commissioner.
Posny was one of two finalists for the job. Marilou Joyner, executive director of the CEO Blackwell Education Support Team, an educational consulting firm was the other finalist. Posny was the former deputy commissioner of education in Kansas before becoming director of the office of special education for the Department of Education in Washington, D.C.
She also applied to be commissioner before but, the then-conservative board chose Bob Corkins.
“I am pleased to be back in Kansas and I look forward to working with Board members, administrators, teachers, and others involved in the education of our children. All students in Kansas deserve an education that allows them to be competitive in the 21st century,” said Posny in a statement.
Her first day is July 1 and she’ll be paid $165,000.
If you’re running for president there are several things you have to have in your campaign:
- A communications director to help craft your message to the American people
- Tons of volunteers to help run the campaign
- A myspace page
A myspace page? Yes. Candidates vying for their party’s nomination have a myspace page and Sen. Sam Brownback isn’t any different.
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The Kansas Department of Education announced today two finalists to be the top education guru in the state.
The finalists are Alexa Posny, director of the office of special education in Washington, D.C and Marilou Joyner, executive director of the CEO Blackwell Education Support Team, an educational consultanting firm. She is also a former executive director of the Kansas City Missouri School District Higher Education Partnership and a former assistant education commissioner in Missouri.
Those in Kansas education circles will remember Posny as the former deputy commissioner of education here in Kansas.
The two finalists were narrowed down from five. The names of the other three were not released.
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The US Chamber of Commerce released their state-by-state report card on education and it looks like Kansas might need some tutoring.
The state received high marks in overall academic achievement and for students of low-income and minority students.
The organization also gave Kansas a high score in the return on investment category because “student achievement in Kansas is high relative to state spending on education.”
But then the report card gets grim.
Kansas receives a D for rigor of standards mainly because of math and science curriculum standards and high school graduation requirements not aligned with college and workforce needs. Also adding to the low grade was the state’s lack of high school exit exams.
As mayor-elect Carl Brewer thanked his constituents at his final neighborhood breakfast this morning, The Hall Monitor couldn’t help but notice two familiar faces in the crowd - Lavonta Williams and Treatha Brown Foster.
These two names have popped up before on The Hall Monitor as possible candidates for the district 1 seat vacancy.
Williams who is a teacher in the Wichita school district said she was thinking about the possibility. Brown-Foster said she was “seriously considering it”.
For whoever fills Brewer’s old slot, it’s not going to be an easy job, he told the crowd today.
“There are going to be high expectations,” he said. “You’ll have to perform like I did or better. It’s going to take alot of commitment and time away from home. Don’t think it’s going to be an easy deal.”
The Hall Monitor has learned that the Kansas State Board of Education has chosen five candidates in the search for the state’s next top education guru.
The board members met in late March with the National Association of State Boards of Education. The national organization is helping the board conduct a nationwide search for the next commissioner. Former commissioner Bob Corkins resigned last November after some conservative members of the board lost their re-election campaigns. That changed the board majority from conservative to moderate.
For the moment, the identities of the five candidates is hush-hush. Board vice-chair and Wichita’s representative Carol Rupe said that the board read all the applications that were presented to them by the search firm but she couldn’t give out any of the candidate’s names. “I don’t know if that’s public information yet,” she said.
All five candidates will be interviewed April 26.
After reading an earlier post about a letter sent out to Wichita district employees, Superintendent Winston Brooks is clarifying a paragraph he wrote about the election.
In a email he shared with us, Brooks wrote that employees should educate themselves on the candidates. He also wrote that there are other groups besides United Teachers of Wichita that they can contact to learn more.
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Wichita schools superintendent Winston Brooks is happy that everyone is back from spring break but he wants to remind everyone to vote on April 3.
Not sure who to vote for? Call the union.
In an email, Brooks, who sent it out a district wide, thanked teachers and staff for their work during the year.
At the end, he urges everyone to do their civic duty and vote. Brooks writes:
“Finally, let me remind all of you that you owe it to yourself, to our students, to the District to go vote on Tuesday, April 3. As you all know, we have contested races in four out of seven School Board seats. Contested races are in District 1, 3, 4, and At Large. I strongly recommend that you educate yourself about the candidates in each of these races. If in doubt, I would encourage you to contact Paul Babich or Larry Landwehr of UTW should you need recommendations on who to vote for. I also want to remind you that those of us who reside within the boundaries of USD #259 will be able to vote for all four races.”
The UTW or the United Teachers of Wichita, the teacher’s union, endorsed incumbent Kevass Harding, district 3 candidate Barb Fuller and district 4 candidate Jeff Davis. The same candidates endorsed by a majority of the school board members.