Reminder! There’s an Education Forward meeting this Saturday at 9:00am. Moved back an hour, 8:00am on a Saturday is too early for a City meeting…:). Second floor conference room at City Hall. Expect we’ll see some rough pricing on some options and the committee will select some options for the Superintendant to flesh out. The next step would be a meeting where a relatively comprehensive proposal is brought forward and debated.
I’ve also recieved several emails about the accreditation problems the schools are experiencing. My recollection on that is the provisional status had to do with graduation rates at OHS. If you have concerns about that, I’d urge you to talk to the School Board folks. I just don’t know a ton about that.
December 6, 2011 at 8:44 am
@Andy,
Please share your meeting notes and comments about this meeting, many residents that would like to attend will be boarding the Santa Train with their kids.
December 6, 2011 at 3:00 pm
FYI – http://www.courtsathistoricmanassas.com/amenities/schools.html
December 6, 2011 at 5:33 pm
@Cindy….well, why not? When the house next door to me was up for sale, it had Parkside listed as the school not Weems.
December 6, 2011 at 6:33 pm
LOL..@ Cindy..perhaps an attempt at advertising with the typical real estate disclaimer “not deemed reliable”. On another note, anyone know what property the city schools are trying to acquire??
December 6, 2011 at 8:21 pm
Though I’m looking forward to hearing what the items on this wish list might cost, I’m even more interested in finding out when the committe will be entertaining or considering other options. I’m sure that it would be worthwhile to listen to folks other than the superintendent and committee members. Granted, I’m not an elected representative and you are, but I can’t believe that the recent list is all that’s worthy of examination. In the months and months that the Education Forward committee has existed, there has been no specific public forum or even comments allowed where you can cast a wider net to find ‘things that would make MCPS the premier system in NOVA’.
December 6, 2011 at 10:45 pm
Interestingly enough Dr. Pope, Mr. Bushnell and Mr. Albrecht attended the Mayfield PTA meeting tonight to discuss the Education Forward “ideas.” The committee consists of 3 school board members and 3 council members. The “ideas” were interesting but will not make Manassas City Schools the best in region. We did have an opportunity to ask questions and my question was why hasn’t this committee formed focus groups to help research other options. Why not get parents involved? Believe it or not there are parents that want to be involved, to offer creative suggestions and even research other options that may be working in other school systems. Ipads are not going to solve the challenges that WE are facing. I encouraged them to reach out to other stakeholders (parents) form facilitated focus groups and consider non-traditional options! Perhaps, just perhaps if our community is a part of it they will own it…it is my opinion that the current approach will not garner the buy-in that will be necessary to move Education Forward. I will wait and see…I am right there with you Ed.
December 6, 2011 at 10:52 pm
Dr. Pope, Scott Albrecht and Art Bushnell were at the Mayfield PTA meeting tonight. Someone asked about Focus Groups and it was stated that the Ed Forward committee would like to be more focused first. They are apparently going to all the PTAs.
Tomorrow’s SB meeting may be of some interest:
http://manassas.k12.va.us/sb/meetings/2011-12/120711%20special/120711%20Special%20Mtg%20Agenda.htm
Let’s try to remember a few basics: We do not use a Research based Reading Program in the city of Manassas (Steps to Literacy) and OHS is in Year 6 of Improvement in Math. If we can’t fix that, I’m not sure what we’re doing.
December 6, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Free, downloadable guide to “dialogue-to-action circles” in the schools can bring parents, teachers, students and community members together. Just by talking over six two-hour sessions, academics improve, parents get more involved, teachers get more help, community members get more involved:
http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/Issue.2.aspx
We used this same website resource for doing the Neighborhood Improvement Circles in the City of Manassas in 2009. GMU partnered with us, we trained 17 facilitators and bought circle supplies like wall charts and sharpees, copied handouts. Less than $2000 spent, but lots of volunteer hours.
December 6, 2011 at 11:38 pm
Here’s how Montgomery County Public Schools does it. Their director trained out circle facilitators in 2009.
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/studycircles/
December 6, 2011 at 11:47 pm
Here’s how Lynchburg addressed challenges at their high school using community meetings:
http://www.lynchburgva.gov/Index.aspx?page=5073
Lynchburg has also been using the study circles model with their “Many Voices, One Community” program for the past several years.
December 9, 2011 at 10:14 am
In the Ed Forward meetings — some really super ideas have been suggested. The problem is that the issues that are negatively effecting our schools have yet to be identified and agreed upon in the committee. I think that this must be done, then ideas for solutions are more appropriate as they can be justified by what will best address the identified problems. I hope to see more of this very simple and practical dialogue in Saturday’s meeting. If this has been done and I missed it, please let me know.