Blizzard Arrives Early With Superintendent White's Report for BOE Meeting on Monday, 11/24 -- Elm School, 7 p.m.

We have reviewed Dr. White's presentation and Kurt Schneider's slides listed on the Board Agenda (Link 1 , Link 2). Brace yourselves: you will need your snow boots and shovel to dig through the convoluted number crunching within these documents. Parents, once you read through this information you might be asking the following questions:

1. Why is a School Improvement Plan (Link 2) (Apparently developed by Schneider) being presented late in November, just before the Thanksgiving Break when students have a week off, many parents are traveling and not engaged? Shouldn't this plan have (with, in our opinion, questionable numbers and fudge factors) been presented at the START of the school year? Instead of preparing for a TASH conference or his annual summer trek to Wisconsin to promote his inclusive philosophy, he should have been working on this plan and had it ready to go in early August. Heckuva job, Dr. Schneider.

2. We were dizzy and disoriented after reading through the 70 plus slides (Link 1) in Dr. White's student performance presentation. A simple question: where is the actual analysis and what does it mean for our students? We continue to be unimpressed with student performance and now we have MULTIPLE POINTS of DATA to consider. What are you doing, Dr. White? 

3. Conveniently buried at the end of the side, er, slideshow, there is a question as to whether MAP is the best test to continue using. (See Slide 71 of Link 1.) Once again, we see the seeds of doubt being planted. Parents, this is the one test our children take that actually shows growth and teaching effectiveness. Why does the White-Schneider tag team want to get rid of it? Too much evidence that their Learning for All mandate is failing our students and not creating the growth we should be seeing?

4.  Did Ms. Benaitis assist in preparing either of these reports?  In fact, who is actually responsible for the "heavy lifting" of the snow that is blowing about in these reports?  If it continues to be Dr. White, then perhaps it is time to slash the budget by eliminating administrators who are not contributing.

5.  Will any board member demand a real analysis and explanation of what these reports mean?  In fact, will President Turek even bother to read the presentations and thoughtfully consider them before Monday's meeting, or wait until he is at his paying job that afternoon to open up board docs, as he has been known to do in the past? (See 9/21/13 post.)

We could go on, but it's time to break out the snowblower to rid ourselves of the snowy, icy mess that is upon us. The confused messaging continues from Dr. White's administration, and we are very concerned with the curriculum leadership (or lack thereof)  at this point with half the school year just about over.

Pass us the rock salt so we don't slip and fall anymore than we and our children already have.