DIS-Connectedness?

So...we were a bit surprised to see this meeting notice:

L E G A L N O T I C E

Sun Prairie Area School District

Sun Prairie, WI 53590

Agenda for

Thursday, June 10, 2010

SOAR GRADUATION, 11:30 a.m. at Prairie Phoenix Academy, 160 South St., Sun Prairie.

........................

So....

1. The SOAR kids no longer get to "graduate" with their classmates (on Friday evening)?

2. Who attends a graduation in the middle of the day?

While it's possible the kids wanted to separate themselves from the rest of their flock, we wonder if that is the case. Or are we just making these kids further "dis" connected?

District Policy DUM-B

Have you ever looked at the district Policy naming structure? Does it drive you to drink? OK, that's fodder for an entirely different blog post. We have other business to attend to.

On the verge of another school year, a number of parents have been struggling to make sense of the board's decision on boundaries and try to reconcile it with policies and goals related to connectedness. This is their story.

Bird Elementary has space available. There are at least 21 spaces out of 436 total. That is a fact.

4 parents applied to allow their younger child, sibling of their child (who was grandfathered to stay at Bird due to their entry into 5th grade). TWO (2) were approved. TWO (2) others were not. This is also a fact.

We can't place these TWO kids at Bird Elementary????
This reeks of retribution an inconsistency.

Parents were told they have to ask Alice Murphy who then told them Culver makes the decision and then Culver tells them the Board makes those decisions and then back to Culver who says his staff makes those decisions. Conceptually this is how everything works, and its also how the district sweeps things under the carpet. People with a legitimate concern (like the Cardinal Parents group who were appalled at the graduation fiasco and requested action) keep shopping for answers or a response and they keep getting shuttled to someone else. You'll notice that that issue withered on the vine over the summer...just how the district likes it.

One parent summed it up as follows:

"Each party tells the complainant to contact the other to resolve it and the other refers them back to the original person. Pretty soon the complainant gets so frustrated they drop the whole issue and "go away" just like the district wants them to."

Oh, the district will tell you that their hands are tied, because SAGE rules require mandatory class sizes not to exceed 15 students per class in grades K-3. Of course, the REST of the story...what they don't tell you is that:
(A) The district has exceeded SAGE limits in each of the last 3 years, and
(B) The Department of Public Instruction is either asleep at the switch on the issue or is incorporating it's own version of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

The bottom line (as is frequently the case with this district) is that they cite rules and policy when the rules and policies even remotely support their actions, but otherwise, it's Policies be Damned.

Welcome to "Dis-connectedness"

Letters! We get letters!
SP-EYE: We received an open letter to the school board/district administration/community pointing out once again the complete lack of common sense of the school board's boundary decision.

In this follow-up, we learn that there are at least 15 open seat at Bird school. 4 parents applied to allow their younger child to stay at Bird with their older sibling who was "grandfathered". 1 was accepted. 3 were denied. THIS is connectedness?

Back in March the school board made a decision to change a school boundary that affected about 38 children attending CH Bird Elementary. This was a very contentious issue that created a significant amount of stress on the affected parties and created distrust in the school board and school district.

Recently interviews were conducted with a number of candidates to fill a vacated School Board Position. During the interview process the School Board President asked each candidate “Is the school boundary issue over?” All of the candidates responded, “Yes”.

Now as the school year approaches and the student’s class assignments have been made a spin off of the school boundary change has come to light and it has re-opened the wound and should leave anyone with school aged children in a state of
disbelief.

As part of the Boundary change the District has appropriately allowed students that will be entering 5th grade to remain at their former school. That makes sense since who would want any student to have three different schools in three years if you could reasonably avoid it. But what about the younger siblings of these students? Well the district has decided that these younger siblings need to go to their new school and not where their grandfathered sibling is going! Apparently this is the district’s “policy” yet no such policy exists anywhere in writing.

In the case of the students affected by the recent boundary change well, there are four grandfathered 5th grade students returning to CH Bird who have younger siblings. One of the younger siblings was allowed to return to CH Bird under the Voluntary Placement process while the other three were told that they had to go to their new school because there was room for them there. Voluntary placement requires that the “home school” be full at the needed grade before the district will consider the request. Parents of the remaining three students tried several different approaches to get the District to understand their concerns and even though there were over 15 empty classroom seats that could accommodate these three children, their requests were denied. The district defended these denials based on “policy” yet no policy exists on Grandfathered students and their siblings.

So what does this mean? Whatl I do know that there will be more school boundary changes occurring in the future. I also know that there will likely be grandfathered students who have younger siblings who will be faced with the same dilemma. So in the absence of common sense I guess there needs to be a written policy that spells out specifically how the district should address the placement of grandfathered student’s younger siblings. In the absence of that we will have to rely on the districts judgment which frankly is way off base on this issue.

I have heard the District Administrator tout the benefits of “connectedness” many times. Well, as long as the district is going to have a “policy” of separating siblings how can he ever hope to achieve the level of connectedness that he is striving for? To heck with family and sibling relationships. To heck with showing compassion to parents and children who’s requests are reasonable, attainable and in the spirit of “connectedness.” The school board made a decision and the district administration is going to implement it no matter what the cost!

Now that the school boundary wound has been reopened with this demonstrated lack of compassion I guess it’s fair to say that the “school boundary issue” is not over. This recent decision by the district to separate these three siblings clearly shows that some district officials are living in the state of “Disconnectedness”.

Name Witheld to protect them from retribution

Culver : The "adults in charge" have spoken

The Boundary Wars began as an attempt to (A) populate the new Creekside Elementary, and then (B) an ancillary concept was to achieve better socioeconomic balance in the elementary schools. This latter objective was later tabled in favor of creating another one of those dreaded Task Forces.

The ultimate game of musical chairs that ensued ended up with identifying 53 children from the northern edge of the district (developments within the town of Bristol) to be relocated from Bird school to Westside. SP-EYE is awaiting final numbers, but all reports indicate that the actual number of students involved is far less than the original number--as little as 8-10 students. Subsequently 4 parents have asked the question, "...if space exists in Bird, and my older child is 'grandfathered' to remain at Bird, could you please allow my child's younger sibling to be with their sibling--at least for this year?" One of these parents, who was told "NO", shared the message that she received from Dr. Culver when she asked how she should explain the rationale for this inexplicable ruling to her younger child. Dr. Culver responded:

The parent responds
Excerpts from the parent's response to this extremely frustrating and inconceivable nonsense are provided below:
I think I will tell my daughter that sometimes there are circumstances in which people make rules and policies in life that do nothing to make positive change. In this case, some adults who forgot they are elected officials, are trying to mask a crisis in our community by randomly busing children all over town.

It is easier for [the school board/district] to ignore the true issues of the district and separate you from your family and middle school peers. I will encourage her to deal with this change by reassuring that no one in the community will allow for such incompetence to continue.

One important skill my children will learn is to have integrity. I will teach them to hold true to their principles and values. I will tell her how many adults would rather hide behind inaccurate data and incomplete information than admit when they have made a mistake. I will tell her to never be afraid to admit if you are wrong.

Finally, I reminded her that if the school board/district thinks this is over, they have under estimated the people of Sun Prairie. Thanks for your suggestions but I prefer to be honest with my children.

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SP-EYE: The board loves to prattle on about the importance of "neighborhood schools" and connectedness. How connected can you be if your older sibling is allowed to stay at one school whole the younger ones are left to try to make sense out of being carted away past not one, but TWO elementary schools to their new 'home'? Is that any way to emphasize family? Culver and others have been quick to offer, "well....you could have your 5th grade student choose to move to Westside with their younger sibling."

Once again, where is the logic in that? A 5th grader needs to continue to build on connections and relationships with their student support base in preparation for entering middle school next year. This is NOT the time to throw these kids into a new school! It's apparent that the board will not reconsider its bad decision--despite the message about accountability and taking responsibility for one's actions that their decisions have sent across the city. One would hope however, that if space is available, the board demands that the district allow siblings in these cases to remain with their brother/sister at Bird.