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Home > Blogs > Springfield Schools News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > November
November 2008
Could MySpace suicide case verdict lead to more online criminal charges?
The New York Times has a story this week about the possible implications of a Missouri woman’s conviction on three misdemeanor charges stemming from cyberbullying on MySpace.
Legal experts expect the case to pave the way for future criminal trials over bullying on the Internet, the Times reports.
In October 2006, 13-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide and it was later revealed that a classmate’s mother had been taunting the girl using a fake profile on MySpace. This particular case made headlines late last year when her parents started talking about their daughter’s death.
The mother, Lori Drew, created a fake MySpace page for a fake boy and used it to get to know Megan. Then she and her daughter and the key witness in the trial, an employee who had helped create the site, sent Megan messages that said he didn’t want to talk to her again and the world would be better off without her.
Hours later, Megan Meier hanged herself in her closet.
Drew was convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles of three misdemeanor charges of computer fraud. The jury rejected felony charges and it’s unclear what kind of sentence could come from this, but legal experts are saying this case could be the first cyberbullying conviction.
And it could have a big impact on future cases.
Cyberbullying is exactly what it sounds like: sending or posting threatening or cruel information online about someone else.
It takes many forms, like threats made over text or instant messaging, creating fake accounts for someone to hurt their reputation or to spread rumors or spreading private conversations or information.
Most schools block the social networking or blogging sites that are typically associated with cyberbullying. But even through cyberbullying likely takes place outside of school hours, its effects often spill into the school day.
In one school district I covered, someone, most likely a junior high student, started a blog purporting to spread the school’s best gossip. It was an anonymous user and was done outside of school. There were also threats against some of the students.
But soon kids were coming to school very upset and even fighting over the things spread on the site, the principal told me. At the time, they were finding it nearly impossible to figure out who had done it but the site had stopped being used.
About 42 percent of kids have experienced bullying online, according to I-SAFE, Inc., a non-profit group aimed at Internet safety education. More than 50 percent of students have admitted to saying mean things to someone online or having mean things said to them. About 60 percent of them will tell an adult.
The MySpace suicide case is a bit unusual because it’s an adult who is working with her teen daughter to bully a child. Adults can be cyberbullies too but typically not against a young child.
Cyberbullying can be even more harmful than the bullying we experienced as kids because the Web allows for anonymity and the bully doesn’t have to see their victim.
With the rise of technology, educators, parents and law enforcement have been grappling with how to handle cyberbullying. Legal experts are saying that the MySpace suicide verdict could be the first cyberbullying conviction.
Because this is the first time the 1986 federal computer fraud laws were used this way, it could pave the way for future cases to protect people from technology crimes, some experts told the Times.
But others argued it could have negative effects as well because it could allow prosecution for users who lie about their identity online to get information.
Do you think this verdict is a step toward curbing cyberbullying or is it opening the law up to too much interpretation?
Auditor meets with district on preliminary revaluation figures
The Clark County Auditor’s Office told Springfield schools that the district could lose more than half a million dollars in property taxes after revaluation appeals are settled, my colleague Bridgette Outten reports today.
The worst case scenario is that the district could lose as much as $551,991, according to district treasurer Penny Rucker who got the preliminary figures from Auditor George Sodders.
Springfield is already preparing for $1.4 million in budget cuts, so this could bump those cuts up to $1.9 million.
A final report is expected sometime in the next couple weeks. Look for more information from individual districts on what their potential loss could be and what that might mean in terms of budget cuts next week.
Springfield selects search firm for recommendation
Springfield City Schools will likely hire BWP Associates to find a new superintendent and the district’s first permanent Springfield High School campus director.
Board members met in special sessions last week and last night to interview BWP and another firm, Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates. Both firms are based in Illinois.
The search, including expenses, could cost up to $50,000, said Board President Donna Picklesimer.
That’s the cost for both the superintendent and campus director search and both will be national searches. The state board of education’s recent national search for a new state superintendent carried a similar price tag.
BWP’s process includes gathering input from the community and staff members to create a profile of what the district is looking for in its next schools chief, according to the company’s Web site. They then develop an advertisement and solicit candidates they feel would be a good match.
The board will vote at a special meeting Dec. 2 and will hear a presentation from BWP at that time, she said. The process will include community input and input from staff members.
The board conducted the final interview last night and it was decided that a recommendation would be made in favor of BWP instead of Hazard, Young, Attea.
Hazard, Young, Attea is the firm that conducted Cincinnati schools’ recent superintendent search until the board terminated the contract after learning that one of the five finalists for the position had settled a sexual harassment suit brought against him by a principal in the district he is set to resign from in June 2009.
The board interviewed these two firms because they are “nationally recognized as the top two firms,” said Picklesimer.
They did not seek bids from other companies or organizations, she said.
But does Springfield need a national search?
Earlier this morning I heard from a Springfield resident who questioned the need for a national search:
“As Ohio suffers from an exodus of jobs to out of state and out of country employers, the (schools) of Springfield knowingly joins in. They not only are looking to hire new School Leaders from a nation wide search but have hired an out of state firm to accomplish the task. What ever happened to hire from within?”
Large, urban districts often conduct national searches to find a new superintendent. Dayton and Cincinnati schools are among the districts that have and BWP has performed searches for Youngstown, according to their Web site.
The urban districts typically have large populations of students who are economically disadvantaged, racial minorities, English language learners and students with disabilities and are contending with declining enrollment and the rise of school choice.
Many urban districts want to find a candidate who has experience in dealing with those issues. HYA markets itself as a firm that has handled significant urban searches.
In Ohio, there are 21 urban school districts as defined by the state. That’s less than 5 percent of the state’s school systems. If the search remains in Ohio, the district primarily would be looking at candidates with administrative experience in those 21 districts.
These districts do typically have more employees than many other districts because they are among the largest systems.
But in past searches in other districts, I’ve heard from residents who say they would prefer a hometown candidate who is already familiar with the district. Picklesimer said that BWP’s experience in Ohio was one of the things board members liked - the same could apply to candidates who have experience in the state.
Do you think the board is going the right direction with a national search or should they be looking for someone with ties to the area?
Is MySpace an educational experience?
Parents who worry about their kids’ time spent goofing off on the Web may have some good news - a new study suggests that time is actually educating today’s youth.
In fact, the media and technology literacy lessons students pick up during their time on the Internet actually rivals the ones they get in a formal education setting, according to a three-year study called DigitalYouth out of the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley.
Nearly 90 percent of teens use the Internet and the average student spends 7 to 8 hours a week on the Web, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
The DigitalYouth project found that students gain these lessons regardless of their online activities, whether they are participating in “interest-driven” activities (looking into subjects they want to know more about) or “socially-driven” activities (MySpace and Facebook).
A 2006 Pew study found that most parents felt the Internet did not have an effect on their children. It also found an increase from 2004 of parents who felt the Internet was not a good thing for their kids.
The DigitalYouth research suggests that students are learning social and technical skills from any time spent on the Web. The study also suggests that cutting teens off from the Web will keep them from learning these skills that are necessary “to fully participate in contemporary society.”
And students may benefit more from time online during school if educators took a more relaxed approach to those sessions, according to the research.
Relaxed and the Web aren’t things we here often when it comes to minors online. And the study certainly isn’t suggesting we just let students run unchecked on the Internet. Most schools ban access to sites like MySpace from their networks anyway.
But the reason kids are taking the lessons away from their time on the Web is because those hours are driven by their own motivation and curiosity and students are more likely to learn these things from their peers than adults.
So instead of highly scheduled Web sessions, students might reap more benefit from sessions where they are allowed to explore the Web on their own, according to the study.
Do you think today’s youth benefits from their time spent online?
How do you have a successful parent-teacher conference?
Parent-teacher conferences are cropping up on almost every school calendar I have this month.
The National Education Association, familyeducation.com and Discovery’s Parent Channel all have tips to help you make the most of these meetings.
I believe we have a few educators reading out there; maybe they will offer up their own tips as well?
Here are a few of each organization’s suggestions with links to the rest of the article.
Do your homework: Prepare for your conference by making a list of things you may need to notify your child’s teacher about (changes at home or problems you are noticing, for example). Also come up with questions prior to the conference so you know what you want to ask and discuss.
Ask your child: Talk to your child before the conference to get ideas about what you might hear during the conference and what concerns you might raise.
Ask about the school: Find out the teacher’s and school’s policies in the classroom, for evaluating your child and what your child will be expected to learn over the year. Also ask the teacher what you can do at home to help your child be more successful.
Looking for more? Here’s a list of how to handle a few different specific circumstances and an article on continuing effective communication after the conference is over.
Central Academy: A closer look
About 50 community members attended Tuesday’s forum about Central Academy, a public school of choice in Middletown, hosted by a local parent’s group.
Springfield Partnership for Academic Challenge and Enrichment hosted the presentation by Dr. Dianne Suiter, principal of Central Academy at Middletown City Schools. They are hoping a similar program could be a fit for Springfield.
There’s a pretty generous amount of information about Central on it’s Web site if you are interested in learning more. Here’s information about democratic schools, the curriculum style Central adopted as its philosophy and model.
Parents with the group told me Tuesday they would like to organize a visit to Central Academy and keep the conversation going about whether a similar school could fit in Springfield City Schools and a relatively diverse population.
All five board members attended the meeting and I spoke to board member Don Reed afterward. He acknowledged that Central is an interesting concept, but the district does have finances to consider and there would have to be much more consideration before jumping into a project like that. He also mentioned that Suiter said the best way to start such a program is to have kindergarten and first grade classrooms and build up as the students get older.
We’ll see what happens from here.
There were a few big elements to Central that were part of the presentation and discussion Tuesday night. I went into most of them a little in Wednesday’s article but I’m going to delve into them a little more now.
• Multi-aged: Multi-aged is probably the most basic of these concepts. Students at Central are not grouped by grade level as in traditional schools. Instead classrooms have students from a span of a couple years. At Central this year, those groupings work as: early primary (kindergarten-1st); late primary (2nd-3rd); intermediate (4th-5th) and middle schools (6th-7th this year, will expand to include 8th grade next year. Students stay with the same teacher for each year of the grouping.
• Progressive: Progressive educations take many forms but typically — and in Central’s case — it means that projects are emphasized over textbooks and other “classic” methods. There’s also a heavy emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking.
• Democratic: The Democratic approach to education is not unique to Central but these schools aren’t common: the Alternative Education Resource Organization estimates there are fewer than 100 in the United States. Democratic is two-pronged. First, the students are consistently encouraged to consider their place as community members, first in the classroom then the school, city, state, nation and globe. The second part is that the education is student-centered. Students are encouraged to look into things that interest them and teachers incorporate the state standards into that.
• Non-graded: This may be one of the more confusing aspects of the school because they don’t use grades that many of us received as our measure of academic success. Instead family conferences are held each trimester where the teacher gives a narrative report of the student’s progress. Suiter gave a good explanation of it that essentially boils down to this: a letter grade like a “C” doesn’t tell you very much about the student’s work other than that it’s average but the narrative would tell you precisely what about the work earned a “C.” Many elementary schools are switching from letter grades to standards-based report cards which tell a student’s progress on individual concepts instead of an entire subject matter.
• Demographics: Springfield and Middletown are both classified as “urban” districts under Ohio law, a designation given to areas with high poverty rates. In Ohio, those urban districts form a group commonly referred to as the “Urban 21.” Springfield has a higher percentage of racial minorities and economically disadvantaged students than Middletown, but both have significant populations of students on free-and-reduced lunch. One of the things that SPACE liked about Central is its demographics, which are fairly representative of the district’s population. The school actually has a higher percentage of racial minorities than the district overall and a slightly lower percentage of economically disadvantaged (65.3 percent in the district compared to 53.6 percent at Central) and students with disabilities (19 percent in the district compared to 17.3 percent at Central) , according to the Ohio Department of Education. This is partly by design, Suiter said. The school has an allotted percentage of students to accept from each of the district’s neighborhood elementary schools. If any of the schools does not have the number of applications to fill that quota, the remaining slots are doled out to the other schools, she said. This is also something board member Don Reed noted when I spoke to him after the meeting, that the school’s population reflected the district’s but it has been set up to do so.
• Parental involvement: Last school year, the Middletown City Schools board voted to expand Central’s kindergarten to 6th grade program to include a middle school that would go through eighth grade. The day the enrollment for the 50 middle school slots opened up I went to the school around noon and there were already parents waiting in the gym to enroll their children at 7 p.m. that night. Some of them had been there since they dropped their children off at 8 a.m. that morning. For kindergarten enrollment, some of them actually camp out to make sure they get a spot. Programs like Central’s aren’t for every family, Suiter said. But the ones who choose is are very involved. The school requires families to sign a contract that states they will attend family conferences and volunteer in the school. The staff and Suiter accommodate families by working around parent’s schedules or meeting with them on their front porch or picking families up if they can’t get to the school to volunteer. Because it is a school of choice (a term that implies parents have to make an active decision to enroll their child there instead of the neighborhood schools), they can make stipulations like that that the neighborhood public schools cannot.
• Cost: The final key point about Central is cost but like so many things there are two sides to this one. Central Academy does not cost any more for the district to operate than any of its other elementary schools. The building-level per-pupil spending is actually the second lowest of the district’s elementary buildings, according to the ODE. Central’s curriculum program doesn’t require any dues to any organizations like some specialized programs might. But launching a school like Central would have some costs involved such as training staff members, finding space, etc. and Springfield is already in financial oversight with another $1.4 million in cuts coming down for next school year.
• Retention: One huge reason behind magnet schools is alternative education and using different approaches to provide the best education for all students. But most of the magnet schools in the state are in urban districts and it’s no coincidence that those districts have some of the most drastically declining enrollments in Ohio. Magnet schools are as much a tool to give parents choice — frequently provided by private and charter schools — within the public schools, thereby keeping students in the traditional public school system. Someone asked Tuesday night if Central had helped Middletown retain students. Suiter didn’t have any hard and fast numbers but before the middle school was added, some Central parents were taking their kids out of the public school system when they graduated from Central, she said. When the board was considering expanding the program last year, several parents said they would consider options outside of the city schools if Central did not offer a middle school program.
So did you attend the forum Tuesday? Would a program like Central Academy be a good fit in Springfield City Schools?
Catholic Central “Bucks” up to raise funds for cystic fibrosis
Catholic Central students were able to trade their uniforms for red and gray (or blue and yellow) in exchange for a $1 donation to cystic fibrosis research Wednesday, Nov. 19.
The fundraiser was a campus-wide event and honored Athletic Director Dan Shay, who had cystic fibrosis, said Kathy Sahle, coordinator for the school.
The Catholic Central PTO organized the event.
Board interviewing for superintendent search
Springfield board members will begin interviewing search firms tonight to find a new superintendent and a permanent high school campus director for the 2009-10 school year.
The board will hold a special board meeting this evening, Nov. 19, and Nov. 25 and will interview firms in executive session.
Both positions are currently filled by interim appointees: Don Thompson will serve as interim superintendent through the summer and JoEtta Cooper is the interim campus director.
Thompson came to the district this summer after retired superintendent Jean Harper announced her resignation in the spring. Cooper was the project consolidation manager for the high school and took over on a temporary basis after Hubert Watson, originally hired to be the high school campus director, was moved to a central office position overseeing middle school academics in the district. He has since resigned to take a job as a principal at a South-Western City Schools high school.
The board plans to launch a national search to fill these positions.
I’ll have more on the process from here after the board chooses a firm and lays out a plan. But for now, what qualities do you think are most important in Springfield’s next superintendent?
District facilities recommendations coming soon
A Springfield board committee will make facilities recommendations in December and January to move central offices out of South High School and possibly to close one school, board Vice President and committee chairman Ed Leventhal said Thursday.
The district’s central offices are the only remaining operations in South High School and the short-term committee has been looking at options for moving those employees out of the school over the last several months.
The committee will make a recommendation at the Dec. 11 meeting, said Leventhal.
“We are trying to weight whether we move that to a current facility where we have room or to some place on the open market,” he said.
There will be some costs associated with either selection, either renovations to school space or rent for a new space, Leventhal said. The committee is also considering whether all of the offices in the central administration need to be together.
In January the committee will make its final recommendation on whether to close a school as suggested by a state auditor earlier this year, said Leventhal.
The auditor recommended closing a middle school immediately and an elementary in the future if enrollment declines persist. Clark Middle School and Fulton Elementary School are the two lowest capacity schools in the district, according to the audit.
Otis Williams, chair of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a member of the committee, urged board members not to close a school in the southwest corner of the city. He pointed to that area’s loss of South High School as a reason not to close another school there.
“I feel that the southwest quadrant has already suffered enough,” he said. “They should not even be considered. They’ve taken too many beatings. If we’re going to think about closing something down, let’s stay away from over there.”
There will be some costs with closing the school in the first years, said Leventhal.
“To close a school, the first year’s probably going to cost you about $100,00 to $110,000,” he said. The cost would decrease in the second and third year.
All of Springfield’s school buildings are new built in the last several years through a partnership with the Ohio School Facilities Commission.
If the board elects to close a school it would be part of a projected $1.4 million in budget cuts needed for next year, said Leventhal.
Financial woes have affected district hiring
Financial problems in the city schools have impacted Springfield’s hiring because of recalls and a perception of instability, Wendy Ford, Director of Human Resources, told board members Thursday night.
Ford made a presentation about the district’s hiring practices in response to questions raised by the Coalition for Justice and Equality in October that the district had “displaced” black leadership and does not have enough diversity on its staff.
Springfield schools has been under state oversight since 2005 because of financial difficulties and has laid off many employees because of finances and in an effort to “right size” the staff to a declining student population, said Ford.
The district’s hiring practices are governed by negotiated agreements with bargaining units, state law and the civil service test regulations.
The district’s contracts with bargaining units call for current employees to have the option to transfer to an open position first, said Ford. Then the position is offered to laid off employees on a recall list.
“We’ve had a number of people on our recall lists,” she said. Currently there are some classified staff members — aides, secretaries, custodians, etc. — still on recall lists, but no teachers, or certified staff members, remain on the list.
After current and recalled employees, the job is posted publicly for an open application process, said Ford.
For certified staff members, Ford and the building principal look over all applications and choose the candidates to interview based on certification, qualifications and experience. Then an interview team, typically made up of teachers, administrators and curriculum coaches, conduct interviews.
The team selects a candidate and Ford has final approval.
For administrators, the team recommends two or three finalists to the superintendent who makes the final selection.
Otis Williams, chair of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked why some recently vacated position had not been posted and some people had not been considered for those jobs.
“That was my main concern that all those wanting to be involved have the opportunity to be considered,” he said.
Interim Superintendent Don Thompson said time constraints had put some limitations on temporary hires this school year.
“Time some times is of the essence in order to get an individual and that may play a factor,” he said.
At least three of the district’s administrators are interim employees currently. The board will launch a national search later this month to replace Thompson and Interim Campus Director JoEtta Cooper with permanent selections.
Former district employee Tom Payton, another interim employee, is temporarily overseeing duties that had been handled by former Director of Student Services Mattie White, who left abruptly in August to take a principal position in a Dayton suburb.
How does Springfield schools hire its employees?
District officials will answer the question posed last month about its hiring practices at tonight’s board meeting.
Wendy Ford, director of human resources for the district, will make a presentation on hiring procedures tonight, according to the district’s agenda.
Last month, representatives from the city’s Coalition for Justice and Equality approached board members about concerns with the district and hiring practices and what they called a “displacement” of black leadership in the district was a big part of that discussion.
The same topic came up at Monday’s CJE forum where the leaders of the group — pastors of several churches in town — asked residents what their concerns with the district were.
The meeting starts at 6 p.m. tonight in the city forum at 76 East High Street.
Did sparing the rod spoil the schools?
At the close of last night’s Coalition for Justice and Equality meeting, Elder Garfield Parker made a comment on one of the concerns raised by the survey they had conducted: discipline.
“How are they supposed to bring discipline back to the schools without corporal punishment?” he asked after an apologetic and hesitant start to the question.
He told the story of one of his math teachers who “tore up (his) behind” and after that he was a straight A student in the subject.
Schools have an array of discipline options now: in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, detention, expulsion, suspending a teen’s driver’s license, suspending a student from extracurricular activities, etc.
Under Ohio law, schools are still allowed to use paddling as a form of punishment.
Yes, corporal punishment is still legal in Ohio, although most schools have a policy that does not allow it to be used. A bill was introduced last year to ban paddling but it hasn’t been acted on since May when it was in a community.
Actually it’s still legal in several states and more than 200,000 kids were paddled in school last year.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this question, particularly from the generation that want to schools when paddling was a popular form of punishment. I’ve heard from some older family members, co-workers and friends that it was an effective method for them.
I am not part of that generation, but I remember that my first grade teacher had a frilly paddle hanging in the classroom.
I’ve heard educators lament discipline problems that stem from the home where rules are not enforced and then those issues carry over into the schools and question how to enforce rules without the support of parents.
Should schools use corporal punishment? What alternatives do you think would help with discipline?
Clark County board member to be recognized
Clark County Educational Services Center Board of Education member John Agle will be recognized next week for having served more than 25 years as a school board member, according to a press release from the Ohio School Boards Association.
Agle will be presented with the OSBA’s Veteran Board Member Award at the association’s annual conference next week, Nov. 10-12 in Columbus.
Agle is one of only five board members in the state who will receive this award this year. There are more than 3,400 board members in Ohio, according to the OSBA.
Coalition planning forum to discuss high school, district concerns
The Coalition for Justice and Equality will hold a forum Monday, Nov. 10, evening to address concerns with Springfield High School and Springfield City Schools, according to representatives of the group.
I don’t have many details yet but look for the time and place later this afternoon or in tomorrow’s paper.
The CJE met with board members in October to discuss the group’s concerns such as achievement for all students and marginalization of black leadership in the city schools.
I’ll update when I have more information.
Elections: New members head to state board
Several new board members will join the state board of education next school year, according to final but unofficial election results from the secretary of state.
Voters in District 10, the region that includes Clark County, voted in newcomer Jeff Hardin, over incumbent Jane Sonenshein and challenger John McHenry. Incumbent Heather Licata was unseated in District 7 by challenger Tammy O’Brien.
Board member Lou Ann Harold chose not to run for re-election in the large District 1 that includes Champaign County, clearing the way for a new board member there. Ann Jacobs won that seat over union-endorsed Tracey Smith.
Board member Robin Hovis vacated an appointed seat and won the District 5 elected seat. And there will be new board members out of three other districts: Mary Rose Oakar from District 11, Michael Collins from District 9 and Kristen McKinley from District 6.
So six of the seven elected board members in this cycle are brand new to the board and one current board member will move to the elected seat.
As far as the union endorsements, two of the seven OFT-endorsed and OEA-endorsed candidates were elected: McKinley from District 6 and Collins from District 9.
Should schools be polling places?
Several local schools will be the site for voters to cast their ballots in tomorrow’s election.
More and more lately, districts debate opening their doors to voters. I’ve heard of districts that asked to not be used as polling places any more or even planned a teacher in-service training or conference day so the students wouldn’t be there.
Think about it: In a post-Columbine, post-Virginia Tech era, schools put a higher priority than ever before on knowing who precisely is in their halls. To be a polling place, the schools have to open up at least one portion of the building to residents assigned to vote there.
On a normal school visit, I expect at the very least to go through the office, identify myself, sign in and get a visitor’s badge. And that would be average security measures. Many schools keep their doors locked and require visitors to “buzz in” to get into the building.
In Butler County, the board of elections and the sheriff held a press conference today about their request to Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to ask the Ohio Department of Education to ask the five country districts that planned to remain open tomorrow to close, my college Josh Sweigart reports.
Their concerns stem from predictions for high turnout this election, traffic congestion and safety of the children at schools that will be used as polling places.Closing school for Election Day this year would present a bit of a pickle for some schools - particularly this close to the actual day - after September’s power outage used up some allotted calamity days before the first snowflakes even came close to falling.
The board of elections is allowed to use public buildings as polling places if they need to. In more urban areas, like Springfield, they have more choices such as churches, service organizations or government buildings. In more suburban or rural areas the pickings are usually much slimmer.
According to district calendars, none of the Clark County districts are closed tomorrow. A few schools will serve as polling places, according to the Clark County Board of Elections.
The Ohio Department of Education released an email Oct. 27 with guidelines for Election Day for districts serving as polling locations. The guide cautioned officials to work with the board of elections to ease traffic concerns; review expectations with students before Election Day; and know the correct contacts at the board of elections in case a situation arises.
My elementary school was a polling place. I remember seeing adults vote when I was younger and being intrigued by the process. I also remember going with my mom once and doing children’s voting. There’s certainly an argument in there for students being exposed to the election process by watching adults going to vote.
Do you think schools should be used as polling places? Should they cancel classes on Election Day?
Former superintendent named to advisory board
Former Springfield City Schools superintendents are popping up everywhere today, it seems.
This just came across my Google alerts: Scott Spears, retired superintendent Jean Harper’s predecessor in the district, has been named to an advisory board of Gemm Learning, an education software company.
Gemm Learning created the Fast ForWord program, a literacy program designed to improve skills by focusing on issues that cause problems when kids are learning to read, like needing to re-read sections or not being able to focus during reading.
According to the release, Spears was the superintendent who helped implement Fast ForWord in Springfield schools. The district stopped using the program a couple years ago. The release also says he was superintendent for 35 years, but it was only four.
The interesting thing about this board, which will help Gemm develop programming for its center based in New York, is that it is spread throughout the U.S. and will do all of its work online through messages and blogs.
Former superintendent to be recognized
Retired Springfield City Schools Superintendent Jean Harper will be recognized for her contributions to the district during her four-year tenure at a reception next week.
The Springfield Foundation/the African American Community Fund has sent out more than 350 invitations for a reception in Harper’s honor at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11, at Holiday Inn on Leffel Lane.
The foundation has chosen to honor Harper based on her efforts to make scholarships available to area students through the foundation, in addition to her achievements at the helm of the district in completing the 16-school building project, managing the district through financial crisis and raising academic achievement to continuous improvement.
Mayor Warren Copeland will present a city commission proclamation recognizing Harper’s service to the city schools.
