During this holiday season it is important to reflect on the many blessings on our lives. I am truly grateful for family and friends. I hope that all have the opportunity to spend time with those they love and that your travels are safe!
Dr. Dave
The press release below ( http://www.ames.k12.ia.us/NewsDocs/Archive/News062811.htm ) outlines details about a request for applicants to form a facilities committee.
Those interested can find the application and information at the district’s web site:
As mentioned in a mid-June press release (more details in next post), the district is in the middle of implementing some technology upgrades over the holiday weekend. If you or anyone else is having issues accessing the information or the applications, they can also be found here - link
Dr. Dave
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 28, 2011
For more information contact: Valerie Terando, Ames Community Schools
515.268.6651, valerie.terando@ames.k12.ia.us
AMES—The Board of Directors of the Ames Community School District (ACSD) has voted to place a referendum on the September 13, 2011 ballot regarding the renovation of three existing elementary schools, coupled with the construction of three new elementary schools, all on sites owned by the ACSD.
In order for the question to appear on the ballot, 595 signatures must be collected from eligible voters living within the ACSD boundaries. For that, a committee, operating separately from the Board and the District, must be formed. It will then be the task of the committee to gather the requisite number of signatures to be presented to the Board on August 1.
District personnel are working to form that committee. Interested volunteers must be registered voters residing in the Ames School District. Five applicants from each of the City of Ames’ four wards will be selected. Should there be more applicants than required from a single ward, a lottery will be conducted to determine that ward’s membership. Volunteers not selected may be asked to serve in another ward, should there be a vacancy. The committee application and job description may be downloaded from the District’s website at www.ames.k12.ia.us, or by visiting the Superintendent’s Office at 415 Stanton Avenue in Ames. Applications are currently being accepted at the Superintendent’s Office. The deadline to submit applications is July 6, at 5:00 p.m.
It has been a while since I have posted anything. If you have been following the news you know the school board has been busy, meeting multiples times a week for several months. This week there was the regular meeting Monday and budget hearings this Thursday evening and Saturday morning.
Besides reading materials, prepping for and attending meetings, I have been digging through a lot of information. The latest set I looked at was the result of a request from a member of the public for data on enrollment. I thought I would share links to some of the data I have been going through.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WEB SITE – link here
This is the site maintained by the state’s Department of Education.
Data and Publications – link here
This link, which is on the right-hand side of the Dept of Ed’s home page, takes one to a page with links to publicly available data. There is a wide range of data – something for just about everyone.
PK-12 Data – link here
This link takes you to a page of data specifically ties to PK (PreK) through 12 students. In addition to the links below there are ones for English Language Learners, Performance, and Immigrants & Migrants.
Enrollment Data – link here
At this point, the site maintains building-level and district-level enrollment numbers which include demographic information. Dept of Ed projections can also be found here.
Free & Reduced Lunch – link here
This link takes you to historical data pertains to student eligibility (both number and percent) in regard to free/reduce meal rates. This rate is often used as a surrogate for low-SES.
The two links above may be of interest because they track the number of students in the district over time (down to the building level) as well as the low-SES rates over time. Poverty, a major factor often tied to student achievement, and student counts are pieces of information important to the current deliberations concerning facilities.
Well, for those of you who are numbers-oriented, the Dept of Ed site should provide good opportunities to explore.
Dr. Dave
If you have a child in 8th grade you probably got an invitation to an orientation session that occurred at the high school this past Wednesday. By all accounts, it was well attended with numbers repeatedly referred to as record-breaking. I mention this because it means the process for signing up for classes for the 2011-2012 school year had begun.
As you may know, the superintendent had brought to the school board the idea of switching start times between the elementary and secondary levels. Instead of a later start time for the elementary as it currently stands, the idea was to shift things around and have the high school actually have the later start time.
Discussed at a couple of meetings, the superintendent had said he was waiting to confirm information from the bus company regarding feasibility and costs. When the item didn’t show up on this past Monday night’s school board meeting agenda, I asked at the end of the meeting about where things stood in regard to start time.
The response was that he would likely bring a recommendation back to the board this fall but that things would be left the same at least for the 2011-2012 school year. The process continuing as normal at the high school certainly supports that.
So, I suspect there will be (if there hasn’t already) a more formal comment from the district – perhaps at the next regular meeting. At this point, a change in start times for the 2011-2012 school year is highly unlikely.
Dr. Dave
Given a large increase in traffic, I thought I would stay up and see where things stood at the end of the day. Though I no evidence to prove this definitively, it would appear the poll on school location scenarios has garnered some interest. Thursday, January 27, 2011 set a record for this blog site - 625 visits.
Now I can’t identify who visits, but the system does tag sites that refer folks to the blog.
The top three referrers for 1/27/11 were:
Dr. Dave
If any of you have visited the site lately and tried to look at documents posted under School Board Meetings, you may have seen some weird things.
I had noticed that efforts to post document links to that page were becoming increasingly difficult. Updates took for ever and some took several attempts to stick. I finally started getting a warning that stated there were scripts running that could greatly hinder the performance of the page. THe warning asked if I wished to disable the script – and whether I said yea or no, the problem continued.
Attempts to adjust things led to double spacing and other quirky occurrences. I finally sent in a request for help to the WordPress support folks.
Bottom line – I am not an HTML programmer! That’s right, I use their visual editor and had no idea what was coming…
After an exchange of emails, the support person was able to locate the specific page and replicate the problem. I apparently broke one of the cardinal rules and directly pasted something into one of my posts from another program. This led to the embedding of various HTML codes of which I was not aware. And I’m not talking about a few. I have been deleting hundreds (if not thousands) of them.
Hopefully, with the help of the support folks (who have been wonderful) things on the page will return to normal soon. So, my apologies to those who may have experienced some unexpected things. Should you need, the materials from board meetings are also available at the www.acsddocuments.wordpress.com site.
Thanks for your patience!
Dr. Dave
As some of you may know, my wife has been out of the country for about two weeks. She is in Tanzania with a group of folks of a church service trip (a blog with some highlights of the trip can be found at www.tzpartners.wordpress.com). Among the many things they had to do was officially hand over a water project.
Typically, she has been to Tanzania two other times – the latest being last September, word of their progress is a short collection of emails dependent primarily on their access to technology. During this trip, they have been able to get out a series of emails, a couple of photos and members of the group have been able to update their Facebook pages. Technology can truly be amazing!
It is this technology that has allowed the group to know of our troubles with water here is Ames. Claiming a bit of irony, I had shared how in the midst of all of the flooding and being surrounded by water, there was none to drink.
In response (you’ll have to read her post) Carol was sharing experiences that she labeled “only in Africa” when she came to the subject of water where she wrote:
We have to boil our water before drinking it…. Ok, Only in Africa or in Ames!
On a more serious note, she shared there were villages they visited where people traveled 7 kilometers to get water. Now I know the past few days haven’t been the easiest, but at least in Ames the water was delivered to us! And the time we were without water was considerably shorter than expected due to the hard work, equipment and testing technology that insured safe drinking water.
The water, and the lack there of, will be remembered for some time. Flood waters cut water mains, flooded businesses and brought street construction to a halt. The extended periods of rain this summer have put road projects at Meeker and the High School far behind – neither of which will by done by the time school starts.
As with the shortage of drinking water, I hope all will go smoothly knowing that things will soon be completed and life will get back to being a little more normal.
Dr. Dave
With school going through the end of next week, it turns out several of the families in the neighborhood will be around this weekend. Given the weather looks to be dry, IT’S TIME FOR AN ALLEY BBQ!
DETAILS
If you are in the neighborhood, or would just like to stop by to say hi, we’d love to see you! Whether its 6 or 60 of us, we’ll have a good time!
Dave
After several phone calls, including one from my mom, I thought I would offer the following hint for the test in the previous post – Where is the door?
When I asked this of a combined group of school board members and district administrators, the Northwood Preschool Center administrator was among the first to select the right answer…
Dr. Dave
With the evolution of communication and the use of emails, I seem to get a lot more ‘stuff’ than I used to. That said, I got something the other day I think is worth sharing.
A co-worker sent me the following image and question, framing it as a “pre-school test”:
IMAGE
QUESTION
Which way is the bus traveling? To the left or to the right?
ANSWER
???
Dr. Dave
Someone asked me recently how long this blog had been running. Embarrassingly enough, I had to admit to not knowing. So, as is usually the case, I did a little digging.
It looks like the blog started up over a several day period the second week of February 2009, which of course means we’re one year old!
Thanks to all who have helped over the course of the last year!
Dr. Dave
In the middle of all the chaos related to budget issues being faced by the district, it would be easy to miss all of the efforts being put forth to help. I participated in something Thursday night that reminded me I needed to thank local businesses for all they do to help!
Thursday night was ‘Meeker’ night at Valentino’s restaurant. The restaurant was giving 10% of the night’s proceeds to the school. We were there close to 5 because I had a school board meeting to go to at 6. By the time we had gotten to the buffet, several tables were already full, and more families were coming in.
My middle daughter kept jumping up and saying hi to the kids she knew and explaining to mom and dad who everyone was. The whole family, even the ISU freshman, ate to the point of being stuffed. Everyone had a good laugh watching me suffer through ‘brain freeze’ from eating my ice cream too fast! A good time was had by all!
Last night, I remembered back to previous fund raising efforts – things like eating out at the Pizza Ranch to raise funds for the cheer squad. And I am sure readers are aware of many more ways in which the businesses in Ames are helping our kids and our schools. Things like prizes for raffles, dinners, sponsoring activities, and a host of others.
So let me take this opportunity to say to the businesses that help out everyday – THANKS!
Dr. Dave
I’ve been fairly busy with meetings and the like. Among the various tasks I’ve attempted is the creation of a new site. The purpose of the site (still sort of tentative based on board desire) would be to act as a repository of documents made available to the school board.
A couple of board members have expressed interest in having documents available electronically, primarily for storage and historical use. Of course, audiences other than the board – such as the public, press, potential employees, etc – could also take advantage of the site.
As with any technology-oriented effort, there are questions and issues touching on the time, technology and cost associated with the effort.
To assist with this, I developed a “draft” site of sorts. The site can be found at
www.acsddocuments.wordpress.com
The site is designed as a no-frills site as of now, with a focus primarily on making documents available. Though I have been keeping documents on the AmesCES site for months, it is necesary to keep personal commentary separate from the document storage component.
I’d welcome thoughts, feedback and ideas any readers might have regarding the test site.
I still am not sure if the site will make it to ‘full functioning’ status or not. Only time will tell.
Dr. Dave
A reader sent in a comment on the post that discussed the school start date debate via our amesces@gmail email account. The comment is shared here, with permission.
I am definitely in favor of moving the school year to a later start, maybe the day after Labor Day…not only is it a problem with the state fair, but if students go to summer camps they hold camp sessions right up to the start of our schools….
Also, August is the month that faculty have off at the university if they have taught summer sessions….that is when they want to vacation. Just some observations to share.
Kathryn
Our thanks to Kathryn for following the blog and her comment!
Just a very brief note to let folks know the campaign blog site is (mostly) up and running. YEAH!
It can be found at – http://daveforschoolboard.wordpress.com/
The site has information about the campaign, including
In addition, as time allows, I will post thoughts on various topics.
I’d like to thank David Brenner for helping coordinate yard signs. His contact information is listed on the campaign blog site under yard signs!
Thanks!
Dr. Dave
We here at the AmesCES blog site would like to thank those of you who have followed us of the past few months.
Started as a mean to share information and provide an avenue to offer comments and thoughts, we are pleased to announce that we passed the 100 comment threshold this past week.
Stories in the media, the lack of a third school board candidate and struggles with an uncertain financial future may give the impression that Ames isn’t as supportive of education as it once was. I don’t believe this is the case.
Parents, community members, teachers and educational professionals are just as supportive of education as they have been in the past - perhaps more so. Recent tough decisions have created an ‘all hands on deck’ mind set. It may be that, per some of the more recent comments on this blog and media pieces, some are feeling disenfranchised or disconnected from the ‘system’ of education.
It will be critical that all these players stay involved and work with teachers, the school board and staff to work through potentially tough decisions. To do this will require asking for and listening to parents – because they know their kids, teachers – because they know what works, and the community – because they understand the importance and value of a quality education.
Thanks to you who have commented and demonstrated the interest and willingness to stay engaged in education in Ames.
Dr. Dave
In an irony that few missed, the fund raiser mentioned in an earlier post to raise money to buy pipe to complete a water project in NE Tanzania was rained out last Sunday! Determined, the group has rescheduled the fund raiser!
The Hope for Hedaru – Sustainable Water Project fund raiser will be held:
Time: Sunday, August 30th, from 11:30 to 2:30 pm.
Place: St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, 209 Colorado, Ames (just north of W. Lincoln Way and Colorado Street)
Activites: FAMILY FOCUSED FUN!
The goal is to raise enough to complete a water project by connecting intakes in the mountains to storage tanks at the base of the mountain. An estimated 22,000 people will benefit from the project when it is completed.
Hope you get the chance to go, learn and help out a good cause!
Dr. Dave
A map to the location is here -
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Ames, Iowa
A poster for the event is below. Feel free to share with others!
The email below came in through our amesces@gmail.com account. It is shared in its entirety.
As mentioned in reference to a recent editorial, the question is – are the concerns and frustrations part of a growing trend?
Dr. Dave
Dear Dr. Dave,
I have been following your posts for a few months and you seem to have a good perspective on what’s going on. I am a bit dismayed that the district hired a company to tell us where to put schools. It seems to me that the obvious way to fix this problem is to renovate Roosevelt. It sits in an affordable housing neighborhood where young families start out. I suppose the district can engage in speculation, with our tax dollars, and push to build in the southwest. Does the district not realize, or does it choose to ignore the fact that IF development occurs in that area, it won’t be for many years, and it will rely on who is sitting on the city council. That’s a bit too iffy for THIS tax payer. I suppose we can add on to each site so that schools can hold more children, but then we end up having to hire more administrators for each site which means we have less money for schools.
While I am on my rant, I have concerns about the new “cookie cutter” schedule. It used to be that principals made these decisions for their own buildings based on the needs at each building. My kids attended Northwood and this was the case. The kids at that school did fine.
When will the district and board start to engage the community and move in a direction that the community values? This community values neighborhod schools, which enhance education and quality of life.
P.S. I am grateful that Northwood will have kids again.
Sorry for the rant.
J.D. Johnson
You may have read in the paper or on the Internet recently of a Supreme Court decision regarding the search of an 8th-grade student. You may be able to find more on the case by searching for - Safford Unified School District v. Redding
By an 8-1 vote, the court ruled that a strip search conducted in an attempt to find prescription-strength ibuprofen violated the student’s 4th amendment rights (protection from unreasonable search). The search was conducted after an unverified tip had been given to school officials.
With a separate 7-2 vote, the court determined schools officials were shielded from any financial responsibility for their actions. This was due primarily to the lack of clarity in previous rulings in the area.
On the down side, there really aren’t any winners. The student of course dealt with anxiety, invasion of privacy, destruction of trust in officials, etc. The officials dealt with an out-pouring of public disapproval and a legal battle that went on for years.
If there is an upside to all of this, the ruling provides guidance in regard to future actions by school officials. One justice wrote that both an “indication of danger” and reason to believe the student was carrying pills in her underwear were required for a strip search.
The case itself is a reflection of the struggle between individual rights and the desire to keep kids and schools safe. As schools deal with drugs, alcohol, weapons, intimidation, etc., officials, administrators and teachers struggle to stay ahead.
Though not a cure-all by any means, many of these issues are tied to students and families that have “checked out.” Fortunately, as far as I know, these are not major issue in Ames. Though having boundaries, rules and policies set for officials to handle these situations is a necessity, I think it far better to avoid having to enact any of them by keeping kids and families engaged.
Dr. Dave
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