What does EACS hope to accomplish by turning Harding into a magnet school? Harding students will spend a lot of time on buses going to distant other schools. That will help them about as much as busing FWCS kids to Nothrup and Snider from the south side of Fort Wayne, namely not at all. When they establish the magnet school, students will have to be bused from distant parts of the county to Harding. It's hard to imagine who would want their kids to be bused from Leo or Heritage to Harding for a "college preparatory" course. Then there's the cost of additional busing. The effect of sending low achievers to high achieving high schools.
Harding parents are upset about the busing and "cultural" issues. It's hard to feel sorry for them. Their kids are largely responsible for the school's failure and their kids now have a chance to go to better schools. The parents who should be upset are the ones with kids going to the other four high schools. Those schools are going to go downhill and they get to pay the tab.
The lunacy of this decision is obvious in a letter from Rev. Stephen Terry in this morning's JG. He says it's about preserving local control and instituting educational "excellence". Please! Where has his concern for excellence been for the last two decades. There was no concern until the state threatened to step in and control the MONEY. And hire a new staff. Which may be just what's needed.
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8 comments:
The problem is that if you give Harding to the state, and have a charter school dominate the building, you have another voice lost in the school system.
Imagine Schools have shown us the example of what not to do, when it comes to interacting with parents. The board members are just puppets of the CEO of Imagine Schools, and are not allowed to really make the necessary decisions. They are not allowed to give out the budget or information about the budget to the parents/guardians of the school. (As much as I hate FWCS, I believe they actually do complete this step!) And, the parents are not given an opportunity to voice concerns. If their is a concern in the K-8th grade school, they are just asked to leave.
Whilst I believe that their must be opportunities for schools to be compete with one another, I would like to see a true nonprofit, community minded school that would be able decent education and parental involvement. Parents and the community need to be able to provide a voice in the sea of bad educational decisions.
Anonymous,
I agree that turning Harding into a charter school isn't going to necessarily mean good change. I wonder what the teachers think should be done. I haven't heard anything specifically from the teachers, maybe someone reading this has?
And just out of curiosity, what bad educational decisions are being made by Imagine in your opinion? If we want true, nonprofit charters, we have to make the same funding available to those charters or they can't survive financially. Charter schools now get about 60% of per pupil funding and have to pay for transportation.
Did Harding parents ever complain about the lack of progress academically? I've never heard any complaints from parents in any district about academic issues. Nobody comes to FWCS board meetings to comment on test scores, the budget or much of anything else. Nobody seems to care.
At this time no one knows who the state will appoint to run any schools they take over or how well they will do it. As with any charter we won't find out until it happens. I would think that the IDE would keep a pretty close eye on things at any schools they take over.
The complaints about Imagine came from the JG, and were probably instigated by FWCS. With Imagine, parents always have the choice to back to FWCS. So far that hasn't seemed to happen.
Imagine: I have been through the hallways of Imagine Schools, and have heard plenty of rumors from other teachers in the community. I will be honest from what I have seen, Imagine has one the most unprofessional staff I have seen. Regarding the budget of Imagine, I got that information from a former administrator who was let from the charter for showing the budge to parents.
EACS: The majority of the parents that are complaining could not afford the tuition at Bishop Luers this year, due to the economy. Therefore, they put their kids at Harding hoping for the best.
It is rumored that the middle school principal at Prince Chapman has stated to the 8th graders, during lunch, if they can't pass ISTEP he will work to ensure they are held back. Don't know if that will fly, but he seems to be incredibly tough!
Bunche Montessori now the only accredited public Montessori in the nation. Congratulations FWCS.
I don't know what you mean by "unprofessional". If Imagine can't teach kids what's required by the state as reflected in test results, their charted will eventually get pulled or their enrollment will drop and they will disappear. They have to be a viable academic option.
But FWCS will not reform itself from within. That's going to take pressure from competition, state intervention, vouchers, whatever they see as enough of a threat to their funding and their existence to get them to change. Ufortunately, Imagine isn't a serious threat right now.
congratulations FWCS for third straight year of improved high school graduation rate and for again beating the state average (which,considering your size, you bring up only to have to best it,ie, your size forces you to compete against your own success!).
Imagine Schools Unprofessionalism:
1. The Principal has one year of regular classroom teaching experience, and one year of substitute teaching experience. The previous principal was a gym teacher with no administrative experience in his career.
2. Staff are seen drinking and eating in the hallways with kids running around.
3. Staff is rude to community members, and often states to general members how bad the students are, and how "crazy the kids are" in earshots of parents.
4. The staff lacks the policies and procedures (fire plans, etc.) to keep students staff in the happening of an event.
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