February, 2008

Friday, February 29, 2008

Firm stand urged on grad rules

State superintendent asks lawmakers to stay course; parents say kids struggle with stricter curriculum.

Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News

LANSING -- Michigan School Superintendent Mike Flanagan asked Lansing lawmakers Thursday to stay the course on tough new graduation requirements under attack by some parents and educators.

Saying there is a campaign in parts of the education community to undermine the state's high school graduation requirements, Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan countered Thursday it was too early to begin watering down the mandates.

While not discrediting doubts about the requirements in parts of the education community, Mr. Flanagan told the House Education High School Alternatives Subcommittee he is urging "people to take a deep breath. These are freshman who have completed one semester."

Thursday, February 28th, a House Sub Committee met to discuss the new Michigan Merit Standards.

We have a no cell phone policy between the hours of 8:15-3:01 yet teachers comment that students are texting everytime they turn their backs.  I would like to know what types of policies other schools are using.  We confiscate for 24 hours for a 1st offense.

Federal Character Education Grant
Released February 14 - Due April 1

Dr. Joe Hoedel and Dr. Phil Vincent, authors of 3 previously funded federal grants, will soon write a grant for Michigan high schools. The focus of this grant will be on the freshmen transition. Specifically, they want to include 4 high-performance, 4 average-performance and 4 low-performance high schools in the state of Michigan that meet the following criteria:

Principals in our state can take an active role in the political process by supporting the MASSP Political Action Committee or PAC. The MASSP PAC serves two critical functions for the Association. First, it supports MASSP's governmental relations efforts at the state level. It also raises and spends money to support candidates and issues that are important to the principalship and 6-12 education.

DOWNLOAD THE CONTRIBUTION FORM HERE

What kind of support does the PAC provide for principals?

Several education interest groups today called for a $750,000 study on how much money it takes to educate a child in each school district in Michigan based on a series of special factors. If implemented the end result could mean more or less state money for some schools.

In a presentation to the Senate K-12 Appropriations Subcommittee, Joan SERGENT, executive director of the Tri-County Alliance for Public Education, spoke to the concept that four other education groups and state Superintendent Mike FLANAGAN would like to see in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 School Aid Fund budget.

Here is the powerpoint, as well as some other resources used to prepare the presentation at the Kent County Principals Meeting on February 27, 2008.

Though it appears to still be in its infancy, there is a groundswell growing for having Michigan students in class longer. But while supporters extol the educational virtue of more time in class, there appears no consensus on how to pay for it.

The heart of the argument is a concern by teachers and curriculum officials that there is not enough time in a school year to teach all of the material contained in the grade level content expectations developed by the Department of Education.

Three years ago we unfortunately lost a sophomore in a terrible car accident.  He would have graduated this year.  I am wondering under these circumstances what other schools have done (if anything) during commencement ceremonies to honor the student's memory.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

We in Coloma are switching to trimester scheduling for the 08-09 school year, and have found that the software used for scheduling through our ISD is inadaquate.  Does any one know of a stand alone software program available that just does scheduling?  Our hope would be to use this program to schedule our kids and then manually input it into our ISD system.

Thank you!

Dave Ehlers

Asst. Principal

Coloma Jr. High

This message comes from our member, John Petitto, Avondale HS:

This is an announcement for the new graduation and dropout application training workshop to be conducted by the MPAAA and CEPI. Building administrators need to be aware of the changes in the report, the processing of information, and the subsequent audit requirements. THIS IS ALL NEW.

MPAAA members:

As most of you are (hopefully) aware, CEPI has spent several years in the
process of converting our graduation and dropout rate calculations from the old 1-year-at-a-time approach, to the new 4-year cohort.

We may just see considerable changes to the MME. Take a look at the attachment; this letter was sent to Senators Jelinek and Switalski as well as other key players earlier this week. We'll keep you posted!

Michigan Schools AED Drill Week is February 25 - 29, 2008

Bloomfield Hills, like most of us, is analyzing all aspects of our educational services.
Counselor-student ratio and responsibilties is one area we're examining. Especially with new high school grad requirements, and the personal curriculum, we see a major role for our counselors, and so wanted to inquire as to what other schools are utilizing their counselors for.

Job Posting Info Video

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan highlights the educational initiatives outlined in Governor Jennifer M. Granholm's State of the State address, and their importance to delivering a quality education for every child in Michigan and making our state one of the best places to live, to learn, and to earn.

Do schools have policy for grades if a student repeats or retakes a class. Do you replace the grade or average the two grades? Can students do this unlimited number of times. How does it effect the students G.P.A.

Attached is a MASSP developed summary of the Governor's 21st Century Schools Fund that is part of the 2009 School Aid Act. This was developed for a quick read of what is in this section. The goal of the section is for the development of small high schools in those districts that have high non-completion of K-12.

Here is the resource link and the powerpoint for today's webinar (2-19-08) on Science.

Science Curriculum page:
http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-140-38924_41644_42814---,00.html

Powerpoint: Attached

PictureTalk Application