Public Education in a Flat World

Here is an interesting post from a fellow superintendent blogger entitled, "Public Education in a Flat World."

I have not personally read Thomas Friedman's book referred to in the posting.

Closed

Wawasee has closed for Wednesday.

Fog lifted - roads are worse.

Unfortunately it will be beautiful by noon!

2 Hour Delay Wednesday

Wawasee Schools will be on a two hour delay on Wednesday with alternate kindergarten schedule.

Dense fog with very poor visibility.

What do you think of this proposed law?

Here is a bill that would take take away the Indiana driver's license of any minor that was caught smoking.

DIGEST OF INTRODUCED BILL
Driver's license suspension for minors who smoke. Permits a court to order a: (1) one year suspension of a driver's license of; or (2) a six month delay in the issuance of a driver's license to; a minor who violates tobacco laws.

Authored by Senator(s) Boots

Hmmm. Is this a good idea or not?

If you have an opinion - just put your zip code in the blue box labeled "Write your legislators." Enter your address and your legislator's email address will come up. You can let your representatives know what you think.

Here is a list of all proposed legislation. Scroll through them and see what your legislators are up to!

Autism breakthrough?

Most schools have seen an increase in students with autism over the last several years, prompting a surge in research.

Here is an article discussing some potentially revealing genetic research.

If that one was a little boring because it had words like "genome" in it, then try this one.

Here is a heartwarming story about a little boy with autism who is making great gains.

Wawasee has 25 students with autism.

GBB Ticket Info

The Wawasee Basketball team will play in the IHSAA North Semi-State against SB St. Joseph’s at North Side Gym in Elkhart in the second afternoon game.

Saturday, February 24 Two Semi-State Championship Games:
Game 1 Class 2A Jimtown -vs- Oak Hill Game time 1:00 PM
Game 2 Class 3A SB St. Joseph’s -vs- Wawasee Approx 3:00 PM

The winner of each Semi-State game advances to the IHSAA State Championship game at Conseco Fieldhouse the following Saturday.

Tickets will be $7.00. There is no charge for a pre-school child who is with their parent/s and will not occupy a reserved seat. Presale tickets will be made available in the Wawasee Athletic Office in the following order: (All seats are reserved)

Tuesday, February 20
7:00 a.m.: Students at Wawasee High School, Parents of Players and Cheerleaders, and Corporation Faculty
12:00 Noon: Green and Gold Ticket Holders and Season Ticket Holders, until 4:00 PM.

Wednesday, February 21 and Thursday, February 22

7:30 a.m.: Open sales until 4:00 PM. All unsold tickets returned Friday.

Updated Swimming Report from Sectionals

Congratulations to the boy's swim team and coaches on a sectional win. This is coach Karn's 9th boy’s sectional win. Team scores:
Wawasee 324.5
Culver 293
Warsaw 253.5
Plymouth 107
Columbia Cty 79
Manchester 73
Rochester 61
Knox 61
Tippy Vly 43
Northfield 26
Fairfield 20

Individual Results:

The following swimmers will be going to the state meet at the Natatorium in Indy this Fri. and Sat. (2/23,24/07)
220 Free Relay—Tyler Wear, Cory Smith, Jake Garner, Chris Szynal
200 Free—Cory Smith
100 Fly—Chris Szynal
100 Free—Cory Smith
400 Free Relay—Chris Szynal, Haven Hoffman, Jake Garner, Cory Smith

Warrior Swimmers win sectional!

Two relays and two individuals also moved on.

Cory Smith won the 100 and 200 free and Chris Szynal won the 100 fly. They were also on the winning relay teams.

Warrior Girls BB Win Big

Wawasee Girls are BB Regional Champs!

After posting a 47-26 win over Concordia, Wawasee will move to semi state action next week!

Don't forget to go to http://www.wawaseetv.com/ to watch the games. Bill will appreciate the traffic!

Warriors Win

The boys BB team beat Westview last night.

The girls BB team won in the regionals this morning in Peru against Elwood and will play Concordia this evening at 8:00 PM at Peru.

The boys BB team will play this afternoon at home.

Go Warriors!

Making up missed days

Most of you know that the state law requires making up all days missed due to inclement weather. Here is the plan for making up days and adjusting for lopsided trimester schedules.

1. Monday, Feb 19th is now a school day as a snow makeup day

2. Monday, Feb 26th WAS a teacher work day with no students but will now become a regular school day as a snow makeup day

3. Friday, March 2nd will now be the end of the second trimester BUT it will be an early dismissal day (approximately 12:30 PM depending on the school) for students in order to allow at least SOME work time for staff for grading exams and getting ready for the new trimester on the next Monday. This also gives the weekend for teachers to prepare for the new classes on Monday.

4. Friday, March 23rd is now a school day as a snow makeup day

5. Monday, May 14th is now a school day as a snow makeup day

This will still leave Friday, June 1st as a snow makeup day if there are any other cancellations yet to come. Commencement will remain on Friday night even if school gets pushed into the next week. This is because many parents and grandparents already have their travel plans arranged.

This schedule does the following things:

It allows more second trimester teaching days for those teachers whose course content cannot be easily adjusted .

It provides at least a little work time for teachers to grade exams and enter grades into the computers.

It maximizes the use of available days for student instruction.

It decreases the chance we would need to require seniors to return after commencement .

Blog Tips

There have been over 416,731 "page loads" and 181,452 "unique visitors" to The Wawascene in the last 30 days as of 8:23 AM this morning. Over 50,000 of those are listed as "First Time Visitors." There are so many new readers lately that I think a few blog tips might be in order.

1. What are "page loads?" When you click on "The Wawascene" and then click on the "Comments" that would be two page loads. The stat counter program records every page load.

2. What are "unique visitors?" Each computer has a unique numerical address. There is a little piece of software code on your computer called "cookies" that allows web sites and blog sites to recognize that unique numerical address. Whenever you log onto The Wawascene the stat counter program checks to see if you have been on in the last hour or so. If you clicked on the blog site 45 times in that hour the stat counter would only count you as one "unique visitor." However, if you have your "cookies" turned off, the stat counter program will think you are a new visitor each time. How would you know if your "cookies" are on? If you go to a web site you have registered at before and it recognizes who you are, then your "cookies" are turned on. If you register over and over again every time you go, then your "cookies" are turned off. And that my friends, is how the cookie crumbles!

3. How is a blog site different than a web site? A blog is an informal, frequently changing web site that often links to other sites. Web sites are generally more formal sites that contain information and links that are changed less frequently.

4. Did you ever have a question, but then wonder if I have already blogged on the topic before. All you have to do is go to the to the top left corner of The Wawascene's homepage and look for the little white rectangular box. Next to it is a button that says "Search This Blog" if you type a word such as "ISTEP" in the box and then click on the "Search This Blog" button it will list every post I have made that has "ISTEP" in it. There is one caution though. That post was written at a certain point in time. Laws and opinions of those laws may have changed since then. But, you can at least see what was written about that topic at that point in time.

Enough for now. Have a good day.

Thursday - 2 hour delay

Thursday, February 15th will start with at least a two-hour delay. But stay tuned. We have to decide by 8:00 AM tomorrow about closing decisions.

This will give the county plows a little more time.

They will pull the plows at 4:00 PM tonight and return at 4:00 AM to see how much progress they can make.

While most roads are open (at least one lane) there may still be turnarounds and intersections where buses cannot negotiate the turning radius. The problem is that going is slow because the snow is unusually hard packed. That wind just packed it in.

P.S. Due to popular demand we are adding WNDU Channel 16 back to the call list today. We dropped them last year due to their internet system failing to post our information or posting incorrectly on several occasions. We will try it again.

Basketball Game Update

Things are improving but it's slow going because the snow is so packed it doesn't push very well.

The boys BB make up game for the make up game tonight will be played here at home with one major change.

There will be no JV game and the varsity game will be played at 6:30 PM in order to get people home in a timely fashion.

The report from the Kosciusko County highway department is that they should have every country road open by 4:00 PM this afternoon. There will still be some that are one lane.

Shocking!

OK - so maybe it's not shocking, but it's at least surprising to see a bill going through the legislature that repeals a duty that was handed off to public schools. This may be the first time I can recall a law change that didn't add a new requirement for public schools.

Senate Bill 0010 would repeal the public school requirement to test all students in grades 5, 7 and 9 for scoliosis.

Speaking of Bills - here is the entire list of bills introduced into the Indiana General Assembly.

If you have an opinion on one of them, go to the blue sticker on the sidebar where it says "Write Your Legislator." Put in your zip code and then your address, click "GO" and you will be given the email addresses of your representatives. In 60 seconds you can tell them what you think.

One legislator told me privately, that he puts far more weight behind the personal emails and letters from constituents than he does the form letters from professional lobbying organizations.

One of the first reasons I started blogging was to try to make it easier for patrons to not only know how laws affected their local schools but to make it easier for patrons to let their own personal opinions be known to their representatives.

Wednesday - School Cancelled

Wawasee Schools will be closed on Wednesday, February 14, 2007.

Board Meeting Time Change

The Wawasee Community School Board has moved the 7:00 PM meeting tonight to 4:00 PM. in the central administration office. The executive session has been cancelled.

Tonight's Boy's BB Game Rescheduled

The make up game for the make up game against Northridge will be Wednesday, February 14th. JV game starts at 6:15 PM.

Tuesday - Cancelled

School will be closed on Tuesday the 13th. The snow started around 5:00 AM and the wind is causing some drifting.

"2% circuit breaker" - For some cities, towns and schools it blows a fuse!

Someone emailed me last week and wanted to know how Indiana's new law, coined the "2% circuit breaker" was going to affect the Wawasee school system. Evidently they had seen the TV coverage of the South Bend school system fretting about how this law could hurt them badly.

The "2% circuit breaker," passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 2006 is designed to cap property taxes at 2%. That sounds simple enough, right?

Yet, this law could have a devastating impact on some municipalities, towns, cities and schools but little or no impact on others.

Here is how it works. To make the example simple, let's assume you had a home and property that was valued for property tax purposes at $100,000 and your total property tax exceeded $2,000. In this example the "2% circuit breaker" kicks in and then anything over that $2,000 is noncollectable and the taxing entities would not receive their portion of that money.

What if you live in a town that has a library tax? What if your town provides sewer service? Maybe they collect your garbage or plow your streets and pick up your leaves? These services are provided for those that live in the taxing area. But if your total property taxes including school taxes exceeds 2% (or in the $100,000 example - $2,000) then the taxing entities do not receive their portion over the $2,000 amount.

This seems a little weird to me. Just because you live outside these municipal areas doesn't necessarily mean you don't use such services. Maybe you pay for your own garbage pick up. When the private gravel drive to your subdivision is drifted in you may have to pay separately to have it plowed. You probably pay every year to have it scraped and potholes filled. Maybe you pay for septic tanks to be pumped and when the systems go bad you may pay privately to put in a new system. These items are not covered on the property tax rolls but that doesn't mean you don't have to use those services. I suppose the thinking is that at least you have a choice. I suppose so. You could let the garbage pile up at the roadside I guess! :-)

But, here are the real problems with the "2% circuit breaker:"

1. These towns, municipalities and schools already have their budgets set and services developed long before they are informed about how much revenue is not collected.

2. The Indiana General Assembly passed the law without solid information on how and who it would affect.

3. They did not pass any alternative revenue sources.

As far as Wawasee Schools is concerned, it does not appear to have too much of a direct effect. Wawasee Schools tax rate is low enough that even adding all the other property taxes up inside the towns it should not have a major impact on our schools. But time will tell.

To see Wawasee's property tax rate and current ranking (Click here) then scroll down to "Delve deeper into data" and select "top 10 corporations," then select "tax rate (before CAGIT)" and you will see Wawasee ranked 292 of 293 school districts.