the Honors situation I mentioned above is continuing....are we now 8 weeks into the year

it is incredibly scandalous

apparently there's another child in the same position

but naturally the school is protecting their confidentiality

so the parents aren't going to be calling each other up

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Nov 2006

You are probably right. But what I don't understand is why can't other teachers teach Honors classes? Shouldn't all teachers be able to teach honors classes, whether they are doing so at present or not?

Well, of course, here in Irvington, everything is Top Secret

But I intend to find out.

Yes, why can't they offer more than 2 sections of an 8th grade Regents Earth Sciences course?

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Nov 2006

dollars to donuts the honors teacher is at her union-limit of number of students per day

You are probably right. But what I don't understand is why can't other teachers teach Honors classes? Shouldn't all teachers be able to teach honors classes, whether they are doing so at present or not?

-- BenCalvin - 04 Nov 2006

The original proposal was $9 mil

The Fieldpoint residents managed to get it down to $5.5 mil

Yeoman labor

They're next to the school, & have huge drainage problems (it's amazing - I had no idea)

Turns out the school & Fieldpoint (and maybe my house??) are built on wetlands!

sheesh

Anyway, after a year of labor they were able to get the Board to perceive that, yes, WE HAVE DRAINAGE PROBLEMS THAT PROHIBIT BUIDING X, Y, & Z

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Nov 2006

You know, if you deleted references to Irvington, you could send that letter to just about any suburban school district. The things you see in Irvington are not isolated. We all face the same issues.

right, exactly

that's the problem

we have to try to engineer a paradigm shift (does one "engineer" a paradigm shift?)

what I don't know is how big a problem union regs are

our union is invisible

never see them, never hear them

then two weeks ago someone told me the union is "upset" about the Irvington Parents Forum

that tells union regs are part of the problem

I suspect that the student I know who's been strung along by the school, trying to get into an Honors class, is probably hitting a union wall

no one will tell student or student's parents why student wasn't put in honors class, or why, now that student is getting straight As in non-honors class, student shouldn't be moved to honors class

dollars to donuts the honors teacher is at her union-limit of number of students per day

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Nov 2006

you spammer you!

I'm just violating ALL THE CODES

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Nov 2006

You know, if you deleted references to Irvington, you could send that letter to just about any suburban school district. The things you see in Irvington are not isolated. We all face the same issues. We are a little behind you on the fields. We are looking to have a referendum on the school field rebuild (at $5 million) in June, so I have a little more time. But it's a near impossible task as the football parents see the new fields as their only hope of getting a team. They'll be able to organize parents on football, I doubt we'll get a discussion going at all.

But this $5 million price tag -- weird how the fields in Granby and in Irvington all need $5M. I'll bet there's a standardized list somewhere of costs so schools just look it up and plug it in.

-- LynnGuelzow - 01 Nov 2006

I think the theory on the fields is that it is justified to use bond mony for infrastructure, but not for ongoing operating expenses.

Of course the debt service becomes an ongoing expense, but that's another matter.

-- BenCalvin - 31 Oct 2006

Verizon will turn off your email account for 24 hours if you...send more than 100 messages in 1 hour...send messages at a rate of 1.6 per minute...send one message to more than 500 people

you spammer you!

-- BenCalvin - 31 Oct 2006

[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irvingtonparentsforum/message/41][This]] is the summary of our hiring practices I posted to the Irvington Parents Forum.

Presumably this is being forwarded around town.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Oct 2006

The thing about all of this is that parents are always "new," so none of us has institutional memory....we don't know what the district used to do, in the not-so-distant past.

We all of us are vaguely aware that our teachers are seeming younger and younger....but it's not until someone puts it together that we all "see" it.

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Oct 2006

Thank you!

He REALLY knows how to maintain his tone....(not that I can't, but sometimes it's an effort).

I have to say, when I re-read this letter I thought it was awfully good.

He really does manage to hit home the central, under-the-radar reality that we are economizing on teacher pay and, thus, on teacher quality while our attitude towards Smart Boards, Food Courts, artificial turf seems to be "Why pay less?"

-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Oct 2006

Kudos to Ed on a very well-written letter!

-- KarenA - 31 Oct 2006

if you build it they will come

Field Update

• Install artificial turf and lighting on Meszaros Field (the High School Field); replace our 18-year old track; construct paved parking, 4 tennis courts and access to East Field; sod and configure East Field for baseball, soccer and lacrosse. All portions of this project would involve installation of appropriate drainage structures.