NAPL State Report Card - 19th out of 21 “Similar” Districts

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Comment by j gray on October 15, 2009 at 2:15am

I was told about the bathroom by a Kindergarten teacher. I won't name names, because he/she was just answering my question if there were any differences between classrooms (I asked because all the rooms I saw DID have bathrooms). The answer I have gotten regarding the number of students, is the Department of Education wants the number to come down, the legislation does (as you saw from what I copied and pasted before) ask for the numbers to come down, but the Senate has not yet said how long they will give the schools to reach set numbers and exactly what those set numbers will be. The thought is each year, each school district will have to decide how best to do it (more classrooms, teacher aides, longer school year, etc.) and the state will allow them a several year grace period to meet the requirements. Everyone is waiting for the Senate to decide how long that grace period will be. I have heard that New Albany is leaning towards teacher aides as the most practical solution given the spacing problems. What I am VERY concerned about, even if the bathroom is NOT an issue, is where 160 5 year olds are going to go. At 20 kids a clip, that's 8 trailers. And, honestly, I think it's appalling that we even have trailers on the table for discussion for five year olds. That is not how a child should spend his/her first year in school. I don't like trailers period, but I can accept them as a necessary, temporary evil for older kids (2-5 and up). But a child's first year when they are learning the very basics of literacy? That's unacceptable and I think you will have a parents revolt on your hands if that's the solution. I know your children are older, but can you remember back to when they were five? Now imagine them being in the seventh trailer from the K-1 building, having fun with their friends, and then, when nature calls, waiting for an aide to walk him/her past all the other trailers, into the K-1 building and down the halls to go the bathroom. The trip will be even longer if it's raining or snowing. I don't know a lot of five year olds with that kind of bladder control. We better hire a bunch more janitors because it's going to be ugly. I will be perfectly honest - I know nothing about Olentangy, so I will not even attempt to speak about them. I can't discuss that with you because I have never even seen their schools. NA has added 398 students in the last two years. 147 K-5, 71 6-8, 180 9-12. Those are this year's numbers directly from the Administration. If Olentangy is "it", I say great for now. Development has been completely out of control in NA and, frankly, as much as you dislike Dr. Castle, he's not the reason we have more kids than we can properly house. He has his faults to be sure, but he did not build one single house or condo. The Council has done an abysmal job regulating growth and we are all paying the price on our taxes and, far worse, our kids are paying the price by being shuttled back and forth between buildings and trailers because growth was NOT managed as promised. I am baffled, as is many of my neighbors, why houses continue to go up even now and we are asked to pay for new school buildings and the developers are not asked to contribute one dime. I don't mind paying my share. I do mind developers building houses that cost them 100Gs to built, they sell them for 600Gs, and they have no financial obligation to help build the new school buildings. No one seems to have an answer as to how large the school is going to be allowed to grow. Our "planned" community is slated to have over 2500 MORE new homes built before NA has reached it's "built out" stage. That doesn't not count Plain Township, who, frankly, doesn't seem to have any real plan for growth at all. Where will all those kids go? Our school will be larger than most mid-sized colleges. So, if Olentangy can take that heat off us for awhile, so be it. The community and the schools need some time to clean up the mess that exists and it's painfully clear that the Council is not up to the task. If housing pricess go down even more, well, it will be a painful reminder to our citizens that they should be more aware of what is happening in our Village and who they are voting for. Lots of folks ignored everything while times were good. Even now, we can't get more than a fraction of a percentage to turn out for the candidates forum at the Temple! Neglect has a price attached to it. Some people need to learn that the hard way, unfortunately.

Comment by Tom Lammers on October 14, 2009 at 8:25pm

John, to answer your original questions. 1) I was against the levy because I didn't think we should be
raising property taxes when it was unnecessary. 2) NAPL teachers are paid $5,666 more per year when
compared to Olentangy. Olentangy is the closest school district in our peer group, and is almost equidistant
from downtown Columbus as New Albany. I think they are the best comparison. The fact that Olentangy is
outperforming us, leads me to say we are not getting as much for our money as Olentangy is. I don't mind
paying for success. But I don't want pay for a Mercedes and get a Maxima. I think the problem is with the Administration. New leadership will put teachers in a position to succeed. You said in your question that if we
don't give raises people will leave. There is no evidence of that. We pay our teachers extremely well. In fact, once teachers are in our district, very few leave. That's fine, but I want the best. and I want to put them in a position to deserve very high relative pay.
Lastly, why should you vote for me? You saw the panel this morning. I want what's best for my kids and the community. Successful schools will mean higher property values. I didn't have a chance to mention it this morning, but in the last 2 years we have added 267 students, Olentangy has added 1855 in the same 2 years.
They are becoming the "it" district like we were 10 years ago. The reason that is important is it will decrease demand for living in NA if people perceive Olentangy as a better value. UA is a different story because it's not easy to buy a new house there, but Olentangy competes in almost every way with our community. If someone wants to buy a new house or let's say a 10 year old house, we are competing against them. By having people flock to Olentangy and not NA it makes it that much more difficult to sell our houses if say you are transferred or just want to relocate. We have got to be better.
I hope that answers your questions. Regarding the kindergarten - I asked 3 people in the K1 building, no one, including the principal, had any idea whether the bathroom was mandatory or the 18 kids/class. The principal
referred me to Ken Stark and Jeff Wallace. So I sent them a request. I can't believe it is that difficult to get an answer.

Comment by j gray on October 14, 2009 at 1:16pm

I spoke with the Ohio Dept. Of Education regarding state mandates for Kindergarten size. I was told it was located in Senate Bill 12. I was not able to find anything definitive, but it is a long bill and I have not read it all. I have found the following:

2)(O) A district may use a portion of the funds paid under this section to modify or purchase classroom space to enable it to further reduce class size in grades kindergarten through two with a goal of attaining class sizes of fifteen students per licensed teacher. To do so, the district must certify its need for additional space to the department, in a manner satisfactory to the department.

AND

(7)(6) For increased classroom learning opportunities by increasing the amount of instructional attention received per pupil in kindergarten through third grade, either by reducing the ratio of students to instructional personnel or by increasing the amount of instruction and curriculum-related activities by extending the length of the school day or the school year.
School districts may implement a reduction of the ratio of students to instructional personnel through any or all of the following methods:
(a) Reducing the number of students in a classroom taught by a single teacher;
(b) Employing full-time educational aides or educational paraprofessionals, issued a permit or license under section 3319.088 of the Revised Code, who are engaged in classroom support activities;
(c) Instituting a team-teaching method that will result in a lower student-teacher ratio in a classroom.

Not being a lawyer, I cannot say beyond a shadow of doubt that hard limits are to be put into place, but it certainly seems that they are looking for a class size reduction.

Comment by j gray on October 14, 2009 at 12:45pm

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/ReducingClass/index.html

Per our discussion, I have found this to be a reasonably thorough analysis. Unfortunately, it references a large number of studies and papers, so it requires a great deal of reading and tracking down other papers. I have had a lot of success finding the various studies and papers via Google, but it is time consuming. The endnotes are fairly specific, so I used them as a starting point for all my searches. I hope you find it useful.

Comment by j gray on October 13, 2009 at 11:21pm

"I see academic achievement like a stool with 4 legs. 3 of our legs are rock solid. 1 leg is our students, another the parents, and the third leg is our teachers. There are no problems with these 3 legs."

If our teachers are "rock solid", which I agree is mostly the case, then why are you running on a platform that states you oppose their pay raise? If someone is doing an excellent job and has seen their workload increase by double digits over the past four years, why are they not entitled to a raise? There has been an increase of over 14% in the number of students in our schools in the last FOUR years. But that does not tell the whole story. In the K-1 and the 2-5 the increases have been far more dramatic. There are now 35% more students in second grade than there was a mere four years ago. 35% in four years. Classroom size in the lower grades has gone up over 30% since 2003 (to the detriment of our children and our teachers). Please don't use "the recession" as an excuse. Bottom line, lots of people have gotten raises this past year. If you do excellent work and your profession is in demand (and good elementary school teachers are), you either get rewarded for it or you take another job elsewhere. Had those raises not gone through, as you advocated, New Albany would have lost some of it's best teachers. Having two children in the schools, and another child two years away, why should I vote for such a myopic approach? BTW - You may want to shy away from Lincoln example. Hundreds of thousands died as a result of those mistakes. At best, it's in bad taste.