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CCSD66 Notes

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Ease on Down to Oz 2007

The Center Cass District 66 PTO annual fundraiser, Ease on Down to Oz, is coming up soon. Proceeds for this event will benefit all district children and will take place on Saturday, March 10th at Hollywood Blvd. in Woodridge, beginning at noon with a showing of the historic feature The Wizard of Oz on the big screen. Enjoy a great afternoon out with family and friends. The afternoon will include special entertainment, lunch, popcorn and soft drinks. Raffles and special children’s events will also be held. In addition, there is an on line silent auction being conducted. All proceeds go directly to the district schools. For information and tickets please contact any school building.

There are many fine items on the silent auction page. Please visit the silent auction at,
http://www.ccsd66.org/SilentAuction.html

See you there!

Monday, February 26, 2007

Internet Safety Information Sites for Parents

Last week we hosted a presentation of Internet Safety provided by the DuPage Sheriff’s Department. The presentation was very good but was not well attended. Since it is a constant challenge to protect our students from the potential problems of the web the following parent resources have been gathered for your use by our Technology Director, Kathleen Kucera.

Cyber Angels www.cyberangels.org

A site whose mission is to function as a "virtual 411" safety destination, while addressing the concerns of parents, the needs of children, regarding cyber crime.

FBI http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm

A parent’s guide to keeping their child safe on the internet, including their list of “What Can You Do To Minimize The Chances Of An On-line Exploiter Victimizing Your Child?”

GetNetWise www.getnetwise.org

Multiple resources for making informed decisions about their internet use and their children’s internet use, including
Keeping Children Safe online
Stopping Unwanted Email and Spam
Keeping Your Information Private

SafeKids www.safekids.com

A family guide to making the Internet safe and fun. This site Includes information on Kid’s Internet Rules and Safe Blogging Tips for Teens.

NetSmartz www.netsmartz.org

NetSmartz is a great site for parents and students to use together to learn about internet safety. You can search their knowledgebase, or Ask and Expert. There are activities for younger students as well as teens.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

School Safety

Annually the District convenes a Crisis Committee to review our safety and emergency procedures. This committee is comprised of members of the administration, buildings and grounds group, and local police and fire agencies. This group reviews procedures and makes recommendations for new procedures or improvement to existing safety procedures.

In the past year we have tried to be more proactive in preparing both school staff and students for emergencies by developing procedures for building lock downs in the case of an intruder or other emergency situations and student relocation drills to quickly and safely relocate students from their school building. These drills do improve response time and safety as was recently demonstrated by Prairieview students when a sprinkler pipe broke at school two weeks ago and the entire student body was safely and quickly moved to Lakeview within five minutes.

Next Friday as part of our safety planning and training, we will be working with the DuPage County Sheriff’s Department to conduct a lockdown simulation for all District staff members at Lakeview Junior High School. This drill will be conducted by the Sheriff and will include a pre-drill instruction period, the drill and then a de-briefing for staff members after the drill. This experience will help staff members better understand the various issues confronting them, as we try to safeguard students in the case of an intruder within the building.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

More ISAT Delays

The media is full of stories concerning additional delays in the delivery of ISAT results from March of 2006 to local school districts. There has been no information shared with districts as to what this latest delay is about. It is terrible that we are a few weeks away from the 2007 administration of the test and do not have completed data and results from the 2006 test available to guide instruction and preparation for the 2007 test. Our district has received general AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) information, individual student results and a data file containing information on our students from last year’s test. We have not been able to examine the performance of our sub-groups since the state has not provided the data. Is the problem with Harcourt, our state test vendor, or with ISBE (Illinois State Board of Education)? I hope the 2007 ISAT test administration and scoring goes smoother than last year!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Internet Safety Workshop

Don’t miss an informative presentation and workshop on Internet Safety to be held tonight, February 20, 2007 at Prairieview School. This informative presentation is directed toward parents only and will be presented by the DuPage County Sheriff’s Department as a follow-up to a student program presented at Lakeview Junior High School in December 2006. The program begins at 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

NCLB

I read an interesting article in The School Administrator magazine this week. The article was titled, The Public Seems to Get It by William Bushaw, executive director of Phi Delta Kappan International. In this article he laments folly of Congressional Republicans who last summer proposed spending $100 million to fund vouchers for low-income students attending “failing” schools. U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spelling, supported this move saying, “When schools don’t work, parents must have other opportunities.” Mr. Bushaw contents that this is just the latest example of policy makers embracing an education policy that is not supported by the public nor supported by research.

Data from the latest Phi Delta Kappan Gallop Poll of Public Attitudes Toward Public Education refutes these actions. Mr. Bushaw says “We were amazed, as we are every year, at the public’s ability to separate myth from reality and arrive at an accurate assessment of their public schools”. He continues to point out that based on the latest poll Americans support their public schools and a majority feels that NCLB is either hurting their public schools or making no difference in their schools. It is too bad that our leaders in Washington will not acknowledge that most Americans support their public schools and spend their $100 million on improving schools instead of vouchers! There is a failure, but it is a failure of leadership in the political realm and not of the public schools. See the entire PDK/Gallop Poll on the Public’s Attitudes Towards the Public Schools at
www.pdkintl.org.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Special Education Rules

It has been a few months since the Illinois General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) rejected the new rules for special education that had been put forth by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) last spring. These new rules would have made many changes in how special education classes were organized and staffed with the potential for adding additional costs by requiring additional teachers in many districts. While the new rules were clearly the responsibility of ISBE, I felt that they were premature since the federal government has not issued guidelines and rules for the implementation of the re-authorized IDEA legislation. I felt that we should wait for federal guidance rather than create state level rules and be forced to modify them if they did not match the federal rules. It was a surprise that JCAR rejected the proposed rules and sent them back to ISBE. Apparently, a great deal of pressure was exerted by the IEA and IFT in rejecting the new rules.

Nothing has been reported about the status of the proposed rules since before the winter break. Although the proposed rules were not to my liking, they were developed over a period of time through the efforts of many people throughout the state. The danger now is that if the rules are not presented soon, all will be lost and the entire process will have to begin again. If the rules are not passed or reviewed within180 days, the rules become invalid. I hope that the teachers’ unions and ISBE can work together to move the special education rules forward so that the entire process is not forced to be repeated.

A Snowy Day!

The terrible storm predicted did not hit our area. Conditions are much better than they were on December 1st when we were hit with a late arriving snow storm that crippled traffic. Today’s storm has less snow and visibility is much better. Buses are operating close to their normal schedule and buildings are staffed and warm awaiting students. Custodians have cleared the sidewalks and parking lots have been cleared and salted.

The decision to open schools today was made in consultation with Community High School District 99, other neighboring school districts and Laidlaw Transit. In our case, once District 99 decides to remain open we generally follow their lead unless conditions are significantly different in our area. Based on the weather forecast, we will be monitoring the weather closely all week to insure that our children remain safe. Stay warm!

Friday, February 09, 2007

95TH General Assembly

The new session seems to be off to a rather slow start. Over 1500 new bills have been filed and the deadline for new bills in the Senate is today, while the House deadline is near the end of the month. Maybe the building renovations and alternate meeting locations, as well as the pending Obama announcement are slowing things down. Both parties are proposing a variety of bills to deal with school funding, pensions and school construction. There is a revised version of HB 750 which would include funding for pensions. Details can be found at: http://www.ilga.gov/legiclation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=750&GAID=9&GADocTypeID=HB&LegID=28049&SessionID=51

Perhaps it is the anticipation of the governor’s budget speech set for March 7th that will start the ball rolling. It appears that Governor Blagojevich continues to move forward with his plan to sell or lease the Illinois State Lottery since bides are due on February 20th. It doesn’t look like there is much support for such a move from either side of the aisle with regard to the lottery. In the mean time, Representative Lou Lang has proposed to expand gambling as a way to solve the state’s financial crisis. I am unsure as to how much support such a plan would have.

Today’s Chicago Tribune supports the concepts espoused by former State Superintendent, Max McGee that would add a “general value added” tax on Illinois goods that would raise funds and provide a more equitable system for government funding. If you haven’t been following the Chicago Tribune series on school funding be sure to try and check it out at
www.chicagotribune/edfund.com.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Prairieview Waterfall

Yesterday we experienced the 8th wonder of the world as the Prairieview waterfall flexed its muscles and sent hundreds of gallons of water into the office area at the school. The recent cold snap and high winds from the west had apparently caused a sprinkler pipe to freeze in the ceiling above the Prairieview office. One of our alert secretaries noted water dripping from the ceiling and alerted the custodian who found a broken T-coupler. In the time it took to say look out and walk to the mechanical room to shut down the sprinkler system and open the water drains, the pipe burst sending a flood of water into the office area. Quick action by our custodian, who used floor mats to create a dam, contained the water to the vestibule and main hallway. A quick response from the Darien Woodridge Fire Department turned off the sprinklers and stopped the flow of water.

Within minutes of the flood, all children were safely and efficiently re-located to the Lakeview building across the parking lot. The teachers and students handled this move quickly and calmly just as we have practiced in the past. In less than an hour, all students were back in class resuming their normal activities.

Custodians from our other buildings pitched in and cleared most of the water from the building. Later in the day, Service Master arrived to treat the carpets and set up fans to dry the impacted areas. They will return later in the week to clean and sanitize the carpets. I hope we don’t have any more of this excitement for quite a while.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Strategic Planning Workshop

Center Cass School District 66 held it first Strategic Planning Workshop this past Saturday at Prairieview School. In spite of the sub-zero cold, this event brought together over 50 members of the wider school community including representatives from local libraries, police, fire and park districts to review goals and issues facing Center Cass District 66 in the future. This day was facilitated by Dr. William Schewe and Dr. Susan Schwicardi who did a wonderful job in working with this diverse group to arrive at consensus in developing district priority goals.

Based on this planning meeting, the Board of Education and Administration will begin work to develop these priorities into workable goals and then develop action plans to accomplish these priorities over the next few years. It was a very rewarding day to see members of the community working together for the betterment of our children.