Dear Five Sisters and South End neighbors, and colleagues,

Thanks to those of you who braved what a colleague referred to as my “hyper-caffeinated” first report from the National School Boards Association’s annual conference. Here’s a second less-caffeinated report, for those of you who are as intrigued by school matters as I am:

Sunday morning session: “Expanding Learning through the Arts: A Unique Collaboration.” I tried to convince the presenter to move to our district when this was over. This was a story of a private non-profit that raises huge sums to infuse arts and architecture into every facet of the curriculum in Niagara Falls public schools.  This program utilizes lots of trained “teaching artists” who work collaboratively with classroom and arts teachers in innovative and integrated ways that never are separate “stand-alone” programs. I will be passing around the literature up at district headquarters. . . Apparently, the way to go is to get something started as a pilot that works with local and state funds, and then apply for the really big dollars. I know our very smart grants writer Betsy Liley already knows all that anyway, but it can’t hurt to pass on the flyers and business cards. . .

Sunday afternoon session: “Higher Ed, Higher Calling: Making the Most of Town-Gown Relationships” This one felt like the heavens opening. . . This session was presented by the Durham, North Carolina Schools Superintendent and a Duke University administrator whose sole job is finding ways the University can help the school district (his mom lives in Shelburne, and he offered to come chat with our administration).  He described the University’s interest in the schools as stemming from faculty and staff recruitment and retention issues (and also civic mission)--Duke wants the city public schools surrounding it to be top notch.  Durham is like us in having a free and reduced lunch rate of 45% but the similarities end there. The “white” student population is 26% and the district operates magnet schools, year-round schools and small high schools, several of which are operated in conjunction with Duke University and the North Carolina Central University, the first land-grant historically black college which is in town as well. Here’s the angels singing thing: Duke takes care of grounds-keeping and lots of small maintenance projects in the public schools with its own crews (amounting to a half million dollars of donated work in the past five years), and they use their clout to help the bidding process for district construction projects. They offer Durham teachers free graduate courses in their content areas. Duke also provides “mentors of color” that go into the schools to work one-on-one with kids and do classroom presentations about their work. And they allow the public schools to use their athletic facilities. Durham is moving towards free-standing magnet small high schools, including a health sciences high school on the campus of the Duke Medical School. One big recommendation here was blurring the line between high school and college. Through their “college” theme high school on the NCCU campus, many students graduate with as much as two years of college credit. These courses (hopefully) are richer and more interesting than A.P. courses. Also, the program gets kids to go to college who might not have otherwise, and it saves them a lot of money towards their degree. The University also has committed itself to making computers available in every neighborhood in Durham, with many curricular options and homework assignments online.  The most important relationship according to these guys is between the Superintendent and the College or University President. When these folks align their goals, anything is possible.  (That is a hint . . .).

Thanks for reading these posts. I hope that you will stay on top of school issues this year because I do believe change is not far away, both because our kids can benefit from positive reform, and because funding issues will force it upon us.  By the way, there is a GREAT set of relevant articles about socioeconomic integration and school size in this month's American School Board Journal, online (free) at www.asbj.com that I hope some of you may have time to read. The task force is plowing away, considering issues including those in the articles, and meeting weekly now through June. Our next meeting will be at Hunt Middle School from 6 to 8:30 on April 19th and all are welcome.

As always, let me know what you think, and/or contribute to the district blog at www.bsdvt.org (go to the task force information page – public forum).   More soon,

Amy Werbel
Ward 5 School Commissioner
awerbel@bsdvt.org