Wednesday, June 27, 2007

NY State invests in education

You may have read the headline this week about how the NYS Education Department is going to send Million of $ to various school districts to help bolster their level of teaching. Midlakes won't be applying for the additional funds for several reasons. #1 We would have to agree to spend it on expanding or enhancing our existing curriculum. Here we are, trying to save the taxpayer money and the state wants us to spend more. #2 We would have to submit our teachers contract to the state for their review and that's not going to happen because we don't have a contract. #3 The state wants more help for the lower achiving students. We've been striving for several years to decrease the number of identified students by delaying the identification process. Most parents in this area aren't aware of their childs rights and don't advocate for intervention. We all know that the earlier the intervention is, the more successful it will be. But, this all costs money that we, school board members, want to save everyone.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eight years ago the school district insisted that our son be enrolled in Kindergarden because he was going to turn 5 in December. We did this because we were told it was mandated by NYS. Now our son is going into the 7th grade but his math and ELA test show he's at the 5th grade level. He'll be in summer school this summer but we doubt that this trivial effort will help. He wasn't ready for Kindergarden and has never been held back to allow him to mature. Now he has a bad attitude about school and can't wait to quit. THANKS.

Anonymous said...

The schools in Monroe county are suing Maggie Brook and the county legislature. Why? Under her direction the county has drastically cut funding and is expecting the school to use the extra money from NY State to be used to survive instead of how the money was intended, "to expand the quality of education". This should be a warning to the school board. That is exactly what they did with this years budget. Come on people, wake up. It cost money for a good education. Let's get the message to the board, "cheap education and expensive administration" is NOT what we want at Midlakes.