FUNtervals

Fun and games make for better learners -- ScienceDaily

Four minutes of physical activity can improve behaviour in the classroom for primary school students, according to new research by Brendon Gurd.

A brief, high-intensity interval exercise, or a "FUNterval," for Grade 2 and Grade 4 students reduced off-task behaviours like fidgeting or inattentiveness in the classroom.

... FUNtervals involved actively acting out tasks like "making s'mores" where students would lunge to "collect firewood," "start the fire" by crouching and exploding into a star jump and squatting and jumping to "roast the marshmallows" to make the S'more. Each activity moves through a 20-second storyline of quick, enthusiastic movements followed by 10 seconds of rest for eight intervals.

I would expect this to become rote and lose some of its effectiveness after a few weeks or months, but retain some for years...it seems somewhere in between the adult-structured "games" of a gym class on the one hand, and the kid-structured play that Peter Gray talks about. I'd also think that it might be possible to keep it from becoming rote by having some of the eight activities be chosen by groups of kids, and at least one of them developed by those groups as replacements for the original set.

Matching Grant by Dick's Sporting Goods to Keep JV Going

A matching grant is available for Hamilton JV Sports, with five weeks to raise $4,089. 5% funded as of April 17th. Hamilton Emerald Knights - Sports Matter

This team will only receive The DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation matching grant if at least $4,089 is pledged by Friday, May 23rd 6:00pm ET.
Hamilton Central School has a long, proud history of providing enriching extracurricular opportunities for its students. This has historically included athletic activities at the modified, junior varsity, and varsity levels when participation numbers warranted all three. However, JV sports have not been a part of the overall school budget for the last three years. The athletic budget itself has been cut by approximately $50,000 over the course of the last six years. For the past three years, we have been fortunate to receive donations to keep our JV programs running. Budget constraints are an issue again in the upcoming year and we are asking for your help to keep these opportunities for our student athletes.

update:More info at HCS Teams With Dick's Sporting Goods for Grant

Note on Fall Sports

With reference to the fall sports discussions around the approved budget, and more particularly to the Superintendent's blog post at Will There be Girl's Soccer in the Fall of the 2014--15 School Year? - Dr. Bowers - SuperintendentHamilton CSD, Heather Cigeroglu urges by email:

  In a small school numbers are always an issue with sports. I understand Denny's reason for changing it but disagree with the finality of the switch being based on a student survey. Another issue is whether or not all students really understood the survey's intent or consequences or even got to take the survey. After reading Denny and Jen's response on the blog it seems, and I could be wrong, that if volleyball moves to the fall and there are not enough players then the sport to be merged with another school would be soccer. Is volleyball not able to be combined with another school?
  Regardless, there are girls who have quite a stake in this switch and thus a meeting with Denny, Jen, Brian, Bill and/or Diana, the ladies who intend to play volleyball or soccer, and their parents should indeed be held as soon as possible to work this all out and find the best possible solution for the students involved.

Budget approval -- report from Astrid Helfant

Astrid Helfant (BoE candidate) with quick report on yesterday's meeting:

Here's a quick summary of tonight's Public Budget Hearing. Ellen [Larson], please read over it and see if some items need editing or if I left out some things that you consider important. ... The end result is that the Board approved the budget this evening.

- The BoE is looking to hire an interim Superintendent starting July 1st. Erin asked the salary for someone with a doctorate which is $135,000 according to Diana. Barbara proposed the possibility of hiring a permanent superintendent in the middle of the school year starting the spring semester. Matt responded that this would be fine in terms of the budget; such a mid-year hire could be accommodated. My question (which I did not ask) is whether the quality of candidates is better during for a normal July 1st starting time compared to a February 1st starting time. 

- The tax levy of 2.21% and the intent not to override the levy was submitted by March 1st. Although this is not binding, it was clear that the Board had no intent of overriding the levy. From my conversation with Terry Monte during the meeting it was clear that the Board may anticipate a worse budget year coming up as Terry gathered from a Superintendent coffee she attended. It would thus make more sense to avoid an override of the tax levy this year, as we may very well need an override next year. Diana did remind us that in a letter she received a year or so ago from David Valesky, Valesky stated that he anticipated a full restoration of the GEA within the next two years. Since this letter was sent a year ago, that may mean that we should have our GEA restored for the 2015-2016 school year. Of course no guarantees here. 

- I mentioned again to Diana, Matt and the Board that Carolyn is very interested in being involved in the foreign exchange initiative. I asked Diana who the Colgate Alumnus is that is part of the Southern-Westchester BOCES. She was very good about sending Debbie Kirley to retrieve his name for me: Jeff Donnelly. Diana and he had email communication. The full intention is that he is considering up to 5 boys most likely from China paying $14,000-$20,000 HCS tuition and who all may be living in a house provided by Colgate supervised by a house parent. This monetary amount of $70,000-$100,000 has not been included in the budget as there are no guarantees here. With the HCS Sevis rating good to go, we are however all set for students from abroad to come. HCS just needs to facilitate their visas.

- I brought to Diana, Matt and the Board's attention Stephanie's question regarding a second full-time art position. I threw in there the option of the 0.5 or 1.0 second library position. Diana first clarified that with Bill Magee's $50,000 Bullet Aid, HCS is able to maintain Jenn Brigg's 0.5 library position. Which means the total librarian staff is 1.5 FTE. The response was that since we cannot count for sure on the foreign exchange funds, we are unable to include such increased staff position(s) in the current budget. Maybe next year?

- Much talk was about the JV, Varsity and Modified Sports. David Ellis had a conversation with Jen and was particularly concerned with how the HCS administration presented their Sports budget to the public. The perception was that JV sports' funding was contingent upon a grant requested from Dick's Sporting Goods. The money received from Dick's would need to be matched by the Sports Boosters. This is however not the case. Based on the enrollment surveys for all sports, only those sports with enough enrollments to create a team are currently budgeted for. Any additional teams to be created based on unanticipated sign-ups will have to come from this grant. Dennis Roy said that no matter what happens with the numbers, money can be shuffled and the teams will play. It's a matter of getting the numbers. Gary Weeks and Morgan among others asked questions in addition to David Hollis about the sports budget.

- The "Enrichment" position is indeed cut. However, this position cut does not mean HCS students will no longer receive enrichment. Also, Johanna B. (Ag teacher) will hopefully continue to offer the Enrichment Bunch Program, though this is contingent upon funding from the Emerald Foundation as well as help from a second teacher.

- None of the other administrators (besides Diana, Matt and Dennis) were there. I was going to ask the attending Principals what their opinion was about a reduced (interim) Superintendent position (0.75 FTE). Do they think this would be feasible? Could they themselves make up for the reduction in administrative staff? Could they take on the extra responsibility? Again, I didn't get to ask this question, but would very much have liked to.

and Ellen Larson doesn't see anything to change in there, so here 'tis.

Update:Radio Free Hamilton has a report at HCS Board Approves Budget With 1.16% Increase

The HCS School Board tonight approved a preliminary 2014-2015 budget of $12,260,960, which is an increase of just 1.16 percent over the current spending plan.

And Dr. Bowers' blog has information on athletics at Will There be Girl's Soccer in the Fall of the 2014--15 School Year? - Dr. Bowers - SuperintendentHamilton CSD

Board of Education Meeting, Tuesday 2014-03-18

It's really nice to have the BoE meetings put up on YouTube; unfortunately there was no microphone in front of Diana Bowers (Superintendent until July) so that answers to some questions are not audible to me, except in bits and pieces. Also, some BoE members leaned back too far from the microphones, sometimes. Anyway, I'll set it here with notes below so that you can find segments for particular speakers or subjects. Umm, I skipped the FFA presentation somewhere early, I see...sorry, it's not what I was focused on. (But the state FFA convention will be here, with local schools including HCS as hosts; it seems to rotate among all the participating schools.)

Bottom Line, as I understand it: We can't save money by refinancing any of our debt; we can save some by not keeping our "resource officer" (policeman), we will probably save some with an "interim Superintendent" being paid less than Diana has been paid and we may save quite a bit if that interim Superintendent is part-time or shared with another district. We may save a trivial amount of money on the GEA if the House amendment to the NY budget goes through, or a small but non-trivial amount if the Senate goes through; the Senate version does end the GEA in 2016--2017, and they have different rules about going past the tax cap (which is 2.21% this year.) We have a long-term problem of sustainability in that our instructional budget has been rising more slowly than inflation for years, while the Special Education program has risen rapidly; it's not clear that anything can be done about that, but in a world of limited resources it is unfortunately fair to say that we (and other NY districts) have increasingly been doing special education instead of general education; resources have been redirected, and the tax cap says they can't be increased at the same pace. Perhaps it has to be that way. Meanwhile, we can certainly save money by cutting art, which doesn't seem to be covered in the testing which evaluates how well HCS is doing, so obviously it's not important. (end sarcasm)

6:50--13:55 Barbara Houze, retiring art teacher; she's unhappy at being replaced by a total of 0.7 part-time people who, by "magic math", will be able to cover the actual classes, but the art program will have no planner, advisor, or advocate; only the actual classes will be covered.
14:00-16:00 John Knecht spoke up as artist and educator, to say that art should be treated like chemistry or history or math or any other academic subject. (I doubt this; I think of art as a category of subjects, not as a subject; it's of very little importance if we're just training workers with specific skills, but immense importance if we want the creative class, the "black-collar" entrepreneurs/innovators/designers/scientists of the 21st century. Or if we want artists, I suppose.)
16:20--18:15 Denise Leone as a "visiting artist at HCS" said that we evaluate cultures based on their art, and she wanted to understand why art is among the first items to be cut ... to understand the process. Molly Johnson replied that it's not, (a) it's not decided if the art will be cut and anyway (b) we've been cutting a lot for a long time and (c) the process is open, working through open meetings and openly available documents like those at boarddocs for this meeting.
20:00--21 Audrey Miller spoke as a parent of a child who hates school except art/music; this is not about saving the art program, it's about saving the children.
21--22 An HCS art student whose name I can't hear (upd: Sydney Craven) said that a lot of kids need an arts background for what they hope to do with their lives, especially of course if that involves application to an art school. It was well-spoken.
22--24 Lynn Schwarzer talked about the amazing changes wrought by the art teacher who ought to be given a full-time position, after decades of relative inadequacy at HCS. She also talked about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education broadening into STEAM education (I just can't think what that "A" could stand for, but I'd be happy to buy an Evil Mad Scientist STEAM T-shirt for each BoE member; I did long ago link to STEAM Learning Network site: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, to STEAM: A Framework for Teaching Across the Disciplines, and just as an example to Maker Faire and Science Education: American kids should be building rockets and robots, not taking standardized tests. - Slate Magazine.)

Art/music/theatre good, tests bad. (All right, all right -- tests are good for some things, just not for all we now use them for. Art/music/theatre good.)
24-- Carolyn Hsu wanted to know about the specific rules and limits for donations...I could hear Diana's response when I was sitting there, but I can't hear enough of it on the video.
28:15--Stephanie McClintick, as a local artist, wanted further clarification....
31:10--Molly (BoE) Somewhat into the next phase, thanks for and acceptance of the Sports Boosters donation.
31:30--40:00 Embarking on search for the next Superintendent; nothing solid yet, but looks like it has to be an interim.
40:--46 Molly, Diana, Bud -- policy on testing and opt-outs chosen by students or parents.
46--Aaron on opt-out consequences; if fewer than 95% of students participate for two consecutive years, there might be financial consequences but it's not clear in the regulations; there will be a reclassification of the school as not being "in good standing" which might hurt college applications, but (Diana) there may be a lot of downstate schools in this situation and college admissions people will understand.
47 Kevin Ellis continues same topic, but I can't hear him.
52--1:00:30 Matt Crumb on 2.21% tax cap calculation, on failure to save money by refinancing debt, and on House and Senate bills to amend the Governor's proposed budget. Get Your Protests In Before April 1st!
1:00:30 Bill Dowsland on Senior class trip to Hershey Park.
1:01 Susan Marafino pointing out that the "resource officer" is costing us $20K/year, which may be money well spent but it might be money better spent e.g. on keeping the art program going, and that a part-time rather than full-time Superintendent might save even more. (Molly replies that there is some savings implicit in having an interim Superintendent anyway, who will get a lower salary than Diana has received.)
1:05:40 Ellen Larson on testing and teacher evaluation, which ought to be separate.
1:07:50 Ryan Solomon contrasts South African actual violence with American over-protectiveness and would rather spend the resource officer's cost on art; applause suggests that this is a popular view.
1:08:50 Ferdinand von Muench talks about the art and strings programs which seem to be at risk; we just need to follow the library's example with a 3.6% tax increase. He wants to encourage people to go to the next public Finance Planning meeting, but it hasn't been rescheduled yet. He makes two major points: our Administration costs are high, with 6 people to do the admin that other similar-size schools do with 4. (Note that the most expensive of these is of course the superintendent; as he knows but does not say, "School superintendents get paid more than governors in a dozen states: New Jersey, New York,...". So a part-time or shared superintendent might be a really good buy for a financially stretched district. And Special Education of which he is very much in favor, but there is a question of sustainability. (See "bottom line" above, or better yet listen to what he's saying. The recent growth in special education is substantially larger than our deficit; the GEA is larger than our deficit; life is difficult.)


Well, I guess I ran out of steam (not STEAM) as I approached the end, but I'll post this and hope it's somewhat useful to somebody. Error-correction would be appreciated.

Update: Radio Free Hamilton reports here. Sadly, the first comment is "Are these all the same people that voted against the merger. Do they truly not get it and see what they caused". This appears to reflect a failure to realize that some of us turned against the merger when we realized that according to the merger study, it wasn't actually a money-saver -- the economy of scale (reduced staff) and diseconomy of scale (more transport) were quite close to balance. It's certainly probable that most or all of those speaking voted accordingly--I dunno. Obviously, most of Hamilton did. (It was a money-shifter, and that gets complicated. Never mind.) So it goes.

CAC Meeting

The Community Advisory Committee met last night, still working through the details of a possible school merger; the topics were athletics/co-curricular activities, and building use.
The coaches of Hamilton Central and of Morrisville-Eaton have already merged the football teams, which are now black and white rather than green for Hamilton and red for Morrisville-Eaton; other sports have been effectively merged for longer, in the sense that a student who wants to play sport X which is supported only at the other school may simply go and join that team, subject to various permissions issues. An actual school merger would make this automatic for all teams; it's not clear to me how much difference it would really make. It might be easier to maintain modified and JV soccer, for example; these could be merged without merging varsity soccer, but in that case it would not be possible for a kid to move between JV and varsity in the middle of a year. Still, if it's best for the whole soccer programs to be merged, then they can be merged without involving the rest of the school. (Unless the league forbids it, which is possible but unusual. I think. If I understand correctly. Which I probably don't.) There is a possible disadvantage to any team merger, namely that there may be only so many "starring"/starting/whatever positions on a team and if you merge two teams into one then you've just reduced the number of stars, and therefore you've reduced the odds of any particular kid becoming one. And another disadvantage that some kids walk or bicycle to practices, which becomes less practical with merged teams. And a third disadvantage in that such activities are dependent on volunteers; if the school moves away from its community, or from one of its communities, then some volunteers will probably be less involved.
And the same applies to co-curricular activities generally, and music/drama in particular.
On building usage, we have one contiguous structure in Hamilton and two, being an elementary separated from the high school, in Morrisville (and each village has a bus garage.) So you take projected enrollments and try to split them up so that the merged high school ends up in one building, while the elementary and middle schools may or may not physically merge. Well, high school in Hamilton has the advantage that ambitious students can take a couple of Colgate courses. So if we leave the elementary schools alone, merge the middle schools into Morrisville, merge the high schools into Hamilton, perhaps it can almost work. There was a review of academic benefits of merger...the clearest to me would be that Morrisville students might get the AP classes and stringed instruments and foreign language instruction that they've dropped, which are still kept in Hamilton -- and maybe economies of scale would actually make it easier to keep them in a merged school than for Hamilton to keep them alone. (A Morrisville parent remarked that a kid who doesn't want to take AP classes may look better in college admissions evaluation if he went to a school that simply didn't offer them. My feeling is that a college that thinks that way is not a place where a kid like that should be applying.)
Or then again, maybe not.

"American Graduate Week"

This week is apparently American Graduate Week, following up from the American Graduate Day Announcement

Unless graduation rates increase, nearly 12 million students will likely drop out over the next decade, resulting in a loss to the nation of $1.5 trillion in lost wages and increased social costs due to crime and healthcare. Among students who do graduate, one-third need remedial courses in college and far fewer will go on to earn a college degree. Yet, more than half of all new jobs in the next decade will require some postsecondary education.

As that phrasing suggests, the "crisis" is not an increase in dropout rates, but rather an increase in the need for the qualifications which graduation is an attempt to represent. Really we don't need high school graduates; we need adults whose education suffices for a life of production, consumption, creation, family, and citizenship. (Hm, is that all?) So we have an effort by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which the NYT reports as Public Broadcasting Takes Role in Improving Graduation Rates

While graduation rates have inched up in recent years, nearly 25 percent of students over all drop out.

And Ray Suarez of PBS imagines our current system as a mechanism for generating dropouts, a mechanism in need of sabotage; Call is Out to Sabotage the Dropout Crisis | PBS NewsHour

The National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Latino civil rights organization, helps run a charter school in Los Angeles? Who knew? A not-for-profit called BuildOn takes students who are on the verge of dropping out and gives them international service learning experiences, of the kind that has become commonplace for upper middle class kids, but is much less available to poor kids. Harlem RBI takes teens with school troubles, puts them on baseball and softball teams, and requires tutoring, workshops, and homework help to keep a player's average high enough to stay on the team.

The athletics approach is one I have to keep reminding myself about: it's not one that appealed to me as a kid. But it's not exactly a newfangled notion. In Plato's world,

Both boys and girls receive the same kind of education. Elementary education consisted of music and gymnastics, designed to ...create a harmonious person.

And I think archery and riding went in there too, although I also think story-telling comes even earlier, in character formation. But anyway athletics is important, somewhere in there, even if it might be minimized for people like me. But then, as Plato also put it,

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

Fair enough. I suspect that somewhat greater attention to (and measurement of) what amuses kids' minds would do quite a bit towards raising graduation rates, and even the rate of achievement of any particular level of qualifications.

Or then again, maybe not.