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April 11, 2008

Violence prevention hits home

BoardBuzz was interested and concerned by this story from CNN. As the anniversary of the violence at Virginia Tech approaches and other incidents of school violence come to light, school officials, parents, teachers, and community members are as concerned as ever about school safety and violence prevention.

What makes this story stand out, though, is that the parents of the student involved recognized some pretty scary behaviors in their son and acted to prevent the violence.

Elaine Sonnen found out about her son's plan during a conversation with him. She ordered him to write down the names of the eight students he wanted dead and then gave the list to his caseworker the very next day. Later, he added a teacher and his own mother and sister to the hit list.

She took immediate action and had her son committed to an Idaho mental institution. Over the next 16 months, he received treatment at several mental health facilities throughout Idaho.

"There, I opened up. I felt better. I moved on with myself," Richard said.

"They felt at that point ... they had done everything they could do for him," added Elaine Sonnen. "He was doing great. He could make it on his own. They had no question."

During NSBA's Conference last month, experts addressed the issue of violence prevention in schools in a session and at a press conference. NSBA's Senior Staff Attorney, Lisa Soronen was also interviewed on the subject. You can watch her interview by clicking here. For more information about disaster preparedness, check out this article in ASBJ.

April 10, 2008

Legal eagles soaring

BoardBuzz likes nothing more than to celebrate the achievements of our peers, and have we got a doozy today! Our friends over at Legal Clips have celebrated a major milestone in the subscriptions department. Clips is now at more than 10,000 subscribers. Congratulations go out to our Legal Clips team, NSBA staff: Tom Hutton, Tom Burns, Andrew Paulson, and Lisa Soronen.

This week's edition has a couple of interesting tidbits of note. The first is an excerpt from this story in the New York Times, with, as usual, some additional background and sources provided by NSBA, Connecticut reaches tentative settlement in landmark deseg case. The Times notes,

Schools in Hartford and 22 of its suburbs would be encouraged to open more classroom seats to children from outside their neighborhoods in order to increase racial diversity, under a tentative settlement reached Friday in a decades-old desegregation case. The settlement, which still requires the approval of Connecticut legislators and the state court handling the dispute, outlines a five-year plan whose goal is to get at least 41% of Hartford's minority students into schools where enrollments are no more than three-quarters minority. In the first year, the goal would be at least 19%. Approximately 94% of the 22,000 students now enrolled in Hartford's 40 public schools are minority. Achieving the goals depends on students crossing district lines in a region where students, over all, are about 45% minority. The tentative deal opens the possibility of resolving a case that has outlasted three governors but has yet to bring sweeping changes to the composition of Hartford's public schools. The case is known as Sheff v. O'Neill. The tentative settlement, much like the ones that have preceded it without permanent success, relies entirely on voluntary incentives.

Clips adds info on why the case is so significant. The second story of note is related, in a way, to the first. In Parent group argues Dillon's Rule bars Virginia school boards from considering socioeconomic diversity or instructional effectiveness in drawing attendance zones, Hutton points out the potential significance of "a lawsuit by some parents in Virginia’s Fairfax County over the school board’s redrawing of high school attendance zones." Hint: Think the Supreme Court's ruling in the Seattle and Louisville diversity cases. Follow the links for the full story.

Are YOU a Legal Clips subscriber? If not, click here to subscribe and see what all the buzz is about.

Posted at 3:58 PM | School Law | Link to this story | Comments (0)

April 9, 2008

What it's all about

It does BoardBuzz's heart good when we see things like this recent opinion piece in the Post-Bulletin (Minn.). School board member Diane Hermann Blakley discusses the importance of community engagement and 21st century skills in her editorial.

I recently had the pleasure of attending the National School Board Association Conference in Orlando. This conference helped to assure me that our schools need to teach the core subjects, but must also address the 21st Century Skills.

These skills include problem solving, critical thinking, media literacy, global awareness, collaboration skills and civic leadership. The skills students need today are fundamentally different from what was needed 20 years ago.

Teaching our students 21st Century Skills is essential to our nation's economic success. Our nation cannot afford to have ANY of our students not reach their full potential. The demand on our workforce in upcoming years will require all our students to be well taught. This Rochester School Board, along with Superintendent Romain Dallemand, is committed to closing the opportunity gap.

And it sounds like not only are they committed to their students, but to their community too.

We need to engage all of our youth in their communities and engage adults in the lives of our youth. We as a school board are working to engage students into becoming productive citizens within our community and our country.

Parental and community involvement is the key to this process. Parents need to find the time to spend quality time with their children. Positive adult-child interaction increases student achievement, reduces substance abuse, creates responsibility, and respect.

Engaging the community in the public schools is not a new idea, but it certainly a critical one. And BoardBuzz thinks that Blakley sums it up best when she says, "Every child is a gift to our community. ALL children can learn, and with the leadership of our schools, parents, and community, we can make this happen." We couldn't agree more!

Posted at 12:00 PM | Link to this story | Comments (1)

Blogging's final frontier

House of Lords, the final frontier. (Cue Star Trek theme song . . . )

These are the bloggings of Britain's upper chamber of Parliament. Its continuing mission: to help educate, to raise awareness and engage with the public on a range of issues, to boldly blog where no one has blogged before.

BoardBuzz pokes fun, but we also strongly support the use of blogs for such public outreach—especially amongst our own school board members. Not everyone is brave enough to express their views so openly in an omnipresent forum. As ABC News reports, the House of Lords has taken a brave step into the 21st Century.

Lords of the Blog describes their work as thus:

Lords of the Blog is an experimental project to encourage direct dialogue between web users across the world and Members of the House of Lords. Commissioned by the House of Lords, the pilot project is conducted by the Hansard Society who are working directly with Members of the Lords to bring their blogs to the wider online audience.

The peers taking part are: Lord Soley, Lord Norton, Lord Tyler, Lord Lipsey, Lord Dholakia, Baroness D'Souza, Lord Teverson, Baroness Young of Hornsey and Baroness Murphy. Perhaps the efforts of these nine "peers" will encourage more of their peers (couldn't resist) to blog. Dozens of members of Parliament already have their own blogs according to the BBC.

Lords of the Blog manager Barry Griffiths says, "This is a fascinating pilot to be involved in as the House of Lords is packed full of expertise on a whole range of topical subjects."

BoardBuzz believes their efforts will certainly help dispel the image of men and women in red robes and wigs and replace it with one of public servants doing a real service for their country. But we couldn't help but wonder--will the House and Senate follow suit?

Posted at 11:43 AM | Education Technology | Miscellany | Link to this story | Comments (0)

April 8, 2008

It's elementary!

BoardBuzz got wind of something really interesting across our desk yesterday . . . the National Elementary Honor Society. Our friends at both the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the National Association of Elementary School Principals have set up the program to "recognize elementary students in both public and non-pubic elementary schools for their outstanding academic achievement and demonstrated personal responsibility, to provide meaningful service to the school and community, and to develop essential leadership skills in the students of elementary schools. "

Sounds good to us! What could be better than acknowledging the academic achievements of elementary school students? The NEHS Web site also tells us

Through the development of a chapter that functions with these purposes, elementary schools create a method for acknowledging achievement and focusing on the needs of the total child. In addition, NEHS provides information and resources to enhance the culture of achievement in the whole school, not merely the culture of a select few. This Web site and the resources being sent to every member school are designed to support these purposes and strengthen the lives of our nation’s elementary students and the schools in which they are enrolled.

For more information be sure to visit the site and start a chapter in your school district.

Posted at 2:21 PM | Announcements | Students | Link to this story | Comments (1)

Special education: Experts to forecast what's coming

Ever wish you had a crystal ball to see what new special education controversy might be headed to a school or a court near you? We've got a great alternative for you. Don't miss next week's audio conference on "Special Education: What's On the Horizon?" Join in the discussion Wednesday, April 16, at 1:00 Eastern. Click here for the registration info. This one is a joint production of the NSBA Council of School Attorneys (COSA) and the Education Law Association (ELA) and features a diverse panel of frequent and nationally known presenters and authors: Christopher Borreca of Bracewell & Giuliani in Houston, Tyson Bennett of Reese & Carney in Annapolis, Allan Osborne, Principal of Snug Harbor Community School in Quincy, Mass., and Julie Mead of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

COSA members, ELA members, state school boards associations, and NSBA National Affiliate districts get discounted rates, and best of all, it's a flat fee per phoneline, so you can gather your whole team around a speaker phone and follow the slideshow together.

Posted at 2:11 PM | Special Education | Link to this story | Comments (0)

April 7, 2008

The Buzz is back!

BoardBuzz is back from Orlando! We learned a lot and were especially impressed with our conference bloggers!

If you didn't make it over to the Conference Blog during our stint over there, be sure to check it out. The guest bloggers were amazing and really gave a full perspective of the conference. You can also get highlights from the conference in NSBA's Conference Daily newspaper.

Already jonesing for next year's conference? Think you've got what it takes to share your insights with school board members from all over the country? Why not submit a proposal to present at the conference?

Posted at 4:00 PM | Conferences | Link to this story | Comments (0)