FMS @ a Glance
April 8 - 12, 2019
Spring Celebration
Also, use this as a recruitment tool for your classes, brag to them about their work and how they need to get mom, dad, grandma, grandpa in on that night to see their wonderful work.
Great Reads.
By: Andrew Maxey
By: Phyllis L. Fagell
Week @ a Glance
Assistant Principal Appreciation Week
Monday, April 8
6th-grade registration presentation during advisory
PST to visit CPT's as needed
Admin to visit CPT's
9:00 am Student Services meeting
3:00 pm Spring Celebration Committee meeting
3:00 pm Team Leads meeting
6:00 pm PAG
Tuesday, April 9
7th-grade Advisory Assembly
Lockdown Drill
3:30 pm FMS Admin meeting
Wednesday, April 10
8th-grade Advisory Assembly
602 Capital Trip
Development Day meeting
Restorative meetings with Kaite A. and students
9:00 am PST
10:45 am Somali PAG
Thursday, April 11
6th and 7th-grade registration/advisory
Tornado Drill
3:30 pm Community School Advisory Committee meeting
4:00 pm Facilities Committee meeting (Meihak)
Friday, April 12
6th and 7th-grade registration/advisory
7:15 am FMS Technology Committee meeting
9:00 am F4C trip (Coppess)
A look ahead:
4/15 Lockdown Drill
4/15 Student Services
4/16 Principal Cohort (McDermott)
4/16 SITE Council
4/17 PST
4/17 Wednesday Development Day meetings
4/17 Reading MCA
4/18 Reading MCA
4/18 Department Chair meeting
4/18 PE/H interviews
4/19 601 Capital trip
Legislative Updates
The spotlight was on the House Education Finance Committee this week. (The Senate Education Committee will take up its bill next week.) The Chair of the Committee, Representative Jim Davnie of Minneapolis, was running the show. Davnie, a former middle school teacher and now running an education non-profit, is serving his 10thterm in the House. At this stage, he is the key gatekeeper as to what is in the bill, HF 2400.
It’s an interesting process. The Committee has 20 members, 12 Democrats and 8 Republicans. As the majority party, the Democrats control the bill. Leadership decides how much money the committee will spend and the Chair of the committee decides how to distribute it. Obviously, the chair doesn’t do this in a vacuum. Other members, interest groups, and the public in general greatly influence how the bulk of the money will be spent. In the end though, the chair is very powerful relative to individual provisions. If the chair doesn’t want a provision in a bill it is next to impossible to get it in. (I’m not sure exactly how much room there is between “next to” and “impossible” but there isn’t much.)
Last Saturday the DE1 Amendment was posted online. (Education staff works every day, around the clock at this time of year, so a weekend posting is not uncommon.) “DE1” is a familiar term at the capitol. “DE” stands for “delete everything”, and a DE amendment does just that, it deletes everything from a vehicle bill and inserts entirely new language into HF 2400. The language here is not “new” in the sense that no one has seen it before though. The DE1 amendment includes all of the committee’s proposed funding for programs, all new initiatives and all of the policy provisions that came from the House Policy Committee. (Absent connecting policy to the Omnibus Funding proposal, most of the provisions would fall by the wayside.) Just as important, if your provision isn’t included in the DE1, it is unlikely that it is going to happen. Stated more bluntly, it’s dead. So everyone is interested in the public posting of the bill.
When finally posted the bill consisted of 11 articles and is 243 pages long.
On Monday the staff walked through every provision of the bill. This takes well over an hour. It is long, tedious and necessary. Then, the public testimony begins. Every testifier is allocated 2 minutes, a rule that is strictly enforced by the chair. This testimony consists of a series of “thank you Mr. Chair and the committee”, and occasionally some expression of disappointment that a provision was left out of the bill. The testimony spills over into a hearing of testifies on the following day, Tuesday. (I counted 25 people on the list testifying.) On Thursday the committee heard a short list of amendments, talked about the bill in general and passed it out of committee on a voice vote.
This is the Democrats bill and there are several provisions that raise concern for the Republicans. Notwithstanding that, there is a significant amount of revenue for nearly every school district in the state and very few members want to be on record voting against revenue for their school district. So while there were a few voice votes no, there is no record of them. The bill must go to the Ways and Means committee and Taxes next week. It will be waiting for members on the floor when they return from spring break on April 23rd.
Meanwhile—here is a list of some provisions in the bill:
1. Formula Increase 2019-20 3%
Formula Increase 2020-21 2%
2. Increase in Special Education Funding by $117 million with a new formula on cross subsidies
3. Increased funding for college in the schools from $4 million per year to $7 million per year
4. Lower the Compulsory Attendance Age to 6
5. Students identified as not reading at grade level by the end of kindergarten, grade 1 and grade two must be screened for characteristics of dyslexia
6. Fund the Principals Academy at the University
7. Increase BOSA funding coupled with a dues increase from $75 to $100 per year.
8. Student Newspapers/Yearbooks/ and Student Media –Students can write/publish/post pretty much what they want without adult intervention.
9. Disciplinary changes: Schools are required to use nonexclusionary discipline. Also, schools are prohibited from dismissing preschool students.
10. Significant changes in tiered teacher licensure process.
11. Relief on the labor-day school start prohibition for 2020-21 and 2021-22. Schools can start on August 31 and August 30threspectively.
12. No graduation requirement changes for citizenship or personal finance.
In the end the funding here gets an A+. The policy provisions ,as far as Principals are concerned, are much more problematic. The discipline and school newspaper provisions in particular are problematic. On both counts, the money and the policy, this is only the first round. It is unlikely that the final bill will have all of this money. And, the Senate will have a lot to say about the policy provisions. The Senate bill is going to be “posted” on Monday and we will do all of this again next week
Proud to be!
Thank you Heidi Oanes and Sarah Simon for taking the time to talk with 601 about AVID.
Connie Hart for always having a "what is best for our students" mindset.
Shout out to Kevin Steinkamp for fixing the curtains before the school play.
Shout out to Emily Hernandez for her accepting attitude with ALL students regardless of whether she is supposed to work with them or not.
Shout out to all staff who came to support the actors and crew in the Spring Musical...you did not go unnoticed!
Thanks, Ted for helping our students day and day out we appreciate the extra support.
Thanks to Caleb, Katie and T.J. For their hard work with our students, the play was awesome!
Parent Communication
THANK YOU - APPRECIATION AND YOU ARE NEEDED!
Eight weeks left of school and we all know how fast April and May fly by. As you know, Fridays are a difficult time to find subs; every day in April and May are difficult..... Please keep that in mind as you look ahead with personal days and time off.
Thank you for doing all you can do to help cover classes.
River Bend FUN Run
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> Thanks!
> Matt