The Governing Board needs to get off its collective butt and...
Call an emergency board meeting to:
- Form a Board Advisory Committee (without any ex-officio members) to DIRECTLY provide the board with solutions
- Call the superintendent on the carpet and tell her to focus 110% of her efforts on achievement and overhauling the curriculum
- Insist on the immediate formation of a Curriculum Committee composed of district staff, parents, and outside subject experts.
- Insist that all programs are aligned horizontally and vertically
Anything less is unacceptable and the time to stop hiding behind the micro-managing fear is now.
FIRE BURDICK!!! START THE CAMPAIGN!!!
ReplyDeleteI think we need to recall every board board member with the exception of (Clancy)she is the only person on the board that thinks outside the box. Our students took a huge hit last year with the threat of closure to DAMS. We need new principals and if the superintendent is failing at her job a new superintendent. If teachers are graded on performance of their students than why not the "super"!!!!She gets paid way too much!!!!
ReplyDeleteWill you be there to call the Superintendent on the carpet, or are you expecting others to do all of the dirty work?
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with many of your ideas and I don't agree with many of the posters feeling dissenters are ostracized (I dissented many times when I lived in Cave Creek). I do think that it is fair to question the administration about the reasons behind the drops, what are the plans for improvement. I also think it is fair to put a mechanism in place to measure for improvement.
Unsure at this point whether the full committee effort is necessary. Honestly, they are very time consuming for both community members and admin. Perhaps admin can accomplish more with less time spent in committees.
FYI - Think about applying for PAC status if anybody involved with CCUSD Watch is advocating for a particular campaign listed above. You are not exempt from PAC Laws by running a blog.
ReplyDeleteWhat is this the Re-elect Clancy website?
ReplyDeleteYou should do more homework on her and her past decisions in the district before you think she is your savior. She voted for Everyday Math and the Southern parcel for the sites were approved by her board.
I hear she wants to fire the bus drivers and the lunch ladies to try and bring back DAMS.
And if you recall the board members do you have the courage to move from anonymous to Candidate for governing board? I won't jump into this mess.
It is absolutely the fault of the district and school administrators! They are supposed to be the leaders who promote, encourage, and facilitate learning.
ReplyDeleteBurdick has led this district to ruin even before she became the superintendent. She has chased away good administrators and hired incompetent ones.
The dip in scores in DAMS could be the result of the stress the school felt in fear of its closure since this was all happening around the times of AIMS. However, Ann Orlando let her teachers run wild for a number of years.
The dip in scores at STMS should be a prime example of how horrible a principal Bill Dolezal is. He takes no leadership role or charge at his school. He doesn't even communicate with the parents. [Comment removed]
The good thing about the dip in the ratings is that the schools and its teachers cannot hide behind their "excelling" labels anymore. Now these administrators and teachers will have to work as hard as they should have been in the first place instead of running wild [Comment removed].
[Comment removed]
[Note: This post was edited. To the author of this post:
Thank you for the comments, but please refrain from your continued 'Fire Burdick' statements. I think the readers here have got your point by now. Also take care with what you post and familize with Online Defamation Laws. Lets try and stick with what takes place during school hours and school board meetings.
Thank you.]
Re: a previous posters comment about DAMS stress. It has been stated in the past that all (or nearly all) of the DAMS teachers had been let go.
ReplyDeleteI would like to point out that if you go through the teacher lists at the CCUSD school sites, you will find that most of them have been retained.
I am sorry to interrupt a post that has nothing to do with this, but I think it is important to point it out. There is very little correction to the past record stated on this blog.
Trust me. I would never defend nor make excuses for DAMS teachers. They were probably some of the most arrogant yet incompetent teachers I have ever encountered. Not surprising since their principal was the same way and encouraged and enabled that arrogance and incompetence.
ReplyDeleteMy child did not "excel" at DAMS. Unfortunately, we did not have a choice to move him to another district because we did not travel south to work.
Dear 8/1 5:47am......
ReplyDeleteExplorer is a quick ride south of CCUSD and given that I've heard 40+ ex-DAMS kids are going there, no doubt there are carpools available.Also... for a mere $25/year, anyone 12 yrs and up can go to the Boys & Girls club (Vestar) before and after school. It is an 8-10 walk to/from Explorer. Don't think you don't have options.
Does anyone have firm numbers on how many students were pulled from CCUSD, or who went to Explorer? Just curious.
ReplyDeleteIn so far as Explorer.. I've heard that the number from CCUSD now going there is something like 40-50. We should be able to find out soon enough with the school year starting, I'd think.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anonymous @ 7:42pm. I believe we'll find Foothills Academy numbers have grown too. 40 to 50 students = about $200,000 to $250,000. Also, does anyone know if it's true that the District Admin offices have been moved to DAMS? That's a rumor I heard and would just like to confirm it.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 9:18pm and 7:42pm, do you wonder why the School Board has not asked and disclosed what the numbers really are? I do.
ReplyDelete7:34pm... yes I do wonder.. but not suspicious ----yet at least. I don't think they will truly know the collateral damage of all this poor decision making until school starts and those who have fled CCUSD don't show up for class. My son is leaving the district (middle school) and I did advise the district before the end of the school year, but some may not have been as courteous. I do want to know the exact numbers and believe that we are entitled to that information -when the true numbers are known.
ReplyDeleteThe sad part is, the kids will end of paying the price, the ones left behind....that is what is sad.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you care what the numbers are if you are leaving the district? You are doing what you think is best for your child, move on, be happy with your decision and don't give the district a second thought.
ReplyDeleteBecause we still own homes "in the district" and it still affects us even if our kid's are out...it affects the value of our home to have a functioning District.
ReplyDeleteThis district is functioning. I think the district is the least of our problems when it comes to our home values.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry August 6, 2010 7:54pm, this District is not functioning. If anything it is dysfunctional. Our home values were over inflated and we are all paying the price for that, but a District that attracts parents will help our home values.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a school district that is closing schools and allowing academic performance to slip it will have a great impact on property values and it will also, in the end, affect the local economy too. Our administrators are too short sighted and/or too ambivalent to really care about those things.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is entitled to their opinion. I think this district is functioning. I'm not saying things are perfect but I think they are pretty good. We were in the PV district before we moved here and there were plenty of things wrong in that district. If all of the CCUSD naysayers spend as much time looking for things wrong in their new districts I think they will find that the grass isn't always greener. Of course you probably won't have a blog spot like CCUSD watch leading the charge of negativity.
ReplyDeletemany of us who supported the district have now found ourselves on the outside looking in...just wait... soon you too will be walking in our shoes
ReplyDeleteYes, and you have to be careful about what you read on here. There are a lot of bitter feelings from the DAMS closing. Yet, as I now live in a district that has closed schools over the years and know of many districts that are closing schools, the DAMS parents are not unique in their feelings. But, sometimes schools need to close for the greater good of the district. I know of a school that closed in another district, in another state that I would label disgraceful - it is the newest school in that district, but it was the one in the best condition to rent out to a religious school in a district that has a school board run by parents that mostly send their kids to private religious schools. Now I can truly understand the feelings of the affected parents as being trod upon.
ReplyDeleteDAMS, while certainly a community, had physical plant issues that put the kids safety at risk. It was not large enough to accommodate all of the middle school kids. Its enrollment was steadily shrinking in leaps and bounds, while enrollment to the south was going up. There were plenty of legitimate reasons to close it. Yes, you might lose some kids in the short run (many of whom were Desert Hill and DVUSD kids whose parents often never planned to keep them in the district beyond DAMS), but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a good long term decision.
Where I live now, fyi, our district office is in an old elementary school building (which was shut along the way). That became a wonderful alternative school (shut along the way) before becoming the district office. Next door are condos - once a junior high campus (shut along the way). Kids in preschool to grade one go to my old k-6 elementary school. Grades 2-5 go to one of two elementary schools. The kids in my area go to the furthest one, where they are bussed.
All of this happened because the neighborhood got more religious, more parents started sending kids to private religious schools. As that happened, enrollment at public schools decreased. But, we are so lucky. Our schools are well funded (to the tune of nearly $25,000 per student through a combination of state aid and really high property taxes - I only mention this because I have seen people complain that Arizona over funds its students). Despite any closure of schools, our schools that are open are wonderfully regarded for academics and extracurricular activities. The high school alone has over 40 clubs/activities for kids to participate in.
Even if CCUSD enrollment decreases as a result of the changes, are they better off with one more school in the mix, or one less school? And, for all of you north vs. south district paranoid fear mongers, what possible motive would the district have for killing the northern part of the district? Are you even aware that Burdick lives in the northern part of the district?
Good luck in CCUSD. Unfortunately for public education in the state of Arizona, until and unless people realize that the state of education is deteriorating throughout the state because of funding shortfalls due to the state's methods of financing schools, public education will suffer. CCUSD has been forced to make many hard choices. They do not have the economies of scale to absorb some of the costs that PVUSD and Scottsdale have due to size. Plus, those districts collect much more from property tax owners with higher tax rates. Maybe in the long run, some of you will get your wish and there will be an opportunity to vote on a merger with PVUSD. However, you are on another planet if you think that the retirees in the Cave Creek area will vote for going into a district that increases school property taxes several fold.
Yes, you do indeed to be careful about what you read here. People run loose and fast with their facts. The safety of DAMS' students was never an issue. It's contradictory to say that DAMS enrollment was declining and the school was overcrowded. You can't have it both ways. Pick one. The truth is, the school was neglected and mismanaged. DAMS parents were more bewildered than they were bitter, as there were other schools in this District which would have been more logical to close. Burdick's personal residence is meaningless. Her children are grown and out of the District. District parents in the north are concerned about the education of their children, and have watched their older facilities deterioriate after voting in the past in favor of building new schools in the south. They always voted for the good of the overall district and saw merit in building new schools in the south. Because I am a concerned parent in the north, I can tell you with great confidence that we are not "paranoid fear mongers," but thanks anyway for your concern and kind remarks.
ReplyDelete6:27 AM,
ReplyDeleteYou were lucky to escape, but we still live here. Debbie has had ample time to implement improvements to the district especially with her rubber stamping threesome, but instead she has chosen to play games by constantly shifting of principals and assistant principals, pit communities against one another, avoiding answering the hard questions, literally playing politics with Kiwanis and legislative candidates, and has now failed to prepare our students academically.
You claim that the superintendent lives in the north. That is not the issue. The issue is that the board president lives in the east and her school boundary is DSES, home of the new academy that was 'stolen' from BMES and given to the least involved and lowest voting parent group in the district.
You are not all paranoid fear mongers, but some of the north vs. south stuff comes from some paranoid fear mongers. There are some people who fit the description. Really there are two substantial pieces of land that the district owns. One substantial piece to the north. The other substantial piece to the south. The north has several older campuses. For a while, the south did not have campuses. Sometimes it is just much more economically feasible to build from scratch on open land.
ReplyDeleteAs to the Board President, it is up to the board to make decisions (rather than majority rules of the parents). If you do not like the decisions that the Board President makes, do not vote for her if she runs again. I do not necessarily disagree with you about some of her priorities although I think she is very able handed.
It seems to me that Black Mountain is being primed for closure. Lots of folks always used to say that you can't close an A-plus, Excelling school with strong enrollment. It just doesn't make sense. Well they closed DAMS, once an Excelling school, and BMES is no longer an excelling school and it will be interesting to see what happens to their enrollment now. If whatever is wrong there is not fixed, BMES could very well slip even further in its ranking and also lose its A-plus status.
ReplyDelete12:39 pm
ReplyDelete6:27 am didn't say DAMS was overcrowded, the comment was DAMS was not large enough to accommodate all of the middle school kids, meaning ALL of the middle school kids in the district. So not only do you have to be careful what you read here, you need to read things how they are written.
Thank you 12:39pm. You are correct in your interpretation of what I wrote.
ReplyDeleteI had a child in DAMS. Also, there is no question that the physical plant had some serious problems including frequently flooded bathrooms due to plumbing problems. That is what I was referring to with safety issues.
Also, regarding the paranoid north vs. south comment, I am specifically referring to two people that I know of that I would describe that way. I will not name them although I suspect that both of them have posted comments on here along the way (and no to Clancy bashers - I am not referring to Member Clancy). The rest of the DAMS affected population, many of whom fought vigorously with determination to keep the school open, I would not bunch with them. I am sorry to have made it seem that I was labeling all of you that way.
Plain and simple, this is just a sad state for CCUSD 93. I am not saying DAMS was perfect, but with STMS losing 2 labels, obviously they are not perfect as well. I am beyond sorry to see BMES lose it's excelling label. I know the previous Admin at BMES and the teachers worked hard for that. I think there is truth to the fact with more upcoming cuts, it will be easier to choose BMES for closure. More than anything, it is just sad.
ReplyDeleteSandy - Why would the district be redoing the boundaries in such a way that BMES gets more students, if that is true?
ReplyDeleteIf that is true, I have not read the board packet yet. My guess is to save the numbers and move more kids. But, that is just a guess. I would like to wait to see what the numbers are for attendance.
ReplyDeleteWhen you read the Board packet the redistricting seems to suggest a logistical issue dealing with the gate or one way lane for Terravita. It also suggests it involves just 7 kids right now and they could still go to or stay at Lone Mountain if they wanted to.
ReplyDeleteThanks 1:38pm.. I did plow through the board packet and noticed the Terravita issue too (I was the one who posted the question). Well that idea makes sense and apparently saves $4000 a year on not sending 2 different busses in that community (for only 7 kids).. score one for the district.
ReplyDelete