schoolinfosystem.org
I’ve updated the election page with information and links regarding the November 7, 2006 selection. Links include the Madison School District’s information page, boundary changes and the open government complaint documents (and District Attorney Brian Blanchard’s recent response) related to the School Board’s closed meetings over the Linden Park land purchase. A motion to make […]
On Monday, August 21 the Human Resources Committee of the Madison School Board will have its first meeting at 7:00 p.m. in Room 103 of the Doyle Administration Building (545 West Dayton Street). Following a goal-setting meeting of the Board on June 19, the committee will address a number of important issues, beginning with alternative […]
Via a Johnny Winston, Jr. email: Welcome to the week of July 3rd edition of the Madison school boards Progress Report. I hope everyone is enjoying the summer First, upcoming business…On Monday July 10th several committees of the board are meeting: Partnerships at 5 p.m.; Finance & Operations at 6 p.m.; Communications at 7 p.m. […]
Carol Carstensen: Parent Group Presidents: MEMORIAL AND WEST AREA SCHOOLS: NOTE FORUM DESCRIBED UNDER MAY 8. BUDGET FACTOID: The 2006-07 proposed budget is on the district’s web site (www.mmsd.org/budget). The Executive Summary provides an overview of the budget. The list of specific staff cuts is found on pages 3 & 4 of Chapter 3, Department […]
Carol Carstensen: Parent Group Presidents: BUDGET FACTOID: The administration’s proposed budget for the 2006-07 school year will be made public on Friday, April 21. Board members and the media will have hard copies of the budget and an electronic version should be up on the web site shortly. The Board begins discussion and consideration of […]
Recent post from the Madison United for Academic Excellence (MUAE) list serve: Dear MUAE Friends, When we volunteered to oversee a District-wide “TAG” parents email list back in 2002, it was in part to help out the District “TAG” staff and in part to make the list available for explicit “TAG” advocacy efforts. We never […]
Carol Carstensen: Parent Group Presidents: BUDGET FACTOID: MTI has just informed the district that it will not agree to reopen negotiations to consider changes to health insurance. If the union had agreed to reopen negotiations on this point, the agreement was that any savings that resulted from a change in health insurance options would be […]
Most of the $37M that the Madison school district will spend this year for employee health insurance goes to the cost for covering our teachers and their families. That’s about 10% of the total annual budget. I support high quality health insurance for all of our employees. As a school board member, I also have […]
Madison school politics make for some strange bedfellows. Take the case of the Feb. 21 primary race for the School Board, in which three candidates are vying for the seat left open by incumbent Bill Keys’ decision not to seek re-election. The marketing manager of a Madison-based biotechnology giant has been endorsed by the powerful […]
In June of 2005, when the majority of the Madison School Board approved the two-year collective bargaining agreement with the teachers union, the agreement included a task force to study and make recommendations on possible changes in health insurance coverage for the teachers, the majority of the district’s employees. Task force members would be the […]
On Wednesday, January 11, representatives of Madison Teachers, Inc. (MTI) and the Madison school district met at the union’s headquarters for three hours. MTI Executive Director John Matthews chaired the meeting. It was the first of two meetings at which MTI and MMSD will supposedly explore the potential for savings on health insurance costs for […]
Kurt Gutknecht, writing in the Fitchburg Star: Residents of Swan Creek have launched a spirited campaign against plans to bus students from the area to Midvale/Lincoln elementary schools. A few days after Christmas, 185 households signed a letter [500K PDF] opposing the plan, which a task force had proposed to address overcrowding at several schools […]
Last August, MMSD parent KJ Jakobson asked “whether the new joint district-union task force for investigating health insurance costs be a truly collaborative effort to solve a very costly problem? Or will it instead end up being a collusion to maintain the status quo?” Collaboration or collusion: What should the public expect from MMSD-MTI Task […]
This is an article by Martha McCoy and Amy Malick which was published in the December 2003 journal of the National Assocation of Secondary School Principals. The Madison Partners in Special Education are very interested in using this as a tool to engage the MMSD school board, staff and various parent groups in productive dialogue. […]
This is an open response to Mary Battaglia and Larry Winkler’s posts on the data showing rising numbers of low income and minority students in the Madison Metropolitan School District. I tend to agree with Larry Winkler’s take that the “low income” and “minority” data is more of a diversion from the larger discussion of […]
Here is a synopsis of the English 10 situation at West HS. Currently — having failed to receive any reply from BOE Performance and Achievement Committee Chair Shwaw Vang to our request that he investigate this matter and provide an opportunity for public discussion — we are trying to get BOE President Carol Carstensen to […]
Erin Weiss and Gina Hodgson (Thoreau PTO) engage in some impressive grassroots work: November 28, 2005 Dear Thoreau Families, Staff, Teachers and Friends, Now is the time for you to get involved in the MMSD redistricting process! This Thursday, December 1 at 6:30pm, a Public Forum will be held at Cherokee Middle School. This forum […]
Carol Carstensen: Parent Group Presidents: N.B. The Board’s discussion regarding animals in the classroom has been postponed until January. BUDGET FACTOID: Why does the Madison district spend more than the state average per pupil? One part of the answer is that our student enrollment differs significantly from the state average in areas which require more […]
By mid-December of 2005, a task force appointed by the Madison School Board will make recommendations about future school construction and possible school boundary changes in the West and Memorial High School areas of the district. In the following article from The Capital Times, August 30, writer Cliff Miller reports that developer Gary Gorman has […]
Q: How many board members does it take to change a lightbulb? A: “WHAT!!?!?! CHANGE?” they gasp in horror No one is going to win as long as there is a divide between the board and the community. It would be great if it were as easy as “we need to educate people,” or, “we […]
Madison East High School parents, staff, and community members have been working since the beginning of 2005 to create an advocacy and support organization for this key East side school. The group was named at the June 2 meeting: EAST HIGH UNITED A parent-teacher-staff-student-community organization The organization meets as a whole in the East High […]
I watched the school board last Monday talk about the process for the “budget” up until the referendum. The original timeline had public hearings being completed prior to release of the 2005-2006 budget. Why? As Superintendent Rainwater says people don’t care about the budget; they only care about the programs, courses and services they want […]
Please share this information with others who may be interested in helping to create a revitalized PTO at East. March 30, 2005 UPDATE ON EFFORTS TO BUILD AN EAST HIGH SCHOOL PTO ______________________________________________________ Upcoming meetings: Thursday, April 14 Thursday, May 12 All meetings are held at East High School and begin at 7 p.m., with […]
I started attending meetings several years ago and, initially, was naive enough to take Carol Carstensen at her word when she said “if you don’t like our cuts, you need to tell us where to cut.” Board members then claim that they “have no choice” and that critics “only criticize but don’t offer solutions.” This […]
The following was passed along by Kristin Meyer who attended the Northside candidates forum. Kristin asked the candidates about their position on supporting TAG services/support during ongoing budgetary shortfalls, and summarizes below the responses from each candidate. She reports that there was also a statement related to how the TAG program has already taken cuts […]
Believe it or not, I am a pretty regular reader of the schoolinforsystems website. I find it to be an excellent opportunity to read about other viewpoints and opinions that I dont hear about in newspapers, radio, television and other media outlets. While I dont always agree with everything that a prospective writer is saying, […]
I’m volunteering with a conservation group in Mexico, so I don’t have a lot of time to write a post. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to take a few minutes to respond to (Madson School Board Member) Juan Lopez who said of www.schoolinfosystem.org, “I think this kind of forum is destructive.” See the story in the […]
In an editorial in today’s Capital Times, School Board unity is identified as a key factor before deciding on going to a referendum. I couldn’t agree more with this editorial. At this point in their deliberations, MMSD’s School Board is not ready to make a decision to go to referendum(s), because they have more work […]
On September 13, 2004, The Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board reviewed a recommendation from the MMSD administration that the district spend $46M for school maintenance projects from 2005 through 2010. Because the Board dedicates approximately $3.8M per year for maintenance from the operating budget (%19M over the next five years), the […]