EDUCATION
LEGISLATION 2006
Stay
abreast of NH 2006 ed legislation. Check out
our master
list of education bills. Bills retained in committee
from last year are being reviewed now. These must be
handled by December 1st for early January
action. Two imp't charter
school bills are in committee--these
address
direct payment and streamlining local authorization
procedures. HB
76's hearing is scheduled for October 5th at 10,
room 207 LOB. Our
comment.
We've grouped 2006 education bills in 5
categories (click on any category for list): 1:New
Ed Bills Filed this session, 2:Bills
Held Over in Committee from Last Session, 3:Bills
on Charter Schools & Choice,
4:
$Bills on School Finance (in green, of course),
and 5:
Misc Ed Bills of Interest. We provide links
to follow each bill's status and hearing dates.
Our www.nhschoolreform.org website
provides charter public school technical
assistance. We respond
to questions every day from teachers, parents,
administrators, officials, researchers, and the
press.
SCHOOL
TALK: The Right to Know Law & Public
Board Obligations
Our Concord-based radio show, SCHOOL
TALK, airs Wednesdays at 1:07 p.m. on WKXL1450 AM. Replays are most Saturdays
at 1:07. Listen worldwide from WKXL's website at
1:07 Wednesdays. Listen to shows anytime from our website. Posted Now: Associate
Attorney General
Dan
Mullen
explaining RSA
91-A, the Right to Know statute. If you aren't familiar with approaches
to educating deaf students, listen to Susan Brule on deaf
education. Curious about the agency the governs school sports? Listen to
Jim Demerais on NHIAA and NH
high school sports regulation. Did you know NH is the only state with competitive
high school ski jumping?
NEW ENGLAND SCHOOLS OFFER EVACUATED
STUDENTS FRIENDSHIP LETTERS
Schools
are responding to NHCSR's Friendship
Letter Project for
displaced Katrina students. Vermont teacher
Rebecca Owens wrote:
“ Under the leadership
of our supervisory union and principal, Marilyn Zophar, students
and faculty
at Hardwick Elementary
School responded to Hurricane Katrina's displaced students.
The children wrote friendship letters saying how concerned
they were and hoping to tell them a bit about Vermont life
as a student. Our students hope to get letters back from
their "penpals" and keep up communication student-to-student.
The response was overwhelming. Our school has about 270 k-6
students. Many classes participated with letters, school
supplies, and small gifts. Students drew sunny pictures of
hopes and dreams. We also had a sponsor who donated one dollar
for each child to put inside his/her letter to be sent. We
live in a very rural northern Vermont farm community. There
is a lot of compassion in our ranks, and the generosity spread
quickly. We hope this inspires other acts of kindness. It
is delightful to be caught being kind!”
Contact Susan if
you’d like to join in. We've located a new partner
for letters to displaced students in San Antonio. (The
project bundles classroom letters in packets for children
in
Texas from
students
in
upper New England states. We've arranged to get these
letters of support directly to evacuated students).
A colleague
from San Antonio School District (55,000 students) gives
a status report:
‘Actually, things are going very well. Families
are being taken out of shelters and offered housing with
yearlong rent vouchers. Students are enrolled in neighborhood
schools as soon as families are settled. Typical enrollment
requirements are waived. We’ve had lots of district guidance
and our schools have done a good job getting students settled.
San Antonio is divided into 16 independent school districts,
each with its own school board and superintendent. In downtown
San Antonio Independent School District we have 274 displaced
students spread throughout 54 campuses. Other San Antonio
districts have many more students.
GREEN
SCHOOLS
Green
Schools are hot—helping schools to save 5% - 15% on energy
costs. A Green School is...1) energy and environmentally
conscious, 2) fiscally responsible, and 3) well connected
to the real world. The Alliance to Save Energy says: “Reducing
energy use is an effective way to help cash-strapped schools
funnel more money into the classroom instead of the local
utility. Just as important, the concept of energy efficiency
provides multidisciplinary learning opportunities in math,
science, and language arts.” For
more information
A
state
high school for science and engineering proposal is moving
through New Hampshire’s charter school pipeline. A strong
focus of the school is energy. Learn more or make contact.
A
PREVENTION-OF-SCHOOL-FAILURE CHARTER SCHOOL
If
you understand special ed and learning disabilities,
you know that 20% of students typically are identified
as
'at risk' for learning/reading failure
in grades K-3. Title I and remedial reading services
are provided in grades
K-3 but special education usually isn’t decided
until grade 3 or 4 when printed text is prominent
in instruction. Earlier
intervention is known to assure many more students succeed
in reading
and math.
Correcting problems in grades 5-12 is difficult at best,
and there’s a critical shortage of licensed specialists
to provide corrective reading for upper grade students.
Enter
Beth McClure, a NH learning disabilities specialist
whose charter
school proposal is a structured K-4 program
using specialist techniques for assuring reading, writing,
and math
proficiency by end of grade 4. Beth
believes a small prevention-of-school-failure charter school
could
demonstrate
70% of students at or above proficient levels and provide
staff internships in mastery teaching for reading and math.
What's your
opinion of this concept? The proposal states that
this model school could be reproduced.
A
LAW FOR DISTRICT-SUPPORTED CHARTER SCHOOLS?
Lately,
a few New Hampshire officials have proposed law encouraging
district-supported charter schools.
Great thought, but we have the law already--RSA
194-B:3 from 1995. The local
authorization procedures are confusing and take 2+ years,
so no districts use local authorization. By fixing
RSA 194-B:3, districts wanting charter schools for their
own students can seek local authorization.
The
NH charter law specifically did not intend for districts
to
control all initiatives. Requiring only charter schools
supported by superintendents greatly changes NH's law.
Some of the best and most successful ideas come from
teachers, parents, and businesses. The legislative action
needed this year is for: 1) weighted
funding for students in state-authorized charter schools
and 2) direct payment of state funds from state to independent
school.
WEBLOG TOPIC:
Career Training in the Equestrian Industry?
Read
this week’s topic and HaveYourSay about career training
in the equestrian industry.
Virtually every town in New Hampshire is a member of an
area vocational school where any student can attend or
offers vocational programs. Vocational-Technical
schools are schools of choice; they have separate school
boards; students have
full public funding. Vocational-Technical high schools
are very similar to chartered public schools. Program offerings
change to stay current with the job market and student interests.
NH's
vocational school statute recognizes "agriculture" industries.
The equine industry is the largest agricultural industry
in New Hampshire and there are no specific career training
programs at the high school level. One reason: facility
demands. Difficult to have horses inside shop classrooms.
The newly-approved Equestrian Studies charter school
will offer career training along with college prep classes.
Equine pursuits are a passionate interest for hundreds
of students. Agriculture and small
farming businesses are regaining popularity. Career Training
for Equine Industries? HaveYourSay!
Click
on any underlined words to reach an info-link. Visit
our web
site. Read up on the basics
of charter schools in New Hampshire. See the complete
listing of schools and projects. Check out our publications.
We
provide start-up
resources and helpful information in newsletter archives,
e.g. reports
on charter
school funding, what's new in other states, and progress
of new schools in New Hampshire. We welcome questions
and suggestions. So contact
us. We offer seminars and/or
assistance with grants or proposals. Know someone who
might like our
newsletter? Let
us know!