More Coffee, Please

This has been a year for funding issues. It started in the Fall, when the federal grant that allowed several out of district students to continue working at MC² through the end of the year. Many of those students—the bulk—took that time to graduate and have moved on to the next stage.

However, there were several students who needed more time—it’s tough to work in two years worth of work in a single year, even with the most dedicated student (and that doesn’t always describe our kids—they’re not perfect, anymore than I or any other adult is) and there were at least three who needed more time.

The brutal part about this is they were all Hinsdale students—and Hinsdale is the same SAU, the same superintendent, very much a twin to MRHS. A good chunk of the year has been students desperately appealing to the Hinsdale school board and the assistant Superintendent, Dr. Crisafulli, to allow these students to continue their education at MC².

The kids got their wish. Dr. Crisafulli came through, and the students have been provided the time they need to finish the work in a program which has worked well for them.

Which, really, is the way it ought to work. There are not resources enough for every district to duplicate every successful program. There is not time enough to not serve our kids now with the programs which are in place. The more districts can cooperate, the more money will be saved, the more kids will be well served, and the better things will be for all concerned.

The School Board asked the state of New Hampshire for permission to go to a judge about teacher’s contracts. The state of New Hampshire has said yes, which means now it goes to a judge. If the judge agrees there’s a state of emergency, then it can go to a deliberative session, and then a vote.

I’m going to be very interested in seeing the reaction of the Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association if this occurs. For one thing, a judge will have agreed there is an emergency, so the argument “this is not needed” will be hard to make—judges operate on rationality, on evidence, and not emotion. If the situation is bad enough a judge is convinced, shouldn’t that be enough for the average Joe? ¹

In addition, all the changes that the Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association has asked for they now have in the present contract. If there’s any integrity at all, then the organization as a whole has to support the contract, and should do so publicly. When you get all you want, you cooperate with the deal that’s been reached.

So I’m wondering what it will look like—will they do what they say they’ve been doing, and now that they’ve gotten all they’ve asked for, support the contract? Or will they continue to oppose it, revealing another motive entirely?

It’s gonna be interesting.

A teacher from another local high school came into job number two today and had some student work he needed turned into a poster. It looked good—nicely designed, a great slide showing the work the students had done on a local science assignment. He wanted a poster.

Unfortunately, he and the kids had designed the poster in PowerPoint, and the resolution of the print was too low—barely more than a screenshot. I ended up taking a half hour or so to redesign the poster in a program which would deliver the kind of quality needed to deliver a high quality print, and in the end he paid the $39.99 and was happy.

So I bring it up for several reasons—one, that teachers are still paying out of pocket for a ton of what they need to do in the classroom. No shock there, no real surprise, though it’s nice that the resources are improved—I like the idea of professional quality coming from student work. Our kids should be engaged in real work, in producing the kind of materials which can and should be displayed publicly.

But it also highlighted the gap between how rapidly technology has outpaced the classroom. There’s so much more our kids need to be taught, and so much more to be ready for the world we have coming. There are a host of kids out there for whom basic word processing is still beyond—and a host more who are still working on spelling and writing.

And then trick is going to be designing a school where they have the time an opportunity to do all this. It will take more than an hour in the computer lab once per day, and it will take a lot more than a hundred computers in the library.

I find it intriguing that the most common complaint I hear from students at MC² is they’re not allowed to “get away with” what the kids at MRHS are. They literally phrase it like that—they don’t disagree that there’s a rule, they don’t even hate the rule—they often agree with it—they just hate that they get caught for things which other kids get away with.

That amuses me tremendously.

No matter what happens with the election, there’s going to be a historic first. It’s either going to be the nation’s oldest president, the first African American, or the first woman.

The nice thing about being closer to MRHS will be the chance to cooperate. There are at least six students from MC² who are interested in going to Washington DC to see the inauguration next year, but that doesn’t earn any discounts for bulk rates. Small communities are needed for education to work, but it’s nice having a population of 1300+ to tap into when needed.

The trick will be finding a way to take advantage of the economics of scale while also letting our kids learn. I’ hoping MRhS will find ways—with MC² as a model—to move from a 1300 student conglomeration to many smaller communities.

There’s no reason why not, and every reason to do so.

Not sure what’s scarier: That I’ve bumped into students who didn’t know what an allegory was, or didn’t know who Jesus was in order to compare Aslan to him.

1 I’ll also be happy to support the judge’s decision whatever it is—if he denies it, I’ll be sure to shut up about it—until the next contract comes along, I suppose. ↺

Gregarious

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