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Health & Fitness

7/9/13 School Board Meeting: Educational Adequacy Completely Dependent on Physical Structures; Really??

I had a third or fourth-grade teacher who told my mother at a parent-teacher conference that if the school were on fire, I would just brush the ashes from the pages of my book and go on reading. I rarely if ever noticed the classroom or building structure I learned in. I escaped into books as soon as I finished my homework in class and at home.

So imagine my surprise when I realized that "educational adequacy" as the Iowa City Community School District defines the term is completely dependent on the extent to which physical structures contribute to educational efficacy. Did you know that? Did you know that -- more than anything else -- your child needs an adequate physical structure to learn? 

That's why Tate Alternative High School scores higher in educational adequacy than either West High or City High, yet Tate High has by far the lowest academic test scores. Tate High School usually has a tough time even fielding a representative to go to school board meetings.

Lincoln Elementary School, which has the highest or one of the highest elementary academic test scores, has the lowest "educational adequacy" scores. Why? Because their physical structures are allegedly inadequate. Never mind the fact that the students do well academically, their teachers are excellent, their parents and community are involved and supportive. They have inadequate physical buildings.

What is the school district and the board all about? Finding schools that are academically excellent but "educationally inadequate" because their physical structures are aging? Do the district and the board exist to provide taxpayer funds to contractors, builders, and architects to build new schools and parking lots? Badly, I might add. The district is still paying for the mistakes of private contractors with taxpayer dollars. I don't understand why.

The facilities management steering committee trumpeted the fact that we're in the 21st-century. Now that we are educators in a brave new world, we don't teach typing any more, we teach "keyboarding." Please.

"Twenty-first century skills" as listed are the same skills people have needed in a working, thinking environment since civilization began. They're not 21st-century skills.

One 21st-century skill that I'd like to see implemented is 21st-century sound equipment and a skilled technician to operate it. The loud bangs and fuzzy noises that intruded on the televised version of the board meeting were alarming and disruptive.

I am glad to know one thing. It looks like they're not closing as many schools as originally planned. For now, Hills and Horace Mann will stay open. Lincoln too? Maybe now only Hoover will close, which is sad, but at least it's only one school, not three or four.

Mann parents and community members howled and kept their school open. Julie Van Dyke scolded the board, and rightfully so, for their bait-and-switch tactics on the Revenue Purpose Statement proposal passed Feb. 5, 2013, before which the board and the district mentioned NO school closures. Hills 
Elementary will stay open? More Hills parents howled tonight, and very effectively, especially Hills Bank office manager Kelsie Redlinger, who talked about Hills Bank's involvement, financially and otherwise, with Hills Elementary School.

I hear more banging, popping, and fuzzing out on the school board meeting broadcast. Also beeping. It's time to check out, but many parents and concerned community members are speaking out. I didn't realize community comments were coming at the end of the meeting.

They all had good things to say. Every one of them said, "Don't close our neighborhood schools," and I agree. It is silly, as Julie Van Dyke said, to judge schools on the basis of "educational adequacy" as measured by physical structures instead of academic test scores.

Chris Liebig, a Hoover parent and Iowa City Patch blogger, mentioned, as did a few others, how much he opposes closing Hoover Ele. School and any other neighborhood schools. He also said that the school board appears to exist in a "bubble." The board doesn't appear to listen to or doesn't care about community opinion, even when community opinion is unanimous in opposition to neighborhood school closures.

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