My nephew recently graduated from Jeffersonville High School. The school is so large that commencement attendees were asked to park in a nearby big box retailer's lot and be shuttled in. My mother was excited. Having grown up in inner-city New Albany, it was the first time she'd ever ridden a school bus.
Things have changed.
New Albany-Floyd County CONSOLIDATED School Corporation buses travel roughly 1,000,000 miles per year. Fuel costs are so high adminstrators say it's worth spending additional money to install GPS tracking systems on the buses to try to determine more efficient routes.
And today they're closing the sale of one of the only walkable schools left in the corporation's inventory for a reported $415,000, helping to ensure that the driving inanity above will be much more difficult to correct in future.
I hope the homophobes enjoy it.
Showing posts with label Silver Street School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silver Street School. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Silver Street School + Sojourn = Cults on the River.
It's quite possible that this is the single most depressing development in New Albany in the past decade. The school that never should have been closed, Silver Street, now will adaptively house yet another wacko religious institution, Sojourn: We’ve Found A Home For Sojourn New Albany! Learn About Our New Campus Site
Back in 2008, LEO observed that Sojourn definitely Smells Like Holy Spirit:
This is civil society? Really, Brad? How soon before we're taking money away from public education for Sojourn to re-educate gays?
Back in 2008, LEO observed that Sojourn definitely Smells Like Holy Spirit:
Sojourn is a Southern Baptist church, and the message here is not a particularly progressive one. Pastors counsel a strict adherence to scripture, which means abortion is murder, men are the natural-order leaders and homosexuality is a sin from which gays need to be converted and redeemed.So how does the school corporation enabling such a regressive subtraction to the community spin it? Like this:
Brad Snyder, deputy superintendent for New Albany-Floyd County schools, said the sale is "a huge win-win for the community” because the church intends to use it for "advancing community outreach."Groan.
This is civil society? Really, Brad? How soon before we're taking money away from public education for Sojourn to re-educate gays?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Good news from City Hall: Silver Street supporters, New Albany's mayor join forces.
Silver Street supporters, New Albany's mayor join forces, by Tara Hettinger (News-Tribune).
On Monday, New Albany Mayor Doug England told a group of concerned parents and community members — who are fighting to keep Silver Street Elementary open — that he understands the importance of being able to walk to school.
He did just that as a child … (and) England told the group he is in favor of keeping the school open, because it encourages walkers and helps to define the area.“The school is the heart of the neighborhood and if you take the heart away, the neighborhood just dies,” England said.
I’m delighted to see Mayor England involved in this unfolding story.
It’s hard to imagine a public entity playing its hand any more ineptly than the school corporation has managed to date, with its imported hatchet-wielding consultant, rubber-stamp “cover” committee designed for no other reason than to ultimately take the fall, and a penchant for secrecy that’s positively Nixonian in scope.
Toss into the mix a school board member or two whose prime mandate seems to be sticking it to “them people” downtown (if Linden Meadows were a tune, I'd be humming it), and we’re approaching a readymade Mel Brooks comedic epic – except that the more one considers it, the story isn’t funny, and even the addition of a flatulent campfire scene out behind the administration building wouldn’t make it so.
I’ll say it again: I have friends in the school corporation, and it pains me to note their employer’s stance in this matter. At this point, it isn’t just that the validity of the Superintendent’s pre-determined course of school resource “action” is questionable. It’s that the method pursued in achieving it is bordering on the reprehensible.
That’s very alarming.
On Monday, New Albany Mayor Doug England told a group of concerned parents and community members — who are fighting to keep Silver Street Elementary open — that he understands the importance of being able to walk to school.
He did just that as a child … (and) England told the group he is in favor of keeping the school open, because it encourages walkers and helps to define the area.“The school is the heart of the neighborhood and if you take the heart away, the neighborhood just dies,” England said.
I’m delighted to see Mayor England involved in this unfolding story.
It’s hard to imagine a public entity playing its hand any more ineptly than the school corporation has managed to date, with its imported hatchet-wielding consultant, rubber-stamp “cover” committee designed for no other reason than to ultimately take the fall, and a penchant for secrecy that’s positively Nixonian in scope.
Toss into the mix a school board member or two whose prime mandate seems to be sticking it to “them people” downtown (if Linden Meadows were a tune, I'd be humming it), and we’re approaching a readymade Mel Brooks comedic epic – except that the more one considers it, the story isn’t funny, and even the addition of a flatulent campfire scene out behind the administration building wouldn’t make it so.
I’ll say it again: I have friends in the school corporation, and it pains me to note their employer’s stance in this matter. At this point, it isn’t just that the validity of the Superintendent’s pre-determined course of school resource “action” is questionable. It’s that the method pursued in achieving it is bordering on the reprehensible.
That’s very alarming.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Save Silver Street Elementary! blog is up.
Neighborhood activists who are trying to save their school now have a blog: Save Silver Street Elementary!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
NAFC schools consultant Phyllis L. Amick on "Resources for Results", tough choices and "emotion."
NAC received the following from parents involved with the effort to save Silver Street Elementary School from closure. The on-line article about contractor/consultant Phyllis Amick is revealing, especially in light of her citation of "community engagement." Whatever one's thoughts on the issue as it pertains to our own school corporation, it must sadly be acknowledged that "engagement" is being observed only in the breach during this process.
Our contributors note that there will be another community meeting tonight (Thursday, May 29) at 6:30 p.m. at Advent Christian Church, 2129 Shelby Street. On the agenda is "action items for informing and mobilizing the community."
---
From the parents:
"A list of the members of the "Resources for Results" committee came out today in the New Albany Floyd County School Corporation's website. It is interesting to note that some of those named are people closely related to Silver Street Elementary and are no longer invited to attend the current committee meetings. I also noticed that there is a contractor who plays a vital role in facilitating the meetings.
"The contractor's name is Dr. Phyllis Amick. I googled her and found this very telling article. Apparently Dr. Amick's specialty is in persuading school board members to close schools for the 'greater good.' Our school corporation has even borrowed the name of her previous school closure committee!
"Obviously, Dr. Amick was carefully chosen to facilitate this committee to steer them to the ultimate goal of closing Silver Street and/or Pine View Elementary Schools. I wonder if the committee members and the school board are aware of her past 'successes.' Dr. Amick appears to move around a lot, so she probably doesn't have much of a clue regarding what a sense of community really means."
From: The School Administrator, December 2002
Phyllis L. Amick: Modeling Personal and Organizational Change
By Jay P. Goldman
Much of Phyllis Amick’s life has been caught up in the swirl of changing circumstances. Growing up, she never lived for consecutive years in the same town until her final two years of high school. Her family bounced from town to town across Indiana owing to the fickle nature of her father’s work as a laborer on interstate highway construction.
As a school system leader, she’s done some moving too, rising through the ranks to work at the superintendent level in four Indiana districts since 1991. Her current perch is Richmond, Ind., where she has taken the first steps to reverse the fortunes of a downtrodden system.
Amick, appointed three years ago, is overseeing a major reconfiguration of the 6,200-student district located on the state’s eastern border with Ohio, about an hour northwest of Cincinnati. Her intent is to serve all students better in more inclusive environments. To fund the program she calls “Resources for Results,” the district this year closed three schools, freeing up about $1.5 million in the first year with additional savings expected in the next year once staffing adjustments are completed.
The major components include starting full-day kindergarten in all 11 of Richmond’s elementary schools, lengthening the instructional day, creating alternative programs for failing students within the schools, and ending segregated settings for students with disabilities and those considered gifted and talented. All 9th graders have been assigned to smaller learning units and 6th-grade classes were moved back into elementary buildings. She revamped reporting lines in the central office to ensure the building administrators receive the immediate response they deserved.
“Everyone understood that tough choices had to be made, but that didn’t make the emotional part any easier,” Amick admits, pointing particularly to the building closures. “The board heard eight hours of emotional pleas over three meetings. I don’t know there’s a way to take the emotion out of it. … People are beginning to see we can go through change and can be better for it.”
She is quick to explain this was not a case of a school board swallowing whole a set of major proposals from a pushy superintendent. Rather, Richmond’s reforms are the outcropping of a 35-member community group she appointed to study the state of the district’s school facilities in light of steadily declining enrollment (annual losses of about 250 a year), examine best practices for improving achievement and develop a sorely lacking vision statement.
Amick had realized upon landing in Richmond that extensive engagement would be a prerequisite to any major moves forward. She found a widely divided community that had only one year earlier shot down the school board’s intention to close a single underused elementary school. Four schools lingered on the state’s academic probation list. (A year later, none remained.)
“One person can have a vision,” she says, “but it takes many to bring it to reality.”
School board members found that Amick’s upfront yet disarming manner allowed them largely to overcome forces of the status quo, especially supporters of two small specialized instructional programs that had operated for years as the lone tenants of their own building. Says board member Marilyn Russo: “In every meeting, Phyllis isn’t one to push by herself. She lets everyone say what they need to. Then very quietly, very unassuming in a way, she starts talking, pregnant with facts and in a short time gets everyone focused back on track.”
Cheryl Stolle, an Indiana University professor who chaired Richmond’s superintendent search, believes Amick’s administrative know-how and dexterous people skills are enabling her to unify the district around initiatives that ought to improve student outcomes. Adds Suzanne Derengowski, a parent of two Richmond students: “She can say (to opponents), ‘I understand, but we have a bigger mission, and that’s student achievement.”
Amick has captured the attention of search consultants during each of her short superintendent stints in the Hoosier State communities of Edinburgh, North Vernon and Scottsburg. And in 2000-2001, she served as the first female president of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents. But Amick prefers to trumpet a more significant role to model from her personal background: She was the first in her extended and transient family to graduate from college.
Jay Goldman is the editor of The School Administrator.
BIO STATS: Phyllis Amick
Currently:
superintendent, Richmond Community Schools, Richmond, Ind.
Earlier:
superintendent in three smaller Indiana districts
Age:
54
Greatest Influence on Career:
The superintendent who hired me for my first central-office position, John Ellis, as he provided me with a role model of exceptional administrative practices and mentored me throughout my first years.
Best Professional Day:
The culmination of a two-year extensive community engagement process to restructure our school district in which the school board approved a plan of reorganization with tremendous public support.
Books at Bedside:
Turning to One Another by Margaret Wheatley; Lanterns by Marian Wright Edelman; and The New Meaning of Educational Change by Michael Fullan
Biggest Blooper:
While waiting for law enforcement to arrive to help search our high school following a bomb threat, I went to use the faculty restroom. Much to my horror, the door locked from the outside and I was stuck in the bathroom during the entire search. Worse, I don't think they missed me!
A Reason Why I'm an AASA Member:
As administrators, we have the responsibility to be aware and knowledgeable regarding the impact of state and federal accountability systems. AASA is a constant source of up-to-date information and provides thought-provoking analysis of current issues.
Our contributors note that there will be another community meeting tonight (Thursday, May 29) at 6:30 p.m. at Advent Christian Church, 2129 Shelby Street. On the agenda is "action items for informing and mobilizing the community."
---
From the parents:
"A list of the members of the "Resources for Results" committee came out today in the New Albany Floyd County School Corporation's website. It is interesting to note that some of those named are people closely related to Silver Street Elementary and are no longer invited to attend the current committee meetings. I also noticed that there is a contractor who plays a vital role in facilitating the meetings.
"The contractor's name is Dr. Phyllis Amick. I googled her and found this very telling article. Apparently Dr. Amick's specialty is in persuading school board members to close schools for the 'greater good.' Our school corporation has even borrowed the name of her previous school closure committee!
"Obviously, Dr. Amick was carefully chosen to facilitate this committee to steer them to the ultimate goal of closing Silver Street and/or Pine View Elementary Schools. I wonder if the committee members and the school board are aware of her past 'successes.' Dr. Amick appears to move around a lot, so she probably doesn't have much of a clue regarding what a sense of community really means."
From: The School Administrator, December 2002
Phyllis L. Amick: Modeling Personal and Organizational Change
By Jay P. Goldman
Much of Phyllis Amick’s life has been caught up in the swirl of changing circumstances. Growing up, she never lived for consecutive years in the same town until her final two years of high school. Her family bounced from town to town across Indiana owing to the fickle nature of her father’s work as a laborer on interstate highway construction.
As a school system leader, she’s done some moving too, rising through the ranks to work at the superintendent level in four Indiana districts since 1991. Her current perch is Richmond, Ind., where she has taken the first steps to reverse the fortunes of a downtrodden system.
Amick, appointed three years ago, is overseeing a major reconfiguration of the 6,200-student district located on the state’s eastern border with Ohio, about an hour northwest of Cincinnati. Her intent is to serve all students better in more inclusive environments. To fund the program she calls “Resources for Results,” the district this year closed three schools, freeing up about $1.5 million in the first year with additional savings expected in the next year once staffing adjustments are completed.
The major components include starting full-day kindergarten in all 11 of Richmond’s elementary schools, lengthening the instructional day, creating alternative programs for failing students within the schools, and ending segregated settings for students with disabilities and those considered gifted and talented. All 9th graders have been assigned to smaller learning units and 6th-grade classes were moved back into elementary buildings. She revamped reporting lines in the central office to ensure the building administrators receive the immediate response they deserved.
“Everyone understood that tough choices had to be made, but that didn’t make the emotional part any easier,” Amick admits, pointing particularly to the building closures. “The board heard eight hours of emotional pleas over three meetings. I don’t know there’s a way to take the emotion out of it. … People are beginning to see we can go through change and can be better for it.”
She is quick to explain this was not a case of a school board swallowing whole a set of major proposals from a pushy superintendent. Rather, Richmond’s reforms are the outcropping of a 35-member community group she appointed to study the state of the district’s school facilities in light of steadily declining enrollment (annual losses of about 250 a year), examine best practices for improving achievement and develop a sorely lacking vision statement.
Amick had realized upon landing in Richmond that extensive engagement would be a prerequisite to any major moves forward. She found a widely divided community that had only one year earlier shot down the school board’s intention to close a single underused elementary school. Four schools lingered on the state’s academic probation list. (A year later, none remained.)
“One person can have a vision,” she says, “but it takes many to bring it to reality.”
School board members found that Amick’s upfront yet disarming manner allowed them largely to overcome forces of the status quo, especially supporters of two small specialized instructional programs that had operated for years as the lone tenants of their own building. Says board member Marilyn Russo: “In every meeting, Phyllis isn’t one to push by herself. She lets everyone say what they need to. Then very quietly, very unassuming in a way, she starts talking, pregnant with facts and in a short time gets everyone focused back on track.”
Cheryl Stolle, an Indiana University professor who chaired Richmond’s superintendent search, believes Amick’s administrative know-how and dexterous people skills are enabling her to unify the district around initiatives that ought to improve student outcomes. Adds Suzanne Derengowski, a parent of two Richmond students: “She can say (to opponents), ‘I understand, but we have a bigger mission, and that’s student achievement.”
Amick has captured the attention of search consultants during each of her short superintendent stints in the Hoosier State communities of Edinburgh, North Vernon and Scottsburg. And in 2000-2001, she served as the first female president of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents. But Amick prefers to trumpet a more significant role to model from her personal background: She was the first in her extended and transient family to graduate from college.
Jay Goldman is the editor of The School Administrator.
BIO STATS: Phyllis Amick
Currently:
superintendent, Richmond Community Schools, Richmond, Ind.
Earlier:
superintendent in three smaller Indiana districts
Age:
54
Greatest Influence on Career:
The superintendent who hired me for my first central-office position, John Ellis, as he provided me with a role model of exceptional administrative practices and mentored me throughout my first years.
Best Professional Day:
The culmination of a two-year extensive community engagement process to restructure our school district in which the school board approved a plan of reorganization with tremendous public support.
Books at Bedside:
Turning to One Another by Margaret Wheatley; Lanterns by Marian Wright Edelman; and The New Meaning of Educational Change by Michael Fullan
Biggest Blooper:
While waiting for law enforcement to arrive to help search our high school following a bomb threat, I went to use the faculty restroom. Much to my horror, the door locked from the outside and I was stuck in the bathroom during the entire search. Worse, I don't think they missed me!
A Reason Why I'm an AASA Member:
As administrators, we have the responsibility to be aware and knowledgeable regarding the impact of state and federal accountability systems. AASA is a constant source of up-to-date information and provides thought-provoking analysis of current issues.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Tribune on open doors and "Resources for Results."
Today the Tribune jumps in with both feet:
Committee considers New Albany-Floyd County school closures
Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning of the article, which I'm assuming was written by Tara Hettinger.
---
Resources for Results to give recommendations to NA-FC board in the fall
(NO ACCESS BEYOND THIS POINT ... The Evening News and Tribune attempted to go to the latest Resources for Results meeting Monday. However, New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. Superintendent Dennis Brooks escorted a reporter out, saying the meeting was not open to the public. He said since the committee was created by him, the open-meetings law, which requires them to be open to the public, does not apply. When a reporter was escorted from the meeting, Brooks said that the minutes were public and available in his office. As of press time, the minutes had not been provided to the paper. Dave Rarick, director of communications for the corporation, said the minutes may soon become public. If so, they will be on the corporation’s Web site, which is www.nafcs.k12.in.us. An inquiry has been made by The Tribune to the Hoosier State Press Legal Association about access to future meetings.)
Secretive. Covert. Sneaky.Those three words have reverberated within many parents and residents living near Silver Street Elementary School — one of the schools being considered by a committee for closure.
That committee, Resources for Results, was started in May 2006 by Superintendent of New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. Dennis Brooks. He said he asked school employees, current and retired, school board members, parents and other community members to dedicate their time for about two years to look into ways to better use the resources the school system has.
Committee considers New Albany-Floyd County school closures
Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning of the article, which I'm assuming was written by Tara Hettinger.
---
Resources for Results to give recommendations to NA-FC board in the fall
(NO ACCESS BEYOND THIS POINT ... The Evening News and Tribune attempted to go to the latest Resources for Results meeting Monday. However, New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. Superintendent Dennis Brooks escorted a reporter out, saying the meeting was not open to the public. He said since the committee was created by him, the open-meetings law, which requires them to be open to the public, does not apply. When a reporter was escorted from the meeting, Brooks said that the minutes were public and available in his office. As of press time, the minutes had not been provided to the paper. Dave Rarick, director of communications for the corporation, said the minutes may soon become public. If so, they will be on the corporation’s Web site, which is www.nafcs.k12.in.us. An inquiry has been made by The Tribune to the Hoosier State Press Legal Association about access to future meetings.)
Secretive. Covert. Sneaky.Those three words have reverberated within many parents and residents living near Silver Street Elementary School — one of the schools being considered by a committee for closure.
That committee, Resources for Results, was started in May 2006 by Superintendent of New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. Dennis Brooks. He said he asked school employees, current and retired, school board members, parents and other community members to dedicate their time for about two years to look into ways to better use the resources the school system has.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Silver Street school: Insulation?
You may recall my sometime informant, Even Deeper Throat.
Well, like the character in the horror movie ... he's baaack, and what he has to say about the Silver Street school scandal is quite revealing.
Take it away, EDT:
---
I last heard it would be Pine View closing. A friend is on the so-called committee -- which is really just a shield to insulate (Supt.) Brooks on the decision making process -- he explained the committee and what they do and it is all just insulation. There are about 30 people involved and my friend admits that he is ignorant in such matters. He feels they should have experts in the field study the situation, not some home grown committee of people who have no expertise in this area and who are being used as a rubber stamp for what the administration wants to do … (my friend) told me he believes that neither school should be closed. The savings would only be about 300,000 per year out of a $74 million dollar budget. Savings come from utilities, a principal and some staff. A lot of the staff would follow the students to the other schools, and you can only sell the building once.
Well, like the character in the horror movie ... he's baaack, and what he has to say about the Silver Street school scandal is quite revealing.
Take it away, EDT:
---
I last heard it would be Pine View closing. A friend is on the so-called committee -- which is really just a shield to insulate (Supt.) Brooks on the decision making process -- he explained the committee and what they do and it is all just insulation. There are about 30 people involved and my friend admits that he is ignorant in such matters. He feels they should have experts in the field study the situation, not some home grown committee of people who have no expertise in this area and who are being used as a rubber stamp for what the administration wants to do … (my friend) told me he believes that neither school should be closed. The savings would only be about 300,000 per year out of a $74 million dollar budget. Savings come from utilities, a principal and some staff. A lot of the staff would follow the students to the other schools, and you can only sell the building once.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Important information: "The potential closing of Silver Street School."
This evening at NAC, the emphasis shifts back to what may be the consummate neighborhood issue: Children and their schools.
I’m the first to admit that education issues often elude me, for the simple reason that I have no children. That’s no excuse, but there it is. One thing I understand is that when it comes to revitalizing an inner city, a sustainable future comes from many sources, but children and their education is first and foremost in the minds of families who choose to live there.
"Families form a loyalty to the city" … "It is primarily a school phenomenon.
I have many good friends in the NA-FC school corporation, and many other good friends in the neighborhood that feeds the Silver Street Elementary School, and the latter group currently feels that an unsavory surprise is about to be sprung on them by the former with respect to the school’s immediate future.
From this perspective, it doesn’t seem that there has been much communication between the school administration and the neighborhood leaders … and this is regrettable. NAC has been sent notes from a Resources and Results Committee meeting in April; these apparently have not been published at the school corporation’s website, but they can be read here:
Resources and Results Meeting Notes - April 22, 2008
Also, please read the announcement of an organizational meeting planned for Thursday, May 22. I’m told that reporters for both the Tribune and Courier-Journal will be running stories later this week.
---
Friends~
Please feel free to forward this to everyone you think needs to be in-the-know about the potential closing of Silver Street School. This is a very serious issue and not to be taken lightly – the meetings have been happening behind closed doors and we weren’t invited!
I am planning a meeting to brain storm together and come-up with a plan(s) of action. The meeting will be:
Thursday, May 22nd at 6:30 PM at Advent Christian Church (in the basement) - 2129 Shelby Street (Enter from the Indiana Avenue side.)
Yesterday, I talked with someone who was one of the key players in working to keep the school open back in the ‘90’s. I’m going to be meeting with her soon to talk more. Until then, there are a couple of things she told me that are imperative:
First is to hit the pavement and be sure and let every home owner in the area know that the school’s closure could bring property values down. Not everyone will think the school’s closure is their concern. Their property value, however, is. Start spreading the word.
Secondly, and she really stressed this, we must have school representation at every school board meeting. She says that they will give various issues names like “164-27” and then vote on them. Without going to every meeting, we have no way of knowing what these issues are. I know everyone’s schedule is packed, especially at this time of year. But I really need a few committed folks to attend with me! Please let me know if I can count you in. We can carpool to save gas!
Here are the dates/times of the next few meetings:
Monday, May 12, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
All meetings begin at 7:00 p.m. (unless otherwise noted). All Board of School Trustees Meetings will be held in the Board Room of the School Administrative Services Center, 2801 Grant Line Road, New Albany, IN.
Finally, I’m working to revive my neighborhood association (Glenwood Place) which spans south from Spring Street just past Market (to Willow) and east from Silver to Beharrell. I’m already working closely with Silver Grove and I need to get in contact with the person in charge of Uptown. We need to join together to strengthen our voice!
If you would like to be on the email-list for the Silver Grove newsletter, please contact Jim Munford at munfish(at)aye.net. You don’t have to live in the Silver Grove neighborhood to be included on their mailing list and all of their emails are sent anonymously, so no one sees your email address. The newsletters are full of great information: Silver Street School news, upcoming local events, local history, and even crime sprees in the area.
Thanks so much. I look forward to hearing from you.
~Kathy Ayres (812) 989-8204 – moondansyr(at)insightbb.com
Saving The Academic Resource Society
I’m the first to admit that education issues often elude me, for the simple reason that I have no children. That’s no excuse, but there it is. One thing I understand is that when it comes to revitalizing an inner city, a sustainable future comes from many sources, but children and their education is first and foremost in the minds of families who choose to live there.
"Families form a loyalty to the city" … "It is primarily a school phenomenon.
I have many good friends in the NA-FC school corporation, and many other good friends in the neighborhood that feeds the Silver Street Elementary School, and the latter group currently feels that an unsavory surprise is about to be sprung on them by the former with respect to the school’s immediate future.
From this perspective, it doesn’t seem that there has been much communication between the school administration and the neighborhood leaders … and this is regrettable. NAC has been sent notes from a Resources and Results Committee meeting in April; these apparently have not been published at the school corporation’s website, but they can be read here:
Resources and Results Meeting Notes - April 22, 2008
Also, please read the announcement of an organizational meeting planned for Thursday, May 22. I’m told that reporters for both the Tribune and Courier-Journal will be running stories later this week.
---
Friends~
Please feel free to forward this to everyone you think needs to be in-the-know about the potential closing of Silver Street School. This is a very serious issue and not to be taken lightly – the meetings have been happening behind closed doors and we weren’t invited!
I am planning a meeting to brain storm together and come-up with a plan(s) of action. The meeting will be:
Thursday, May 22nd at 6:30 PM at Advent Christian Church (in the basement) - 2129 Shelby Street (Enter from the Indiana Avenue side.)
Yesterday, I talked with someone who was one of the key players in working to keep the school open back in the ‘90’s. I’m going to be meeting with her soon to talk more. Until then, there are a couple of things she told me that are imperative:
First is to hit the pavement and be sure and let every home owner in the area know that the school’s closure could bring property values down. Not everyone will think the school’s closure is their concern. Their property value, however, is. Start spreading the word.
Secondly, and she really stressed this, we must have school representation at every school board meeting. She says that they will give various issues names like “164-27” and then vote on them. Without going to every meeting, we have no way of knowing what these issues are. I know everyone’s schedule is packed, especially at this time of year. But I really need a few committed folks to attend with me! Please let me know if I can count you in. We can carpool to save gas!
Here are the dates/times of the next few meetings:
Monday, May 12, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
All meetings begin at 7:00 p.m. (unless otherwise noted). All Board of School Trustees Meetings will be held in the Board Room of the School Administrative Services Center, 2801 Grant Line Road, New Albany, IN.
Finally, I’m working to revive my neighborhood association (Glenwood Place) which spans south from Spring Street just past Market (to Willow) and east from Silver to Beharrell. I’m already working closely with Silver Grove and I need to get in contact with the person in charge of Uptown. We need to join together to strengthen our voice!
If you would like to be on the email-list for the Silver Grove newsletter, please contact Jim Munford at munfish(at)aye.net. You don’t have to live in the Silver Grove neighborhood to be included on their mailing list and all of their emails are sent anonymously, so no one sees your email address. The newsletters are full of great information: Silver Street School news, upcoming local events, local history, and even crime sprees in the area.
Thanks so much. I look forward to hearing from you.
~Kathy Ayres (812) 989-8204 – moondansyr(at)insightbb.com
Saving The Academic Resource Society
Friday, March 02, 2007
From one lame duck to another.
Two of the protesters who gathered across Silver Street to provide balance to the machinations of the presidential hagiography machine came into the pub afterward and said that the crowd of dissidents was sizeable, and that’s a source of great joy here in the curmudgeon’s lair. It wasn't the only source of amusement on a slow news day.
NAC had been told earlier that city council kingpin Larry Kochert, a Democrat, was among those wangling precious invitations to pose as VIPs and attend the speech from a visit that wouldn’t have happened unless Mitch McConnell, a Republican, brought W to town to raise the big bucks. Did he make it to the party on time?
Presumably Slippery Larry was seeking quality time to commiserate with the Chief Executive over their plunging favorability ratings. Waiter, two lame duck soufflés – and hold the smoke.
A “surge” from one, a “ban” from another, and speaking of bans, now would be a good time for me to divulge that in light of my ejection from the last city council meeting – admittedly, Kochert called that one right – I’ve decided to hand myself a one-meeting suspension as penance. I call upon my esteemed fellow transgressor to follow suit, but whether or not he does, my evening off will be Monday, March 5.
Did I mention a beer dinner at Bistro New Albany on Monday, March 5?
Meanwhile, today’s Tribune reports the one positive thing to emerge from today’s presidential photo-op:
NA-FC Superintendent: Silver Street not scheduled to close, by Eric Scott Campbell.
Shuttering the 90-year-old institution is “not something we’ve talked about,” (Superintendent Dennis) Brooks told The Tribune on Thursday.
“The school’s an old school, and for several years we’ve had discussions about facilities districtwide. ... We have a committee that is looking at all of our school facilities, but there’s been no decision made to close any school,” Brooks said …
… The superintendent surmised that there’s been “a lot of emotion about [the school’s anniversary] and I think it’s caused people to think more about the school than they would otherwise.”
Didn’t they used to hold ward heeling classes in the councilman’s garage – or was that Haiti?
NAC had been told earlier that city council kingpin Larry Kochert, a Democrat, was among those wangling precious invitations to pose as VIPs and attend the speech from a visit that wouldn’t have happened unless Mitch McConnell, a Republican, brought W to town to raise the big bucks. Did he make it to the party on time?
Presumably Slippery Larry was seeking quality time to commiserate with the Chief Executive over their plunging favorability ratings. Waiter, two lame duck soufflés – and hold the smoke.
A “surge” from one, a “ban” from another, and speaking of bans, now would be a good time for me to divulge that in light of my ejection from the last city council meeting – admittedly, Kochert called that one right – I’ve decided to hand myself a one-meeting suspension as penance. I call upon my esteemed fellow transgressor to follow suit, but whether or not he does, my evening off will be Monday, March 5.
Did I mention a beer dinner at Bistro New Albany on Monday, March 5?
Meanwhile, today’s Tribune reports the one positive thing to emerge from today’s presidential photo-op:
NA-FC Superintendent: Silver Street not scheduled to close, by Eric Scott Campbell.
Shuttering the 90-year-old institution is “not something we’ve talked about,” (Superintendent Dennis) Brooks told The Tribune on Thursday.
“The school’s an old school, and for several years we’ve had discussions about facilities districtwide. ... We have a committee that is looking at all of our school facilities, but there’s been no decision made to close any school,” Brooks said …
… The superintendent surmised that there’s been “a lot of emotion about [the school’s anniversary] and I think it’s caused people to think more about the school than they would otherwise.”
Didn’t they used to hold ward heeling classes in the councilman’s garage – or was that Haiti?
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