Long-Range Planning At Mehlville: South County Times
May 30, 2008
Link – Long-Range Planning At Mehlville: South County Times
05/30/2008 – For more than a year some 675 Mehlville School District residents, parents and staff have come together to create a comprehensive long-range plan to improve the performance of the district.
Known as Compass, the group involved itself in studies of everything from facilities and communications to staffing and finances. Compass will hold a final meeting on Monday, June 2, 7 to 9 p.m., at Bernard Middle School, 1054 Forder Road.
LINK … STLtoday – Higher fuel costs for school buses hurts districts
school bus
(Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
…If just pulling up to the gas pump makes you cringe, think of all the Keith Henrys of the world. He’s in charge of the 98-bus fleet operated by the Mehlville School District.
Each bus only gets four to 10 miles a gallon.
And during the school year, they go through 850 to 1,000 gallons a day.
Ouch….
How to Unleash Your Creativity: Scientific American
May 29, 2008
This is a pretty good article on Problem Solving and Creativity. I believe that the biggest problem with the American education system right now is that with all of the emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing, like No Child Left Behind (NCLB,) creativity and problem solving skills have been tossed out the window. America used to pride itself on it’s problem solving skills. Now, it is a dying art, which I believe is evidenced by our current set of government officials from the local level, all the way to the White House.
Link – How to Unleash Your Creativity: Scientific American
…In a discussion with Scientific American Mind executive editor Mariette DiChristina, three noted experts on creativity, each with a very different perspective and background, reveal powerful ways to unleash your creative self.
John Houtz is a psychologist and professor at Fordham University. His most recent book is The Educational Psychology of Creativity (Hamptom Press, 2002).
Julia Cameron is an award-winning poet, playwright and filmmaker. Her book The Artist’s Way (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002) has sold more than three million copies worldwide. Her latest book is The Writing Diet.
Robert Epstein is a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego. Contributing editors for Scientific American Mind and former editor in chief of Psychology Today, Epstein has written several books on creativity, including The Big Book of Creativity Games (McGraw-Hill, 2000)….
Link – Resident Expresses Support for Mehlville School District Administration
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May 21, 2008 – Please allow me to be the first to express my support of the current Mehlville School District administration before the usual suspects begin their next round of attacks. In past years, it has been not only fashionable, but easy to complain about the way the district has done business. We all are aware of past board and administration discrepancies that gave our district a black eye. Those days are gone and have been since Superintendent Terry Noble and the current/recent board took charge after inheriting a bad situation. Mr. Noble has been a standup leader and the entire board has gone above and beyond to restore public trust in them. The current accounting issue has been addressed publicly and we are all aware of the problem. The question for the citizens of this district now is: “Are you going to help and become part of the solution or complain and remain part of the problem?” It is time for everyone to stop pointing fingers and start working together to make this district as great as it can be. It’s time for the folks who really care and are willing to help to stop being bullied by the minority of district rabble rousers who are experts at making you scared of it, but offer no solutions for it. I am proud to have children in this district and just as proud of Mr. Noble and the board that look out for their best interest. Still complaining about the turf? Get over it, it’s done. Upset about the teachers getting a pay raise? It’s being dealt with, move on. Don’t like the public-relations strategies of the district? Offer a suggestion how to make it better. It isn’t just “about the kids” this time, it is about this entire community — a community that I am proud to call home. Randy Lowry Oakville |
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Letters from Noble and Knost to District Staff
May 23, 2008
Superintendent of Schools
Mehlville R-IX School District
3120 Lemay Ferry Road
St. Louis, MO 63125
314-467-5002-phone
314-467-5099-fax
noblet@mehlville.k12.mo.us
Deputy Superintendent
Mehlville School District
eknost@mehlville.k12.mo.us
(314) 467-5007
From .02% to 4.82%
May 23, 2008
Thanks to the hard work of Superintendent Terry Noble and Director of Finance Brent Bell, the Mehlville School District now projects our end of year budget for the 09/10 school year to be 4.82%. The previous projection was .02%. The 4.82% puts the district almost two full percentage points over the states financially distressed list.
That is the good news; the bad news is that the new balances come from a series of heartbreaking cuts. Once again, the teachers are getting a $0 pay raise, a $300,000 cut in text book purchases, $112,000 in tutoring cuts, $100,000 in reduced maintenance, $78,000 in administrative restructuring, a $300,000 cut in teacher supplies, and more.
I also would like to make another point…
Our budget woes are not because the Mehlville School District gave teachers 6% raises last year. Granted, with proper balance projections, the 6% raise would not have been granted, or even considered, for that matter.
Most likely, if proper projections were given, the teachers would have seen anything from a 0 to 3% raise. This would have bought the district another a year or two of surviving, but that is it. Another year or two of survival. Another year or two of continued mediocrity in education.
However, this would not have changed anything in the big picture. The big picture being that the Mehlville School District does not have enough funding to run a high performing school district. Plain and simple, our budget woes are because we do not have enough funding to educate to our best ability. The children of Mehlville could be getting a better education.
We do not have enough funding to retain and acquire a proper level of high quality teachers. We do not have enough funding to acquire and maintain educational and operational technology. We do not have enough funding to provide proper and desired levels of safety and security. We do not have enough funding to build and maintain a quality infrastructure. We do not have enough funding…well, the list goes on, and on, and on.
The bottom line is this, the board and the administration and everyone else in this district has to live within its means, and historically, the Mehlville School District has done that. We had one bad year based on some bad budget projections from an interim administration. That one bad year and interim administration should not define a district that historically squeezes blood from turnips, and it certainly should not define the future of this school district.
Mehlville is so close to being a top-level, high-performing school district. But where we are sitting right now is on a precipice, on a dangerous edge, teetering between absolute disaster and absolute success, and depending on the direction of the wind at any given time, this bus will either rest steady and make its way to a higher plateau, or it will do what the contextually blind think it has already done, tumbling and bumbling its way into a ditch.
Contrary to some recent sensationalism, thanks to the solid leadership of Superintendent Terry Noble, I believe we are headed to the higher plateau.
This would make for a good “Footprints” poem.
Mehlville Teachers to be applauded for making for making tough sacrifice – Call Newspapers
May 21, 2008
Call Newspaper editor, Mike Anthony, was dead on with this editorial. Thank you Mike!
Link – Mehlville Teachers to be applauded for making for making tough sacrifice
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May 21, 2008 – It’s no secret that in recent weeks some have been attempting to exploit the Mehlville School District’s well-publicized financial woes for their own purposes. We won’t delve into the specifics, but it’s clear that those who have at-tempted to exploit Mehlville’s financial situation certainly do not have the purest of motives nor are the most ethical creatures on this planet. Many more, though, realize the gravity of the situation and, instead of pointing fingers or attempting to assign blame, are willing to step up at a time when the school district, Board of Education and Mehlville administration need their support. That’s why we applaud members of the Mehlville National Education Association who recently voted to accept a pay freeze for the 2008-2009 school year. That certainly couldn’t have been an easy decision, especially given the current economy and rising gasoline prices.
Mehlville NEA President Kay Cappos, who teaches fifth grade at Blades Elementary School, told Board of Education members last week that a majority of members had voted to accept the freeze not out of “satisfaction,” but out of understanding of the district’s financial challenges. She said at the May 15 board meeting, “That vote was because we understand the financial situation of the district. That vote was because Central Office and the Board of Education have been honest and open with us and the community. That vote was because we feel we can work together to improve things for next year. The vote of acceptance in no way reflects satisfaction with a zero-dollar-increase salary package …” All teachers have a difficult job, but we can only imagine how difficult it has been for Mehlville teachers in recent years as the district has struggled with tight funds for textbooks and supplies, increasing class sizes and ethically challenged administrators and board members. That’s not to mention the fact that the base salary for Mehlville teachers ranks 21st of the 23 accredited school districts in St. Louis County. How refreshing it is to see this cooperation between the Mehlville teachers’ union and school-board members, both of whom clearly have the best interests of children at heart. We can only wish that the same could be said of other local unions, who instead of working with elected officials for the betterment of Mehlville, appear to be hellbent on destroying their elected leaders. |
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Great letter to the editor from Ed Taylor on the status of the classroom educator in the Mehlville School District
May 21, 2008
There were several well written articles in the Call (www.callnewspapers.com) this week, as well as some very well written commentary. I will post them all here.
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May 21, 2008 – I recently learned that my department budget at Oakville Senior High School will be cut 15 percent next year and next year teachers in this district will not get any pay increase. In fact, because the retirement deductions will go up, my net pay will go down — as it has most years I have taught in this district. So I wondered why I would want to come back next year. This district spends less than the Missouri average per pupil — and Missouri is not known as an education state. Granted, the funding mechanism for public schools in this country is undemocratic; the quality of your education is directly related to how much local residents pay in taxes. Patently unfair to children, but those are the rules. Many people who live in this district don’t send their children to public schools or they are retired and will not support additional funding for the public schools. I don’t understand that, but perhaps that is because I am not from this area. Where I grew up, my parents sent their four kids to Catholic grade schools and two of us to private or Catholic high schools, but voted for tax increases because that is what you do for your community, for your neighbor’s children and for your country. They believed in the best education for our most important resource. Good Republicans, they believed that a quality education was an important part of democracy. Good Catholics, they believed in the importance of taking care of people. Now retired, they continue to support tax increases for their local public schools. Meanwhile, teachers in this district are among the lowest paid in the greater St. Louis area, which is why the Mehlville School District loses a lot of wonderful teachers to other school districts — to Kirkwood, $10,000 more per year; or Clayton, $15,000 more per year; or Webster or Lindbergh or Fox. Yes, Fox, with slightly better pay, one’s own classroom, and an auditorium. I do not know of another suburban or urban school district without an auditorium. New teachers look at us, then look elsewhere. We aren’t a first-choice employer. At a union meeting, one veteran said she had taught and lived here 25 years and in that time received two decent raises — one last year, and one many years before. The so-called 6-percent raise last year — not every teacher received that, and one year does not address years of neglect — was a flash in the pan. Whereas the national average wage and salary increase has been over 3.5 percent per year for the past four years, teachers in this district have not come close. I have two graduate degrees, but my salary puts me in the lower middle class. I didn’t go into teaching to get rich. But I think I deserve to be treated — and to be paid — as a professional. Instead, people point at last year’s raise and say we are overpaid and underworked. Where do we go from here? I think it’s up to the people who live here, who are stakeholders in this community, to say our teachers deserve better. It’s the responsibility of the Central Office and the Board of Education to help convince the citizens that salaries for teachers and support staff must increase. In the meantime, the future for teachers in this district is bleak. And our most important resource will suffer. Ed Taylor Ste. Genevieve |
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Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to talk about the current and future financial situation of the district as it relates to the two audits that we approved tonight.
First, I believe that the independent audits (approved at the 5/15/08 board meeting) point to the Board of Education’s dedication to making decisions based on factual and honest information.
To that extent, I want to let the public know that I have a high degree of confidence in our financial numbers and projections, and there is a reason for that.
The source of my confidence is sitting to my immediate left, our Superintendent, Mr. Terry Noble.
Since he took the reigns last August, Mr. Noble instantly went to work putting policies and procedures in place to ensure tight fiscal and daily operations. When he discovered that our budget projections from the previous administration were well off the mark, he instantly went to bat for this district.
Most importantly, Mr. Noble said something rather simple that I will always remember when making financial and budgetary decisions for Mehlville as long as he is here. He said, “The numbers presented to the board are my numbers, no matter who is presenting them, and I will stand by, and take responsibility for my numbers.” For those who don’t know Mr. Noble like I know him, those words might as well be made of gold.
So, as we move forward with our budget projections, the community should know, it is safe for them to have confidence in what we are doing at Mehlville.
But just in case, I am very satisfied at this boards effort to delve even deeper into our budget and to reinforce not only my confidence in the budget procedures, but the community’s confidence, as well.
I think it is a fantastic idea to have an independent auditor to audit our agreed upon procedures for developing budgets, as well as have the budget itself analyzed by one of the foremost school finance experts in Dr. Rebore.
Whatever skepticism that I may of previously had, that we as a board, and a community, can trust the financial projections from the administration of the Mehlville School District have been completely allayed through the steadfastness of Mr. Noble, as well as the upcoming independent audits by Daniel Jones, and Dr. Rebore.
I also believe this will prove to this community that we are not in short-term danger of meeting our obligations to both the children and taxpayers of this community.
However, all of this being said, I want to change direction a bit and say that we still have some very legitimate long term challenges to deal with.
Terry said some very positive things, and they are all true, but we do have some work ahead of us. As we move forward, tThe Mehlville School District continues to squeeze quarts of blood from a turnip.
Year by year, day by day, minute by minute, this district continues to fall behind.
We are falling behind in technology.
We are falling behind in safety and security.
We are falling behind in teacher’s salaries.
We are falling behind in infrastructure.
We are falling behind and programs and resources offered to district residents, and their children.
To date, we have dedicated teachers and educators working overtime and over-hard to ensure the successful education and quality of life of every child that enters through our doors.
For example, because of year after year after year of little to no raises given to the teachers of the Mehlville School District, even a one time 6% bump in teacher salaries last year did not bump them out of the gutter-rut ranking of 21 out of 23 county school districts, and not surprisingly, we continue to be a breading ground for the teachers of Rockwood, and Lindbergh, and Pattonville, and on, and on, and on.
We often hear residents talk about, “Well I walked to school two miles up hills both ways, in the snow, and barefoot, we didn’t have air conditioning, we didn’t have computers, etc., etc., Well yes, there was also a time when people lived in huts and caves and we didn’t eat if we failed to spear a Mastodon, but this is the 21st century.”
Everything has changed. The global economy is brand new and unlike 50 years ago, when you were told as children that you better eat your vegetables because the children of India and China were starving, we now tell our children, paraphrasing Thomas Friedman, that you better get that Microsoft Powerpoint assignment finished and emailed to your teacher, there are children in India and China competing for your future.
This is a long comment, but it barely even touches the surface of the complexity of the future of the Mehlville School District and it’s direct relation to the health of our community. When we are talking about our current budget, and our current fiscal responsibilities, all we are really talking about is doing what we can to just survive, and to just get our children by.
Contrary to what was said earlier, colleges and universities are telling high schools that we are sending children to them who are not prepared for college. Yes, this is a stepping stone, but it is vital that this stone sit firm…on solid ground, and prepare its children for success in higher-education.
So, what our community needs to know is that there is a whole new world out there. Near-future financial discussions of this board, while always keeping an eye on operating within our means, will be about taking Mehlville to the next level, to do as the COMPASS process has said, making Mehlville a high-performing school district.
I am not just talking about our public education children. I am talking about all children and grandchildren and great-grand children in our district. Public, private, and parochial. Our community needs to once again make education a priority.
Every child deserves the opportunity to succeed in this economy. Not just for them, but for all of us.
Whether or not the Mehlville School District is just a school district that continues to just barely get by, falling behind all of the time, putting band-aids on festering wounds, or a high-performing, pro-active, resourceful school district, is directly related to the quality of life the residents of this district want for themselves, their families, and their community.
This community has a choice.
The choice is to let the constant, repugnant bleeding of our public education system to continue,
or to stand up, and stand proud, on solid ground, so that Mehlville can be the high performing school district that we all know that it can be.
With Mehlville in my heart.
My choice is to stand up, and to stand proud…
…and I hope that the community will rally around whatever this board decides to do to help Mehlville reach the lofty goal of high-performing status.
Mehlville Symphonic Band on 99.1
May 15, 2008
The Minutes from the 2007 Budget Discussion
May 13, 2008
With several articles in the various papers around town about Mehlville’s budget situation, I thought it might be helpful to post the actual minutes of the discussion for everyone to view:
board-minutes-from-2007-budget-approval
You will see that there were a series of tough questions asked before the final decision was made, including the question from Ken Leach to the CFO making the presentation to the board, Brent Bell.
Mr. Ken Leach asked for assurance that approval of the 2007-2008 proposals will not place future budgets in jeopardy. Mr. Bell responded that the district will not be financially distressed.
You will also see that the budget was approved unanimously by the board. After the vote is taken, then it is announced by the President of the Board that the vote is 7-0, at which time, anyone can move to reconsider or announce a discrepancy in the vote totals. To suggest that a board member voted “no” when they really voted “yes” is disingenuous, at best, and ridiculous and banal drama in the least, especially when it deals with a board member who was in their ninth year of service.
I also think that it is helpful for the residents of Mehlville to know that the video of the meeting is available at Central Office. You just have to provide a blank tape, or pay for a district tape.
The Cost of Smarts – New York Times
May 8, 2008
LINK: – The Cost of Smarts – New York Times
The Cost of Smarts
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Research on animal intelligence always makes me wonder just how smart humans are. Consider the fruit-fly experiments described in Carl Zimmer’s piece in the Science Times on Tuesday. Fruit flies who were taught to be smarter than the average fruit fly tended to live shorter lives. This suggests that dimmer bulbs burn longer, that there is an advantage in not being too terrifically bright.
Intelligence, it turns out, is a high-priced option. It takes more upkeep, burns more fuel and is slow off the starting line because it depends on learning — a gradual process — instead of instinct. Plenty of other species are able to learn, and one of the things they’ve apparently learned is when to stop….
Mehlville School District Seeks Finance Committee Members
For more information contact Jennifer Rolwes Volk at 314.608.8424
St. Louis, May 5, 2008 – The Mehlville School District is looking for community members to serve on the newly created Finance Committee.
Committee members will work with District staff to develop five year budget projections, recommend ways to increase revenue and decrease expenditures, and to develop and present annual budget proposals to the Board.
“The committee will consist of staff and community members with an emphasis on community patrons with knowledge and expertise in finance and accounting,” explains Superintendent Terry Noble.
Interested applicants are encouraged to contact Sharon Peiffer at peiffers@mehlville.k12.mo.us or 314.467.5002 for an application form. Application forms can also be downloaded from the District website at www.mehlvilleschooldistrict.com on the finance page. Application forms are due by May 28 at 4:30 p.m.
Link … Princeton University – Princeton University survey finds pain gap
Princeton University survey finds pain gap
by Kitta MacPherson · Posted May 1, 2008; 07:00 p.m.
Those with lower incomes and less education are in pain more often, researchers say
A novel study that attempts to paint the most accurate and detailed description yet of how Americans experience pain has found that a significant portion of the population — 28 percent — are in pain at any given moment and those with less education and lower income spend more of their time in pain. Those in pain are less likely to work or socialize with others and are more inclined to watch television than the pain-free.
The study, which appears in the May 3 issue of The Lancet, was prepared by Alan Krueger, a professor of economics at Princeton University, and Arthur Stone, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stony Brook University. The work is the first of its type, according to the authors, to quantify a “pain gap” in American society, with the “have-nots” suffering a disproportionate amount in relation to the “haves.”
“To a significant extent, pain does divide the classes,” said Krueger, the Bendheim Professor in Economics and Public Policy. “And just how the levels of pain vary among people and across activities — that has never been found before until now….”
