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Post by forthekids on Apr 13, 2008 11:35:56 GMT -5
The agenda for the school board meeting tomorrow, Apr 14 indicates that a school board member is resigning. Anyone know anything about that?
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Post by kidscount on Apr 15, 2008 13:48:08 GMT -5
apparently, battcher is moving and has resigned. sounds like the board will appoint someone till elections in september. that means there will be four vacancies to fill in september. coil kenyon hamilton battcher come on people....we need warm bodies to fill those vacancies!!! can anyone possibly do a worse job than they have? find out what needs to be done to fill out the appropriate papers and when the time limit is, as to how soon this needs to be done. get your apps in. you can always change your mind later and take yourself out of the running, but for now we need to let this board know we are not going away, back into the woodwork. the actions of this board are not acceptable.
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Post by abcs on Apr 15, 2008 19:05:01 GMT -5
well said, kidscount.
i think it would be really neat to have bunches of people running, filling out candidate forms. the more the merrier.
as kidscount said, once the election nears, some could stand aside. the more nomination papers filed the more of a statement it makes to this board.
granted, by the time the election is held in september, it would be too late to do anything about the boundries for this year, but changes could be made to the open enrollemnt policy.
the fact that it was a unanimous vote on the boundry isssue tells me they all need to go. at least four this year would be a good start. i still have trouble believing not one member of this school board could see what they were doing was a slap in the face to the residents of this community. and then have the nerve to ask us for more money. man, that just takes the cake!
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Post by abcs on Jun 25, 2008 20:37:10 GMT -5
here it is almost the first of july. i certainly hope we will have some candidates for the school board election in september that will address the whole open enrollment issue.
other boards throughout the state have chosen to put their resident students first. some of their policies could be used as a blueprint.
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Post by CF supporter on Jun 25, 2008 21:01:34 GMT -5
Are you running? What is your platform? What are the changes you are proposing? How are you going to make it better than it is?
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Post by abcs on Jun 25, 2008 22:18:22 GMT -5
no, i am not able to run due to health issues. as far as a platform, that is easy.....CEDAR FALLS KIDS FIRST!
i would address the open enrollment policy, making resident student the highest priority.
i would look into hiring an outside consulting firm to look at the past, present and future growth of the city and where improvements should be made.
how is that for a start?
lincoln and cedar heights were recently rebuilt and appear to be already at capacity. southdale needs improvements to accomadate the growth in the south of the city. and north cedar needs to be addressed. if north cedar is to stay open then it needs to be improved upon also.
does that answer your questions?
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Post by guest123 on Jun 30, 2008 8:59:03 GMT -5
Cedar Falls kids ARE coming first. I've heard of LOTS of open-enrolled children receiving letters just in the last couple of weeks notifying them their child is being moved to North Cedar. (including my child)
So you are getting exactly what you want. Your kids are getting priority and my child is being moved to a school that may very well not be around in 5 years and I would need to move my child again and younger sibling.
I totally agree that the school board has some MAJOR issues to resolve. But open-enrollment is not causing all the elementary schools in Cedar Falls to be at capacity. Growth of the city is causing that. And in 5 years or maybe less, all the schools except probably North Cedar will be at capacity BEFORE open-enrolled students. So if you think moving or banning open-enrolled students is going to solve your problems - you better look a little harder.
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Post by abcs on Jun 30, 2008 15:30:12 GMT -5
i understand that some open enrolled students are having to change to schools, but more resident students are being forced out of their neighborhood schools.
as long as there is one open enrolled student in a school where a resident student is being forced to move, then that open enrolled student is being given priority over the resident student.
are open enrolled students causing all the problems? of course not, but that is an issue that i feel needs to be addressed.
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Post by linnea on Jun 30, 2008 17:00:49 GMT -5
I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Cedar Falls resident students who are being moved aren't being denied the right to go to their neighborhood school. They're being assigned a new neighborhood school.
No one has ever been promised that their neighborhood school would be the one closest to their home. Ask people who live at 24th and Franklin, or 4th and Ellen. A rough shape is drawn around each school that defines where the boundaries are.
The school board's job, in the short run, is to try and use the buildings it has as efficiently as possible. If North Cedar school is underused, the obvious solution is to expand the lines of the neighborhood it draws from. So they moved the lines over, and incorporated the students who were in areas bordering the North Cedar district.
In the long run, the school board needs to plan for future changes in the number of students. Unfortunately, this is a long and cumbersome process, and they're often behind the curve in whatever they do. For instance, when Valley Park school was closed, enrollments had been declining across the district for a number of years. About the time the school closed, or shortly after (I don't know the figures for sure), enrollments started to increase again. If the board had been able to see into the future, maybe they would have hung on to Valley Park. But unfortunately, they're not clairvoyant.
Right now, enrollment is increasing at most schools. But what with the mortgage crisis, and the increasing cost of energy, who knows if that's going to continue? People may not be able to buy and build on all those lots that are on the market.
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Post by LKN on Jul 1, 2008 8:34:43 GMT -5
The schools of Cedar Falls can no longer be called neighborhood schools any more than someone living near Hudson and 1st claiming a house on Main and 23rd is "in the neighborhood." Cedar Falls has impersonal, nonsensical attendance areas, the "feel-good" neighborhood school is a thing of the past. The school board has wiped out the neighborhood concept for many RESIDENTS of Cedar Falls with last years ridiculous decision.
As a previous poster stated, if an OE child is attending a school in CF where a local child was moved from, preference is being awarded to the open enrolled - which is wrong, CF residents' tax dollars are funding the schools. CF resident children should not be moved!
As far as the school board goes, they completely dropped the ball. When nearly all of the growth in CF is happening in the south part of town, why (presumably) put many, many resources ($$$) into a school in the north part of town that is not at capacity (because people are not moving into that part of town at nearly the same rate as other parts of town). Plans should be in the works to build new schools in the south as soon as possible, which is the only logical way to solve this problem. As it is, with the current "band-aid" decision, resident students are not as important as some OE students, and no visible plan for the future is being shared with the public. Cedar Falls students will be open enrolling out of the district and going to private schools at a higher rate due to this - the school board is not serving the interests of the taxpayers it represents...
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Post by kidscount on Jul 1, 2008 16:30:44 GMT -5
the window to submit nomination forms for the upcoming school board election is July 7 - 5:00 p.m. July 31.
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Post by guest555 on Jul 10, 2008 7:58:04 GMT -5
I have no idea how many resident students were affected with the boundary line changes.
But, I do know that not "some" open-enrolled students are being forced to go to North Cedar. HALF of them are. 79 out of 160 have been moved to North Cedar.
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moved
New Member
Posts: 1
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Post by moved on Jul 11, 2008 9:34:47 GMT -5
Guest 123,,, not ALL cedar falls kids got what they wanted. My child is one of the resident children being told to move. There are 70 or more,, I can't remember the exact number that are having to move schools, so don't just think Cedar Falls residents got their way. Some did not. Just like you we are being asked to move.
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Post by forthekids on Jul 13, 2008 17:02:59 GMT -5
guest555, What is your source of information on the 79/160 open enrolled students being moved to North Cedar? That is a big number. A board member said in a school board meeting that sending too many open enrolled students to North Cedar would make it "unstable." Guess that isn't as important as trying to make themselves look good (althought it was a questionable thing to say of course). It will be interesting to see if they go back to their own district or if they realize they can go to Price Lab for under $600/year. Some have figured that out I hear.
St. Pats has benefitted by getting a number of the CF resident students that were moved. So far they are the real winner here. Perhaps the school board/district is trying to cover its backside with this huge open enrollment movement , because they went ahead and hired new teachers for North Cedar before confirming they would get the residents they tried to force to move. I heard the parents were honest with them early on that they wouldn't send their kids to a school that was so far away, that needs over $5 million in repair/renovation and was according to Dave Stoakes not technologically capable of handling a bunch of new students.
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Post by guest555 on Jul 15, 2008 10:42:30 GMT -5
The 79 students being moved to North Cedar is a very accurate number. Cindi McDonald, Elementary Education Director, gave me that number. And you're right - that's a huge number to increase enrollment in one school. HUGE!
And no, you can't go to Price Lab for $600/year. Open enrollment deadlines were March 1st. And if you were just notified in June (like I was an many other parents) that you child was being moved it's past the deadline to open-enroll to Price Lab. Believe me, I would if I could. I asked for an exception from the DesMoines Open Enrollment Office and they said NO! So Price Lab is not an option for any of us parents who were just notified in June.
St. Pat's is an option. But obviously a much higher cost.
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