What Summer Vacation?

By Robert Wilonsky Thu., Jun. 25 2009 at 2:29 PM

Categories: Edumication News

School's out for summer, but the Dallas Independent School District's board of trustees has one hellacious evening ahead of it, beginning with a 5 p.m. public hearing at 3700 Ross Avenue concerning the proposed 2009-'10 school year budget. After that's done, it's down to big business, some of which has been processed elsewhere, as in: The board will vote whether to give $2 million to Academic Success Program, and Lori Stahl's story today suggests that perhaps Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, whose Harvard-bound son was in ASP, and trustee Edwin Flores, who brought the Wichita Falls-based program to Dallas in the first place, should maybe recuse themselves from the vote.

Earlier this week, Allen Gwinn bit off four other chunks of the agenda, among them the one in which the super's chief of staff, Arnold Viramontes, asks for an annual salary of $200,000. That's about $25,000 more than the position pays at present. That'll go well.

A whole bunch of schools and auditoriums and playing fields will get rechristened tonight too -- though maybe not the elementary school proposed for Adelfa Callejo, as a few trustees still hold that Obama comment against her. Less controversial, no doubt, are the suggestions to name things for the likes of George H.W. Bush, Ebby Halliday, Ann Richards, Joe May, John Hope Franklin and Judge Barefoot Sanders, for whom the Law Magnet at Townview will be named. And, as we noted in April, Kathlyn Gilliam and Rev. Zan Holmes also made the cut.

And, most definitely not last and most certainly not least, the district will vote tonight on whether to coninue paying the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning more than $713,000 to "ensure every student in Dallas ISD is college and workforce ready."

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I'm sure the program is great. To me, the issue is that the program is sold and promoted as one thing, but is doing something else. If they are going to include all the valedictorians in order to "encourage" the others, then just say that when you are pitching the program. But don't sell the program - and take our tax dollars - as something only targeting low-income and first generation college students, then go and include everyone else. Why can't people and companies just be up-front, explain what they are doing and why? It's obvious that the program is a great success, but by not being totally forthright they may have shot themselves in the foot.
I hope they renew ASP, overall it is of great benefit. We were not recruited to join at Hillcrest but we asked to join, had heard about it our son's junior year at a PTA meeting. We were told that we were welcome to attend, that we and our son would have to do the work according to the timeline laid out, and would also need to attend the monthly group meetings. The ASP coordinator would be very busy helping the students who did not have parents to assist them. We participated on that level for both his junior and senior years, and saw the ASP coordinator do an awesome job as her learning curve grew. The second year, participation in ASP had doubled, she had more students participating than any other high school in DISD - and she could have taken more. Over 90 Hillcrest students listed 4 year universities on the senior awards program, only 33 of them participated in the ASP program. It was a very stringent program, and if you already had your college picked out, or if you were going somewhere on a sports scholarship, there was really no reason to do all the work that ASP required of it's participants. For those parents who could do the work to help their kids, it provided an invaluable time line and wonderful nagging daily group emails reminding, reminding, reminding our youngsters of the work they had to do. It sounds so facile then, our participation, except those kids that were in the targeted group, well they'd been competing with our kids in chess tournaments, math tournaments, science fair, AcDec, boy scouts, mock trial since 5th grade. We'd driven them to Azle and back in our minivans, tutored them in after school math, celebrated in their successes, knew their families. We gave them rides to and from ASP if they needed it, and were rewarded in their college offers. Do we begin means testing within schools that receive Title I funding? Not just high schools, but elementary schools that have after school programs to offer. Seems like a poor way to grow a community within a school. Because kids who are academically in the game, well they want to hang with other kids who are at their level, they don't want to go to "special" programs that are designed because they are low income. They want to go to "special" programs that are designed because they are "special", and if it doesn't include the other special kids, well they're smart enough to figure that out. At the ASP induction ceremony it was rewarding to see the Freshman, Sophomores and Juniors who were making an early commitment to involve themselves in this, because the earlier ASP can help them the more kids they can help. Do we prohibit all DISD staff who make over the low-income level from allowing their children to participate in programs of excellence? Or are we only targeting the superintendent's kids because, he's the bigger target. And at it's core this is about targeting his kids, they are the ones who suffer from not being allowed to participate. No "But's" about it, please. Because they are just students, attending classes and enjoying the extracurricular things just like their friends are. I wish every school had a college counselor, they don't, and these positions somehow even when being filled can be diverted by school administration to other duties. The great thing about ASP was due to their contractor status they remained very focused on the job they were there to do. I have posted other information about ASP from a parents point of view here http://thedallascookbook.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-cook-great-casserole-and-then.html, or you can see the student's views on this matter here http://www.hillcrestcyclone.blogspot.com/ , it's a little funnier. I really hope the Dallas Morning News didn't kill a great program. So sad.
Sanguine, that document resembles every single federal lawsuit filed by a prisoner sitting in the Dallas jail.
This handwritten form is all the DISD needs to spend three quarters of a million dollars? That explains a lot.

TotalComments: 4