Sup’s Vlog

Question – Teacher Lab

November 2011

Question:

As teachers in the Granite School District we wish to express our feelings about the closing of the teacher lab. We feel that the lab was closed without asking the teachers how changes could be made in order for us to have better access. The hours that the teacher lab was open made it difficult, if not impossible for us to get there before it closed. Many of us used the lab before the school year began but now many of the die-cuts and other materials that were provided are not available. In the e-mail received from the district we were told that the die-cuts could be found at the pre-school office. Some of us have gone over to the pre-school offices to use the die-cuts only to be told that they are for pre-school staff only.

We would appreciate it if this problem could be addressed in order for teachers to have access to materials that they have relied on in the past. These materials were used to implement and extend the curriculum in our classrooms. Even though we have access to a few die-cuts and materials at our schools the teacher lab provided an extensive library of items not provided anywhere else.

Thank you for providing a place where we can express our concerns.

Response:

The Teacher Lab was closed based on data kept over the past several years. In years past the lab hours were extended – open early before school and open later into the evening after school. After logging visitors for considerable time, it became evident that the lab was not being used enough to warrant the expense of personnel required to keep it open, and the hours were decreased. Lab logs also showed that 70% of the use of die cuts was by preschool teachers which is why a majority of the die cuts and machines were sent to them. We know that many schools have purchased their own and, while the lines are probably longer if a teacher must wait for access there rather than drive to the lab, again, the use by a few did not warrant maintaining the lab. Lastly, many of the curriculum materials that support the core curricula were removed by specialists in the Curriculum and Instruction Department to a location in the district office. Those materials are still available for checkout by teachers throughout the district and will be delivered through district mail. Please contact the appropriate content specialist to ask about materials you frequently used and how to get the access you need.

Thanks to Teaching and Learning for their assistance in responding to this question.

Question – Media Impact Coursework?

November 2011

Question:

Why don’t we have a Media Impact course for High School kids? I’m talking about educating kids on how the media (internet, tv, cable, movies, magazines) show them a perspective that is often unhealthy and not based in how real life is.

In our culture today with everything out there…I feel very strongly that there must be an emphasis on neutralizing media influence and promoting hands on, real life opportunities for kids. I know there are many programs that offer many opportunities in the school district, but balancing that out with education on what media does to their everyday view of life is going to be more and more essential.

I think this should be a required course. I know there are so many classes that are required through state mandate, and maybe making it a required course at first would be too much of an uphill battle. But maybe it could be at least an elective that really delves into violence, misogyny, healthy/unhealthy role models, etc.

If the district does have a course like this, I would very much like to learn more about it. Thank you and I look forward to your response.

Response:

The state core curriculum for grades 3-6 has three strands: information literacy, literature, and media literacy; the last strand addresses at the elementary level what you are asking about. Here’s the link to the state core for those grades. The state core curriculum for grades 7-12 is broader and focuses on a set of “Big Six” skills; the idea of media literacy is addressed in standards 2 and 4, objective 2, however, as you have mentioned, the difficulty with mastery of these standards at all grades is time. Elementary teachers often feel that they don’t have time to teach all core curriculum areas – this among them, and there is not specific secondary course that addresses only the library media curriculum; as it is expected to be embedded in other content areas.

We do recognize the importance of this topic and it is being addressed. We hope our parents will help fill in the blanks where necessary. Thanks for the question and to the Teaching and Learning Department for their assistance in responding.

Question – Insurance Premium Increases

November 2011

Question:

Why are we seeing a $50 in our benefits? The increase due to the law changes should only amount to a 4% increase in premiums at the most, but this is almost a 30% increase. I doubt health care costs have gone up that much. I also know the state is responsible for scrutinizing exhorbitant rate increases such as this one. Of course I’ve never known the district to care much for social issues such as this, probably for politically expedient reasons, such as falsely indicating that it is a result of the health care law? So the next question is, what can be done to rectify a change that most of is can’t afford?

Response:

Health insurance costs have risen 10% to 15% a year each year for several years – regardless of the changes to the law (costs for medical services and especially prescriptions go up each year, even without changes to health care laws). This past year was no exception. We have an insurance committee made up menmbers of the negotiating teams of the collective bargaining units (GEA and GESPA) as well as representatives from the middle manager, office professional and administator associations. That group looks closly at industry increases and makes recommendations to the respective negotiating teams regarding changes to cover the cost increases. If you are a member of GEA or GESPA, you remember voting on those increases as part of the negotiation ratification process this past spring.

We were lucky that this year’s increase was projected at “only” $2.9 million or about 6% for 2011-12. Even though this was a moderate increase for health insurance, Granite’s state funding has been cut significantly for each of the last 3 years. Because of the funding reductions, Granite has cut $58 million from our budget in the last three years, leaving no funding to cover increases in health insurance costs. The employee health insurance committee recommended the following changes to our health insurance plans to cover the $2.9 million increase:

As such, you are correct that the district now only covers 93% of employee and non-spouse dependent insurance membership costs (down from 95%) and only pays for 78% of spouse costs (down from 80%). Your math is close, the jump from paying for 7%, instead of 5%, feels like a 40% increase and the change from 80% to 78% feels like a 10% increase.

Once again, these were costs that had risen with no increase in legislative funding to offset the increase. We often say that the first 3% of a WPU increase are used to break even (covering cost increases). As we all keenly know, there hasn’t been any WPU increase at all for some time.

Thanks to Mitch Robison, our budget director for his assistance in responding to this question.

Additional Response To The Use Of “Word Searches”

October 2011

I have appreciated the many comments and feedback we have gotten on this topic thus far. Here is one from Dawn Hauser, a district specialist over curriculum and instruction, that I found particularly interesting. Keep the feedback coming!

“In response to the superintendent’s request for feedback regarding WORD SEARCHES:

In their oft-quoted “Research-Based Homework Guidelines” for teachers, Robert Marzano and Deborah Pickering (2007) discuss evidence that, when used appropriately, homework benefits student achievement. These two experts include a short list of four guidelines for teachers, the first of which reads as follows:

· Assign purposeful homework. Legitimate purposes for homework include introducing new content, practicing a skill or process that students can do independently but not fluently, elaborating on information that has been addressed in class to deepen students’ knowledge, and providing opportunities for students to explore topics of their own interest.

I can find no mention in the K-12 Utah State Social Studies Core Curriculum of identifying letter patterns or distinguishing vocabulary words from among other words and letters, the skill most arguably associated with word searches. Rather, the verbs in the core that indicate WHAT students should be doing with new social studies content and skills include: describe, analyze, compare, use, examine, explain, propose and investigate. None of these learning “actions” are achieved through word searches, which also don’t reinforce knowing and using key vocabulary.

It is impossible to argue that word searches are purposeful or legitimate for introducing new content, practicing a social studies skill, elaborating to deepen knowledge, or providing an opportunity to explore a topic independently. Adults don’t gain a better understanding of why they pay taxes or how to file by circling tax-related vocabulary words in a word search. What makes us think students will have a better understanding of important concepts and skills by doing the same? There are so many better ways students can practice and demonstrate what they know and can do with their knowledge – let’s use our professional expertise to “search” those out, instead.

Research-Based Homework Guidelines
Research provides strong evidence that, when used appropriately, homework benefits student achievement. To make sure that homework is appropriate, teachers should follow these guidelines:
• Assign purposeful homework. Legitimate purposes for homework include introducing new content, practicing a skill or process that students can do independently but not fluently, elaborating on information that has been addressed in class to deepen students’ knowledge, and providing opportunities for students to explore topics of their own interest.
• Design homework to maximize the chances that students will complete it. For example, ensure that homework is at the appropriate level of difficulty. Students should be able to complete homework assignments independently with relatively high success rates, but they should still find the assignments challenging enough to be interesting.
• Involve parents in appropriate ways (for example, as a sounding board to help students summarize what they learned from the homework) without requiring parents to act as teachers or to police students’ homework completion.
• Carefully monitor the amount of homework assigned so that it is appropriate to students’ age levels and does not take too much time away from other home activities.

Source:

Marzono, Robert J. and Pickering, Debra, J. The case for and against homework: Teachers should not abandon homework, instead they should improve its instructional quality. Educational Leadership, March, 2007, Vol. 64, No. 6, pages 74-79.”

Dawn Hauser, NBCT
Curriculum & Instruction
Granite School District

Superintendent Snapshot – Word Searches

October 2011

Dear Friends:

Here is the latest snapshot video regarding a question about word searches. I have a full inbox of questions that I am trying to get to as quickly as I can. Keep submitting your questions and I appreciate your patience as I work to respond to them all. Thanks and have a great Halloween weekend!

Sincerely,

Martin

Superintendent Snapshot – One Size Does Not Fit All

October 2011

All,

Here is the latest snapshot video regarding district decision making and one size fits all mentalities. I hope you have a great UEA weekend!

Sincerely,

Superintendent Bates

Superintendent Snapshot – Customer Service Posters?

October 2011

All,

Welcome to my latest snapshot video where I address a question about the customer service initiative. As always, submit your questions to SuperintendentsBlog@GraniteSchools.org and responses will be posted here on the blog. Don’t forget to check out the other questions that have been responded to. Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Martin

Question – Cloth Towel Dispensers

October 2011

Question:

Thank you for your informative blog. In reading over some of the other questions that have been submitted, this may seem like a trivial question, but I’ve had children in Granite School District for five years and still haven’t seen any action being taken.

My question is: What is keeping the district from replacing the pull-down cloth hand towels still being used in elementary schools? I’ve seen over the course of several years that elementary-age students are not able to correctly use the towels, and large groups of children end up drying their hands with visibly dirty portions of the towels. With the Swine Flu scare, chicken pox outbreaks, and everyday childhood illnesses, I’m disappointed that more action hasn’t been taken to provide a more sanitary way for children to wash and dry their hands throughout the day. What can we as parents do to help our schools replace these towels with a cleaner, easier option?

Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate all that you do to ensure that our children are well educated and well taken care of during the hours they spend at school.

Response:

There are two parts to this response.

First we need to understand the financial ramifications of such a decision. Currently, there are over 2,300 cloth towel dispensers being used at various locations through our district. There are two options for replacing these dispensers. There is a standard paper towel dispenser that students usually waste vast amounts of the paper towel along with the environmental impact. The battery operated “sensor” dispensers limit waste, but have ongoing costs related to manpower and changing the batteries. There are also air dryers that require the additional expense of running additional electric outlets to our restroom facilities (particularly in our older buildings). New facilities are being designed and constructed with these outlets. We are testing out several types of hand dryers. However, they are cost prohibitive due to the significant upfront expense that hovers around $600-$800 for installation. Overall, whether we switch all of these devices to one of these alternatives, the cost to immediately replace these 2,300 dispensers would cost around $100,000 to over $1.8 million. As you can see, an immediate transition to an alternative is cost intensive.

Secondly, we must consider the actual health ramifications of these cloth dispensers. In working with the health department and in reviewing studies available on the subject, cloth hand towels are far more hygienic than both paper towels and air dryers. While the perception is contrary to these studies, the television news program 20/20 also did a segment and found that people should avoid air dryers because they are blowing bacteria in the air (in the restroom) onto your hands. Because drying removes most of the bacteria, cloth hand towels are the most safe form of drying your hands (I know what you are thinking because we all had the same perception). Additionally, they are completely sanctioned by our local department, the FDA and the federal department of health and human services. There is no evidence that bacteria can travel through the physical barrier in the dispenser from the contaminated portion to the clean portion of the towel and since the cloth is more absorbent than paper and effective than the air blowers, they are more sanitary.

You have a great point when it comes to using the machines correctly. Our schools who utilize these devices should be instructing children on how to use them properly. Additionally, we need help from our students and patrons to let us know when any of our devices are not serviceable so that local janitorial staff can remedy the problem quickly.

Not only are cloth towels superior when it comes to actual hygienic standards, they are far superior as far as cost, safety (think fires), vandalism and environmental impacts. We will continue to have problems with vandalism and other issues with all of our dispensers. After carefully studying this issue in our janitorial department (since we initially received complaints back in 2010 during the H1N1 scare), it has been decided to continue to utilize cloth dispensers until there is good rationale to change.

Thanks for your question and for all the research and efforts made by our janitorial staff. If you would like to review some of the independent studies that have been conducted on this topic, a folder with the information is available in the Communications Department.

Superintendent Snapshot – Eating at Your Desk

September 2011

All,

Here is the latest snapshot about eating at your desk. Remember, anyone can submit a question via email to SuperintendentsBlog@GraniteSchools.org and responses will be posted here on the blog. Thanks for your continued efforts!

Sincerely,

Martin

Question – Pay Periods

September 2011

Question:

I was wondering why Custodians at the schools only get paid one time a month. When the sweepers and all other maintenance worker at the district get paid twice a month. If I had a choice I would really like to be paid twice a month. Is there or will there ever be a chance of being paid twice a month?

Response (Thanks to Payroll and Accounting for assisting with this response):

This is an old and re-occurring question that goes back many years when the district and teachers agreed to pay teachers an equal amount spread over twelve months. This is fairly common in most school districts. The pay frequency is determined by the location or department where the employee is working. Schools spend a lot of time preparing payroll documents once a month now, and would not want to double the time spent on the task. To run two complete payrolls would double the cost of employees and supplies in the payroll department. Also, because most of our money comes from the State Office of Education which transfers money once a month. To move the large payroll up two weeks would cost the district any interest that we might be able to earn for the time. This additional cost would then indirectly be taken out of employee’s salaries. The only non-district exception is for the lower paying hourly jobs of the sweepers, where because of payroll schedules they were often waiting 3-4 weeks for their first pay check.

Thanks for the question.