Education Notebook

Olmsted County judge denies JM student's request for restraining order, reinstatement to band class

(Ed. note: Both stories about this issue are included. Since both are long, I included the print-version links at the top of the page. -EM)

LINK: Judge denies restraining order
LINK: JM student alleges discrimination

Judge denies restraining order in band removal lawsuit

By Elliot Mann
The Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

An Olmsted District judge has denied a legal request from a 14-year-old John Marshall High School student to return to his freshman band class pending a future decision on an injunction.

Judge Joseph Chase issued his ruling Monday afternoon, and the student will remain in the sophomore band class where the Rochester school district moved him for now.

A hearing on a temporary injunction to reverse the district's decision is scheduled for April 29.

The student and his mother filed a discrimination lawsuit in Olmsted District Court last week against the school district and an assistant principal at JM. The family requested a temporary restraining order so the student could return to his freshman band class while the case was pending, and Chase had a hearing on the request Friday.

The student was reassigned to a different band class while the district investigated a claim that he had inappropriately touched a female student. The student, represented by Rochester attorney James McGeeney, alleges he was discriminated against because of his race and sex.

The complaint seeks more than $50,000 in damages.

Article: High schools raise spirits, thousands of dollars in three weeks

(Ed: The article appears in Wednesday's Post-Bulletin. I'll update with a link when it goes active.)

They set out to raise money but ended up raising spirits.

Rochester’s three public high schools capped their annual holiday fundraisers this week. Each of them raised between $12,000 and $21,500. The high schools held separate celebrations Tuesday afternoon.
Century High School raised $21,500 for Ronald McDonald House and Bear Creek Services, which helps people with developmental disabilities and traumatic brain injuries.

Five people who live in Bear Creek group homes went to the school Tuesday for the celebratory activities, including a student-teacher dodge ball game, dance team performances and a tongue-in-cheek wrestling match between the Bear Creek Bear and the Century Panther.

It might have looked like nothing more than two teenagers wrestling around in mascot suits, but not to Julie Beck, executive director of Bear Creek. “This allows (the Bear Creek residents) to feel like members of the community,” Beck said. “All of the energy, all of the things the students are doing. In some ways, a few hours can change a lifetime.”

Jimmy, a non-verbal adult who lives in a Bear Creek home, showed his excitement once he spotted Santa Claus sitting with the Century band. Others residents joined in at different times, dancing with students who were performing on the gymnasium floor.

“It doesn’t occur to them that they are the only ones up there beside the students,” Beck said. “The kids don’t laugh at them. They laugh because of them, because of the innocence (of the adults).”

The giving continued in classrooms across town. Mayo High School raised more than $12,000 to benefit the Dorothy Day Hospitality House, and John Marshall High School students brought in $18,000 for Christmas Anonymous.  Students from Lourdes High School also participated in Christmas Anonymous, which buys items for needy families during the holidays. Families shop at the Christmas Anonymous store, held at Christ United Methodist Church.

“It’s a really good feeling. It makes you feel good as a person,” said Rachinna Khan, a senior who helped organize the effort at John Marshall.

Keeping the mood light, Tuesday’s celebrations also including head shavings and pies in the face. A few JM students showed their commitment to the cause by waxing off patches of their hair. Khan said senior Will Hertel might have got the worst of it by choosing his chest.

“I think Will was bleeding a little,” Khan said, laughing. “I felt bad for him.”

Away from painful wax treatments and mascot fights, the outreach efforts show students what truly matters during the holidays, said Rita Hendrickson, director of campus ministry at Lourdes.

“It is important for young people to know what it’s like to serve another in need. There’s nothing like it,” Hendrickson said. “I think in a world, with our culture that is all about me, it is imperative to build the kingdom to say, ‘No. It’s about them.”

Rochester schools: Budget talks take first swipes

Student council? Liasion officers? Media specialists? All could face the budget guillotine in Rochester public schools.

A committee of district staff and community members are debating how the district should carve $4.5 million from next year’s budget. On Monday, staff members presented suggestions that were generated from school sites. No votes were held and the process will continue through February, when the school board will make the cuts. The budget reduction task force will meet next Dec. 2.

Here is today's article.

Staff members generated suggestions, and then principals from elementary, middle and high schools reviewed those ideas and proposed the following recommendations:

Elementary Schools

• Reduce lights, heat, shut down buildings to evening activities.
• Reduce instructional supplies by 10 percent
• Reduce custodial staff to: 3 custodians at large buildings and 1.5 custodians at other buildings (8.5 custodial positions).
• Reduce Paraprofessional time by 10 percent.
• Reduce Special Area Staffing: Eliminate Media Specialists (para covers check out for prep); reduce art to 30 minutes; reduce travel time.
• Reduce Administration by 10%
• Reduce/Eliminate Gifted Services
• Eliminate Quarry Hill field trips and planetarium field trips. No new programs (freeze funding for any new curriculum).

Middle Schools

• Instructional supply budget by 10 percent
• Eliminate extra duty activities ‐ student council, yearbook, math coaches, middle school play, jazz band, visual aides
• Reduce basic staffing allocation by 5 percent.
• Reduce Administrative Staff by 10 percent.

High Schools

• Reduce/raise heat/cool by 3 degrees in each building.
• Offer early retirement incentive for staff
• Run HSCC bus for only one block for each high school
• Summer staff work four, ten hour days (energy savings)
• Eliminate one high school swimming pool
• Reduce athletic budget by 3.5 percent
• Increase student activity passes to $35 for year
• Eliminate one paraprofessional position at each high school
• Close buildings over holiday breaks
• Eliminate police liaisons
• Reduce high school administration by 10 percent
• Reduce total full-time teaching staff by 5 percent, as based on total 2009‐2010 allocation.

LINK: Elementary, Middle and High School proposals (.pdf)
LINK: Budget cuts take first swipes

If a budget cut suggestion is brought forward in a forest, but no one is around to hear it...

Here's an article from today's paper, about Rochester opening the budge cutting process. This version is longer than the version running in the paper or online because it had to be edited for space. (It's already pretty short, but it happens sometimes on front-page stuff.)

Anyway, here's the longer version:

The size of Marsha Peterson’s second-grade class climbed to 29 students this year and she doesn’t see how more students could fit.

Peterson’s concern about class sizes came Monday as Rochester public schools opened the public comment period for budget reductions. The district needs to cut about $5 million from the 2010-2011 budget. Earlier this year, Rochester schools carved out $9.3 million.

Peterson said her classroom is still reeling from those cuts. She proposed making cuts at the district or administrator level. Specifically, she mentioned eliminating the position for director of elementary and secondary education. The high-level district job went unfilled for much of the summer, until the district decided to hire Diane Ilstrup and Diane Trisko to fill the post, on a part-time interim basis. Peterson also recommended eliminating the budget for all travel reimbursement and also professional memberships for district staff.

Her comments echoed Monday, simply because few others showed up.

At John Marshall High School, attendance was sparse for the first 30 minutes, except for two women who identified themselves as district employees. They sat down to register their input, but stopped once they were informed that submissions couldn’t be anonymous.

“The district must not value our input,” said one of the women. She also refused to be quoted by name.

Last year, when submissions were anonymous, district staff sifted through hundreds of suggestions, some of which were simply unrealistic. The impractical ones called for mass firings of all top administrators or widespread cuts to all extracurricular programs. This year, the district has tried to limit time spend working through those types of suggestions.

After an hour on Monday, only two others turned out. Attendance was similar at the session held at Century High School.

Teacher and parent Chuck Handlon showed up at John Marshall, but was frustrated that board members or district staff weren’t on hand to discuss the budget in detail. When he was previously asked to suggest possible cuts from his classroom, he remarked that his labs are already running frugal. If the situation got dire enough, Handlon said he would rather see the district remove extracurricular programs than cut more from the classroom.

“It’s sad because at this point in my career, I didn’t think I’d be seeing things going backwards,” he said.

LINK: Few turn out to suggest budget cuts (shortened version)