“It takes six to eight tries just to get into Infinite Campus"

Teachers lobby district for raise

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/BRYAN KELSEN
Pueblo City Schools Chief Financial Officer Rebecca Kluck gestures as she talks about cuts to the district's budget during a school board meeting at Centennial High School Tuesday night.

Posted: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 12:00 am
By JOHN NORTON | norton@chieftain.com | 4 comments
Officials and members of the Pueblo City Schools’ teachers union asked the Board of Education on Tuesday night to follow through with the rest of this school year’s raise and not to make cuts next year that affect the classroom.
 Their argument, that there is plenty of money available if it wasn’t tied up in reserves, is one that teachers have made almost every year. It’s been countered by a budget oversight committee that repeatedly scolds the board for allowing its budgeted reserves to drop by giving raises. This year was no exception.
 Chief Financial Officer Rebecca Kluck said that currently the district is looking at a 7 percent cut in state funding, resulting in a $4.4 million reduction from this year’s spending.
 That would prevent school closures or the need for furloughs that came out of worse scenarios but still mean layoffs of probationary teachers.
 Before the Pueblo Education Association members used the public comment session, the board gave the floor to John Vigil, financial planner who serves on the oversight committee.
 Pointing to Pueblo’s current 9.5 percent unemployment rate and the hardships that many private-sector workers have endured, Vigil said that school districts have an even greater challenge than a business. “They have little control over income they receive,” he said, adding that unlike a business, “they have limited ability to determine price, cost or capacity.”
 Because of that, Vigil said, “school districts must manage their budgets from the expense side.”
 He read off a list of dire steps taken around the country of school closures, hundreds of jobs lost and closer to home, in Pueblo County School District 70, four-day weeks and furloughs.
 In 2009, he said, US Bank cut employees’ pay by 5 percent and other companies cut wages twice that. FedEx, Motorola, Honda and other employers have cut pay. “No one has been unaffected and there are no sacred cows,” he said.
 During the public comment session, teacher Leeann Carabelos, told the district that it had the money to follow through with teacher raises.
 Last fall after all other employee groups had gotten 2.2 percent raises, the teachers union, by far the largest employee group, agreed to a 1 percent raise with a 1.2 percent increase retroactive to the beginning of the school year, in January — if a threatened rescission of state money did not occur.
 The General Assembly had warned that with state revenue spiraling downward that there was a good chance it might take back part of school funding. That happened and the district has not given the teachers the additional money.
 Carabelos said that regardless of the state’s action, the district has more than $1 million in its budget for salaries that has been moved back into the general fund. “We have the money,” she said.
 Pam Cordova spoke next offering the PEA union’s proposal for budget cuts that included taking money out of the reserves.
 Barb Clementi, a long-time PEA officer, said that there has been a trend of “over-budgeting” over the last seven years of $1 to $12 million.
 Gina Otero, another teacher, said the district was not supporting teachers now. In spite of providing five computers to every classroom, she said, “We don’t have the technology or the technical support we need. We can’t even get into the computers.
 “It takes six to eight tries just to get into Infinite Campus,” she said, referring to the district’s new comprehensive software.
 “We have seen that there is money in the budget but it’s not making its way to the classrooms. Teachers can no longer afford to foot the bill for supplies when there’s money in the budget.”
 Carole Partin, president of the union, said that the teachers’ point was that the district’s budget was healthy. Deanna Strait, another teacher, was more pointed, saying, “If we’re not going to get our 1.2 (percent) increase then administrators should not get their raises either.”
 The board also heard comments about charter schools. Alvin Rivera, who has been involved in long-running litigation with former Cesar Chavez Academy founder Lawrence Hernandez, who ousted him from the academy board several years ago, said the district board should revoke the charters of the academy and Dolores Huerta Preparatory High.
 On a more positive note, Jodene Muniz, director of grades three through five at the academy thanked the district for its help in administering Colorado Student Assessment Program tests. CCA and DHPH Board President Donielle Gonzales said she had submitted the names of five “highly qualified” board candidates for the district board’s approval.

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Infinite Campus - Limited Grading Software?

When a “60″ Isn’t a “60″, But a “1″

March 11, 2010 | 1:31 pm

Back in August 2009, the City Schools of Decatur adopted a new grading policy (see Action Item C), which would increase the use of International Baccalaureate assessment for learning in Decatur’s school district.

The new methodology contains many components, including a new, vast evaluation method, which assesses a student’s performance on a wide variety of tasks (compositions, essays, research, presentations, etc.), teacher assessments (observation, selected response, collected response, etc) – and the use IB rubrics, anecdotal records,  models and checklists to evaluate student achievement, among others.

However, one piece of this vast puzzle of acronyms and educational buzzwords has received a majority of the attention in the halls of Decatur High School.

Among the key changes adopted with this new grading policy is what might best be described as a shortening of the grading system.  Instead of having an 100-point scale at their disposal, teachers are now asked to grade on a 7-point scale.  Adapting that to the old 100-point scale, student grade possibilities go from 0-100 to 60-100.

And while this grading scale has been in place at Renfroe Middle School for the past 3 1/2 years and is being used at many other schools across Georgia and nationwide, it was newly adopted at Decatur High School this past fall. The change sparked concern among some DHS students, including the editorial board of Decatur High’s news-magazine Carpe Diem.

In an editorial entitled “New policies don’t make the grade“, Jessica Norton writes…

Here’s the issue — creating a cut-off for failing grades removes any incentive for greater mastery. Even if we’re still going to fail a test, knowing that we could earn a 15 gives us more incentive to study – we can improve that score to a 50 or 60 by achieving a greater degree of mastery. By forbidding zeros, the administration has effectively removed our fear of failure.

But has the 0-100 scale ever made sense?  In a research paper provided to Decatur Metro by CSD entitled “The Case Against Zero“, Douglas Reeves, the founder of The Center for Performance Assessment, explains the basic problem with the 0 to 100 scale…

“…the common use of the zero today is based not on a four-point scale, but on a one hundred point scale.  This defies logic and mathematical accuracy.  On a 100-point scale, the interval between numerical and letter grades is typically 10 points, with the break points at 90, 80, 70, and so on.  But when the grade of zero is applied to a 100-point scale, the interval between the D and F is not 10 points but 60 points….To insist on the use of a zero on a 100-point scale is to assert that work that is not turned in deserves a penalty that is many times more severe than that assessed for work that is done wretchedly and is worth a D.”

And it’s not like something similar to a 7 point scale is all that unheard of outside of IB philosophy.  Consider college GPAs: 0.0 – 4.0.  Counting each half-point as a point results in a 9-point scale.  With a GPA there is no 60 point range of failure, just a 0.0.

But all of these mathematical arguments don’t mean the students’ concerns are without merit.

If there is a problem, it seems to be with using the new 7-point grading scale in conjunction with the old 60-100 range.  Doing so may give students – and perhaps their parents – the perception that a 60 is not a 0, but an old D-. Still a terrible grade, but not quite as terrible.  This gets back to Carpe Diem’s concern that students have lost the “fear of failure” with the new scale.

Such a problem might have quickly been remedied by completely revamping the student grading system and using a completely new 7-point scale.

Unfortunately, CSD says it is limited in what it can do with its current grading software.  According to Nahmias and Snider, “we would love to adopt the IB 1 to 7 grading scale rather than try to adapt best practices in grading to an antiquated 0 to 100 scale, but the technology is not at our disposal right now.”  Assistant Superintendent Thomas van Soleon reports that CSD has “asked for a “feature change” for our student info system, Infinite Campus”, but “[we] don’t have a lot of pull.”

And so, until the day when CSD can upgrade their software and students begin receiving “6s” on a paper instead of a “85s”, students and their parents must remain keenly aware that a “60″ is no longer their father’s “60″.

Link: http://www.decaturmetro.com/2010/03/11/when-a-60-isnt-a-60-but-a-1/

Infinite Campus Usage in Madison Metropolitan School District

"Infinite Campus was deployed in the 2006-07 school year..."


"About half of the survey respondents reported they use the gradebook module"


"just over one in five parents currently have a Parent Portal account."


"About one half of high school students have logged into the Infinite Campus Student Portal so far this school year.  At the middle school level this figure is about one of every five students."

Full report: http://boeweb.madison.k12.wi.us/files/boe/Appx%208-12_0.pdf