Thursday, October 26, 2006

School District Tidbits 10-26-06

I was going to simply post the current vacant positions at the school district when I saw a new note on the homepage regarding email addresses. As you may recall I recently stated that the District web site administration page only posted name and phone number, while the board included an email address.

Today I found this message on the home page as the second Announcement under Jobs (see below):
School board members may be contacted by emailing schoolboard@nazarethasd.org; district administration may be contacted by emailing administration@nazarethasd.org.
As noted previously, you can also typically use: [first initial][last name]@nazarethasd.org to contact school employees with an email account. Congratulations to the district for putting this information upfront and center (or right column as the case here may be).

Current employment opportunities in the District can be viewed here.

And for the data crunchers, the District has a Student Performance Data page where you can link to sources of school data. This page is available here.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

In addition to the advisory sent home by Principal Mudlock and posted on this website, apparently a parent who lives behind Shafer Elementary has been banned from entering the school.

According to eyewitnesses, the parent, who has had children in the school for several years has grown accustomed to entering the school through the rear. When staff asked her to go around to the front and sign in like evryone else. This parent proceeded to barge through and say "yeah, Yeah, Yeah". This resulted in a ban from the building by Mr. Mudlock.

I have realized that Shafer is even tighter under the new leadership. In light of recent national events, that is probably very prudent. I will miss the days when the office staff would say "Oh, its just Mrs. Doe and let me walk in, sign in, slap on a badge and wander the hallways." Those days are gone and ain't coming back. That is just the world we live in today.

Recently, I was waiting for my child for an early dismissal and thought I would walk over and look in the display case in the lobby. After a few minutes, a staff member (who knew who I was) asked me to please wait in the office while school was in session.

Now, I have my clearances, but once again if those are the new rules, I understand.

RossRN said...

There still needs to be a balance between having an inviting, but safe environment and being in a perpetual state of lock-down.

In the case of the person not following the basic procedure of signing-in and then proceeding to ignore a request to do so, good for Mr. Mudlock for banning them.

In the case of being able to visit, see displays, etc., it seems if you've signed in, have a badge, and your clearances, maybe just the addition of 'reason for visit' would be enough to suffice. There does need to be some accomodation of parents who want to see the school in its operational state.

I would imagine Board Members are allowed to visit for the same reason, to see how it is operating.

As parents, as you say, we need to respect the rules, but at the same time to continue to foster parental involvement, there also has to be reasonable accomodations as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!

Anonymous said...

I am glad to see for myself: the administration and board are finaly making their email addresses easier to spot and click than they have done so in the past.

Anonymous said...

Do you think this is only to receive as many comments as far as the teachers nego go? Funny, It certainly took them along time to show these links. Maybe will hear more replies are sent out too.

RossRN said...

The board emails have been in place, what will be interesting is that this "one email for all" approach means that someone has to receive it and then forward it to the proper party who must then respond to the original submitter.

Simply adding an email link under the name of each admin on the existing page would have probably been more efficient. Like this:

Dr. Victor Lesky, Superintendent, 555-555-5555

A test would be to send in questions on say five distinct topics - food services, buildings, IEP, curriculum, and budget and see who replies to which and how long it takes.

Anonymous said...

My guess is that this is a distribution list that goes to every board member, but is presented as a single address. This is a very common practice with corporate email servers to make it easier to send to a large group and limit the number of addresses one must type. If this is indeed how they set it up, it makes it easier for us to reach out and touch the board. The good news is that you potentially could get multiple replies. What would be interesting is to see how they agree or differ from each other.

On the first comment up top, kudos to Mr. Mudlock for standing his ground and enforcing the rules. At at least one other elementary school in the district, some parents are more "privileged" than others and are not held to the same rules as the rest of us.

RossRN said...

Both points well taken. I was thinking more in terms of the admin side, where you wouldn't want everyone to get everything because most would not be relevant to you, and not as you describe with the Board.

Regarding the rules, I think you also make a good point, over time relationships develop that intentionally or not result in differing privileges.

Thanks again to all for commenting.

Anonymous said...

Many things are changing under the new leadership at Shafer. For the most part I agree with them.

However, I hope these rules will stand no matter who you are in the building. Many times in the past rules only applied to certain people and the rules were waived depending on who you were and if you worked within the district.

As long as all rules are being enforced to everyone, then I tip my hat off to Mr. Mudlock.

Anonymous said...

I think I know the parent(s) involved although I won't out them here. I find it funny that the people who live directly in front of Shafer on the front side have no problem walking to the corner and crossing at the crosswalk while the families in the back choose to cross in the middle of the street which causes a hazardous situation especially at pickup when the area has a number of minivans and SUVs that are hard to see through or around.

I don't know why these two families can't follow procedure like everyone else. Victory Lane has become littered with embezzlers and malcontents.

RossRN said...

Thanks for the comments, and I think the points been well-made, but no need to disparage all of a streets residences.

It seems the specific matter was well-handled by the school.

Also, is it much different (those living on Victory lane wanting to access the back and not follow the rules) from people who drop their kids off from the car while at the stop sign without parking the vehicle at Belvidere and Liberty or who drop off on liberty between center and belvidere. They aren't supposed to, but they do it because its easier for them and there is little ability to stop them.

Convenience seems to be the over-riding factor for most people, regardless of the 'rules'. Its unfortunate, but seems to be true.

Anonymous said...

Interesting comments above, I would like to add: This year I have seen numerous parents stopping to park on Victory Lane 1- either walk their children across the parking lot to enter the rear of the building or 2- just drop them off. 3rdly Also some parents walk this route with their dogs to escort their child in the back of Shafer.
Take note these folks do not live on Victory Lane but were using such as if it was the ways Belvidere and Liberty are used as a drop off zone.

Anonymous said...

The other pet peeves are the people who make the left off of Victory Lane into the Shafer rear lot even though it is clearly posted that this is prohibited.

As far as all of those parents who drop their kids off by the memorial garden ... that area is for walkers. If you are dropping them there they aren't exactly walkers are they? Can;t you drive the extra 1/4 mile , queue up and drop them in the back like you are supposed to?

Embezzlers and malcontents .. I love it.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the district can pony up another $.5MM to fix the pick up/ drop off problems at Shafer like they did at LNES (please note sarcasm and humor on this, and really pointing at the boards attempts to fix an issue in a way similar to curing dandruf through decapitation)!

What really needs to happen is that some people need to stop thinking that they are more important than everyone else and that their time is more valuable than mine. Shafer is not alone in this as I can attest that LNES has their own share of them with the only difference that the principal there looks the other way for the "privileged" few.

It would be nice to have some law enforcement types around Shafer during pick up and drop off, similar to what they do at NAMS, but start writing out tickets. If there are no current laws prohibiting it, let's get some passed then open the cash register to accept the fines.

These rules for conduct in and around the school (for students and PARENTS alike) are there for the PROTECTION of our children, not to make life easier for a few.

So to those who feel the rules don't apply to them, suck it up, start you day a couple minutes early and wait in line like the rest of us.

RossRN said...

Happy Friday!

Regarding LNES, don't forget the District intentionally removed the crossing guard at LNES so that all children (except those using blackpath) would have to be bused. This took place when the developer turned a road over to the township that would have required former busers to become walkers (they were within a mile and a half by public roadway).

Instead of having them walk and hearing the complaints of the parents, the District removed the crossing guard and bused them.

One stop was even infront of the school and the bus came from Newburg Inn direction, so it stopped infront of the school, put its lights on, the child crossed Newburg Road, got in the bus, and the bus turned into the school and dropped the child off.

Now we pay for a loop and an extra row of parking to solve a problem that was partially caused by the district in the first place.

Thanks to all for commenting, I think I'm going to have a beer - enjoy the weekend!

Anonymous said...

I'll second the beer.