The path ahead for RB for DV

Dear readers,

Over the past few months my upkeep of the RB for DV blog has declined. This has been the result of the constant movement and other growing responsibilities in my life. To give you an example, this month alone I've finished my junior year at Syracuse University, as general manager of the 250-member campus TV station called CitrusTV, and after being home for just two weeks I am heading to Connecticut to work at ESPN's headquarters for the next 10 weeks.

So first, I would like to apologize for my inability to continue maintaining RB for DV. The blog has not only been a huge online media learning experience for me, it also has provided exclusive content that has resulted in substantial and positive change for our school board and community.

With your help, RB for DV became one of the first places for online discussion about matters in our school district. We made news headlines over the lack of transparency exhibited by the school board, most notably over the political games involved in filling the board's vacancy in 2008.

We became the first, and for a long time, the only place for instant coverage of breaking news affecting the school district and the first and only place for full audio recordings of every minute of every school board meeting for about a year or so. Since our efforts began, the meetings are webcast as part of the School Board 2.0 project, more materials are posted on the district's Web site, and the new majority of the school board has made a concerted effort to raise the priority of a transparent school board.

So second, and in conclusion, I would like to thank you for all of your support and help over the past few years to make RB for DV a success. Nearly 45,000 (45 thousand!) visits to the blog later, we have been a part of the movement to create a more informed and involved public and a more accountable school board and administration. In some small way, this blog has contributed to a better school district and community.

RB for DV will always exist as an archive of the past two to three years of school district business, and it may serve as a hub for information and discussion again some day.

Until then, all the best...

Ryan

DV to stop sending email notifications of meeting changes to the press

The following comes from former school board candidate Bill Greenlaw:

Please note that as of yesterday the Delaware Valley School District has apparently decided not to send the email updates or changes for the School Board Meeting schedule.

Please note that there are two meetings of the Board's Curriculum Committee scheduled:
January 25, 2010 at 6pm in the HS Library Media room
February 8, 2010 will be held at 6:00 in the HS Library Media room

Until this is resolved, I will try to update you on any meetings that I find have been added, deleted or changed. I believe that we may be able to find a way to get electronic notification from the district, but this may take some further discussion. ...

Feel free to use my unofficial Google calendar if you want the current schedule. Click on any event to see the location, some additional details, and a Google map for the location. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed from that calendar so that any changes will be sent to a reader that you may use.

If you are a Google calendar user already you can overlay this calendar onto your Google calendar.

Feel free to contact me if you see any errors or have any comments.

Hope this is helpful.

BFA meeting canceled

The BFA has been cancelled for Thursday, January 14, 2010.

Updated meeting schedule for January

TO: BOARD MEMBERS, ADMINISTRATORS

FROM: LAURIE MILLER

DATE: DECEMBER 18, 2009

RE: UPCOMING BOARD MEETINGS, COMMITTEE MEETINGS – JANUARY 2010

Budget, Finance & Audit Committee Meeting
(Tuesday) January 5, 2010 - 8:00 AM – Delaware Valley Administrative Offices
(Tuesday) January 12, 2010 - 8:00 AM – Delaware Valley Administrative Offices

(Thursday) January 14, 2010
Budget, Finance & Audit Committee Meeting - 6:00 PM – Shohola Elementary School Cafeteria
Work Session- 7:00 PM – Shohola Elementary School Cafeteria

(Thursday) January 21, 2010
Facilities Meeting - 6:00 PM – Shohola Elementary School Cafeteria
Regular Board Meeting - 7:00 PM – Shohola Elementary School Cafeteria

SpringBoard: Listen to the parents, students, teachers

To the editor:

The community is in an uproar over the new SpringBoard curriculum at the Delaware Valley schools.

Before this major education policy change was made, the district should have taken more input from its stakeholders: parents, students, teachers. Instead, those stakeholders are now reacting to SpringBoard – and it isn’t pretty.

SpringBoard is a curriculum sold by the College Board to prepare students for its Advanced Placement (AP) tests.

The College Board is a “non-profit” organization that pushes the agenda of “college for everyone,” which, let’s be honest, really just means tens-of-thousands-of-dollars-in-debt-and-four-years-of-summer-camp-and-frat-parties for everyone – a $160,000 slip of paper that can’t guarantee a graduate a job with a salary that is more than the tuition rate their parents paid for four years.

That digression aside, what the College Board doesn’t publicize is where your taxes, which fund SpringBoard, are going: Its CEO’s $830,000 salary and the organization’s half a BILLION dollars in profit every year. Some “non” profit, huh?

And if the College Board’s unsatisfactory record with the Better Business Bureau doesn’t make SpringBoard look bad enough – the students, parents and teachers hate it.

DV apparently communicated poorly with its stakeholders while planning and implementing SpringBoard. Parents and students are complaining at school board meetings, in the newspapers, even on Facebook.

Some of the district’s best teachers say off the record they felt left out of the process – that they weren’t asked to evaluate the curriculum they’re now forced to teach. Springboard is harming the children in our community, they say. Some top teachers say the administration is suppressing their opposition, and they don’t want to put up with the nonsense.

The administration and school board need to seriously take their stakeholders’ opinions into consideration – especially its teachers.

Hopefully those in power can clean things up before our best teachers get fed up and before our students’ education is put in more jeopardy.

To the new decade,

Ryan Balton
DV ’07
Syracuse, N.Y.