Aaron CarringtonSeptember 20, 2011Reclaiming DemocracyCivic Discourse Research ProjectOn September 13, 2011, I attended the Guilford contuy school board meeting. The meeting started off with the Pledge of Allegiance, and then two teachers were given awards for their service in education. Then the floor opened up to the public for citizens to speak at the meeting. Anybody could speak at the meeting, but you had to tell the board ahead of time that you were speaking. The speakers at this meeting brought up some very good points.Julie Bowie and Amy Hanson both spoke about the Whole Child Initiative. Basically, this plan is to boost test scores in schools all over the United States. A downfall to this plan is that students wouldn’t have recess anymore. Both Bowie and Hanson disagreed with this part of the initiative and I agree with them also. Kids need to have recess so that they can run off that excess energy that it found in every child around the world. It also used as a break from learning for the kids. Everybody needs at least a small break for every block of class. Also, the teachers need a break from the kids and that is what recess is for. Speaking from experience, I had to work with kids for extended periods of time and I looked forward to the break times, the times where they could just run around and I could just relax. If we take recess away, we would have teachers that are way more stressed out than they are now, and students would be too jumpy and excited to pay attention in class. Lisa Clapp brought up a very controversial point about violence in schools and the communication between home and school. Apparently, a gun was brought into a high school in Greensboro and the administrators did not tell the parents, or anybody, about the incident. Clapp had to go to the students to find out if this was true. She believes that the parents should know what is going on in the schools that their children go to, especially when it comes to their children’s safety. Clapp used the term “transparency” meaning that parents should be able to “see through” the school and know what happens in schools. I believe in Clapp’s theory of transparency and that schools should communicate more with their parents. Linda Welbourne talked about rezoning school zones to accommodate a new school that hasn’t been built yet. She argued that you can’t rezone for a school that hasn’t been built yet and could take two years to build anyway. This debate has been going on for months and is still a highly debated issue inside the Guilford County School Board. Many parents feel the same as Welbourne and don’t agree with the new zoning plans. School board officials are on the opposite side of the argument. I agree with the parents. To me, it doesn’t make sense to start zoning for a school that isn’t built yet. Judd Stafford argued that new teachers working for Guilford County Schools shouldn’t be paid as highly as they are and that the whole school system should cut back on expenses to lessen taxes. He argued that we are still in a bad economy and that we need to save money in order to survive. He argues a good point since our economy is still fragile and we should try save money in case the inevitable happens and our economy totally crashes.My analysis from this meeting is that it was very organized and that the school board really cared about the opinions of the public. Most school boards don’t really care what the public thinks, as long as they get their money for their time with the students. Parents feel as though their voices aren’t being heard in schools. This is seen especially in urban areas. According to Warren, Parents in urban communities do not have the clout to effect change in schools while parents in privileged communities do have the clout (485). Also, Lisa Clapp expressed the qualities of the justice oriented citizen according to Westheimer and Kahne. She went ahead and found out if there was a gun brought to the school and asked why the parents weren’t notified about the situation. She plans on rectifying this situation quickly and establish a transparency between parents and schools. Another issue that was discussed was the demolition of Craven Elementary School. Most citizens were for it and a $270,000 grant was given for the cost of the demolition. A small news article was written by a FOX8 staff writer about the demolition.ReferencesKahne, Joseph, Westheimer, Joel. “What kind of citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy.” American Education Research Journal 41.2 (2004)Warren, Mark. ”Building a Political Constituency for Urban Political Reform” American Education Research Journal (2010)“Greensboro’s Craven Elementary School to be Demolished” Web. FOX8News 14 Sept. 2011
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Fran says:
Jun 13, 2012
Aaron CarringtonSeptember 20, 2011Reclaiming DemocracyCivic Discourse Research ProjectOn September 13, 2011, I attended the Guilford contuy school board meeting. The meeting started off with the Pledge of Allegiance, and then two teachers were given awards for their service in education. Then the floor opened up to the public for citizens to speak at the meeting. Anybody could speak at the meeting, but you had to tell the board ahead of time that you were speaking. The speakers at this meeting brought up some very good points.Julie Bowie and Amy Hanson both spoke about the Whole Child Initiative. Basically, this plan is to boost test scores in schools all over the United States. A downfall to this plan is that students wouldn’t have recess anymore. Both Bowie and Hanson disagreed with this part of the initiative and I agree with them also. Kids need to have recess so that they can run off that excess energy that it found in every child around the world. It also used as a break from learning for the kids. Everybody needs at least a small break for every block of class. Also, the teachers need a break from the kids and that is what recess is for. Speaking from experience, I had to work with kids for extended periods of time and I looked forward to the break times, the times where they could just run around and I could just relax. If we take recess away, we would have teachers that are way more stressed out than they are now, and students would be too jumpy and excited to pay attention in class. Lisa Clapp brought up a very controversial point about violence in schools and the communication between home and school. Apparently, a gun was brought into a high school in Greensboro and the administrators did not tell the parents, or anybody, about the incident. Clapp had to go to the students to find out if this was true. She believes that the parents should know what is going on in the schools that their children go to, especially when it comes to their children’s safety. Clapp used the term “transparency” meaning that parents should be able to “see through” the school and know what happens in schools. I believe in Clapp’s theory of transparency and that schools should communicate more with their parents. Linda Welbourne talked about rezoning school zones to accommodate a new school that hasn’t been built yet. She argued that you can’t rezone for a school that hasn’t been built yet and could take two years to build anyway. This debate has been going on for months and is still a highly debated issue inside the Guilford County School Board. Many parents feel the same as Welbourne and don’t agree with the new zoning plans. School board officials are on the opposite side of the argument. I agree with the parents. To me, it doesn’t make sense to start zoning for a school that isn’t built yet. Judd Stafford argued that new teachers working for Guilford County Schools shouldn’t be paid as highly as they are and that the whole school system should cut back on expenses to lessen taxes. He argued that we are still in a bad economy and that we need to save money in order to survive. He argues a good point since our economy is still fragile and we should try save money in case the inevitable happens and our economy totally crashes.My analysis from this meeting is that it was very organized and that the school board really cared about the opinions of the public. Most school boards don’t really care what the public thinks, as long as they get their money for their time with the students. Parents feel as though their voices aren’t being heard in schools. This is seen especially in urban areas. According to Warren, Parents in urban communities do not have the clout to effect change in schools while parents in privileged communities do have the clout (485). Also, Lisa Clapp expressed the qualities of the justice oriented citizen according to Westheimer and Kahne. She went ahead and found out if there was a gun brought to the school and asked why the parents weren’t notified about the situation. She plans on rectifying this situation quickly and establish a transparency between parents and schools. Another issue that was discussed was the demolition of Craven Elementary School. Most citizens were for it and a $270,000 grant was given for the cost of the demolition. A small news article was written by a FOX8 staff writer about the demolition.ReferencesKahne, Joseph, Westheimer, Joel. “What kind of citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy.” American Education Research Journal 41.2 (2004)Warren, Mark. ”Building a Political Constituency for Urban Political Reform” American Education Research Journal (2010)“Greensboro’s Craven Elementary School to be Demolished” Web. FOX8News 14 Sept. 2011