2012-13 School Meetings

Posted on by

Please mark your calendar for the following 2012-13 School Board and District Meetings:

 

School Board Business Meeting

Monday, August 27, 2012 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting

Monday, September 24, 2012 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

District Listening Session

Thursday, October 4, 2012 7:00-8:30 PM

Location TBA

 

School Board Work Session

Monday, October 8, 2012 9:00 AM

Health & Science School

18640 NW Walker Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting

Monday, October 29, 2012 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting

Tuesday, November 13, 2012 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting

Tuesday, December 11, 2012 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting

Monday, January 14, 2013 3:30 PM

BSD Administration Building

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

*Budget Committee Meetings TBA

 

District Listening Session

Tuesday, January 22, 2012 7:00-8:30 PM

Location TBA

 

School Board Work Session

Monday, February 4, 2013 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Sunset High School

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting

Monday, February 25, 2013 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting

Monday, March 18, 2013 6:30 PM

Mountain View Middle School

17500 SW Farmington Road, Beaverton, Oregon 97007

 

School Board Business Meeting

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 6:30 PM

Aloha High School

18550 Southwest Kinnaman Road, Aloha, OR 97007

 

District Listening Session

Thursday, April 11, 2012 7:00-8:30 PM

Location TBA

 

School Board Work Session

Tuesday, April 30, 2013 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Location TBD

 

*School Board elections in May — Are you registered to vote?  Is your 18+ year old child registered?

 

District Listening Session

Thursday, May 16, 2012 7:00-8:30 PM

Location TBA

 

School Board Business Meeting

Monday, May 20, 2013 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting

Monday, June 3, 2013 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

 

School Board Business Meeting (TBA)

Tuesday, June 18, 2013 6:30 PM

BSD Administration Center

16650 SW Merlo Road, Beaverton, OR 97006

Beaverton School District Board Meeting Testimony by Carolyn Talarr August 27th

Posted on by

Beaverton School District Board Meeting Testimony by Carolyn Talarr on Behalf of Beaverton Friends of Music

 

My name is Carolyn Talarr, and I’m the mother of a rising sophomore at Southridge. Before motherhood, I received a Master of Fine Arts from Yale, taught for several years, and completed doctoral classwork as a Dean’s Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. While there, I led a seminar sponsored by the National Center for Adult Literacy, in which I trained local literacy professionals in ‘practitioner inquiry’. Practitioner- or in K-12, Teacher-Inquiry, is a direct forebear of what’s known now as ‘collaboration’, ‘learning teams’, and so on.

 

I am here tonight as a member of the Beaverton Friends of Music, the folks in the red shirts. We are a group of parents, students, and teachers who are alarmed by the vastly disproportionate, unexplained and inexplicable cuts to music education in this year’s budget. We are also concerned about all the cuts that could have been prevented, as well as the spending choices and the directions they imply.

 

We’re glad to know that you want to hear the voices of the community you represent. We consider the discussion on last year’s budget to be still open, in accordance with Oregon State Budget Law, and the discussion for the coming year’s budget to be starting now. We will be attending every Board meeting, work session, and District listening session this year. In addition, a team of Beaverton Friends of Music members is now assigned to each zone and will be in contact with their board member regularly.

 

We hope that this ongoing communication can help the Beaverton School Board wisely identify and nourish the solid strengths that we have in place already in teachers and programs. The community values these teachers and programs not for sentimental reasons, but because, by any standard—qualitative or quantitative, they’ve *proven* to be highly educationally effective.  We look forward to working with each one of you toward this end.

Beaverton School District Board Meeting Testimony by Laurel Bookhardt August 27, 2012

Posted on by

Beaverton School District Board Meeting Testimony by Laurel Bookhardt        August 27, 2012

Why not have a gallbladder surgeon perform triple bypass surgery?  Both physicians are MDs.  In fact, both are surgeons.  Let’s take it down a notch and just ask the gallbladder surgeon to teach an upper division class on heart surgery.  Would that be acceptable?

This example may seem extreme, but it’s quite analogous to what is now happening in our high school music programs. Oregon State policy does not discern between certified music teachers specializing in instrumental performance versus vocal performance.  Yes, the language of state policy is broad.  It must allow flexibility for the needs of about 200 school districts large and small.  In Beaverton we have and can do better.

The fall out of the budget crisis and spending decisions this year has been devastating to music programs at Beaverton high schools.  By cutting high school music positions to part time, and defaulting to state policy, we have allowed for specialized training among our music teachers to be eliminated.
Let me speak directly to the situation at Aloha High School where in the past we’ve had a full time choral music specialist and a full time instrumental specialist.  This year we’ve been cut to .6 choir and .4 band positions and the Human Resources department has selected the same individual to teach both choir and band.  I understand that some other high schools are sharing choral specialists for choir and instrumental specialists for band.  While the programs are greatly scaled back, this arrangement keeps the integrity of music education.

But this is not the arrangement at Aloha High School.  Please do not let this crisis situation produce a new precedent which will further degrade our district music programs.  Instead let it sound the alarm that we need to institute new policy at the district level to preserve quality education by requiring choral or instrumental specialization for our certified music teachers at the high school level.  It is in a spirit of cooperation, I look to you, our elected Board members to recognize the importance of music education and put policy in place to protect it from further damage.

Beaverton School District has a proud history of providing highly educated instructors in our classrooms.  According to the district website, 84% of our teachers possess master’s degrees or above.  Why would we chose to jeopardize our 9th through 12th grade music students, those at the top of the instructional ladder who have reached a superior level of proficiency in their study and ability, by selecting a music teacher who is not trained in the particular techniques appropriate to their discipline?  A choir director does not simply direct, but must be able to teach and model proper technique.  Gaining these skills takes years of education and practice.   Vocal chords can be damaged and bad habits can form that can take years to correct without a specialized instructor in place.  For instance, if a student is placed in an inappropriate range, say as a baritone when they’re actually a tenor, vocal chords can be damaged.  Damage also occurs if a student uses straight tone singing and is not corrected and taught to use healthy vibrato techniques or uses a flat tongued technique or has developed a habit of singing with locked solar plexus and goes uncorrected.  Instrumental techniques are not transferrable to vocal techniques.  Likewise, vocal techniques are not transferrable to playing the French horn, tuba or drums.  They are as different as the gallbladder and the heart, both part of the same body, but with specific and distinct functions.  These differences become more apparent as students move up the ladder in proficiency in their particular discipline.

Let us learn from today’s harsh realities, the repercussions of the crisis in our district.  We need to protect the education of our upper level music students so they are college and career ready by putting in place district policy that requires vocal music specialists in choir classrooms and instrumental specialists as band directors.

Policy can be put in place at all levels.  Recently I’ve learned that Southridge High School has additional graduation requirements on top of the Beaverton School District requirements.  Southridge requires 60 hours of Service Learning. Students who meet all the BSD requirements but do not complete Service Learning will not receive a diploma at Southridge.
If one school in our district can set policy to raise the standards of graduation requirements, can’t our Board set policy to require higher standards in BSD than are required by the broad language of umbrella policy that applies to the myriad of rural, urban and suburban school districts across the state of Oregon?

Respectfully submitted by
Laurel Bookhardt, parent of Aloha High students involved in music education since 2005.

The Purpose of K-12 Education by Anthony Cody

Posted on by

The Purpose of K-12 Education

 

Education fulfills our social obligation, as a people, to transfer the wealth of human knowledge to all our children. The goal of our public system is to allow every child to develop his/her talent, and bring each one of them into full membership in our economic, cultural, and social national community. This includes music, the arts, sports, physical and mental play, communication and expression. We prepare children to become active contributors to our culture and full participants in our democratic institutions.

 

We have PUBLIC schools to create a common space where children of all races, creeds and income levels gather to learn together. Our goal is not only to educate the individual, but also to build our ability to understand each other.

 

When I think of my own students in Oakland, my goal was not just to teach them the facts of science. I wanted to give them power in relationship to the world they encounter. I wanted them to be able to ask their own questions, and use the tools of science to investigate the world. Our disciplines of science, language arts, social studies, art and math are not just bodies of knowledge to be memorized. They are ways of interrogating and changing reality. History is an inquiry into the past that helps us understand our present and change our future. Language arts allows us to understand the writings of others, but also to express our own ideas in powerful ways.

 

Our students are growing up in a confusing world, where so many decisions have been made for them. The world is changing so fast, they need the most versatile set of tools possible. That means they need to be able to think for themselves, and do so with critical minds. The world MUST change because many of the ways we behave are not sustainable. Our students must be prepared not only to react and cope, but also to guide this transformation.

 

In the classroom this means teachers need the autonomy to figure out the best ways to get their students excited and engaged in their community and the world in which they live. They should be doing projects in which they tackle open-ended problems. They should be interacting with adults in their communities, with local businesses and academic institutions. The school should be a hub of community activity, and the students should be a source for solutions to community problems.

Marching Band Petition

Posted on by

This is a special post to the musicians who are in High School Marching Bands in Beaverton, and to parents of musicians:

Are you frustrated that you won’t be able to make your opinion known at the School Board meeting on Monday night about the cuts and confusion that have surrounded Marching Band this month? You can be present at the meeting through this petition–we will take the signatures and comments of everyone who ‘likes’ and if you desire, comment on, this letter to the School Board directly. One great aspect of this letter is that even though you’ll have to miss the meeting, all Marching Band musicians across the District can come together and speak as one. Of course, please feel free to add anything you want in your comment. We want everyone’s voices to be heard, especially those of the students, who are the most crucial stakeholders of all.

If you are a Marching Band parent, you are also most welcome to sign and comment. Please indicate that you’re a parent in your reply.

So please sign onto this, add anything you want to make sure gets said and **pass this to all the band members you can**! Feel free to sign on behalf of any band members you know who don’t happen to have facebook, but who have read the letter and want to join in.

EVEN if you CAN make the meeting, for instance if your Band Camp is over in time to get to the meeting at 6:30, you can still sign the petition to show solidarity and then come in person as well–that would be great!

Here it is:

To the School Board and Superintendent Rose:

We are student musicians in Beaverton high school marching bands. Our lives were thrown into turmoil this past summer by the badly-managed cuts in music at our high schools. Thankfully, we are now at marching band camp, as the bands were allowed to continue, although with many fewer members. Some schools rehired laid-off teachers and some hired outside contractors, rather than keeping our beloved, experienced teachers/Band Directors. While we’re thankful for marching band season, hiring contractors at the last minute is no way to run a music program that will retain its award-winning record, and it reminds us all over again how precious our music programs and teachers are.

Although we can’t attend the School Board meeting on Monday, we want the Board and Supt. Rose to know we will be there in spirit. As students, we know that music is *a core academic subject* and we want our music classes and groups brought back fully as soon as possible. Why? Because no single activity in school is stronger than music education; nothing grows more aspects of our experience as developing individuals and as community members. Music should be a *top* priority in the school budget at all levels because it is proven, beyond dispute, to build creative, innovative, disciplined leaders in every walk of life.

We want our younger brothers and sisters—and every generation to come—to have the benefits that we have had from music as part of their own Beaverton public school education. We ask you to reverse your destructive choices about music immediately and restore some of the best learning that Beaverton schools have to offer.