I am a parent of a 6th grade girl at the NMS. When I received the letter sent home to parents, I emailed Principal Pesta the next day. That very same night, Mr. Pesta called us at home, and had a wonderful discussion with my husband, explaining what was going on with SNL. He was forthcoming and polite. He asked if he could send our name along to a new committee being formed to revamp SNL for next year. we said of course. We are ready and willing to step up, not sit back and complain. SNL is run in conjunction with community ed, and community ed is involved in planning the events.

After David Henke’s very welcome and illuminating article in the Northfield News, (which I already knew because I had emailed the principal), I also emailed the lady at community ed in charge of this committee (Jennifer I think). I told her my husband and I wanted to help. She emailed me back immediately, already had my name from Principal Pesta, and was happy to have me and my husband on board.

We are putting our money where our mouths are, so to speak, even it means I am spending my friday nights with a group of middle schoolers, chaperoning. (Not my fave thing to do I admit, but if this is going to continue, I suspect that it needs community involvement from responsible parents). That is what makes a good public school system.

Politics aside and irrelevant — just show up. join the revamping committee, and then follow through and attend the SNLs if and when you are needed. that is my plan.

Several times the Northfield Police Department responded to calls from the middle school during Saturday Night Live, according to Northfield Police Chief Mark Taylor and School Liaison Officer Thad Monroe. At the most recent SNL session on Jan. 24, an assault report was filed with the police after a fist-fight broke out between two students.

I have to say I have admired the SNL supervision and staffing–they get some college kids. I don’t think they need bouncers, but Anthony would be my first choice.

I think there is just such a large concentration of kids that it is a real crowd–and if you know anything about crowd control, you might need one-on-one or at least a big horse to really maintain control. I think that is the main problem–can they provide a safe environment consistently–I really think they break up the fights as soon as reasonable–the idea would be to set it up so that there are no fights to begin with. Some of these kids think they are in “Fight Club”-so it takes spotting them before it happens.

Regardless, I think that the staff at the Middle School have really done a great job–they have sort of caused their own problem by making it so attractive that everybody wants to be there–and stuffing all those kids into the recreational area is just too much.

… it is our experience that the number of students attending and the scope of activities occurring at these events have resulted in increasing challenges to our ability to provide a well-supervised, positive experience for all attendees.

It also seems likely that there would have been some attempts to deal with the problem short of abrupt cancellation. What were those attempts? What happened?

I’d like to emphasize that I applaud the District for even having a program like SNL.  And without knowing more, I’m not blaming them for the problems or the failure of attempts to deal with the problems. I’m only being critical of the communications about it all.

Peter, you are right about Washington DC and California where the public school systems have failed. But Minnesota is doing much better than that, and we should expect it to be the best choice–but that means staying involved, going to meetings, and lobbying for reform. Otherwise, the rich get private education and the rest of america fails.

For the American dream to be revived, we need to have a free and appropriate education for all of our young citizens. (Free and appropriate are legal terms–don’t lecture me that education is not free. I know it is not free–but it should be free to every student. It is our responsibility to educate all students–not just my student.)

to save money for all the rich, over-compensated, hedge-fund robbing rich guys.

Jane, these guys are usually Democrats. Its the hardworking owner of the local bowling alley or manufacturing plant the is the base of the Republican party.

Democrat candidates take lion’s share of hedge fund campaign contributions

http://www.hedgeweek.com/articles/detail.jsp?content_id=111006

How do Northfield’s schools rate if they’re disaggregated by demographic data? If the news were good, they’d being telling us, right?

Also to Jane — she may look at the world through a (far-left) political lens, but not everyone thinks primarily about politics. It does not strengthen one’s argument to attribute one’s own motives to others. Nor are the people who believe that American education as a whole is bloated and unresponsive to parents’ concerns motivated by “trying to save money” for hedge-fund managers.

kids – YES
parents – YES
teachers – YES
legislators – YES
administration – YES
the community – YES
american society – YES
peter — YES
me — YES

look! everyone is to blame, and EVERYONE has to work together to become an academic superpower again.

Peter, I am not going to respond to
your continual public education
bashing. Your approach is part of the
radical right wing Republicans attempt
to dismantle the public school system
to save money for all the rich,
over-compensated, hedge-fund robbing
rich guys.

Attitudes and opinions like these are partially to blame why we won’t be able to fix the current issues.
This is just more of the same “those means right wing rich hedge fund managers”, while completely ignoring the fact that pretty much all people with money send their kids to private schools…..including the political elite…including your hero Obama.

He wants to keep the children of the poor in failing public schools while he sends his kids to elite schools.
In the meantime the little people fight over who is more right (or left).
Priceless.

Our Northfield students have gone on to great success and this has been for decades. Yes, some students get missed–but our overall success rate speaks for itself. We can and should do better, and I think our school board and teachers are working to that goal. (I think the administration can take less credit.)

That said, I asked my middle school daughter why she thinks that they suspended SNL, and she said it was because of all the fights. She described mostly boys but some girls getting into fist fights, many times for no or obscure reasons.

I think parents love dumping their kids at SNL, and some (not many) parents have missed giving their kids the proper message on what constitutes acceptable behavior when they are at the school using our public facility. There are college students, parents and faculty supervising, but there are a large number of kids that are not under normal restrictions of following a set schedule–so it is difficult to have enough supervision for all. May understanding is that the majority of attendees were well behaved, but it doesn’t take many fights to cause a lot of trouble.

I really appreciated SNL for my kids, and I hope they can come up with a plan to keep it going. I think it is unfortunate that the bad behavior of a few has caused this program to be suspended, and I think the parent letter was fine–I am glad they identified a problem and are trying to fix it.

Somehow, being smart became uncool.

Bruce,

Maybe you don’t believe me..here is somebody with more authority.

Quote:

“More money doesn’t mean better schools”

Well, you might want to complain to
Governor (and soon-to-be presidential
candidate) T-Paw about his no new
taxes stance which has pushed numerous
government services and expenses down
to the local level (the buck has to
stop somewhere). That’s the source of
most of the increase.

Do you really believe things would and will be different under somebody else?
Don’t you understand that is not about Democrats and Republicans anymore?
This is about an irresponsible and out of touch legislator in general, that is more interested in protecting their own interest and re-election then to do what is right.

I am neither a Republican or Democrat…. I am an American first.

I understand your denial when it comes to school performance.If one is used to only one way of life and thinking it is quiet difficult to look at oneself to see the reality.
I also appreciate your defensive posture on this issue, since you are directly affected by it.

This stance is not very productive, since it bars us from coming up with better solutions. There are certain “sacred cows” the left doesn’t want to talk about. Any attempt of a discussion of those ends up with name calling and circling the wagon.

These issues are education, war on poverty, social security and national health care.Despite real facts and mostly failure or mediocrity in this areas the left tends to get defensive about them.
Despite evidence of failure there is no room for an open discussion, unless people agree on the status quo.

If you want to know how far our education has become stupefied I suggest you take a look at some older curriculum’s and compare them to today.

Thank you for confirming that our students are lagging behind, most of your points confirm just that.

Unless we put common sense above ideology we will never solve these problems.

Curt, I do agree that the vast majority of our teachers and administrators have good intentions and are hard working and competent. I think Griff may have a point about 20th century communication…but good communication takes time – and good timing! I think the district probably lacks both of those things.

Personally I am tired of the excuses made by all in this regard while at the same time see my property taxes go up 12% (despite loss of home value)

Well, you might want to complain to Governor (and soon-to-be presidential candidate) T-Paw about his no new taxes stance which has pushed numerous government services and expenses down to the local level (the buck has to stop somewhere). That’s the source of most of the increase.

and

to finance an extra hour of morning coffee.

Now, that’s just flat out a gratuitous insult directed at our community’s teachers. Not a fact. Shame on you.

In this particular thread I was
“bashing” the school administration
and school board for poor
communication.

Well, it’s a fact that you were bashing the school administration and school board when you, on extremely limited information (misinformation?) opined “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” However, it is not a fact that they actually engaged in poor communication. As Susan Canon pointed out at length in post 4, Northfield Public Schools Community Service Division sent letters and e-mails to all middle school parents. Seems like reasonably good communication to me. Sorry, but that’s my fact.

Which just happens to coincide with another thread, where the very same board and administrator have put teacher’s interest above the interest of students and parents.

That’s hardly a fact. Strictly your (misguided in my opinion) opinion. Sorry. Not a fact.

In connection with this I pointed out
that OUR students are lagging behind
against standards set by other
industralized nations.

Well, we’re at least getting closer to factual territory here. It is true that, by some measures, US students perform more poorly, on average, than students in SOME OTHER industrialized nations. I’m certainly no scholar of this issue, but a brief perusal of the Web guided me to what seems to be a reasonably reliable study by the Institute for Education Statistics
([Highlights From PISA 2006: Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Old Students in Science and Mathematics Literacy in an International Context
U. S. Department of Education
NCES 2008-016].1) There are similar PISA reports from 2003 focused on mathematics literacy and from 2000 on reading literacy. Having briefly scanned the studies’ results, I think it’s fair to say the following:

• US students performed, on average, a bit more poorly than the overall average for the 30 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development–broadly speaking, North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea) nations in science, math and reading. Not the worst, by any means, but not near the top, either.
• Socioeconomic status, race, and immigrant status seem to play an important role in how students in the US performed. For example, white US students performed significantly better than the OECD average, while black and Hispanic students performed significantly poorer than the OECD average. No surprise there, as there is a well-documented performance gap in schools around the country. None of the other countries has anything like the racial diversity and immigrant-student-related challenges we face here in US schools.
• Student performance is quite good in countries with a variety of forms of government, including some of the European social-democratic countries you like to rail against, Peter, as well as countries such as Japan and Korea.
• The Finns kick ass in science.

Getting back to the more specific issue of (Northfield) public-school bashing, I again assert that students in Northfield are educated quite well. My opinion only, not a fact. Sorry.

Which just happens to coincide with another thread, where the very same board and administrator have put teacher’s interest above the interest of students and parents.

In connection with this I pointed out that OUR students are lagging behind against standards set by other industralized nations.
Sorry that you don’t like it, but those are the facts. To under score my assumptions I have posted several links to prove my point.
The sooner we admit these facts the sooner we can fix them.
Personally I am tired of the excuses made by all in this regard while at the same time see my property taxes go up 12% (despite loss of home value) to finance an extra hour of morning coffee.

Understood. I was feeling a little defensive about what I perceived to be rather global accusations that disagreement with the district could be equated with a generalized hatred or distrust of all public school officials, teachers or policies.

As I said, I try to take things on a case-by-case basis.

Thank you for clarifying your point. I understand it better and agree with you.