LTE 1/3/08 - Naperville Sun

[EagleDad]

warriorpride said:

eagledad said:

well he didn't so that was a small portion of McCarty.

Just today, people were advocating that Mr Bridge has a reasonable point.

Did the small group of McCarty kids not learn to tie their shoes together with the rest of McCarty?

The fact remains there was only 1 ES split at BB and if I recall (someone remind me, how many kids was it?) that was a really small number of students (not 50/50 splits as were throughout your north options).

But I would undo that split rather than repeating it 4 or 5 more times.

[gatordog]

eagledad said:

OK, if you think splitting ES and MS willy nilly is the way to go, that's fine. But the rest of the district calls that "pain". Fact is these are kids that learned to tie their shoes together when you split at the ES level.

No...I dont think splitting ES's "willy nilly" is way to go either. But I dont think it should be ruled out either, if its done with thought.
One criteria that I had in the back of my mind was apt/townhome areas are "ok" to split away from bulk of ES area. I am making an assumption that many of these kids werent living there 10 yrs previously and probably the vast majority didnt attend their ES based on their current apartment address.

Can you please recap your exact options (there were many changes along the way, along with the calculated ISAT achievement scores (and those of Current , BB, and Macom) that would be good, because the last set of ISAT scores I could find (who's post on page 6 of the northern site) had your option 2 at a whopping 6.6 achievement gap - higher than all other options, and over double the BB achevement gap of 3.1.

The 6.6 gap was miscalculation. After typo was corrected in the spreadsheet, the gap was ~ 3.5 for option 2. I doesnt do any good to repeat bad calculations! (By the way of comparison, current ISAT numbers put BB achievegap at ~3.9)

It would also be good to know how you determine the ISAT scores to split for the Split Middle ES's, as if you split them on areas that have different socio-economic conditions, or mobility rates, you can't/shouldn't use the same score for both parts.

I did of course use scores as being evenly distributed among entire ES area. An amatuer like me doesnt easily have this breakdown, as you know! Complete valid assumption for rough hypotheticals IMHO.

[EagleDad]

warriorpride said:

1) I'm not treating splits willy nilly, nor would the SB. It's a fact that a number of MSs will be split once the MS boundaries are changed. One or more ESs will likely be split, as well. All of this will be true, regardless of the MV location or boundaries.

2) There are better and worse gaps (boundaries) for each possible location.

3) You know it's impossible to compute an exact 100% correct gap analysis with split ESs, so why are you asking for it? Would 1/2 an ES really impact an HSs score that much?

1). Sorry I was talking to gatordog about the splits on his options for a northern site - Did you have some options that had splits as well? If so can you recap those with achievement score gaps, and number of ES feeder students at each HS?

2). We know the worse for BB is 3.1. Everything else I've seen ranges from 4.1 to 6.6 on one of the options at AME.

3). Yes, 1/2 an ES when you've split 4 ES's can significantly affect the scores.

To keep it simple, don't split the ES's. Show me a boundary option at AME or Ferry that has no split ES's, a 30/30/40 percentage split of students at MVHS/WVHS/NVHS and doesn't have the highest achievement gap the district has ever seen.

To date I haven't seen this unless I lost it along the way in the 30+ pages of the northern site thread and my garage full of empty wine boxes.

[d204mom]

warriorpride said:

Just today, people were advocating that Mr Bridge has a reasonable point.

I'll go on record as saying that I think Mr. Bridge has a reasonable gripe, just like GOM and BD had reasonable gripes with the BB boundaries.

I'll also go on record as stating that it's not too late to fix the BD / GOM / Mr. Bridge gripes even if the new school is at BB.

After all, everyone is fond of saying that nothing was "legally binding" in the referendum except that they have the right to use 124.6 MIL to build and equip a 3rd high school. They can even use more if they've got it. Why should we trust anything the board tells us except what they are bound by law to do? Lesson learned in my book!

[EagleDad]

gatordog said:

One criteria that I had in the back of my mind was apt/townhome areas are "ok" to split away from bulk of ES area. I am making an assumption that many of these kids werent living there 10 yrs previously and probably the vast majority didnt attend their ES based on their current apartment address.

As you probably know, Apt/townhomes have a much higher mobility rate (you reference this in your reasoning favoring the split) and rate of single parentage than single family homes. These are two of the biggest factors on academic achievement (trust me, I've seen some fairly hefty analysis done on D203). Due to this, I think you need to factor that in when splitting that many ES's.

[gatordog]

eagledad said:

2). We know the worse for BB is 3.1. Everything else I've seen ranges from 4.1 to 6.6 on one of the options at AME.

the 6.6 is not correct, see pg 12 of the whopper thread:
www.ipsd204.proboards76.com/index.cgi?board=newhighschool&action=display&thread=1196743597&page=12

And with today's numbers....BB clocks in at ~3.9.

[warriorpride]

eagledad said:

warriorpride said:

1) I'm not treating splits willy nilly, nor would the SB. It's a fact that a number of MSs will be split once the MS boundaries are changed. One or more ESs will likely be split, as well. All of this will be true, regardless of the MV location or boundaries.

2) There are better and worse gaps (boundaries) for each possible location.

3) You know it's impossible to compute an exact 100% correct gap analysis with split ESs, so why are you asking for it? Would 1/2 an ES really impact an HSs score that much?

1). Sorry I was talking to gatordog about the splits on his options for a northern site - Did you have some options that had splits as well? If so can you recap those with achievement score gaps, and number of ES feeder students at each HS?

2). We know the worse for BB is 3.1. Everything else I've seen ranges from 4.1 to 6.6 on one of the options at AME.

3). Yes, 1/2 an ES when you've split 4 ES's can significantly affect the scores.

To keep it simple, don't split the ES's. Show me a boundary option at AME or Ferry that has no split ES's, a 30/30/40 percentage split of students at MVHS/WVHS/NVHS and doesn't have the highest achievement gap the district has ever seen.

To date I haven't seen this unless I lost it along the way in the 30+ pages of the northern site thread and my garage full of empty wine boxes.

The fact that 3 or 4 ESs have walkers to WV makes the no-ES-splits impossible.

[EagleDad]

no it doesn't - move the walkers up north

[doctorwho]

warriorpride said:

eagledad said:

1). Sorry I was talking to gatordog about the splits on his options for a northern site - Did you have some options that had splits as well? If so can you recap those with achievement score gaps, and number of ES feeder students at each HS?

2). We know the worse for BB is 3.1. Everything else I've seen ranges from 4.1 to 6.6 on one of the options at AME.

3). Yes, 1/2 an ES when you've split 4 ES's can significantly affect the scores.

To keep it simple, don't split the ES's. Show me a boundary option at AME or Ferry that has no split ES's, a 30/30/40 percentage split of students at MVHS/WVHS/NVHS and doesn't have the highest achievement gap the district has ever seen.

To date I haven't seen this unless I lost it along the way in the 30+ pages of the northern site thread and my garage full of empty wine boxes.

The fact that 3 or 4 ESs have walkers to WV makes the no-ES-splits impossible.

unless you go even further for the schools to fill MV north - that would be true -- Owen ? WE ? Fry ?

If Steck / Georgetown / Mc Carty are not split - there must be 3 further schools to replace them - that would be true.

Even if they are split - it will put kids from a minimum of 8/9 and as many as 11 ES's into MV north.

BD
LW
YOUNG
BROOKS

Steck - a % of non walkers
McCarty - a % of non walkers
Georgetown - a % of non walkers

then from Gombert / Cowlishaw / Watts / Owen / WE whatever is needed to complete the fill

[d204mom]

eagledad said:

no it doesn't - move the walkers up north

And put Welch walkers at WV. Daeschner seems to think that roads are "natural boundaries" - whatever the heck that means - so send everything N. of Ogden to North school, everything N. of 95 th to WV and everything s of 95 to NV.

[gatormom]

d204mom said:

warriorpride said:

Just today, people were advocating that Mr Bridge has a reasonable point.

I'll go on record as saying that I think Mr. Bridge has a reasonable gripe, just like GOM and BD had reasonable gripes with the BB boundaries.

I'll also go on record as stating that it's not too late to fix the BD / GOM / Mr. Bridge gripes even if the new school is at BB.

After all, everyone is fond of saying that nothing was "legally binding" in the referendum except that they have the right to use 124.6 MIL to build and equip a 3rd high school. They can even use more if they've got it. Why should we trust anything the board tells us except what they are bound by law to do? Lesson learned in my book!

Gombert had no gripe with the BB boundaries. They asked to stay at WV, were told no, and moved on. That is not a gripe. If Gombert is sent to the AME site, they will get over it. If Gombert is sent to Macom, they will get over it. And if Gombert is sent to WV, they will be pleasantly surprised and love it.

Funny, most people I know from my neighborhood just want the school built and soon and please, don't ask for more money.

[we4]

So I have not read all pages because I can't believe there is 4 pages to read. I guess I don't understand the point of the letter.

This may have been pointed out in those 4 pages that I didn't read, but my whole point about this LTE is that we do not know where the 3rd HS will be. If it's at Macom, then most if not all of the Fry attendance area (where I think this gentleman is from) would be defined as walkers. Unless it was written many months ago, put in a queue and was finally published.

Just my 2 cents. My 2008 turning over of a new, more vocal leaf.

If this was already discussed, pardon my interruption.

[gatordog]

d204mom said:

warriorpride said:

Just today, people were advocating that Mr Bridge has a reasonable point.

I'll go on record as saying that I think Mr. Bridge has a reasonable gripe, just like GOM and BD had reasonable gripes with the BB boundaries.

Yes, the reasonable gripe is NV is nearby. It has NOTHING to do with walking though, in my opinion.

We all know NV is about a 1/2 mi east of 59 already. Look at a map. For any nearby house in Tall Grass to use the bridge to get to school, its over a mile walk. Their time to walk to school would exceed the much-discussed potential Watts and Cowl bus ride to a northern site!

Now Tall Grass walking to their neighborhood ES and neighborhood MS (as others have pointed out), thats a different story!

[macy]

gatordog said:

d204mom said:

I'll go on record as saying that I think Mr. Bridge has a reasonable gripe, just like GOM and BD had reasonable gripes with the BB boundaries.

Yes, the reasonable gripe is NV is nearby. It has NOTHING to do with walking though, in my opinion.

We all know NV is about a 1/2 mi east of 59 already. Look at a map. For any nearby house in Tall Grass to use the bridge to get to school, its over a mile walk. Their time to walk to school would exceed the much-discussed potential Watts and Cowl bus ride to a northern site!

Now Tall Grass walking to their neighborhood ES and neighborhood MS (as others have pointed out), thats a different story!

Gatordog,

Time and time again you've pointed out how unfair that is. I'm not sure whether or not that was a criteria and should be in any decision that the SB will make.

To be fair, I've never heard anyone from the SB point to that fact as to why we should not attend a HS in close proximity.

Are you implying we should be moved to a farther location in terms of HS assignment because of the fact Fry and Scullen are within the TG/Pencross Knoll areas?

I'm interested in just how far away from the closest high school is fair enough in your judgement to balance out the elementary and middle school placement within the subdivision?

How can that criteria be fairly applied throughout the district?

ETA: Looking at the district map assuming WVHS Gold becomes a middle school, are you saying that Georgetown should be moved to a high school that's farther away than WVHS?

[slp]

warriorpride said:

d204mom said:

I get it that you were not assigned to the closest school so you don't have any empathy for people in your same situation.

Some areas are currently in that situation today due to someone's idea when NV opened that the split had to be N/S instead of E/W.

Yet some people from these areas still understand and empathize with others getting the short end of the stick.

Imagine that.

I don't really recall a lot of empathy being asked for until a northern site came up. I didn't see a lot of empathy for BD and GOM with the BB site. There were just asked to take one for the team.

I can understand that comment with respect to GOM (as they were being asked to leave WVHS) but how was BD "taking one for the team" by being able to stay 'as is'. Most areas would love being able to stay 'as is'.