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Post by slp on Mar 1, 2010 12:02:43 GMT -6
"The word mustang is used as a proper noun and therefore should be capitalized. How did anyone miss that? The sign's hanging in a high school and we can't get the grammar correct? " talk to the kids who have gone on to private schools about 204's grammar curriculum. I have been on this topics for years now...gerund ? what? Infinitives ? Past perect which ? the MS program is extremely poor...and nothing has been done to address it. if you have a middle school student who may go to private HS ( or you want them to be able to write on SAT writing section - look for a tutor now. Don't know if that's any different today then when I was a kid - I vividly remember my Freshman English class when I went to a Catholic high school, coming from public. I was in for a huge suprise as everyone there knew sentence diagramming and much more and I had never seen it. Nothing Sister Margaret Mary and her yardstick couldn't beat into me in short order. That said, with the amount of outsourcing in the world, I now seem like a Rhodes Scholar in my day-today life in comparison with many of my business associates.  Eagle Dad, You are right! My daughter will be attending Benet Academy as a freshman next year and we have already been advised by other public school parents that sentence diagramming in the public middle school was non-existent. We are planning on getting my daughter tutored a bit over the summer to get her more up to speed. |
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Post by macrockett on Mar 1, 2010 12:10:07 GMT -6
One of the issues that troubles me most, is just how little it is taking in terms of financial stress to "force" the District to cut in to items beneficial to our children's education.
Before the State decided to punt on its obligations we were still looking at a $9.2 million deficit for 2011 (after already closing a $6 million plus deficit in 2010). I assume also that the 2011 budget does include the additional administrative costs for MVHS administration.
With that in mind, if you look at the "Austerity Plan" presented 12/7/09, p 15, you see that right away they are cutting things that affect our kids. Under "delay expenditures" they list:
Slow down technology replacement program and
Delay new textbook adoption by one year
You can see that just one year after pushing forward with MVHS they are incurring deficits and less than two years from the decision to start building MVHS they are affecting the quality of education of our children. Incredibly, this is just the beginning of the sh*t hitting the fan, and doesn't take into account our State government issues.
I was way behind the curve in getting involved with this, but based on what I have seen, in addition to seeing that we didn't need a 3000 seat high school, they were well aware of cash flow problems down the road. Problems that were much bigger than mentioned in 07-08 in the $11 to 12 million range (discussed for referendum as I recall). That was just the beginning!
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Post by slp on Mar 1, 2010 12:13:53 GMT -6
Many in the private sector have seen decreases in their take-home pay , why shouldn't we demand the same for our administration before they start to chop away at our children's education!
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Post by Arch on Mar 1, 2010 12:17:03 GMT -6
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Post by macrockett on Mar 1, 2010 12:27:11 GMT -6
Many in the private sector have seen decreases in their take-home pay , why shouldn't we demand the same for our administration before they start to chop away at our children's education! I agree SLP, most private sector families would be appalled if they saw all the data comparisons i have looked at recently. Public unions have been very successful in the last decade while private sector employees have actually lost ground as a whole. The problem is, the gains public unions have made have to be paid for by someone else. Things are going to get interesting in D204 very soon. |
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Post by asmodeus on Mar 1, 2010 12:28:28 GMT -6
The more I look at that "Life in the Halls" sign, I go from bemused resignation to outright disgust. This is the type of amateur fluff I would expect to see in a Chicago Public School. This is supposed to be a state of the art high school (at least from what was spent on it), and we get this tripe.
By the way, isn't the school supposed to be finished now? The last time I passed it (a week or so ago), I saw construction trailers still standing.
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Post by Arch on Mar 1, 2010 12:37:18 GMT -6
It is not finished. There are still construction areas, things not installed, etc. I urge everyone to go look at this expensive masterpiece... and remember this is the most expensive one in IL if not the country.... keep that in mind when you look at the materials and workmanship.
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Post by macrockett on Mar 1, 2010 12:48:14 GMT -6
It is not finished. There are still construction areas, things not installed, etc. I urge everyone to go look at this expensive masterpiece... and remember this is the most expensive one in IL if not the country.... keep that in mind when you look at the materials and workmanship. Somebody is making some money... I rem talking to one of the principles at the architectural/construction firm that designed the original MVHS at BB. I have some loose ends to clean up there as one of the comments he made to me wasn't the reason I called him. He indicated that his firm could have done the work on MVHS much cheaper than Turner who somehow got the contract. Is any one well versed on why the change was made and how Turner ended up with the contract? |
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Post by Arch on Mar 1, 2010 12:54:11 GMT -6
Might have to look closer at the DLR group and allegedly someone from there was on a committee even though they had no kids in the district... Hmm...
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Post by casey on Mar 1, 2010 13:02:44 GMT -6
Might have to look closer at the DLR group and allegedly someone from there was on a committee even though they had no kids in the district... Hmm... That is not alleged. That is fact. I can still remember him being selected and I wondered why in the world he would want to be part of it (he is from the TG neighborhood and was part of the Fry School representation). His kids were preschool age at the time (they're finally in ES now). In all honesty that is about the time I completely stopped trusting a thing our SB/SD said. When they selected him as a representative I screamed but no one listened because at that point everyone still trusted the SB. Hate to brag but I've been on the "I don't trust a thing from our SB/SD" for longer than most. Gee what an honor, huh? |
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Post by researching on Mar 1, 2010 13:25:54 GMT -6
It is not finished. There are still construction areas, things not installed, etc. I urge everyone to go look at this expensive masterpiece... and remember this is the most expensive one in IL if not the country.... keep that in mind when you look at the materials and workmanship. It is the cheapest looking most expensive school in the State from the outside. I take that back, the sign looks expensive. Other than that, it is the single most unattractive new school I have ever seen. They spent a whole lot of our tax $$ on a whole lot of ugly. EMBARRASSING!  |
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Post by researching on Mar 1, 2010 13:30:33 GMT -6
you're likely safe for 2-3 years-- but as the deficit climbs, one never knows. It was a great topic of conversation this VB weekend with other 204 parents. It seems that 'rumor' is out there well beyond this board. I for one would advocate closing Metea Valley if that becomes a need.. Waubonsie can house more students and is more centrally located to satisfy the transportation needs of this district AND Metea is more likely to appeal to a business/industrial company due to its proximity to the new I-88 interchange and the neighboring area. Much easier to transform that school to suit the needs of a new business / or community college /private high school than to "sell off" WVHS. Absolutely! ipsd204.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=news&thread=2944&page=12#64632I totally agree! |
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Post by brant on Mar 1, 2010 13:33:34 GMT -6
It is not finished. There are still construction areas, things not installed, etc. I urge everyone to go look at this expensive masterpiece... and remember this is the most expensive one in IL if not the country.... keep that in mind when you look at the materials and workmanship. It is the cheapest looking most expensive school in the State from the outside. I take that back, the sign looks expensive. Other than that, it is the single most unattractive new school I have ever seen. They spent a whole lot of our tax $$ on a whole lot of ugly. EMBARRASSING! I agree though I am sure JC sees it as beautiful. |
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Post by brant on Mar 1, 2010 13:38:16 GMT -6
you're likely safe for 2-3 years-- but as the deficit climbs, one never knows. It was a great topic of conversation this VB weekend with other 204 parents. It seems that 'rumor' is out there well beyond this board. I for one would advocate closing Metea Valley if that becomes a need.. Waubonsie can house more students and is more centrally located to satisfy the transportation needs of this district AND Metea is more likely to appeal to a business/industrial company due to its proximity to the new I-88 interchange and the neighboring area. Much easier to transform that school to suit the needs of a new business / or community college /private high school than to "sell off" WVHS. [/quote I am very hopefull that will happen. Maybe after a few years the MV backers will realize their school is not what they envisioned. If it does come down to a proposed WV closing there will be one Hell of a war. |
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Post by doctorwho on Mar 1, 2010 13:51:49 GMT -6
It is the cheapest looking most expensive school in the State from the outside. I take that back, the sign looks expensive. Other than that, it is the single most unattractive new school I have ever seen. They spent a whole lot of our tax $$ on a whole lot of ugly. EMBARRASSING! I agree though I am sure JC sees it as beautiful. all she sees is she 'delivered' to her group ( many of which man the PTSA there ) - and now her area can walk to Ws walk to MS and a short hop to HS-- meanwhile my area is 3 zip codes from the HS- travels to her area 5+ miles for MS and is looking down the barrell of maybe moving to Owen for ES if they close buildings.. btw - the kids call the building a prison or assylum based on the aesthetics -- it looks like a post office / baggage claim center for airport |
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