May 19, 2013

Bill Rice Wins Flat Rock, MI School Board Election

Thanks for everyone’s support! I look forward to serving you. Here are the unofficial results:

School Board

Bill Rice 567
Lena Ballard 333
Michelle Engelbert 324

Mayor

Jonathan Dropiewski 1106
William Stanifer Jr 243
Write-ins 13

City Council

Gordon Chevalier 480
Paul Gagne 562
James Martin 654
Felicia Moore 543
Lou Stoney 371
Ricky Tefend 512
Terrence Farrar (write-in) 177

Now the hard work begins. Please never hesitate to contact me email: bill@thinkrice.com or telephone: 734.775.4487.

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Flat Rock, MI Election Day. Vote Today!

Bill Rice School Board IconIt’s Election day. Vote Today!

Don’t forget to vote. Remind your friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

I want to thank all of the great supporters how have helped along the way. I also appreciate all of the wonderful people I met door-to-door and throughout the campaign process.

I hope to get your vote today and look forward to the opportunity to serve the great community of Flat Rock, MI.

If you have any last minute questions today send me an email at bill@thinkrice.com or call me at 734-775-4487.

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Flat Rock Meet the Candidate Night for School Board Election

Only a week away from casting that very important School Board election ballot. Tonight is an important part of your due diligence–”Meet the Candidate Night”–I hope you can be there:

Who: Bill Rice, Michelle Engelbert, Dawn Guyot and Lena Ballard

What: Questions and answers, moderated by Robert Hopper from the Downriver Career Technical Consortium. Audience members will also have the opportunity to answer questions (time permitting)

When: Tonight, Tuesday, October 27 from 6-8 pm

Where: Flat Rock Community Building, Board of Education meeting room (2nd Floor, old Flat Rock High School)

It would be great to have as many supporters as possible. It should be well attended and a dynamic debate, if the comments from The News Herald are any indication.

Invite your friends and neighbors!

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Gov. Granholm Takes More Away from Education, $292 Per Student Cut

Senior Member of Flat Rock RotaryI will make a quick update now so you have the basic information. I will update later with more commentary and details as this might (still not a done deal) impact Flat Rock Schools.

Gov. Granholm took her pen to the State budget and slashed another $212 million from the school aid fund. This will translate into a $292 per student cut, up from the legislative proposed budget cut of $165 per pupil.

That means, doing some estimates based on the reported count day numbers and public Flat Rock Community Schools 2009-2010 budget resolutions:

  • 1,902 student x $292 = $555,384 reduction in “State Sources,” which is
  • $555,384 / $17,665,992 = 3% reduction in “Total Revenues”

Read the latest on Michigan State Budget:

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Flat Rock School Board Meet the Candidate Night–October 27, 2009

Meet the Candidate Night for the Flat Rock Community Schools Board of Education election has been re-scheduled. It is not tonight as originally scheduled, but has been rescheduled for next Tuesday.

Here are all of the details:

Who: Candidates for the Flat Rock School Board
(Bill Rice, Michelle Englebert, Dawn Guyot, Lena Ballard)

What: Moderated Question & Answers–Moderated by Mr. Robert Hopper, from the Downriver Career Technical Consortium as well as questions from the audience

When: October 27, 2009 at 6:00 p.m.

Where: Flat Rock Community Building in the Board of Education Meeting Room
(Old Flat Rock High School, 2nd Floor)

I hope to see you there.

If you have any questions before then call me at 734.775.4487 or email me at bill@thinkrice.com–I am always willing to listen and do my best to help.

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Flat Rock School Board Recap (10/12)

Bill Rice School Board IconDashing from the Simpson Middle School Parent meeting to the Board of Education meeting, my night of Flat Rock Community Schools continued.

Flat Rock Community Schools Audit

The first item on the agenda was the presentation by the independent auditor–Rehmann Robson. It was a bit hard to follow without a copy of the audit report, but the auditor generally reported the following:

  • The finances and accounting processes were in “good order”
  • Fund balances across the board (consistent with all districts) were down significantly
  • All fund balances continue to be positive
  • A significant amount of long-term debt was able to be paid down last year (atypical to other districts and a good thing)
  • Bond funds are audited yearly and are being managed appropriately
  • A significant decline in fund balances were the result of MI tax tribunal protests (when people or businesses protest and have their property taxes lowered)

Public Comments

There were only three public comments last night. One was a question as to when the Title I programs would begin, which Superintendent Russ Pickell addressed. These programs will begin after MEAP testing, underway starting today. Up until this point most of the classroom instruction has been devoted to MEAP preparation.

The second and third question were related. They were two Flat Rock Community School alumnus and former band members showing support for Flat Rock Band Director Jim Engelbert. Apparently there was an incident, the details and facts were not discussion, at a recent band performance in Trenton.

Meet the Candidate Night

The Meet the Candidate Night has been changed from October 20th to October 27th at 6:00 p.m. This will be your opportunity to meet all of the candidates running for the Board of Education. We will be answering questions written by the President of the Board of Education and the District Superintendent as well as questions from the audience.

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Simpson Middle School Parent Meeting

Carter & Corey first day of schoolLast night was a busy night in education. I started at Simpson with the parent meeting and ended the evening at the Board of Education meeting.

Blaine Armstrong, Simpson Middle School Principal is making a great effort to inform and get parents more involved. Unfortunately, our attendance on the parent side was pretty light. There were about 10 parents and the faces were very familiar.

These meetings are great opportunities to get a little more information, much more detail, and have specific input into your child’s educational experience.

Simpson Parent Meeting Agenda

Here are a few things we discussed:

1. Reviewed the opening of school, which went pretty smooth

2. Reviewed the school surveys from orientation, which resulted in some new workshop opportunities for parents. These excellent opportunities to understand what is going on in your child’s classroom and how to help them:

  • Connected Math
  • Life Skills
  • Formative Assessment
  • Response to Intervention Math
  • Response to Intervention ELA

3. Review of the Parent Compact

4. Upcoming parent conferences

  • Students A-M: October 15, 3-5 p.m./6-8 p.m.
  • Students N-Z: October 22, 3-5 p.m./6-8 p.m.

Formative Assessment

The top parent questions continue to be: What is formative assessment? How it is supposed to work? How is it working? How do I help my child succeed in this learning environment?

Mr. Armstrong made it clear that teachers are still learning to properly apply this technique to their classrooms. There is a learning curve, but teacher professional development time is being aggressively applied to getting this program right.

Mr. Armstrong also cited research that indicates that formative assessment has a greater impact on improving student performance than reduced class size–another continual parent hot button.

Opportunities to Help in the School

Mr. Armstrong is encouraging parents to help in the school as much as they are willing and able. Currently, there is a need for assistance in the Media Center. Can you volunteer?

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Flat Rock School Board Meeting Tonight-October 12, 2009

UPDATE: The Flat Rock School Board Agenda for tonight (10/12/2009) has been posted.

The Flat Rock Board of Education meets tonight at 7:00 p.m. in the Board of Education conference room (2nd floor, old Flat Rock High School). I haven’t seen an agenda, but a couple of things I would expect to hear discussed:

What would you like to hear more about?

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Coffee with Michigan State Representative Deb Kennedy

I spent this morning having coffee with our State Representative Deb Kennedy. She hosts a monthly coffee at the Flat Rock Cafe. I think it’s a great idea for updating us on her activities in Lansing and listening to issues that are important to her constituents.

The talk, as you can imagine, was all about the Michigan budget. The Legislature has approved a school funding bill that somewhat softens the original shock of $218 per student, to $165 per student.

This dodges the bullet of most school districts trying to figure out how to cover operating expenses without the October 20th payments. However, it still means a substantial cut in already thin school budgets.

Rep. Kennedy did not have much consolation for our educational funding woes, but at least she is getting out and talking with us.

She also surveyed the coffee clutch about the proposed initiative to add State revenue with a new permit that allows bars to stay open until 4 a.m. (currently 2 a.m.) and allow merchants to sell alcohol as early as 7 a.m., including Sundays for $1500. This legislation is intended to raise State revenues and would be used to help fund the, currently out of the budget, Michigan Promise Scholarship.

The general consensus was that like State Lotteries there is little assurance that it would directly fund education and significant unfunded public services expense (i.e., law enforcement and emergency medical services) would likely transfer to local municipalities.

Again, I thought this was a great opportunity to visit with our State Representative and meet other concerned citizens from Flat Rock and surrounding Downriver communities.

Thanks for visiting with us, Deb!

Here are some recent articles covering the Michigan budget debate, as it applies to funding education:

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What is Formative Assessment?

Differentiated ClassroomThe introduction of formative assessment into our children’s classrooms this year has been a learning curve for parents. There are numerous discussions around Flat Rock dinner tables, “What happened to the homework, what are all these quizzes about, what am I seeing in Zangle?”

I am one of those parents learning this new educational approach. I thought it might be helpful to share some of the things I am learning and the resources I have consulted along the way.

I started with Wikipedia’s explanation of formative assessment (considering the source’s limitations and potential flaws):

Formative assessment is a self-reflective process that intends to promote student attainment [1]. Cowie and Bell [2] define it as the bidirectional process between teacher and student to enhance, recognize and respond to the learning. Black and Wiliam [3] consider an assessment ‘formative’ when the feedback from learning activities is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet the learner’s needs. Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick[4] have re-interpreted research on formative assessment and feedback and shown how these processes can help students take control of their own learning (self-regulated learning).

I like this definition because it makes clear the intent of the approach–creating a two-way learning environment. Students are learning how to master certain learning objectives and teachers are learning from students how to adjust their instruction to improve mastery of learning objectives.

I also found a good, relatively non-technical explanation of formative assessment. And to practice a little differentiated learning on ThinkRice.com, here are some great audio interviews about formative assessment and debunking some common myths.

Our (my wife and I) first reaction was to assume this was a radical shift in the educational process. A move away from doing homework and toward test-taking only.

I have to stop and give some kudos here to Simpson Middle School Principal Blaine Armstrong for hosting a parent informational meeting regarding formative assessment last year–long before its implementation.

From this meeting and as I researched formative assessment I corrected several of my own misconceptions, like:

  • Formative assessment is a brand new concept
  • Formative assessment disadvantages certain types of students
  • Formative assessment advantages good test-takers

First, formative assessment is not only a mature concept, but is supported by several years of research and data collection. The terminology and differentiation between “formative” and “summative” assessments was used as early as 1967. But, more importantly you may recognize some popular features of formative assessments and differentiated instruction (its intended objective) used by your own teachers growing up.

Did your teachers ever:

  • Walk the classroom observing students at work
  • Allow you to retake a test you did poorly on
  • Extend a project deadline when the class was struggling
  • Have students accomplish similar assignments in different ways: chalkboard, recite, write
  • Take practice tests or peer grade homework
  • Group students into different reading groups
  • Hover over a student that needs extra supervision to focus

Second, formative assessment is specifically intended to improve the performance of the full distribution of learning types in a classroom. Ideally, the formative assessment process will give teachers the feedback necessary to adjust instruction–assisting and challenging students at various levels.

Third, contrary to most initial reactions formative assessment will (theoretically) actually help poor test-takers. By design, formative assessment will observe student knowledge, appropriately adjust instruction, and ensure student mastery prior to test-taking. Therefore, even the poorest of test-takers should have a better chance for success in a class using the formative assessment process. This article suggests some strategies for linking assessments to instruction.

What does all this have to do with your child at Flat Rock Community Schools?

  1. Hopefully, it helps you gauge a little better if the formative assessment and differentiated learning is being applied in your child’s classroom
  2. Assist you in helping your student understand and take advantage of their opportunity to have input into the learning experience
  3. Encourage you to review some of the assessment tools your child’s teachers are using–learning for yourself where your child needs help

Ideally bringing formative assessment into Flat Rock Community Schools will continue our positive trajectory of improved student performance. Although this performance is often measured via summative assessments, like the MEAP, using formative assessment in our classrooms should improve the true mastery of these concepts.

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