SECRETS THAT AREN'T THAT SECRET

JOE PICANO, FINE ARTS DIRECTOR for LPS received $235 and an autographed book from a well known artist and former ENGLISH student. It was all very secret. We weren't told who and the LSC members weren't even told.

If they want to find out the secret benefactor is.....

CHECK THE AUTOGRAPH.

A MEETING OF THE MINDS COMES TO MEET MY MIND

The LSC is having a MEETING OF THE WHOLE on Thursday Oct. 11 at 5:30 at LVTI. It is gonna be about GOAL SETTING.

I hear one of the GOALS they will be discussing is the GOAL to name part of the new MARSHALL, the WOTRING WING.

Oh, that's my goal.

WE HAVE EARS BUT DO NOT HEAR

The LYNN YOUTH COUNCIL reported at the last LSC meeting. Everybody celebrates giving our youth a voice. (I know I have some mouthy kids, I don't know where they get it from because everybody knows how shy I am).

OKAY.

We let them speak, so it's time now to listen.

THEY WANT SKILLS, job hunting skills.  Because you know what? The majority aren't going on to college and even if they do chances are GREAT that they will need to get a job to help pay for it.

ON TOP OF THAT!

Thirty percent aren't even graduating high school so it would seem to me teaching them to write a resume would be a good thing. Maybe they would learn dropping out doesn't look so good on paper.

WOTRING WING TO BE WAY OUT?

One of the things Joc.,Les. & Ass. (JLA) talked about at the last LSC meeting was the ability in some design plan is the ability to "lock off" classroom sections to leave the cafeteria, auditorium, or other areas more available to the community. Does this mean the WOTRING WING could be quarantined?

HELP! HELP!, HELP!

I know she must have been KIPPNAPPED! My BFF is missing. Everyone is counting on her to lead the PAC this year and there has been no trace of her.

I would  organize it but I am pretty busy being poor, besides I am writing a CLASSIC AUTOBIOGRAPHY,http://myautoblographylifestories.wordpress.com/ , over here.

I knew I should have scheduled an intervention when she first fell into that CULT. Your KIPPSTERS will NEVER get you elected to LSC.

CRUCIFIED BUT NOT VERIFIED

Do you all remember LAURA that HOME SCHOOLING HOT SHOT that I wrote about that was made a PUBLIC SACRIFICE at the altar of QUEEN CATHE?

Even after jumping through hoops that I have NEVER seen any other home schooling candidates go through, she has still NOT received any approval letter.

Hopefully not, I mean surely there can't be any discrimination going on because like me, you are DISABLED. Do you write poetry?

BLACKMAIL IS SUCH A DIRTY WORD

Yeah, we are wanna build a new MARSHALL, yes it’s true

But it comes down to your vote to make it true.

So all of your plans we want to hear.

NO FUNNY BUSINESS, let’s make that clear.

Count on the WATCH for impartial analysis.

One wrong move and your plans will face paralysis.

Dirty deeds I will expose,

Unless you extend me a rose.

By naming a small part the WOTRING WING,

will make sure I don’t see a thing.

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION – PICKERING PARENTS PUT OUT

On October 17 PICKERING PARENTS have an OPEN HOUSE which includes their FEDERALLY mandated annual TITLE 1 meeting. Should be informative, probably a GREAT night. It is sure to be a real opportunity to GET INVOLVED!

BUT…. WAIT A MINUTE.

Isn’t that the night they are having that meeting about building the NEW MARSHALL? That’s gonna cost the citizens almost 20 MILLION DOLLARS. That is ALL the residents of LYNN, not just the parents of the kids who go to MARSHALL; you know that new school with the WOTRING WING.

So some parents are going to be asked to CHOOSE between their parental obligations and their pocket books. The good thing is that this UNPLANNED (excuse me while I cough) coincidence will allow the administration to run roughshod since parental input will be caput.

Not only will PICKERING PARENTS pay presumably a pretty portion for the NEW WOTRING WING of MARSHALL (I figure if I keep repeating about the WW they might accidently slip the name in) they will also be unavailable to PREVIEW what could one day present itself as a possibility if the administration can keep PICKERING in the PIPELINE for renovation or construction so that they don’t TIME-OUT again this time.

MARSHALL ROCK

Yo, yo, Now listen up.

I got a song I'm about to sing
I'm talking about the building of the WOTRING WING.

In my mind it began to fester,
now it's in the hands of Jocelyn and LESTER.

To build a new MARSHALL that's the plan,
we  meet on OCT. 17th to name it after STAN.

Before construction starts we must bring it to a vote,
without my blessing, the chance of passage gonna be remote.

Chu ka chu Chu ka chu

WORD TO THE POET!

CURRICULUM IN CHAOS

Sources, I got sources. Some of them are not of my own creation. What I hear from teachers is a growing dissatisfaction with the complications and confusion around the new DIRECTOR OF CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION'S leadership.

Supposedly some grievances were filed and deadlines were passed that prevented action. I don't know anything for sure. If that is true, I feel sure that the family relationship of the DIRECTOR and the EX-UNION president had anything to do with it.

I am counting on you WATCH watchers to set me straight.

PARTY FOR PLANS WORTHY OF WOTRING WING

On October 17^th there will be a KICK-OFF CELEBRATION for the construction of a pristine and prestigious education institution dedicated to parents and poets everywhere with the knowledge to acknowledge the intent to dedicate a dedication of good intentions. The WOTRING WING plans will be put out.

SURPRISE!

I was only joking, well maybe hoping.

Really, it is ONLY a meeting to discuss the building of a new MARSHALL. The last time we built anything new was CLASSICAL and well you know how well that went. Don’t worry there can’t be that many swampy dumps left in LYNN. Building sites will be discussed.

Join me as we listen to JOSLIN, LESSER & ASSOCIATES, INC. (OWNERS PROJECT MANAGER) proceed with a presentation of potential plans.  They will be having an analysis of options and of course I will have an analysis of the analysis.

Promises have been made to have a second and third public meeting as the process goes along. This is important because we need to be kept in the know so we can make an informed decision on whether we vote to allow the city to use their credit card…

UNLESS….,

they go forward with certain NOMENCLATURE thereby guaranteeing my SUPPORT for this new construction. I keep telling them I can be bought.

WU WOWS BUT AT WHAT COST?

 Initiative aims to make playtime safer for students
In my best ELMER FUDD voice I say, "WEALLY". You know us poets like alliteration. We are paying the good doctor, a HARVARD HEAVY, around $90,000 and we get a program where our kids jump rope together.

I am sure teachers all over the city monitor recess and I think it is insulting to them to imply that they didn't know how to do their job.

Let's look closer at the following statement:

They needed to be organized, said Deb Sugerman, a trainer with Playworks, a nonprofit California-based company that was brought in to train teachers on how to lead organized play.

That means that in addition to WU's salary, we are paying someone to come in and teach the teacher's HOPSCOTCH. 

Call me crazy but I think the money would be better spent on getting things to play with instead of salaries for someone to sit in an office.

WHO WILL CARRY THE BATON IN OUR RACE TO THE TOP

With all the DRAMA around the SKEWING of our MCAS DATA, CPI, PPI, AYP, and IOU and DUI. Okay, the last two got nothing to do with education I just got carried away.

I am getting a little nervous about the fact that the PROGRAM SPECIALIST that LPS hired to oversee all that RACE TO THE TOP MONEY is retiring and I haven't heard about any plans to replace her. I am sure someone will, we will get someone who will be ACTING.

With millions of dollars at stake, don't our kids deserve someone who is ACTING but knows the part. MS. IEARDI'S (remember I can;t spell) proves that she KNEW the part even though I sometimes question if it was the right part.

With all of these cancelled meetings upcoming and the length of the grant, WILL BE GETTING OUT OF THE RACE? Probably not, our students weren't the winners anyway, people who get paid are.

MISLEAD OR MISINFORMED?

NEWS about the LSC Meeting of the Whole

FIRST GOAL: Better communication.

LITTLE LORI was led down the wrong path. PATTI pointed people to places were not prepared to present any presentations that would have been a gathering were goals could have been generally generated. I am sure the intentions were not intentional. There is no need to be suspicious about the confusion. It is a little curious, though.

TIME TO TALK ABOUT TALKING

Local students react to the debate.

It's good to see students interested in their future since they have the most time that will be affected by the present.

LITTLE LORI LED ASTRAY?

Now according to LORI, she got an e mail from PATTI CAPANO, LSC member that we were going to have a goal setting meeting tomorrow.

BUT...,

CRAFTY CLEO CAN'T find any posted agenda for the PUBLIC MEETING, a requirement for the OPEN MEETING law.

HMM.....,

I have talked to other members of the LSC who were CONFUSED. Perhaps a good goal would be better COMMUNICATION!

STAY TUNED!

SETTING THE BAR

Let’s think about things for a moment. We are having a LSC meeting THURSDAY night at 5:30 pm that is not exactly a meeting. Oh sure, it’s a important gathering Our esteemed members of the LSC are going to learn how to set goals.

Everybody knows the importance of setting goals. Our teachers teach it. Ask any salesman on commission, they have whole campaigns around it. Funny though, when was the last time you saw a list of goals for our schools. Must have been a while since we need to bring in an outside person to teach people who have been there as long as FOURTEEN YEARS to show us ho, don’t you think?.

Now let’s look at something else here.

We PREACH to our kids the importance of attendance, we even get reimbursement from the feds or the state for how well our schools do. As we learned at the last LSC meeting, our attendance is even factored into our PPI and helps determine our level. In case anyone has forgotten, we are a LEVEL 4 district.

So here we have an opportunity to have some extra remediation to learn something we should already know, should already have in place. What do we do? Instead of making an extra meeting to work on our deficits, we try and substitute it for a regularly scheduled meeting, so we are still getting together the same number of times right?

WELL…..,

NOT EXACTLY.

See this will not be a REAL MEETING. They call it a MEETING OF THE WHOLE, no votes taken, no business done. Add this to the fact we have holidays coming up. Based on past experience, they’ll probably CANCEL one meeting in NOVEMBER and DECEMBER each. Remember a couple a years ago when we had all that snow and had to cancel all those meetings?

So we have this 115 MILLION DOLLAR bus and we are voluntarily giving up our back seat to tell the driver where to go.

GOALS OF GOAL SETTING?

To make it convenient for the trainer, they've scheduled a SPECIAL - MEETING OF THE WHOLE to teach our esteemed members how to set goals.

REALLY?

All one has to do is look at our LEVEL 4 status and it doesn't take a member of MENSA to know we gotta do better.

It is a good thing we have LYNNCAM but I wonder if the sound ACCIDENTALLY won't work?

I hope this training will help us find where we are going because there sure are a lot of different stories about where we have been.

I don't understand why we are CANCELLING a regular meeting so we can have this special meeting that last time was in front of an empty crowd. (I couldn't go).

I think I'll be able to make it this time, come join me on THURS. OCT. 4 at 5:30.

STILL TRUST IN THE DATA, JUST MISTRUST

In today's ITEM there is an opinion piece that either I can't link to or don't know how. It was written by DAN K. THOMASSON and I can give you his e mail address, thomassondan@aol.com.

It says basically SAT's are flawed cause if you got money and coaches, you can do better.

ARE WE SURPRISED HERE?

DATA YOU CAN COUNT ON

Now you have heard me say “NUMBERS NEVER LIE BECAUSE-THEY DON’T TALK”. Some smart guy from HARVARD wrote a book, THE HALF-LIFE OF FACTS, saying just that. I haven’t read the book. I’d like too because I bet it’s about how do we know what we know.

My curiosity about the subject started back in FRESHMAN CHEMISTRY at West Virginia WESLEYAN COLLEGE. We studied at the time the HIESENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE if I remember right (If I don’t-tough I am not going to go back and look it up) which stated that positive particles attracted negative ones just until they got minutely close and then they actually repelled each other. To me. this principle was an admission that we don’t really know what we are talking about.

Fast forward twenty-some years and I was sitting in the audience at a lecture at the MUSEUM OF SCIENCE in BOSTON and listening to a discussion about NANOMOLECULES which are SUBATOMIC particles. What I hear is that there is this mystical mystery about how things behave at this level and the first step in understanding has been to admit we don’t understand and open ourselves up to learning.

DATA can be a good thing. I mean without it we couldn’t have BATTING AVERAGES but over reliance on it can lead you to a self-fulfilling distortion. It can give you answers where there are no answers, like who is the better HOME RUN HITTER – BARRY BONDS or BABE RUTH?

 JESSE LEFKOWITZ FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Big data: Mind the gaps