Monday, June 14, 2010

Kyron Horman's disappearance casts pall on last day of classes at Skyline School | OregonLive.com

Kyron Horman's disappearance casts pall on last day of classes at Skyline School

Published: Monday, June 14, 2010, 8:25 PM Updated: Monday, June 14, 2010, 9:01 PM

Kate Mather, The Oregonian
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Torsten Kjellstrand/The OregonianCapt. Jason Gates of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office addresses reporters Monday in what he called the last regularly scheduled news conference on the disappearance of Kyron Horman.

Classes end Tuesday at Skyline School with one second-grader noticeably absent from his desk in an otherwise cheerful light-blue room.

Kyron Horman's disappearance cast a pall over the final days of school as searchers crawled over the surrounding hillsides and roads looking for the missing 7-year–old with no success.

"Kids are being kids and laughing, but there's definitely a cloud over the school right now," said Portland schools spokesman Matt Shelby. "They're definitely concerned for Kyron and his family."

Authorities are now investigating the boy's disappearance as a criminal case and sent divers on Monday to Sauvie Island, where they were seen wading in waist-high water off the banks of the Multnomah Channel north of the island bridge. Others waded through a steep-sided ditch nearby.

The mystery of what happened to Kyron has captured national attention, though the investigation has centered on the immediate area around the small K-8 school in the rural northwest corner of Multnomah County.

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Kyron vanished from Skyline after showing off his science project on June 4. His stepmother snapped a photo of the boy in front of his project -- a picture now posted on store windows and bulletin boards throughout the region.

Shelby said Skyline is taking steps to provide support to their 300 students once school is out. Immediately after Kyron went missing, the school established a safe room filled with counselors.

"They've seen some different waves of kids coming in," Shelby said. "At the beginning of last week it was mostly younger students who didn't understand why Kyron wasn't in class, but toward the end of the week some of the middle school kids who didn't really know Kyron were having a hard time figuring out what they were feeling."

The services will be available to students throughout summer.

"We don't do this very often," Shelby said. "We have counselors that work with our students for a variety of things, but to have a missing classmate for this amount of time is pretty unprecedented for our folks. We don't know how it's going to play out

“A Missed Opportunity By Secretary Duncan…” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

“A Missed Opportunity By Secretary Duncan…”

by Larry Ferlazzo

“A Missed Opportunity By Secretary Duncan…” is the title of a new post at my other blog, Engaging Parents In School.
It’s my commentary on a speech he gave over the weekend at the National PTA Convention in Memphis, including what I wished he had said, instead.

“Children living in areas where homicides committed have lower reading, verbal test scores” — Ya’ Think?

by Larry Ferlazzo

Blog U.: The Year-Later Evaluation - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed

The Year-Later Evaluation
By Dean Dad June 14, 2010 9:42 pm

Several alert readers sent me this piece from the Washington Post. It glosses a study conducted at the Air Force Academy that finds that
Professors rated highly by their students tended to yield better results for students in their own classes, but the same students did worse in subsequent classes. The implication: highly rated professors actually taught students less, on average, than less popular profs. Meanwhile, professors with higher academic rank, teaching experience and educational experience -- what you might call "input measures" for performance -- showed the reverse trend. Their students tended to do worse in that professor's course, but better in subsequent courses. Presumably, they were learning more.
The piece goes on to suggest that student evaluations are not to be trusted, because they reward entertainment, attractiveness, and/or easy grading. Instead, administrators should shuck their slavish dependence on shallow popularity measures and defer to faculty rank.
The argument collapses upon close examination, of course. If student evaluations had the implied effect, then these tougher and more effective teachers would never have had the opportunity to gain more experience, let alone get promoted to higher rank. The stronger performance of the senior group actually suggests that administrators are doing a pretty good job of separating the wheat from the chaff at promotion time (and of taking student evaluations with the requisite grains of salt). But never mind that.
- Mothering at Mid-Career: Summer Jobs
  By Libby Gruner June 14, 2010 9:28 pm
  
  The summer after my junior year of high school I got a summer job in a resort town in Maine. It wasn’t my first summer job — I’d worked previously as a day camp counselor and a babysitter — but it was my first summer job away from home. The job wasn’t glamorous: I worked four hours a day cleaning a restaurant. My brother got me the job; he was doing outside work at the same resort, and when their regular cleaner hurt her ankle he mentioned that he had a sister sitting at home with no job. A few days later I was on my way.
  Four hours a day didn’t keep me very busy, but I soon picked up another job as well, scooping ice cream. I happened into that job serendipitously, too: one hot day I was riding my bike around town and stopped into a hardware store to cool off in the air conditioning. The owner came by to see what I was up to, and when I confessed that I had just come in out of the heat he said I should buy something. “I would if I could afford to,” I said. It then came out that his

Conn. graduation appeal won't be heard beforehand - Boston.com

Conn. graduation appeal won't be heard beforehand

June 14, 2010

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HARTFORD, Connn.—The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has decided not to immediately hear the case of a Connecticut school district that wants to hold high school graduations inside a megachurch.

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In denying the town of Enfield's request, the court noted that the Board of Education had already decided to hold the 2010 graduations on school grounds even if they won the appeal.

The town wanted the court to overturn the temporary injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall, who found that holding the June 23 and 24 graduations at the 3,000-seat First Cathedral Baptist Church would amount to an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.

Judge Hall is expected to hear the full lawsuit before next year's graduation plans are set.

GLOBE EDUCATION NEWS

He never lost sight of his dreams

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Salem plans Horace Mann charter high school

Salem is preparing to seek state approval to open its own charter school even as organizers of the Road to Success Charter High School ready a revised plan for a charter school serving Lynn and Salem. (By John Laidler, Globe Correspondent)

Metco students, parents upset by school cutbacks

School officials in Lincoln and Sudbury voted last week to merge two of their three Metco programs, a cost-saving measure that has angered Boston students and parents who say they were excluded from the process and are worried about the future of the program. (By James O’Brien, Globe Correspondent)

Volunteers say fund-raising blitz for Arlington public schools a one-shot deal

They raised more than $492,000 since April to lessen the blow of budget cuts on Arlington’s public schools, but volunteers behind the Bridge the Gap campaign said last week there will not be a repeat performance next year.(By Brock Parker, Globe Correspondent)

Newton North graduates final class before building’s demolition

The graduation ceremony for the last class of seniors to make their way through the 1970s-vintage Newton North High School on Lowell Avenue took place elsewhere, at the Conte Forum on the Boston College campus. But the aging building wasn’t far from anyone’s thoughts. (By Sarah Thomas, Globe Correspondent)

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Monday, June 14, 2010