Monday, October 14, 2013
What many parents have been waiting to hear
It was announced at the school board meeting tonight that Dr. Deb Allen is retiring in April. Connie Lewis will also be retiring in April. It was rumored that Jan Klein was going to retire with her two friends, but Jan is still hanging on. There was no word about replacements.
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35 comments:
I don't want to sound too excited, but honestly, both of these exits are long overdue.
The special needs community around this district will undoubtedly benefit.
My only reservation about overdoing it here is that I fear who this administration will replace these people with.
It takes a special person to balance the needs of the student with the financial impact of some of the decisions that need to be made for the benefit of these students. Here's hoping the district gets these hires right come April.
Can someone explain who this people are? I am new to the school district names so I have no idea who they are and why it is important.
Damion,
I should start off by saying that I have never had any personal experience with Deb Allen or Connie Lewis. Deb Allen is the assistant superintendent of the elementary schools. Connie Lewis is the director of special education in Lebo.
If you would do a search for Dr. Allen, you might find this, from Blog Lebo. http://bloglebo.blogspot.com/2010/10/mt-lebanon-mom-holds-school-district.html
You might also find her listed in dockets as Director of Pupil Services when parents sued MTLSD.
Damion, if you do a search for TERC Investigations, the math program in our elementary schools, you will see Dr. Allen's name listed in a PG article, "The district continues to evaluate the curriculum, with efforts led by Deborah Allen, assistant superintendent of elementary education."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-south/meetings-will-discuss-new-math-curriculum-in-mt-lebanon-schools-663114/#ixzz2hnkgIj8S
Finally, when former Superintendent Marge Sable abruptly left MTLSD and we got hit with a buyout that made the news, Deb Allen's name seemed to come up in conversation. I was not involved at that time, since I was working two jobs and taking care of a sick loved one. Perhaps some other readers can fill you in with more details.
Search Dr. Allen here for information about her raises and bonuses.
Elaine
Damion, are you an employee of the MTLSD, an independent contractor for them., a PTA person or SB member?
10:59 AM, I don't understand your question. Damion is none of those, just a Lebo Citizen who is trying to understand what is going on.
Elaine
Correct Elaine, I am none of the above. I'm just a person trying to figure out this crazy world I live in one step at a time.
What is your point 10:59?
Have you asked that same question of each of the board directors?
Have any or their immediate family profited from an association with Celli, PJDick, environmental companies, PACyber, publishers, sports equipment providers, UPMC, banking, finance and legal services?
10:59, you just took a stab in the dark that Mr. Deringer has an association with the district. How about PK? How about DeLuca?
OMG, don't ask about PK, 11:53 AM. This thread will be hijacked for sure.
Let's try to stay on topic, 10:59 AM.
Elaine
Yes, please keep this on topic. If anyone has any questions for me you can email me at damionaderinger@gmail.com
Thank you Elaine for that information. It was very helpful
I am not publishing any more comments about Damion's background. This is about Deb Allen's retirement.
Elaine
http://www.teachercertification.pa.gov/Screens/wfViewEducator.aspx?P=ti0i8u6Oh+l2RKo9llO2UQ==&S=raJmDlgXE0NDrkZhrhb5Ww==&PH=4wzZymqd3dFm8b7g5MPL6Q==
Have you heard about the SpringBoard program that is integrated with the Common Core learning standards being implemented this year.
SpringBoard is for grades 6-12 and will be fully digital in 2014 and usable on computers, notebooks, smart phones, tablets, and whiteboards. See these links for more details:
http://springboardprogram.collegeboard.org
http://springboardprogram.collegeboard.org/mathematics/
There was a time when the student population of the district was over 8,000. The district had ONE Superintendent and ONE Assistant Superintendent. Computers, if they had them moved at a snails pace and most paperwork had to be duplicated on xerox machines that probably ran at 40 ppm tops. No internet, no voice or email, no cell phones.
Today, with all the technology it takes 3 Superintendents to run a district of 5,200 students and falling.
Allen doesn't need to be replaced.
Tell Tim to knock off the pizza lunches, quit tweeting and pull the blinds down on his office window.
The construction will proceed whether he's watching or not.
5:18, no I haven't heard.
TERC Investigations is also aligned with the Common Core:
http://investigations.terc.edu/CCSS/faqs.cfm
That doesn't mean it is any good.
I know that Dr. Allen isn't popular with everyone. But I will say when my son was being physically and verbally bullied at Markham she was the one administrator willing to do something about it when the FORMER principal and the horrendous guidance counselor would not. I found her review of the situation to be thoughtful, detailed, and in the end my son has been able to thrive (though admittedly we left Mt. Lebanon).
That said, after we moved it has taken a ridiculous amount of effort to teach my youngest son how to do math. TERC is the horrible...and when you couple that with some really weak teachers at Markham you have a disaster. As a result the FORMER principal stopped all learning in the school for the few weeks prior to PSSA and then kids did nothing but PSSA prep.
If indeed that was Dr. Allen's doing then clearly a mixed bag. But I do want to say that I had a very positive experience with her.
6:47 had a similar experience though did not engage Dr. Allen, so I cannot tell how she would've handled it.
There does seem to be a culture of avoiding issues until one threatens a lawsuit or goes in and demands a face-to-face.
6:47 PM, thank you for sharing your experience with Lebo Citizens readers. I am glad that one administrator was helpful That doesn't say much about the rest of the administrators. I feel bad for your son being bullied and sad that we lost another family. Thanks for staying in touch.
Elaine
Wait until the 5th grade TERC kids hit the SpringBoard math program in 6th grade. It will be a shock to the kids when they have to give accurate math answers.
I know the websites I left for you on SpringBoard are a bit long but they may help explain some of the middle school remodeling Mrs. Posti is talking about.
I was looking for an appropriate topic under which to make this post and, seeing none, I guess this one will have to do.
This morning I received a message from John F. Nau, Jr., Division Chief, of the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Bureau of Assessment and Accountability. He was responding to a message I sent the PDE yesterday (15 Oct 2013) asking when the PSSA results would be posted on the PDE website. Here is his reply:
A recent PDE decision is that we will no longer post PSSA and Keystone results on the PDE website. Each district and school have their results on the district and school summary reports.
In the past PSSA, AYP, and Keystone results were posted here: http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/school_assessments/, and go back to the 1998 - 1999 school year.
Richard,
It's too bad that the state is no longer publishing summary standardized-test results for school districts. That's just one more hoop for citizens to jump through if they want to understand how Pennsylvania's public education system is performing. I have a hard time believing that this change is in the public interest.
In any case, the data sets the PDE provided in the past were not in the best of condition. To analyze them, I had to do a lot of cleaning to make the data consistent from year to year.
BTW, if anyone wants to look at our PSSA scores from 2002–2012, feel free to use my cleaned, consolidated data set that includes all Pennsylvania school districts and the subjects math, reading, science, and writing:
https://github.com/tmoertel/mlao-dna-mtlsd-historical-performance/blob/master/data/pssa-all-merged-and-cleaned.csv (5.5 MB).
Tom and RG,
Another thing that will require filing a RTK.
Tom, i am getting this message. "(Sorry about that, but we can't show files that are this big right now.)"
Elaine
Elaine,
The data file is large enough that the web site won't even attempt to show a formatted preview of its contents. You can, however, click on "View Raw" link to see the file or choose to download it.
Cheers,
Tom
Yesterday (17 October 2013) I received a message from Dr. Steinhauer, responding to my request for information concerning PSSA and other test results. He said, "All Mt. Lebanon pssa scores can be found on the School Performance Profile located at http://paschoolperformance.org/." I believe this site has been referenced on this Blog before.
Unfortunately, "paschoolperformance.org" has some issues. For example, in the "Location" column entering my zip code and selecting schools within a 10 mile radius returned only three schools: Hoover, Jefferson Elementary, and Jefferson Middle. The site stubbornly refused to look outside my zip code, despite the mileage attribute I selected.
I did manage to get a look at the elementary schools and the high school. Most of the data looked good, but some of it was missing. Some of the reading scores were lower than I had anticipated. (It would be nice to see copies of the tests the kids were given for comparison purposes.)
I also found it amusing that once you get started looking for information on that site you get an alert box stating that "Data on this site, if in error, will be updated as soon as possible upon a valid request from the associated Local Education Agency (LEA)."
Bottom line as of this date: The data on "paschoolperformance.org" is a work in progress and should not be relied upon at present.
Thanks for passing on the info, RG. I guess Timmy is telling us that Mt. Lebanon is not going to share the results. If we want to know, we have to look for them ourselves. Does it take a RTK? Nothing is EVER easy with MTLSD.
Elaine
South Fayette School District got the better choice.
As an ex-school teacher, I'm thinking the reasoning behind using the TERC Math is this: 1. The math scores for the elementary kids for PSSA and AYP were too low last year, so by using an inferior math program, then more average kids will test higher is year. This is called "dumbing down " the curriculum. District scores go up at the State level, AYP is more readily achieved, and the administration keeps smirking to the community what a fine job they're doing educating our
kids.
This is phony and dishonest at best. The kids learn there is no leadership, there is no standard of competency by the teachers/administrators. TERC doesn't even qualify for any creativity even when teaching a special ed student. The only qualification of the decision to use TERC is this: "Stupid is as stupid does."
It is Dr. Allen who chooses the curriculum for all subjects. She gets rid of as many disabled kids possible by any means. She gets paid a high salary to maintain the status quo. It's time she went away!
Kids with any kind of need are frowned upon in Mt Lebanon. The school has a ONE size fits all approach to education especially in elementary school and still pretty much through middle school.
10:23 Do you know specifically how Dr. Allen promotes getting rid of kids with disabilities?
Here are the Building Level Academic Scores of the schools in ML and USC from the Pennsylvania Department of Education in decreasing order of accomplishment.
Foster ES
97.8
Hoover ES
97.0
Mt Lebanon SHS
96.6
Howe ES
95.5
Boyce MS – USC
95.1
Lincoln ES
94.7
Upper Saint Clair HS
94.3
Washington ES
93.6
Markham ES
93.2
Jefferson ES
92.0
Baker ES - USC
82.2
Jefferson MS
Data not posted
Thanks for that list. Did you by any chance see scores for Mellon? Too bad this isn't available on the district website.
Elaine
Mellon MS
Score not available
Where did you get this information? I like to cite sources. Thanks.
Elaine
The post at 10:05 says the scores are "from the Pennsylvania Department of Education."
Yes, I saw that. They were not going to post the information this year. See Timmy's response to Richard Gideon at 8:45 AM on October 18. Which website did you use to get these numbers?
Elaine
I used the website the Superintendent gave to Mr. Gideon as posted on your blog.
These numbers on Building Level Academic Scores are going to be posted on the Balanced Scorecard by the District when that site is up.
Mount Lebanon did very well compared to Upper Saint Clair. The numbers you are asking about are released to the districts before they are released to the public. I'm thinking the Board had the numbers before they reviewed the Superintendent's performance for last year.
Congratulations to Team Steinhauer for teaching our children well.
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