Alamosa schools in "Lock Out" situation

Important news from the Valley Courier at 10:56 am this morning:


ALAMOSA– An Alamosa school district official confirmed at 10:44 a.m. today that Alamosa Schools are currently in a "lock out" situation due to an unconfirmed threat against the district.

Alamosa police are reported to have presence in each of the district's school buildings.

Sign up for Parent Teacher Conferences at OMS/AHS

You can now sign up for October PT conferences at either school by visiting these links to sign up:
OMS: http://ptcfast.com/schools/A_PAGE_OMS_School
AHS: http://ptcfast.com/schools/A_PAGE_AHS_School

If you don't want to sign up online (or can't for some reason), call the school directly and the secretary will sign you up. Sign-ups will be open until the day prior to the conference.

Instructions for how to schedule a Parent Teacher Conference online can be found by clicking this link.

Critical Issue at tomorrow's school board meeting

Your support is needed at the school board meeting on Monday to help the school board make the right decision concerning educational hours for secondary students. 

Because of the increase in early release time over the last several years, the school district is not meeting the minimum number of hours required by state law for students at the middle and high school levels (this is not an issue at the elementary school).   To fix this problem, on Monday June 17^th, the school board plans to simply change the definition of “Actively Engaged in the Educational Process” to count non-educational time!

However, there is an alternate solution that easily solves this problem.  The idea is that AES would start at 8:00 and go until 3:15 daily (same length of school day as currently).  Buses would drop off students at OMS/AHS before AES (just like they do now).   And OMS/AHS would start at 7:45 and get out at 3:40 (giving 30 more minutes of instruction - to make up for the 30 minutes of passing time).  At the end of the day, buses would run the same route, starting at the K-5 building first and then pick up students at OMS/AHS just like they do now (just 15 minutes later since all schools end 15 minutes later). 

• Passing time will not need to be counted to meet the state required minimum number of hours for OMS/AHS students.
• There is no change to the number of hours teachers work each week.
• There is no change the length of the school year, holiday breaks or number of contact days.
• There is no change to the morning bus pickup schedule – it would run as it currently does. 
• The afternoon bus schedule would run 15 minutes later than the current schedule.  However, there is no change to the amount of time that students are on the bus.

Instead the school board is proceeding down the path to counting time between classes as students being “actively involved in the educational process” stating that students are working towards achieving educational objectives under the supervision of a licensed teacher when walking from class to class!   If the school board is successful in making this policy change it will result in:

• A continued reduction of the educational time secondary students receive while at the same time the state continues to increase graduation requirements – which means many students may not have enough knowledge to graduate.
• Based on this year’s ACT data approximately 40 seniors would not have graduated with the new state requirements - and this year’s senior class was an exceptionally strong class!
• Loss of 30 minutes of instruction daily results in 84 hours of lost instruction each year. 
• Over the course of middle school and high school, a full semester of instruction is lost.
• In addition, it creates even more of discrepancy between elementary teachers (who cannot count recess as educational time) and high school teachers who are now getting twice the amount of planning time as elementary teachers.
• This is a policy change – which means it will likely be this way FOREVER for all future generations of middle/high school students making it more and more difficult for our students to get the educational time they are entitled to by state law and more difficult for students to graduate.

To implement our proposed idea, the Master Agreement between the teachers union (AEA) and the school district will need two changes: from 8 hours per day to 40 hours per week, and removal of the requirements for teachers to show up 15 minutes before and stay 15 minutes after their assigned schedules.  This agreement is only updated every 3 years and is also on the agenda for Monday’s meeting.

This solution supports the school district’s motto of “Educational Excellence”, provides OMS/AHS the state required minimum number of hours, does not require teachers to work more hours each week, does not affect bussing or the amount of time that the elementary students are in school or on the bus.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT to address this item with the school board.  This is the last opportunity to affect this change.  The biggest impact we can have is getting MANY parents at the school board meeting on June 17^th at 7pm.   Please plan to attend the school board meeting.  Arrive a few minutes before 7pm to sign up to speak for up to 3 minutes.  If you are unable to attend the school board meeting, contact school board members by phone to share your input.  You can find the school board member names and phone numbers on the district website here.

We CAN make a difference if we all show up!  Please pass this information along to other ASD parents.

Sincerely,

A-PAGE committee

The Time is Now to Speak Out Against Passing Period Policy Change!!

The School Board will meet on Monday, June 3rd and will be, once again, reviewing the change to the district policy regarding student instructional time. This is the second reading of the policy and the time for discussion of the policy.  The proposed change will allow the district to count the time that students are walking between classes at OMS/AHS as “actively engaged in the educational process” and time that students are working toward achieving educational objectives under the supervision of a licensed teacher.

A-PAGE believes that these passing periods should not be counted as "actively engaged in the educational process".  The BOE is making this change because currently both OMS and AHS are not meeting the minimum number of hours required by state law without including passing time.  Passing time accounts for approximately 30 minutes each day. 

This 30 minutes adds up to about 84 hours of instruction each year that our students are not getting as required by state law – putting our students at a further disadvantage from other students in the state.  We have provided alternative options to the school district that increases the day at the middle school and high school by 30 minutes (start 15 minutes earlier and end 15 minutes later) to allow the school district to meet the minimum hours, without overburdening teachers with a longer work week (this is achieved with slightly different PLC time for the middle and high school teachers each week).

If you feel your students deserve as much time being educated as other students in the state, THIS IS THE TIME TO SPEAK UP!

The school board meeting begins at 7pm at the District Office (209 Victoria Avenue – south end of OMS parking lot). If you wish to speak regarding this policy revision, you must arrive 5 minutes early and sign up with the secretary. You will get 3 minutes to address the board. This section of the meeting occurs shortly after the start of the meeting.
Policy changes require three readings by the BOE. This Monday is the SECOND reading of this proposed policy change and the most crucial point for parent input.  If you are unable to attend this Monday's meeting to speak, please consider contacting any school board member via phone.  School Board members names & contact information can be found here.

You can see the proposed policy revision here. 
We encourage you to attend and speak up!
Sincerely,
A-PAGE Committee

Proposed Policy Change Cheats our Kids!

Tomorrow (Monday) night at the Alamosa School Board meeting the BOE will begin the steps to change the definition of "Actively Engaged in the Educational Process" to include the time between classes for both OMS/AHS.  

The BOE is proposing a revision to district policy that will strike excluding passing time (time between classes when students move from one class to another) to allow this passing time to be counted in the number of hours students are "actively engaged in the educational process".  You can see the proposed revision here. 

In that same policy it states... "The Board defines "actively engaged in the educational process" as time when students are working toward achieving educational objectives under the supervision of a licensed teacher."   While we understand that teachers are involved in passing time from a behavioral standpoint, we do not believe that students are working towards achieving educational objectives during these passing periods.  

A-PAGE believes that passing periods should not be counted as "actively engaged in the educational process".   The BOE is making this change because currently both OMS and AHS are not meeting the minimum number of hours required by state law without including passing time.  Passing time accounts for approximately 30 minutes each day.  This 30 minutes adds up to about 84 hours of instruction each year that our students are not getting as required by state law.  We have provided alternative options to the school district that increases the day at the middle school and high school by 30 minutes (start 15 minutes earlier and end 15 minutes later) to allow the school district to meet the minimum hours, without overburdening teachers with a longer work week (this is achieved with slightly different PLC time for the middle and high school teachers each week).

We need parents to rally in opposition to this proposed policy revision!! 

Our students are already behind their peers in Colorado.  Let's work at increasing educational time for students instead of decreasing it by counting non-education time as actively involved in education.

The school board meeting begins at 7pm at the District Office (209 Victoria Avenue – south end of  OMS parking lot). If you wish to speak regarding this policy revision, you must arrive 5 minutes early and sign up with the secretary. You will get 3 minutes to address the board. This section of the meeting occurs shortly after the start of the meeting.

Policy changes require three readings by the BOE.  This Monday is the first reading of this proposed policy change.  If you are unable to attend this Monday's meeting to speak, please consider attending one of the upcoming readings or contact any school board member via phone.  School Board members names & contact information can be found here.

There are 3 opportunities for you to speak regarding this policy:

1. Monday at 7pm
2. The second reading, when any discussion is to occur by the school board (will likely be on June 3rd). 
3. The final reading is when the revision will be approved (date is unknown - probably at the next scheduled board meeting)

We encourage you to attend and speak up!
Sincerely,
A-PAGE Committee 

Adams State Aligns Spring Break with Valley Schools

An issue that A-PAGE has been working on for the last two years has finally come to a resolution. 

Adams State has decided to adjust the calendars for the next two academic years to align Adams State spring break with a majority of the Valley school districts (including the Alamosa School District).

2013-14: Spring Break will be Monday – Friday, March 24 – 28, 2014
2014-15: Spring Break will be Monday – Friday, March 23 – 27, 2015

This will allow those students, parents and families of Alamosa School District students who are employed by or concurrently enrolled at Adams State to have the same spring break schedule.  For the last 3 years the spring breaks of Adams State and the Alamosa School District have not been held during the same week, causing problems for many students (ASD as well as ASU) and their families.

Earlier this year most of the school districts in the valley came together to align on the same spring break for the 2013-14 school year.  This step by ASU has now completed that alignment. 

Note: TSJC rotates alignment of their spring break with Trinidad School District one year and with Alamosa School District the next year.  So this change will also add TSJC to the alignment every other year.

Early Release will be on Wednesday next year

At the School Board meeting on Monday, April 8th, the BOE approved calendar option A with a early release day of Wednesday.  There was one modification to the calendar, which was that OMS & AHS will release at 1:40 instead of 1:25 for 15 additional minutes of instruction. (AES will release at 1:15pm)

A-PAGE via the District Accountability Committee questioned how the state required minimum number of 1056 hours for Secondary (OMS & AHS) were being met given that the current district policy (IC/ICA) specifically excludes passing time (time between classes) from being included in the definition of "actively engaged in the educational process".  While the state does allow passing time to be included in this definition, current district policy does not.

For the 2012-13 school year, the amount of time that students are "actively engaged in the educational process" at OMS is 990 hours, 8 minutes and at AHS is 990 hours, 27 minutes.  Both of which are well below the 1056 hours required by state law (by about 11 regular school days).  The approved calendar for next year calls for 976 hours at OMS and 994 hours at AHS (with the proposed block schedule).  Again, those are still both significantly less than the 1056 required by the state.

It appeared that the district was ready to push though a change to the IC/ICA policy with a revised agenda for the BOE meeting last night.  However, at the last minute, they tabled the action item regarding that policy.  So our question still remains, how is the district meeting the minimum required 1056 hours of instruction at the middle school and high school level?