By Antonio D. French
Filed Tuesday, August 29 at 5:25 PM
St. Louis Public Schools reports nearly 84% of students expected to attend school today were in the classroom.
"We are certainly pleased to see an increase in the attendance for day two," said Interim Superintendent Diana Bourisaw in a statement released to the media. She added that district leaders still want "all of our kids in school tomorrow."
The total enrollment for St. Louis Public Schools today was 27,620 compared with the first day enrollment of 23,558.
Bourisaw also highlighted the rise in certified teachers in classrooms on the first day of school. She said there are fewer than 60 vacant teaching positions in core subjects, including math, science, and language arts.
"I am confident that we will have a highly qualified teacher in every classroom in the very near future," said Bourisaw.
22 Comments:
Ive goot some good news,,, I got A jOB SUBBING FOR THE DISTRICT. I dont want to tell u were just yet. But im just happy to be around the kids
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 5:37:00 PM
Why does that scare me? I hope you are kidding.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 5:43:00 PM
the attendance figures for day two are being reported by......................in the media?
Lead story on channel......?
headlines in pd tomorrow?
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 7:31:00 PM
and the media is busy staightening out that unfinished story that Floyd irons was dismissed as a teacher in a mysterious letter, by reporting that he is teaching history at .................?
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 7:33:00 PM
I blasted kmox on jon grayson's show. They gave a day old report, all the ranting about the disaster of the 72 percent and I quoted Bourisaw about the 84 percent 2nd day figure from this blog.
I made the point about the first days attendance not being reported since 2003---he was having none of it---he remembered hearing the report last year. He ranted on and on about the 72 percent figure.
For all the good it will do----I e-mailed him the info from these first two stories.
The media has been horrible in their reporting on this story all summer long.
He thinks Slay is right wanting the state to take over---a follow up to my call challenged him on that very effectively.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 1:11:00 AM
Sub pay is not really bad, I may be able to get a car very soon, see I like the school season, its a great time to work and make a living, and talk to many kids.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 1:12:00 AM
Mr. Fat Nutts will not last long as a substitute teacher if he just lets out one of his obscene gems of profanity and obscenity that he habitually used on this blog.
Not good for the kids to have someone who has such an abbreviated vocabulary and sick attitude.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 6:02:00 AM
Isn't it interesting that after the schools DID open on time, parents responded by sending their children the second day? To me, that says that it was the media smear campaign telling them that the schools would never open on time that kept them home in the first place. Maybe the mayor's office knew something the parents didn't about the state of things when Willimas left. I understand he had failed to plan ahead for most of his initiatives and was months away from being ready for implementation (because he spent all of his time "charming" people with his talk about these ideas?). Of course, that would have invited a State takeover, which is what Slay wanted. He needed to regain control over the District so he could continue to do things like fatten the coffers of Metro with student bus passes that cost us state transportation funding (which is only allowed for the "yellow busses"). He wanted to be able to sell already air-conditioned, high performing schools to benefit polititcal supporters' desire for a new stadium for their favorite private University. He saw the District as a cash cow to be drained for his own agenda, and now we can see how far he actually went toward that goal. He wanted Williams BECAUSE he had never been a superintendent before, and didn't know any better.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 7:43:00 AM
brace yourself------------kmox has plans to smear the schools in a big way-------to bolster Slay's wish to have a state takeover. I wrote to John Butler complaining about the reporting---------he wrote this---
"We’ll wait until the end of the week, like Bourisaw suggested to get the weekly turn out, good or bad. We’ll also get the MAP scores at that time which we are told are embargoed by the state until Friday. We’ll put the two together and then let the public determine how well the education system in St. Louis is working"
I wrote him back, but I am sure it will fall on deaf ears. Slay's office is essentially managing the news at KMOX.
"You are going to combine:
1.the attendance figures after a summer of turmoil----given to you by the superintendent as cooperatively as possible on a daily basis for the first time since 2003 (according to Downs).
with
2.the Map scores achieved during the one year of Williams, during which two members of the school board were replaced leading to his and Irons dismissal.
to show the public how the schools are doing.
Bold prediction: the public will agree with Slay---let the state take over.
Your plans will make Slay, very happy---it kind of helps gloss over the fact that the candidates he supported for the board, despite a 7-1 spending advantage----lost."
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 10:37:00 AM
techno, I kno how to act right, I can keep a job, sub jobs are easy, you just watch the little kids all day. I can do that. I told tonio I was redemming myself of the past person, I dont want too be muss understood. U MF!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 12:21:00 PM
You just had to add that last tidbit Mr? Redeeming yourself doesn't mean resorting to your old ways. It means holding your tongue when you don't possibly think you can hold it any longer. That's what a mature growing individual does. It also means that you might find some way to do more than just watch the kids all day. We don't need babysitters. We need teachers that are in the classroom willing to help the students embark in some form of learning. Please find a way to bring something of value that you have to these children to teach them SOMETHING, ANYTHING. Do some research, be prepared everyday you are in the classroom to help these children learn. I know you are quite capable of using a computer and the internet. The internet, as I'm sure you know, holds such a vast resource of information. Use it. Prove each and every one of us wrong. Let us know how you are doing. That would be redeeming yourself. Me for one would love to hear how great you are doing. I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!!!
Thursday, August 31, 2006 6:09:00 AM
You know I'm beginning to wonder if the first blogger just loves to get our pants in a knot? If so, good grief man, can you not find something better to do with your time? The people here are seriously concerned about their children. If not, I pray to the good lord above that you do what the previous blogger said. Give us all a break and find it in your heart to do what's right.
Thursday, August 31, 2006 6:14:00 AM
whatever that 2nd guy said? I teach the kids, about life. About being a blackman in saint louis! About makin it, About gettin out the hood! I try to make a change. my way. The whiteman dont kno what the blackman go threw. I need to let my people kno how to get ahead in life. and not end up on the streets. I kno you will like that. you wont hear of us on the news as much if I get teachn this. you hear me. I have been subbing for 11yrs now. I kno what i am doing.
Thursday, August 31, 2006 8:24:00 AM
I guess you know....as long as it's not spelling your gonna teach.
By the way, arent' you up a little late? I hope you get some sleep on the days you're gonna sub. I'd hate to have a cranky mr fat nutts in front of a classroom. You're gonna need your patience man.
Thursday, August 31, 2006 3:26:00 PM
Absolutely, there is nothing worse than an impatient man with fat nutts! Good Luck Mr. F. N! I am taking it in faith that you won't use "blog language" in the classroom...(but I am going to make a hell of an effort to decrease my 10 days of absenteeism!)
Thursday, August 31, 2006 8:42:00 PM
By the way...for all you grammar gurus...I know it should be "on faith" not "in faith".
This medium does not necessarily value correct grammar/spelling, etc. Opinions, and a variety of points of view are numero uno.
Just my opinion and point of view.
Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:15:00 PM
Jim, I think it's an error in logic that we need to avoid, not necessarily incorrect spelling or phrasing. Sometimes, when I'm really frustrated because what I have personally witnessed is so vastly different from the media-fed truthiness that people believe, I fail to use a cogent enough argument to make the point that needs to be made to get the truth out there (oops - a run on sentence).
Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:31:00 PM
I've decided not to respond to a blog further up by anon until now, because I was a little ticked off regarding the comment of "fattening the Metro coffers". The bus passes were given to students because A. the district provided no transportation to these students who live within the city and B. to teach these children how to utilize public transportation, because as you know many city dwellers have no choice at some point BUT to utilize public transporation. I am here to tell you that we have no "fattened coffers". Aside from the monies that we get, like any other school in the district, we work very hard to get extra funds to help subsidize programs for our children. When I say we, I mean the students, their parents and the very hard working administration at that school, namely Mr Moore. The students, aside from working hard to get into this school, work extremely hard while there, to qualify for additional funds from outside resources that our administration has to go and find. Outside resources ie-grants given by private and public companies for high achievement. The parents also work hard with fundraising programs in and out of school ie-working at Rams games etc. We all work really hard to give our children what we believe they will need to get this outstanding education and other benefits. To my knowledge we have no affiliation with Mayor Slay regarding how we subsidize additional programs for our children. Finally, this year, our students who live a mile or more from school have transportation to and from school. If I am correct, that is what we would have all preferred in the first place. Last year one of best and brightest was raped walking to school. Make no mistake, we suffer at times like any other school, with issues regarding our children. This year we are struggling with over-crowding at our school, like a lot of other schools, because Dr Williams had this bright idea that our school could hold many more additional students than it had in the past. WRONG-now we are left with struggling to keep our children learning and growing and achieving at the same level as in the past. This WAS the bright star of the district, because we fought as a group to keep it that way. Unfortunately, we won our fight too late with Dr Williams, he didn't finally see our point that our school could only hold so many children until after he had accepted too many additional students. The capacity was documented in many areas but he refused to see or listen to us,until it was too late. When he finally realized that we were right, he wanted to tell these additional students that he had already accepted that they could not come. We as parents told him that wasn't right, and we started to prepare for what we knew was coming. Unfortunately, I don't think we could have ever realized the true impact and now we are all working very hard trying to rectify a very bad decision by our former superintendent. If our coffers are so fat, why are we and our students preparing for a very difficult struggle ahead. We are all going to work very hard this year to deal with our current situation so that the #1 ranked High School in Missouri stays ranked #1. With the district in such a bad place, we should all be very proud to say we DO have the #1 ranked High school in Missouri, because it's the students who have worked very hard and achieved the scores to get there. The students at Metro come from many other schools, not just the gifted ones, and all the students take pride in their overall ranking and will continue to work very hard to keep their school ranked at the top.
Sunday, September 03, 2006 9:13:00 AM
"Metro" is the new name of Bistate, anon at 10:13:46. I was talking about how yellow bus service was cut and city bus passes were purchased instead. The yellow busses qualified for State reimbursement, and the city busses did not. This was a Roberti trick that was done to lower the transportation bottom line for charges, without knowledge of that reimibursement situation which lowered the bottom line for total expense. I was not talking about the school named Metro. The coffers that were fattened went to building the light rail extension that was way over budget.
Sunday, September 03, 2006 12:31:00 PM
Apologies then-since you did not specify what Metro and right afterward referred to already air-conditioned high performing schools, I assumed you meant Metro High School. Our students were given "Metro/Bi-state bus passes" when requested, if they had no transportation to school and lived in the city. Now they use "yellow busses" if they live a mile or more from school. Can you see how I might have mis-understood? Thank you for clarifying.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006 4:37:00 PM
Sorry, I understand the confusion. If anything, though, Metro High School has been misunderstood and taken advantage of lately. I just read on the DESE website that it was the highest performing school in Missouri again for MAP 2006 - both Math and Comm Arts.
The already air-conditioned high performing school building that was sold to SLU was Waring. It had been doing really well, and did not fit any of the criteria that Roberti said were being used, yet was closed and sold to SLU at about half it's value, because SLU wanted the land for the new sports arena. It is widely believed that Vince Schoemehl, who was on the School Board at the time, orchestrated this to benefit the revitalization of the Grand Center area.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006 6:28:00 PM
You're not kidding. The overcrowded situation due to Williams decisions is critical. He took advantage of our situation (ranking)because he felt that more students should have the opportunity to attend this great school. Which, of course in theory is a great idea. But every school only holds so many students. We showed him 3 separate instances where the capacity of the school was published and he chose to ignore these figures. Now most classrooms which had a 15:1 ratio are currently 20:1 and in some 30:1 or more. Not every student has a locker. And for the first week of school, many children waited in line for lunch the entire lunch period to get their food, with little or no time to eat it. We begged Williams to leave Metro alone. We pointed out that there were many other schools that needed his attention, again he chose to ignore our objections. Now we're left with his mess to clean up, as was the rest of the district before schools opened. For the next several years we will have to decrease enrollment to try and get the school back to where it was. They are also talking about opening another school like Metro, which is why we originally started to increase our enrollment slightly. Roberti was the one who had that idea way back when. Williams didn't even know why our enrollment numbers had originally been increased and tried to claim that his increase of enrollment was just following suit from the previous year. Unfortunately, his increase was quite a bit higher than the previous year and he had a plan for the following years to keep increasing enrollment. We pointed out that if he continued, our student enrollment would be nearly 500 students (twice what it holds). Lord knows what his decisions have done to our future ranking. We only hope that our incredible administration, teachers, students and parents can make this situation work until there is another school opened like Metro.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006 10:03:00 AM
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