Connecticut Postings

On Wednesday, from 4 to 6 p.m., there will be a Back-to-School Health fair for the Roosevelt school community, sponsored by Southwest Community Health Center at the school, located at 680 Park Avenue in Bridgeport.

The event will include free medical screenings, information for the entire family, back to school giveaways and the chance to win a free IPOD Shuffle.

So on Tuesday, President Obama is going to address the nation’s school children to tell them to work hard and take responsibility for their learning. Apparently, to some, that translates to an attempt at “mind control.” Others have hysterically called the speech as “socialist” and “Nazi-like propaganda.” The resulting furor has led school districts through the area to get calls from parents.

Commissioner of Education Mark K. McQuillan sent out a memo to school superintendents today which, in essence, says get a grip.

“This is truly unfortunate, inaccurate and clearly goes beyond the definition of responsible civil discourse,” he said

McQuillan reviewed the materials relating to the president’s speech and says most of his themes are consistent with the messages delivered to the nation’s young people from previous presidents _ such as Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush _ focusing on the importance of staying in school and working hard and graduating and going to college. (How communist can you get?!?) Along with the speech, the US Department of Education has issued suggestions for activities and guided discussions, such as “What is the President trying to tell me?” and “What resonated with you from President Obama’s speech?”

While showing or not showing the speech is a local matter, McQuillan urged local school boards and districts to give every consideration to providing students access to the address in a away that provides due respect to the Office of the President.

Locally, most districts plan to leave it up to individual school principals to decided. A directive in Milford has gone out to show the broad cast only if it fits in with what the class happens to be learning at the moment.

In Bridgeport, seventh and eighth graders, who on the Connecticut Mastery Test, have to write a persuasive essay, will watch the speech then tackle the question: “What do you do when you “persuade” someone?”

The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Did your eyes just glaze over with incomprehension upon reading that? You’re not alone.

The initiative is actually a nationwide effort to promote quality education for the nation’s Latinos. It’s been in existence since 1990.

And yet, few people have actually heard of it. That point was illustrated during a public forum Wednesday afternoon at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport.  Close to 50 people attended the forum to share their ideas about improving Latino educational attainment with White House Initiative executive director Juan Sepulveda.

Most of them were invited. Yet — as a quick survey by Sepulveda showed — only two of those in attendance had even heard of the initiative before being invited to the forum. Sepulveda said he’d taken a survey at a forum held that morning at HCC, which drew a similiar number of people. One only person from that event had heard of the initiative.

That’s OK, Sepulveda said. That lack of awareness is part of the reason he came to HCC, and is visiting communities throughout the country. “Most people don’t even know we’re here,” he said.

For more on Sepulveda, the intiative and the HCC forums, read tomorrow’s Connecticut Post.

So one apparent winner in the finally settled state budget are charter schools. Apparently the $8 million in charter school funding cut from the governor’s proposed budget was restored which will allow schools like Bridge Academy, Achievement First Bridgeport, New Beginnings and Park City Prep _ all in Bridgeport _ to keep the seats they have or add seats. Achievement First Bridgeport this year expands to 227 students and Park City Prep to 238 students. Bridge Academy will continue with an enrollment of 260 and New Beginnings, 360. Statewide this year, there are 5,170 seats total in 18 charter schools, an increase of 430 slots.

Now in their 12th year, charter schools are public schools, funded directly by the state, and governed independent of local school board control. The idea is to be creative and allow decisions to be made without going through red tape. Some do a better job than others of closing the so-called achievement gap but most tend to be popular with parents.

Housatonic Community College, 900 Lafayette Blvd., Bridgeport,  is hosting two community forums tomorrow on the Whte House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. Citizens will be asked for their thoughts, opinions and ideas on improoving educational attainment.

For details on the event and how to register for it, click here. Each session will start with an introduction by HCC  President Anita T. Gliniecki and Juan Sepulveda, executive director of the White House Initiative.

So after meeting for more than two hours behind closed doors Monday in Room 305 of City Hall, the Bridgeport BOE failed to come to a consensus on a new facilities director. Two candidates, neither local _ but officials didn’t exactly where they live _ were interviewed by five members of the nine-member school board. After the second candidate left, Board President Maximino Medina Jr. came out to tell the handful of people waiting in the hallway that no decision would be reached that evening. Its well known that more than one member of the board has a hard time with having a facilities director live outside the immediate area because the position is on-call and comes with a take home vehicle. It was a bone of contention throughout facilities director Al Hind’s tenure. He lived in the Hartford area.

Apparently about eight or nine individuals applied to take Hind’s place and a handful were interviewed by a committee. The board met with the top two finalists. That makes two positions on which board members apparently can’t reach consensus. Over the summer, the board interviewed, but did not vote to hire, a candidate for the job of director of the Central Magnet School. The job has since been re-posted.

Stay tuned.

So if you planned to spend your Monday evening watching the Bridgeport Board of Education’s Finance Committee discuss professional fees, a Bridgeport Regional Business Council request and it’s still-not-finalized 2009-2010 school budget, forget about it. As is so often the case, the meeting was just canceled, no doubt to a lack of a quorum or because the state may actually be poised to finally adopt its budget, upon which the city BOE heavily relies. Take your pick. No explanation was given.

In any case, the board is still planning to meet at 6 p.m. in Room 305 of city hall to interview, and possibly agree to hire a new director of facilities to replace Al Hinds who after a couple of years on the job, is retiring. Stay tuned…

  So you might ask, what can a fourth-generation shrimper say to inspire a group of freshmen about to embark on a four year undergraduate experience on the bucolic Fairfield University campus?

  Campus officials say Diane Wilson, author of  “An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas,” is an example of moral courage and intellectual persistence.” She is being held up as a working class model for students grappling with terms like “bio-diversity” and “sustainability.” Wilson, after fishing the bays of the Gulf Coast of Texas became an activist who fought against toxins dumped into the bay. She will address students during Fall Convocation, three days into the fall semester, onFriday, Sept. 4 at 10 a.m. on the Bellarmine Lawn.

   Hopefully the gang will have questions. Freshmen all got her book over the summer to read.