Vote Medford 2007

Attenazio: (Q11) Three Ideas to Enhance Community & Parental Involvement

General ideas….schools and education is driven by personalities and the humans and staff at each school. This creates a school culture. School councils need to assess and look at their school cultures to determine how it might enhance parent involvement and be more welcoming. School based polls to families would be one way to collect data and see what the consumers are feeling about certain aspects of the school culture. This should be driven by the School Councils since they are closest to the specific environments.

Attenazio: (Q12) Three Changes To Improve District's Hiring Practices

• Strong diversity push, posting in nontraditional media publications and minority outlets. Look out of state and offer relocation incentives.
• Evaluate teacher compensation package to see if it is competitive to other towns in attracting new hires and high quality staff.
• Develop school based hiring teams to help principal with screening and interviews.

Attenazio: (Q13) Recognizing Religious Holidays Fairly

These religious holidays are typically driven by the teacher’s union, not the SC. But if one religion is honored, the same should be extended to others. If this cannot be done, the practice should be eliminated. Some towns give Good Friday off, but also Yom Kippur, for example.

Attenazio: (Q14) Strategies Against Classroom Overcrowding

Classroom size is driven by the budget. You want smaller classes, you have to pay for it by adding more teachers. That is a very simple equation. The only other alternative is to cut other programs to be able to decrease class size. Class size is also addressed in the teachers’ contract reflecting some outer limit. My own personal opinion is that classroom size does matter. If there are too many children in one classroom, I do not feel that they are all going to be learning at the same level.

Attenazio: (Q15) Special Education: Strengthening IEP Teams & Improving Dispute Resolution

First, there are strong DOE programs in place to meet this function. There are also software programs that help to manage and allow IEP’s to be viewed on website platforms that are secure to all staff (i.e ESped, Eutactics, etc.)

Special education liaisons and teachers are often the point person to ensure that full distribution of IEP’s to relevant staff is done. This should be controlled and monitored through clear and precise policy guidelines developed by the special education director.

If staff is properly trained in accommodations, modifications, and the laws in question, that addresses one component of compliance. In terms of disputes, good solid and reliable assessments often eliminate this controversy. The district need quantitative data that is research based and reliable assessments that determine what the student learning issues or disabilities are.

All team personnel MUST be “on board and on the same page” in order for a child with a disability to succeed.

A student must have a disability and require either specialized instruction or specialized services to require an IEP. If that criteria is not met, based on solid and reliable data, that student should not be on an IEP. Parent education and training on special education laws are required by the school district each year. There are also other statewide resources that the district should inform parents of so they have access to correct information which can be independently confirmed outside the district. If there are issues regarding trust or credibility of the schools, it is imperative the district act to change that culture and share information, materials and resources to families regularly and consistently. Often, parents are unclear as to what the laws actually require. They know their child needs help and could benefit from any number of services. But, if those services to not relate to the disability or if they are not addressing those challenges that impede that student’s ability to access the general curriculum and show progress (1 year’s progress in 1 year’s time is the rule of thumb here) in performance, grades or state testing, then the district needs to take a hard look as to why that may not be occurring.