Mr Wendt needs to take another look at the Murphy math classes my girls are in 8th grade and they have told me that there classes are in the high 20's. Wan't this why we opened Murphy so that the classes sizes would not get this big.

Just confirmed with my daughter 28 kids in the Honors math. HMMMM that is not near 21 it appears to be closer to the 30 range.

Plank, Thompson and Longbeach didn't make AYP for a second year in a row? Hummm...wonder if that had something to do with the principals of those schools deciding to leave? After the third year I think it pretty much dooms you and your resume.

Where did 500 new kids come from ,I know there wasn't 500 new homes built in oswego. Maybe now our kids are bussed in from Texas maybe upper michigan
maybe california or new york who knows how far 308 will go to find kids to come to
the district so they can hire more spend more and tax more.

logansdad
Maybe years from now when logans grown up and out of school and your paying
for other childrens educations and the school says they need more money. It will dawn on you that 308 will take your income your house and your blood if it's worth anyhting all for the sake of our the children that came here from all over the globe to suck you dry.

logansdad
I know this feeling because i have no kids that ever went or will ever go
yet my bill keeps rising. Will there be a tax exemption for people with no children in the system cause that would help me and many seniors that are struggling to pay the school part of the tax bill.How much will logans education from 308 cost
in 15 years at 4,000 8,000 a year hope your a teacher or adminestrator with ahuge pension cause you'll need it.

Natalie and JimmyJ, a school becomes a "choice school" when it fails to meet AYP for 2 consecutive years. Here's a link that can answer basic AYP questions:
http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ayp/htmls/faq.htm

I love that the district has to accommodate kids from outside the district with taxis while the kids IN the district lost their busing. What a stupid law.

I love how we state the obvious to try to make it seem better than it is. Of course non-core courses will be smaller. Duh. Not everyone takes music, Spanish, etc. 33 kids in an elementary class? Yet other schools have classes with 20, 21, 22? What exactly did this boundary change resolve again?

D308 = a hot mess

@Reality...I know quite a bit about AYP and NCLB and I know that the figures to be met are in many cases unrealistic. My only comment concerning the three schools was that they share two things in common....they didn't make AYP for two years and their principals left...I'm just wondering if that is a coincidence or if it had something to do with their decisions to move on. If it's the latter then certainly their chances at employment in another district would be better ( assuming the principal is accountable to the Superintendent or Asst. Superintendent for failure to make AYP) than if they went in to the interview saying "yeah we failed to make AYP three or four years." AYP realistically is akin to achieving travel at light speed...you can't ever get there. Does that mean all the schools are sinking ships....you have to make that assessment as a parent in the case of your own kids. I have three and for two D308 was a sinking ship, so much so my son attends private school and yes I still pay taxes to 308 in addition to the hefty tuition, and yes it's been 1000% better.

Jane...the district got hooked on the "feeder system" years ago and it's never really worked. Several elementary would fill one JHS and a couple of JHS would fill a HS. I'll spare you the details of which schools because it's changed over time as the district grew. It looks good on paper, the problem is that the growth did not always go where the prediction said it would so you have Thompson up to nearly 1000 students a few years back and not all of them went to OHS some went to OEHS. I'm not sure if that ever got fixed or not. So you have to redraw the lines to try and balance, or bus kids across town to less populated schools. It quickly becomes a no win situation. Parents either are ticked because the school is crowded or because their child now has to ride across town.

I agree with logansdad about where the 500 new students came from. My family moved here in 2005 & my son started Kindergarten last school year. The roster had over 500 kindergarteners for just one school. It seems strange the numbers going up despite the housing market issues. The families that moved here back when they had babies are now expanding & also sending their young kids to school.
I don't understand how the district couldn't see this coming. It's very frustrating, as a parent, to watch how our board of education seems so clueless.

LSJ...mobility is part of it, many of the families who move here also move away while their kids are in school so the numbers always shift around. From what you say your school had 500 in kindergarten last year? Was that at the all day kindergarten or at a regular AM/PM school? How many were in the classes? If there were 500 at one school with AM/PM and there were 4 classrooms and 2 shifts that would be 62.5 kids per class.

If you have followed the school district for years you would see that this is an annual happening, sometimes we have had 800 or more new students. The problem isn't so much the total number, it's where they live which causes the problem for a particular school.

Paul, that's right I had forgotten that bit of history. Yep I remember that now. At the time no one anticipated that there would be so much growth on the west wide of the river. In hindsight you wonder why that thought came in the first place other then to say no one had a clue the growth would be so explosive, that put 308 into playing catchup and what seems like a hodgepodge of projects and so forth. When they guessed wrong on where growth would be ( and the state of the economy) you got Southbury and Murphy sitting empty, the growth in those areas all but stopped. So you are stuck I guess with trying to maintain a feeder concept...people want neighborhood schools, yet they want them uncrowded. So to uncrowd them you have to build a new one and draw fire or you have to bus them to less populated schools throwing the neighborhood concept out and drawing fire. Again it comes down to trying to guess where people will live. The district covers 62.5 square miles if memory serves and most of that space is not built out.

And most people expect this whole complex mess to be managed by a group of untrained volunteers. Talk about a thankless job.
Both of my kids made it through D308 just fine. Sure there were some bumps in the road along the way, but that made them both stronger. They attended Old Post when it was brand new, one went to OHS, the other opened up OEHS. The feeder system might have worked better if the BOE(s) had stuck with either the 600 or 900 student model, not switched back and forth. It seems the only constant is change within D308. And it doesn't look to slow down anytime soon.

"When they guessed wrong on where growth would be ( and the state of the economy) you got Southbury and Murphy sitting empty"

Southbury is empty? Where have my kids and wife been going for the past 5 years. Someone has some 'splaining" to do.

However, we have had some growth in just our neighborhood alone. O'donnell moved out and two young children moved in that house, another family moved out and 2 more kids moved in there and we have 5 houses currently under construction and that's just in our section of Southbury.

@Missing34...you know I've been here so long you'll have to forgive me if I don't remember every detail to it's gory specifics. Southbury did not open when it was built. It did sit unused until they decided to close East View and shift those students there. Murphy sat empty for 2 years.

As far as growth in Southbury...you are right...those townhouses on Lakeshore Drive...or maybe it's the set farther down the ones that sat with their tyvek flapping in the breeze for a year or more were finally finished off..not sure I'd buy one knowing how long they sat exposed but then again I don't sell real estate. Banks are putting some of the older foreclosed stuff on the market. There is some building in the area too so maybe it will even out.

East View and Southbury were open at the same time for at 3 years.

Southbury only sat empty for maybe a year, but I think it opened the fall after it was completed. They considered not opening it, but decided to leave Hunt Club empty for a year instead. Point is understood however.

@ Missing...yeah this one that one whats the difference. Dr. Behlow wanted two things...Early Childhood Center and Administrative Center. You got me thinking and I think what happened was Southbury opened below capacity, then they started the all day kindergarten and that was over there, then they closed East View and moved them there and made it an admin center, now it's all day Kindergarten I think plus admin? Hard to keep track. Hunt Club...yep that;s the one I was thinking of....anyways....

Pull out your old class photos from the 60's and 70's folks. Count how many students there were in those classes. Then compare that standard to today.
Since US education systems have been participating in the "Dumbing of America" (you know, open book open note tests, no memorization of logarithms and tables, 90% of students on the "honor roll", etc.) why should a class size of 30-32 students make any difference? Wasn't that the standards long ago and didn't students seem to achieve just as good (or bad, depending on your view) an education?
I am curious as to how many people over 40 believe that they received a better education than our kids do today...and why.

Russ I believe I did and I'm a product of the Chicago public schools in the 1970's and 1980's. We always had 30 to 35 kids in class. Also there was no such thing as a teacher aide in K-8 I think teachers worked harder then and they had more leeway to discipline a student in class than they do today.

Russ, I would say that my public school education (from upstate NY) was not really any better than what my kids got in 308. It was different, that's for sure, but not better, per se. We didn't have air conditioning and we went to school until well into June. Talk about miserable learning conditions. We had to memorize tables and figure out natural logarithms the old school way. Did it mean anything to me at the time, or ever since? Not really. Calculators were introduced when I was in college a few years later on, and since then, I've never given the old method another thought. Has anyone?
School to me was about the learning process and not so much about the actual stuff or the method of memorizing that stuff. And I think today's kids are learning new ways to acquire the same knowledge or methods to get to the same endpoint.
Oh, and it's still vitally important today, just as it was in my day, that the home environment supports the school work and the student. Probably even more so, if I think about it. That may be what has changed more so than the actual schooling itself. Lack of a mom at home, family meal time, after school activities etc.. all contribute to the issue.

Oswego Resident, here's a bit of insight into the changes in 308, my kids seem to have hit right during "changes". When my oldest ( OHS Class of 2006) was at Boulder Hill there was no weekly test on spelling words like we used to have. By JHS she was getting marked down for poor spelling on reports. When my youngest went to BH 6 years later...what do you know...weekly spelling. When my youngest was in 4th grade he was given multiplication table to take home and memorize as homework because as the teacher said " we don't teach memorization of facts anymore". The following year what was 4th grade doing? Memorization of times tables in class. We put out youngest in a private school starting in 6th grade and the teacher there was astounded that he has not memorized multiplication. My problem with 308 is that there is to much empsasis on "new" perhaps trying to find the answer to the ever popular question of why Johnny Can't Read or as proof they are trying to meet their NCLB goals by teaching to the test, and if you don't think they teach to the test...think again. I have a good friend who teaches at OHS and is one of the few teachers not to give out a "packet" the "packet" is essentially all of the quizzes and tests so the students can study for the answers in advance.

When I went to school we had to walk, uphill, bothways....in the snow.

JimmyJ
It appears we were at the same graduation ceremony in 2006.
My kids started school on the East Coast and didn't join 308 until Old Post opened in 1997. 2nd and 4th grade I think. Perhaps they had a great foundation from back East, but other than that both of my kids did okay in school. They had excellent and not so excellent teachers at all levels. One graduated from OHS and the other from OEHS. One finished college and the other, well, perhaps one day...
Both of them struggled at some point, but it was never supposed to be easy the whole time. That's what I meant by the process of learning and the involvment of the family in the process.
Needless to say, one of them is now a teacher in D308. So i am getting a lesson in how the system works, from the inside.

Martin...where you been?? Block has been one of the biggest points of discussion almost as long as it's been implemented. You either seem to love it or hate it. I'm not fond of it. The issue we had personally was that our freshman had algebra, then no math in sophomore and then geometry in junior and none in senior as a consequence she had to take a remedial course at Waubonsee. To us that was wasted time and money. The Block allows more time for electives and in my view electives are not what high school is for. On the other hand Aurora Central Catholic runs on a 4 block schedule, BUT I believe in that 90 minutes, there is more instruction than in D308. the other thing the block does is cut passing periods, teachers like it as there is less hall supervision needed, administrators like it because it provides a certain amount of "lock down", less opportunity for things to happen. Many of the teachers, my friends at OHS included who just love it are elective class teachers, cut electives, there goes jobs.

Martin, sorry I was being a little sarcastic....well you are finding out what I've known and experienced. In my view the "guidance counselors" are as useful as a wheelbarrow without the wheel. Now I have not always been this ornery I used to be a nice person. But when I went in to see my kids counselor and when she found I disagreed with her ( that's one thing I have found across the board, once anyone in D308 finds out you see through their smokescreens...you get their real attitude), she launched into the usual story most educators cop when you disagree with them, it goes like this. "I know your child and I'm pretty sure I know what's best" Sorry, but you can go to hell guidance counselor. The kicker to that story is that this particular counselor at OHS told me the reason she knew what was best was because she has been my kids teacher in JHS. Ok lady...you had my kid for a 50 minute class 3 years ago, actually this was her junior year so more like 5 years ago..and you know my kid. You gotta be kidding me. I got up and went across the street and saw Dr. Behlow, he picked up the phone and there was no more problem. In fact I don't think that "counselor" is there anymore. Go have to fight these people tooth and nail..because remember THEY know what's best for YOU.

Martin, sounds like we have been on the same road. We made the mistake of going along with them and when I sat in on the ld class and found they were 4 lessons back from the regular class in the same books we took him out and that was a battle. So he attends StPaul in aurora. I don't recall bis sisters reading things like east of eden or heart of darkness as required reading their whole time in d308 but they are required in 8th grade here. Probably too old school. So much for the ld designation. They are way too quick to lable but that's how the spec ed co op survives..gotta have kids to bill for!!

JimmyJ, I don't where you came up with using my name, (on Aug. 29), that I would say a feeder system will not work in a real world. My position is that a feeder system is the most logical system and although not perfect will work well provided there is planning to properly locate schools and their boundarys. The planning begins before developement construction with coordination of local governments to insure proper location of schools. Unfortunately, although I encouraged D308 administrations to coordinate on local conceptional plans there was little effort and locating school sites were not obtained in the best locations. Paul Lark and I both advocated an additional elementary and a Jr. High on the North-West side of the river but it was completely ignored. Boundaries do have to be changed at times to balance enrollmnets and the boundary decisions have to be begin at the elementary schools level because they are the basic block of the system. Changing boundaries starting with the Jr. Highs or High Schools to establish boundaries only leads to futue problems and explains why boundaries have been problimatic in D308. If you want the entire history give me a call.

There certainly was misunderstanding because I have never said that a feeder system would not work. The system has not operated as it should because of lack of planing for location of schools and poor decisions on drawing proper boundaries starting with the elementary schools. Recent school locations have been a result of what was left available instead of planned in cocept plans. Bouindaries have been decided not on what was logical but what some wanted and normally after the boundaries should have been adjused.