Lakewood Board of Education Refuses to Defend Vote

[sharon kinsella]

That was nice Eisel considering the level of misinformation that he posted.

[Charlie Page]

Difference of opinion is what makes the world go around. Just sayin'

[Lisa Majeski]

Here are the average daily enrollment numbers from http://www.reportcard.ohio.gov
2008-9 school year

SCHOOL Avg Daily Enroll.
Emerson 372
Lincoln 378
Horace Mann 325

Grant 345

Harrison 404
Roosevelt 249
Hayes 339

TTL North 1075
TTL Central 345
TTL South 992

Grand TTL 2412

How big will Roosevelt be? Is it a reconstruct or renovate? If it's more than renovation, where are those students going?

[Danielle Masters]

Here are the numbers as of February 5th.

Emerson 409
Horace Mann 379
Lincoln 393

Grant 311

Harrison 395
Hayes 349
Roosevelt 292

Total 2,258 116 more students than last year.

While these schools may be located in certain parts of the city many schools have a large amount of students open enrolled from other parts of the cities, some as high as 25%. And schools in the north such as Emerson, Lincoln and Horace Mann have special programs (gifted and special ed) that also bring in some students from all over the district. Grant also houses 39 students in the gifted program and some of those students are from other schools.

Also not included in these numbers are preschool students which take up classroom space. And some of the preschool students are special ed students that must be served by public schools beginning at age 3, so space must be allocated for them.

I forgot one note. Grant currently has 8 classrooms in the modular units that are not being used, although the gas and electricity are on and students are being taught in resource rooms that are being used as classrooms. So there is room at the school for more students but I suppose that is a moot point.

[Danielle Masters]

Typo that is 2,528 total students this year.

07/08 kindergarden through 5th grade enrollment numbers were 2,473
08/09 kindergarden through 5th grade enrollment numbers were 2,431

The numbers I have for this year are as of February 5th. The numbers fluctuate throughout the year so I am not certain what number is reported to the state, it depends on what date they want reported.

[Phil Florian]

Tim -

I suggest that wherever you took political science classes refund your money and scrap their syllabus.

Politicians are OUR elected representatives. They are accountable to us. They are not dictators, even though there are some people influencing things in our city for their own wallet.

I'm hoping that this is the spark that fires the populace to hold OUR elected representatives to represent US.

Be nice!

"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." - Edmund Burke

I don't know, but I think HE might like the school where Tim got his education about representative government.

[Phil Florian]

This is an amazingly hot and contentious topic and there was a certifiable guarantee that one group of people would be ridiculously upset and one would breath a sigh of relief.

I did hear from one attendee that an upset parent did spit on or at the Board members as they were exiting the room. I wouldn't have expected THAT. Bad form, for sure.

[Danielle Masters]

I knew three people got a little out of line, two of them yelled out "tell us why". I didn't know anyone spit nor did I see it, I was in the third row. I do know that the rest of the people in attendance behaved well, most were in stunned silence.

[Phil Florian]

I knew three people got a little out of line, two of them yelled out "tell us why". I didn't know anyone spit nor did I see it, I was in the third row. I do know that the rest of the people in attendance behaved well, most were in stunned silence.

Good to know.

[sharon kinsella]

Phil - Burke was renown as the father of political conservatism and was known to speak ad nauseum for over 8 hours in parliament.

His opinions are not anything I believe in and don't relate to our "flavor" of representative democracy.

[Ryan Salo]

I received a copy of the video of the February 16th Meeting where the vote happened. I tried uploading it to youtube but they have a 10 min max. I have uploaded it to the following page on my server. I tested it and it seems to work.

http://lboe.ryansalo.com

[sharon kinsella]

I had problems with the plug in and it wouldn't load but thanks anyway Ryan.

[Meg Ostrowski]

A podcast of the meeting is available on the Lakewood City Schools website.

[Bill Trentel]

A podcast of the meeting is available on the Lakewood City Schools website.

Has this Podcast been EDITED like their previous Podcasts?

Bill

[Phil Florian]

Phil - Burke was renown as the father of political conservatism and was known to speak ad nauseum for over 8 hours in parliament.

His opinions are not anything I believe in and don't relate to our "flavor" of representative democracy.

Cool. Being pretty liberal myself I shudder to think I quoted the Father of Politcal Conservatism but there is something to be said for that quote. Sadly, I think the "flavor" of our current democratic system is if you win, you represent the ideals of the people who elected you...which does not include the ones that didn't.

That isn't at issue here, of course. The one thing I KNOW we agree on in this issue, regardless of how a decision is made by our reps, is that that the reasoning behind that decision should be made apparent when asked about and it seems the BOE is adopting a wall of silence instead. That is intolerable. I am certain after enough hollering they will have to make some sort of statement about this.