The Observation Deck

So there appears to be a consensus that Mr. Calleri's numbers are fairly accurate and his point is accurate.

Beebe is part of the Old Guard that clings to stale thinking and she tracks the flawed thinking and misinformation of folks in the shadows that hide from facts.

There is a looming disaster in the schools caused by a void in leadership and intellect---more taxes and money won't solve the problems.

"There is no fool like an old fool." Zane Hooper

Mr. Calleri---keep the facts coming. The people will live to regret not having greater diversity of thinking on the School Board.

I'm really torn on this.

As always, Gary speaks truth: There are numerous con men, charlatans, and swindlers that seek to make a buck from "reforming" our school system. Many of the Cleveland charter schools are a prime example.
Normally, I dismiss school complaints as part of the right's broader effort to crush unions.

However, Lakewood is different.
This hospital situation has demonstrated that City Hall cannot be trusted.
Confidence in Lakewood government has never been lower.
This school board acted in lock step with City Hall on hospital demolition.
That calls the School Board's veracity into question.
So I think Woody is correct to put their performance under a microscope.

Openness and honesty is the standard.

Directness is one mechanism to achieve it.

Mr. Calleri has proven himself to be a direct fact based thinker.

His ideas and solutions should not be ignored by the secretive status quo hoping that tomorrow will be a better day with the "go along to get along" Old Guard.

I am for a diversity of ideas at every level of government and our community.

The current leadership is stale and reactive.

Those on the School Board that ran last time concealed the truth from the public.

Mr. Calleri told the truth.

I admire and respect Gary Rice, but I think Mr. Calleri should spread his word in any place that will publish it--I know he has done just that at the School Board meetings to the "deaf" leaders.

They are charging forward with the "active living" nightmare of fiscal irresponsibility

A recipe for disaster. Just wait.

Huge tax increases are on the horizon and our children's futures will be the casualties.

It is unfortunate that this discussion too has been turned to "causalities", "nightmares", and "disasters" (but not surprising). Just to be clear, Mr. Essi, uses the word "consensus", my assumption is that does not include my thoughts. (I believe Woody has an interesting point on the graduation rate, but as was pointed out, some sort of precarious down trend is not in the data here.)

Brad


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"Caught in a lie? You have no names. You just made all that crap up. Just admit it. "I Corey Rossen lied when I claimed people joined Summers and BL because of the Deck and SLH--I have no names or evidence of that. I just made it up to get attention."- Brian Essi

"It was Corey above, not me who used the term "liar" so you aren't being entirely accurate. "- Brian Essi

"Did Brian Essi just call me inaccurate or did I say it, I'm so confused" - Brad Humphreys

With respect to all concerned posters here, whether or not I am in agreement with you, thank you for caring enough to post. That said, I need to strongly respond here. Remember that my responses are intended to be towards points, and NOT people.

Debates concerning Lakewood's leadership, particularly these days, are certainly going to happen.

Normally, I try to avoid much of that stuff, but there are a few things that I think should be addressed here in my own sweet little opinionated way...

The principal question in my mind would be a very simple one for all of you:

Do we build on Lakewood's (city and schools) many and considerable successes, or... in the interest of short term satisfaction, do we tear all that we have down and start again, just because there may be some people in office with whom we may disagree?

(And whom, by the way, have YET to be either officially accused, or found guilty of any crimes!)

You know the old saying about crisis bringing opportunities.

There are those who want to figuratively slash and torch-burn their way through our Lakewood city/school leadership issues (Could some even be doing so for their own political advantage?) in an attempt to throw all the in-office political babies out with the bathwater, right and left.

My admittedly mixed metaphors here using fire and water are meant to reinforce my point that we can either build on the many and considerable successes that Lakewood has achieved over many years, or we can tear them all down, come what may.

Although I would strongly prefer to have a hospital here in Lakewood, I have a number of close friends who have just as strongly supported the other point of view. Those people are NOT immoral, crooked, or evil. Nor do they have horns. They have strong and rational reasons for their point of view. Lakewood's present administration felt it necessary to deal with this issue now, but (again back to those metaphors) the ship of hospital closure, in my opinion, started sailing away MANY years before our present government's leadership ever took their oaths of office!

Now...as for Linda Beebe? I've known Linda since I started teaching in Lakewood in 1973. While I do not always agree with her, I do not know ANYone who has worked harder to make a positive difference in the Lakewood schools, and I will rise to defend her. I DO NOT DO SO AS A POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT, but rather, in knowing her personally, and with respect for all that she has accomplished for our students over the years.

Linda is an outstanding educational leader, who came up through Lakewood's teaching ranks to hold the position that she presently does. In my opinion, she has been a real hero for Lakewood's schools over the years. Adversity? I doubt whether she would even dignify that word. She is a strong defender of the best researched educational principles, and...by the way, she is certainly NOT personally responsible for whatever some would perceive to be a few statistical issues facing our schools. Like her or not, she at least deserves respect. Besides, those school issues are bigger than any one person, and the responsibility for addressing those issues will rest all of us, and not just the Board of Education.

Oh yes, this garbage about "OLD"? I'm likely older than most, if not all of you young outspoken whippersnappers out there in 'Deckland.

I can be just as outspoken as you can be.

There are more than a few things you can learn from my generation, and...trust me on this one:

My generation fought hard to build a better society with more human rights and better educational opportunities for more children here in Lakewood and elsewhere than the world has ever previously known...

...and if there is ONE group of activities that we know how to do, that would be how to listen carefully, rise, engage, and prevail, partucularly for the sake of Lakewood's young people.

Finally, and I reiterate this point with EVERY conviction that I posess:

IN NO WAY have I mentioned anyone personally here in a critical way, so please do NOT interpret my remarks presented here as being personal critical towards anyone. That is NOT my point. Rather, it is my personal objection to actions either taken or contemplated that cause me to bring my opinions before you all.

AGAIN, my point is simply this: we can utterly and publicly self-destruct the public's perception of a fine city and exemplary school district if we want to, or we can work to improve both in a constructive way.

That choice will be yours, but I WILL have a say in that choice, as well, even though I'm old.

Disclaimer: All of the about reflects only my opinions and I may be wrong...but I personally doubt it.

Back to the banjo....

P.S. Oh yes...those graduation rates? If you had more flexible standards that were responsive to greater diagnostic/prescriptive testing outcomes, if testing were not punitive, if greater respect for human frailty and differences were respected, if you stopped trying to drive all students through the same cattle chute...you would then have better graduation rates and none of this is Lakewood's fault, but rather the failings of state and federal mandates IMHO.

Gary, with all due respect, you need to widen your view. As for Linda Beebe, I feel she is rude and incompetent. She appeared to not care that a teacher was padding my son's grades. She appeared to think it was OK to lock a special ed student in a tiny office when taking a state test. She appeared to not care that Individualized Education Plans were not being followed. Her answers were that she couldn't do anything about it. I have helped many parents over the years in the Lakewood Schools that have children with Autism. The lack of training and understanding this condition in this district is appalling. On a positive note, I would like to let parents in Lakewood know that the State of Ohio has what they call an Autism Scholarship Program. Any student on the spectrum can apply and receive up to $20,000 dollars to attend any school that is on a provider list. Your income is not a factor. The schools won't tell you that because Lakewood loses the money. You need to call the Ohio State Department of Education and ask for the Autism Scholarship Department. Now is the time to start inquiring about next school year. Lawrence Upper School and Lawrence Lower School are the best schools in the area for Autism. Check them out. They have open houses all the time. I have great admiration for several Lakewood teachers and therapists that really made a difference. Special Ed teachers and therapists have a case load of 80 students per week. For a truly dedicated person, this is impossible. We need more Federal Funding for more training and more therapists. It should not take a State Senator for a parent to get in to see the Superintendent. I believe Linda Beebe dropped the ball. If she doesn't want to respond to or help parents, then she needs to resign, or stop running.

As for the city being corrupt, I don't even think we have to address that. It has already been said.

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides.  Time makes more converts than reason.”   “Common Sense”, Thomas Paine, 1776. 

Mr. Calleri is a perceived reformer with facts, so he is a threat to the Old Order.

That's why they vilify him--shoot the messenger.

Beebe is a bad example for children--she hides under the covers and works the backroom--breaks promises--and spreads misinformation.

Same old same old, OLD.

Brian,
Well said!

In all fairness, and with respect for Brian, Woody, and Lori, and for all children having special needs:

Being one of those kids myself, I could regale you with some of my personal Lakewood schools horror stories from long ago.

As I said, I am old, but I digress here.

I'm not sure, quite frankly, whether ANY school district is doing all that they could do for special needs students, particularly under the constraints of current state and federal mandates. True, an Individualized Education Plan is supposed to dictate extent and manner of services for a special needs child. Balance those against current mandates that dictate that only a very small percentage of students can be excused from tests. Testing can be extremely stressful for children with special needs, which may be why one was being tested in a small room. (quite likely to satisfy the demands of their IEP)

Not being party to an IEP meeting, Linda might NOT have been able to directly deal with a particular case. This, I do not know, but I do know that a new IEP meeting can be called at any time if the old IEP is not working. Being a strong advocate for children having special needs, I've been a part of many of those meetings.

Bless ALL parents with special needs children, beginning with my own. I was actually NOT able to land a full time teaching position with the Lakewood Schools. I had to go to another district that happened to be VERY progressive with children with disabilities in order to pursue the rest of my career as a Special Education teacher.

These days, particularly because of laws, Lakewood and many other districts are better than they used to be about any number of things, but as Woody indicated, concerning our district, and as Lori and Brian point out...we still need to improve.

My principal concern, as stated earlier, is that we do so constructively.

Disclaimer: I do not work for the Lakewood Schools, except as an unpaid volunteer.

Back to the banjo...

Sorry Gary. There is no excuse for behavior such as this from any school board member. You can make all the excuses in the world for her. In my opinion, she did a lot of children wrong!

Brad T Humphreys wrote:Woody,

Now that's interesting..... I did a quick comparison of your spreadsheet and what I got from the database: the delta looks to be that mine includes all schools receiving public funds. So that includes charters districts and other ESC type schools (wow is that a whole separate yet related discussion). The year to year variation over 5 years though is 3%. So I would agree that our grad number is (surprisingly) low in relation to what I'll call traditional districts but is stable. Hmmmm interesting stuff.

Brad

Mr Humphreys

Thank you for taking the time to look in to the data further. My thoughts are below:

1. Either way our graduation rate is too low. Whether it is bottom 25% (you noted 70% of the districts are above 85% and we are at 82.7%) or bottom 10% - Lakewood is capable of so much more. We have a great community, dedicated teachers and bright kids. Whether the correct rate is 91% or 94% I do not know but it is certainly not 82.7%. The number should serve as a warning that we need to fix things.

2. I only included public schools in the data and I removed private schools (Iggy, Eds, Joe's, Mag's, etc.) and others. I think this is only fair to compare public school to public schools. I also compare the data by district not by school as several districts have multiple schools. I am sure if you looked by school the number would be slightly different. Last year I believe our results were worse by school than by district. Either way we are not talking about a good number.

3. If you go back to the historical data from 2006 to 2010 (6 to 10 years ago), you will see that we were consistently btw 91% to 93%. The Ohio Ed website is down right now for "updates" so I can not get you the exact data or link. I did look it up and confirm it before I wrote the article. The overall website is http://education.ohio.gov/ and you can look under community or parents. I am very confident that once the site is up you will be able to download the data and see the drop off.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes and forcing me to prove the data.

I appreciate you time and effort in this area

Woody Calleri

To all

I appreciate all the discussion and the number of people commenting and viewing the posts/thread.

I am thrilled that people are getting involved and learning about what is happening. I have lived it first hand over the past 8 years and want more people to get involved.

My concern is that looking at some of the posts, we seem to be starting down a path of name calling, put downs and nastiness. I would ask that everyone refrain from taking us down that path.

While I believe that our School Board members took their eye off the ball and are not as involved as they should be, I do not believe that they are evil, out to hurt our schools or that they have bad intent.

Additionally, while I may disagree with some posts or feel that they are overly optimistic about what is happening at our schools, I respect those opinion and appreciate that commentary. I also respect those who have questioned where the data came from and how I sorted it. These questions lead to a greater understanding of what is happening and what needs to be down and I encourage it.

It does not help move the discussion forward to label or go after those who disagree with us. Saying bad things about those who disagree with us in an effort to end conversation or convince people not to listen is not the way to go. Prove them wrong on the facts, do not belittle them. Find a way to convince them and get them to help us find the necessary solutions to the challenges our students / community face.

Instead of name calling we should be asking why the scores are bad, why our teachers felt it necessary to come out in mass to a school board meeting, or how we can improve our finances.

We have plenty of people in the community with the expertise, experience and talent to help us find the need solutions.

Let’s make sure we are getting them involved not chasing them away.

Woody Calleri

Mr. Calleri:

Well said.

Lori:

I make excuses for no one. I simply was relating my own thoughts regarding an education professional whom I've known for many years.

Regarding your own alleged experiences with that person? They were apparently very different than mine have been.

One way or another, Parents need good listeners and advocates when it comes to concerns regarding their children.

Having served as an educator for a number of children across the autism spectrum, that condition is indeed a challenge for so many of them... and yet, I've seen wonderful achievements too with persons having that condition, given that they were presented with the right opportunities for success.

Everyone, please always remember- as far as special needs children go? May they go as far as they can.

My cordial best wishes for you all.

Back to the banjo...

Just so I'm clear, is this the same Linda Beebe who filed a complaint with the Lakewood police regarding a post by Brian Essi?
Because if so, that was about as heavy handed an attempt at intimidation as I've witnessed during a local election.

Well Mr. Calleri, I guess you have discovered that pointing out failings in our public schools and demanding better results brings out a lot of opposition. Demanding excellence is seen as a threat to the established order. It's all very odd.

I have a cousin whose son and daughter in law teach in South Carolina. Their school system has decided to deal with the problem poor results by telling teachers that assignments do not need to be turned in and no one should get less than 61% for any reason. No one fails, no one excels and everyone is happy!