Avon patrons who have read this site are very familiar with the issues facing our children and the taxpayers come May 6th. The majority of the current situations have occured since 2000. Many patrons and wonderful groups have tried to get our board to change their course with no apparent effect. Our test scores, debt, school overcrowding, poorly paid staff, and waste of tax dollars have been pointed out to you and many of you I am sure have experienced it in your own families with your children.

This is not about whether people like me or not, or whether you support a special group or not and are trying to keep the status quo.
This is about our children, their futures, and their educational environments. It is about whether this board has planned judiciously and wisely the building of our facilities to accommodate our chidren, not only for the immediate but for the future. It is about the financial burden created on the Avon taxpayer by poor construction planning. It is about the boards haughty stance to as to whether it will answer your concerns and issues and listen to you, or cut you off and do what it wants to do.

But the bottom line is, have the two incumbents, Mr. Buckley and Mrs. Woodward shown through results and leadership they have built wisely, put our kids in comfortable learning settings, helped produce high academic results through test scores and found solutions when those have been low, and are they the best decision makers and leadership Avon has to offer our kids and those of us who pay the bills?
If you think not, then I would respectfully suggest, even pray, that you put two new people on our board and give them a chance to show their skills and make suggestions of ways to improve our schools so our kids can experience the highest educational conditions and successes to make Avon among the top ten schools in the state of Indiana. For 275 million dollars worth of debt, our kids should not be in overcrowded schools, with 25 percent failing ISTEP, 15 percent failing to graduate, and no apparent improvement in site. To the best of my knowledge, only one candidate to date has been door knocking and meeting the public and sharing ideas and solutions. Only one candidate has a web site with some of her major ideas for people to see. Anyone who cares that much deserves a place on the board to at least have a chance to improve our schools for our kids. The other new candidate should be given a chance to show what ideas she has for kids and what solutions for our problems she would put forth for our kids.a Serving as the current leader of the Avon PTO, she surely must have accumulated some good ideas to help our system move forward academically.
This May 6th wont you change our boards direction for our children and for our pocketbooks sake? If the current board could do better than what it has created, would it have not done so by now? Is it not apparent we need new leadership with new ideas? I thank all patrons, whether Avon, Boone, or the lady "just across the line" that have read the numerous threads, the bios, the explanations of what a master and exemplary board is, and how you become one, and the loss of over half our schools four star status to the current leaderships poor decsion making academic planning. It should stand to reason that if you are a master or exemplary board, you make much better decisions for our kids and taxpayers than have been made in the last eight years.
Whatever you do though, please vote. Next to freedom of religion and free speech, it is the most precious right we have. Some would argue it is our most precious right as it allows us to determine our future by the leaders who take us forward. Exercise it wisely but exercise it and best wishes to all of you for the rest of the year.

check out the following web sites again if you missed them. They tell the tale in Avon.

http://mustang.doe.state.In.us/TRENDS/top102.cfm?corp=3315

Check out the only candidate with a web site running for school board. Read it.

www.avonedu.org

Read the incumbents bios and Mrs. Kalish's bio at the following web site and pay particular attention to what the incumbents think they have done for Avon schools and if you agree with their self-assessments. Read Mrs. Kalish's bio carefully also.

http://www.co.hendricks.in.us/vrweb/school_board_candidates_BIO.htm

May 6th is only five days away. Will it be a new beginning for our kids and taxpayers, or a further venture down the road doing the same things we have been doing and producing the same results? Good luck to you, your children, and your pocketbooks and thank you again for reading.

I've visited the website and I'm concerned about promoting the need for a literacy person to be hired by the corporation, let alone one that is her friend. Also, one promoting literacy should be more thorough on spell checking their website. And, one of our 10 schools is not yet eligible for 4 star status...Cedar hasn't been open for a year. Just thought I'd put in my observations.

It looks like Avon already has a literacy specialist paid for by a grant. The below quote is taken from a newsletter for Fall 06' archived on the Avon website:

"“Avon Literacy Preparation
System (ALPS): Reaching New
Heights” has begun. Through a
grant from the Indiana Department
of Education, Division of Exceptional
Learners, Avon Community
School Corporation will continue
the basic early literacy skills training
begun last school year for our
kindergarten and first grade teachers.
ALPS will also expand our
literacy initiative to include grades
two through twelve. The grant will
allow us to work with two educators
who are experts in reading and
will coach our administrative and
teaching staffs throughout the year.
They are Mrs. Venetia Faulkenburg
and Mrs. Heather Gorgas."

quote:

Originally posted by TonyFan:
I've visited the website and I'm concerned about promoting the need for a literacy person to be hired by the corporation, let alone one that is her friend. Also, one promoting literacy should be more thorough on spell checking their website. And, one of our 10 schools is not yet eligible for 4 star status...Cedar hasn't been open for a year. Just thought I'd put in my observations.

It has to be open for two years to qualify for 4 star according to the DOE. My concern is that when my family and I moved here, all but two schools were four star. Now 5 of our nine schools can not make four star including our two intermediate schools and our middle school; that is three of our four secondary schools.
As a father of two, I am not concerned whose friend any literacy specialist might be as long as the individual produces results. When twenty five percent of our students can not pass both parts of ISTEP, it would seem what we have is not working or the curriculum might need revamped. Either way, with all due respect, we have had issues here with test scores from ISTEPs to SAT's to our GQE exams where only 68 percent of those who took the GQE <Graduation Qualifying Exam> could pass it. I would hope patrons would agree with all the honor students we have, our passing rates in testing should be much higher. I would hope the two new people running would have some solutions for our test problems. Since we have had these concerns here for quite sometime, and our current board apparently has produced no solutions, it would seem new ideas and solutions would be in order. You might contact Mrs. Engelhardt and make her aware of her spelling on her web site. It is a valid point and a good post.

quote:

Originally posted by Crowderhead:
It looks like Avon already has a literacy specialist paid for by a grant. The below quote is taken from a newsletter for Fall 06' archived on the Avon website:

"“Avon Literacy Preparation
System (ALPS): Reaching New
Heights” has begun. Through a
grant from the Indiana Department
of Education, Division of Exceptional
Learners, Avon Community
School Corporation will continue
the basic early literacy skills training
begun last school year for our
kindergarten and first grade teachers.
ALPS will also expand our
literacy initiative to include grades
two through twelve. The grant will
allow us to work with two educators
who are experts in reading and
will coach our administrative and
teaching staffs throughout the year.
They are Mrs. Venetia Faulkenburg
and Mrs. Heather Gorgas."

Excellent informatioon. It is also noted on the Avon High school site that the high school is refocusing on writing and comprehension skills. This link might be good information to show how the high school is very concerned over the 3% drop in ISTEP test scores since last year for it's nine and tenth graders.

http://hs.avon-schools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles...11bc69f07450b0dc73f3

Hope that helps. BTW, did pass the signs, and as you pointed out, the four are in very close proximity. Not sure what that means come election day but do know that in the past, you would never have seen that. I do hope we get two new members with new ideas. Thanks for the info on the literacy specialist. Didn't know we had one. So I wonder if it is the curriculum or what is causing the low ISTEP scores in both Math and Language. Hope the board and corporation figures it out in the near future. Twenty-five percent failure rate for both parts is way to high and should be unacceptable to all Avon parents and our board.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Crowderhead:
It looks like Avon already has a literacy specialist paid for by a grant. The below quote is taken from a newsletter for Fall 06' archived on the Avon website:

When these two ladies took over our pct of students in Avon passing both parts of ISTEP was 77.8. As of last years testing, it has dropped three percentage points to 74.8. It seems whatever they are doing and whatever our curriculum preparation is, it doesn't seem to be working. Maybe we need change in these areas if test scores are any indicator. If I can find this, it stands to reason that our school system knows this. What solutions if any do they have to bring the percentages back the other way? I have heard of no new curriculum or literacy initiatives put forth by our board in these areas to raise our students success level in state testing.
It is another reason why I feel we need new board members with new ideas and suggestions for improvement. Our ISTEPs are going the wrong way in the last two years it appears and no one seems to know why. Maybe this year, when the state tests in the spring, our scores will improve. It never did make sense to test kids over some materials not yet taught but that is the poor quality of education in Indiana in general from the state leadership.