Not District Dialogue

When mayors wear hats: A retrospective

The Night Beat blog has a fine photo of Mayor Mike Huether wearing a monkey hard hat at the zoo on Wednesday.

But, at best, it’s only the second best photo of a hatted Sioux Falls mayor.

Behold, Dave Munson on a windy Cinco de Mayo, 2009 (shot by Cory Myers):

Some other cities’ mayors have donned a hat now and then. Take Newark’s Cory Booker, who was excited to see the circus back in town (AP photo):

The Dalai Lama is not a mayor. But here he is in a hat with Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier, who evidently gives white hats to all important visitors. Good move. (Reuters photo):

Does the school district’s livestreamed sports policy violate a different policy?

What’s your preferred method for consuming high school sports?

A) Driving around with the windows open while listening to play-by-play on AM 1230.

B) Chatting with Matt Zimmer at argusleader.com while watching a video stream on your laptop.

C) Tuning your TV to Midco Sports Network and watching a recording of last week’s game.

D) Watching post-game highlights on KDLT.

E) Going to games in person.

If your answer is B, then you’re out of luck, at least for Sioux Falls home games.

Wait, you might say: How is it fair to bar one business from livestreaming a game while continuing to allow other businesses to broadcast on TV and radio? Bravo, I’d say: You are an astute observer of life.

Kent Alberty thinks you are not so clever: “Do I think the policy is fair? Yes. Do I think the Argus is being targeted? No.”

But one might argue that this new policy runs afoul of one of the school district’s other policies, on commercial activities. To wit:

The School District recognizes the important link between schools and the local community and encourages the participation and support of business on behalf of public education. At the same time, the schools have an obligation to protect students’ instructional time and to avoid giving unfair advantage to any one business or corporation

I don’t know that I’d argue it, but you might.

Vote tonight: The end of Argus livestreamed HS sports?

The Sioux Falls School Board is set to vote tonight (Tuesday, May 29) on a new policy regarding media coverage of their home high school sports games.

If the policy is adopted as written, the Argus Leader would no longer be allowed to livestream games on their website. Instead, students from the CTE Academy would start livestreaming games from the school district website.

Radio stations could continue airing games at no charge.

Midco Sports Network could continue airing games on TV at no charge.

Read the report to the school board here.

Important things mapped: Is Riley a boy or girl name?

The Social Security Administration’s very excellent baby names database is good for about 20 minutes of exploration this time each year.

I wrote a “S.D. by the Numbers” for this Monday’s paper highlighting the names we like that the rest of the country hates, and vice-versa.

For whatever reason, Riley caught my eye.

Is Riley a boy name or a girl name? For me, it’s a girl name, but all three states I’ve lived in disagree. This map I just made proves most of the country agrees with me:

In blue states, there were more boy Rileys born in 2011 than girls Rileys. In pink states, there were more girl Rileys.

In Utah, Riley did not make the top 100 names for either gender.

In Iowa, there were 49 Rileys of each gender, although Iowa had more girl Rileys in 2010.

Nationally, Riley was the 47th most common name for girls born in 2011 and 111th for boys.

New Race to the Top grant asks school districts to ‘personalize learning’

South Dakota failed spectacularly in its 2010 bid for Race to the Top funds, which asked states to make certain K-12 education reforms in exchange for a portion of $4.35 billion.

Federal reviewers scored the state’s application a 135.8 out of 500 – last among the 41 states to apply.

When the federal government later offered a RTTT Early Learning Challenge, South Dakota did not apply.

Now comes the RTTT district-level competition. The U.S. Education Department is inviting school districts and groups of school districts to apply for $400 million in grants; about 20 will win.

The only “absolute priority” for this grant is personalized learning.

“With this competition, we are inviting districts to show us how they can personalize education for a set of students in their schools. We need to take classroom learning beyond a one-size-fits-all model and bring it into the 21st century,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said today.

The draft RFP was released today. USED will take public comment for a couple weeks before it starts taking applications July through October. Awards will be announced by the end of the year.

This sounds like something the Sioux Falls School District might apply for.

Another likely candidate is the Mid-Central Education Cooperative, a cluster of 14 districts. Some of those schools tried out project-based learning last school year, which is geared toward personalized learning.

But even if he’s interested, the challenge for co-op director Dan Guericke might be in finding enough schools to participate. To apply, the district or group of districts must have at least 2,500 students and 40 percent of them must be on free or reduced-price meals.

Lincoln HS loses its debate coach, GSA adviser

Tony Martinet, who coached the debate team powerhouse at Lincoln High School, says he’s relocating to his home state of Colorado.

Martinet, a USD graduate who has taught speech at Lincoln since 2008, also was adviser of the school’s Gay Straight Alliance.

He was one of many teachers who testified against HB1234 during the latest legislative session. He said the state’s plans to phase out job protections for teachers will discourage teachers from sticking their necks out for vulnerable students.

Harrisburg party: Will Schirado do jail time? Removal from office?

Two dozen teens were cited for alcohol consumption last night at the home of Michelle Schirado, chairwoman of the Harrisburg School Board.

Will this become a legal problem for Schirado? Probably.

There have been no charges yet, but don’t be surprised if Schirado and/or her husband are prosecuted on numerous misdemeanor charges of contributing to the delinquency of minors.

How big a deal is it to let kids party at your house?

In 2010, it led to a 90-day jail sentence for Rhonda Sue Stoddard of Brandon.

The facts of Stoddard’s case were quite different, however. Police found nine current and former BVHS students in the 2010 raid using marijuana and Adderall. Unlike the Schirados, Stoddard wasn’t home during the party. But police found meth in Stoddard’s bedroom, according to an old Argus Leader story.

It’s unclear how much Schirado knew about the party outside her home Sunday night.

In 1998, Cindy McVay of Alpena got a two-month jail sentence for buying her son and three friends a bottle of whiskey. One of the boys spent the night in his front yard and was hospitalized for hypothermia. (The SD Supreme Court decision is here.)

Besides the potential for jail time, it’s theoretically possible Schirado could lose her seat on the school board. Here’s what statute says about removing public officials:

3-17-6.   Grounds for removal of local officers from office. Any officer of any local unit of government may be charged, tried, and removed from office for misconduct, malfeasance, nonfeasance, crimes in office, drunkenness, gross incompetency, corruption, theft, oppression, or gross partiality.

I wish I’d played HS girls volleyball

There’s been some news lately about high school boys joining girls teams and girls joining boys teams.

Generally, Title IX provisions have allowed girls to play on boys teams if they don’t have an equivalent sport. A much smaller number of boys have played on girls teams for the same reason.

Whenever I read one of these stories, I wonder how I would have done on my high school’s girls volleyball team. I was about as tall as my school’s best player, Laura, and pretty confident I could jump higher. And I’m a willing passer.

Sometimes I wish I would have tried it. If I’d been given a fair shot and fended off angry teammates, classmates, coaches, opponents and fans, I’m pretty sure I’d have made the all-conference team.

That wouldn’t be the case today. My high school has gotten bigger since I graduated and now the boys have their own volleyball team. I wasn’t that good.

Tea school board gets a familiar face: the business mgr they fired

A couple years ago, the Tea Area School Board ditched business manager Wayne Larsen.

Randy Schoenfish, who performed financial audits for the district, warned in 2010 about a lack of segregation of duties and checks and balances that protect the district from fraud.

“None of those people are really, like, accountants. They do their job OK, but you really do need people who are accountants,” Schoenfish told the board.

On Tuesday, with help from Tea Area voters, Larsen exacted a measure of revenge.

He soon will take the oath of office to serve on the Tea Area School Board, having defeated incumbent Duane Gors, 294-172.

Board president Lynn DeYoung, who is Minnehaha County’s emergency manager, was kicked out too. Conrad Pick beat him, 239-222.

Larsen was heavily involved with the compact school district’s split from Lennox in 2003. While he served as business manager, the district received failing grades on its audits every year.

That’s not unusual for small school districts, which don’t have enough employees to separate the duties of writing and cashing checks and such, protecting the district from embezzlement.

(Unlike the Tea fire department, no evidence came forward of financial wrongdoing at the schools. It’s just that the safeguards were not in place to protect them from it.)

But as the school district grew up - they’re now the 17th-largest school district in SD and have the state’s largest elementary school - it became evident they needed a business manager with financial expertise.

Larsen now finds himself in a role that’s probably better suited to his experience.

HB1234 work group members named

The members have been chosen for three of the six work groups created under HB1234, the education reform bill signed in March by Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

Education Secretary Melody Schopp was tasked with choosing the people to serve on the teacher evaluation work group, principal evaluation work group and the local teacher reward plan advisory council.

All important committees, no doubt, but the most interesting is the last of the three.

The local teacher reward plan advisory council will develop one or more models for rewarding good teachers financially. School boards will be able to choose one of the model plans, Gov. Daugaard’s plan or one of their own.

Under the law:

“The local teacher reward plan shall reward certified teachers in the district based upon one or more of the following criteria:

(1) Demonstrating an impact on student achievement;

(2) Demonstrating teacher leadership; or

(3) Market based needs of the school district based upon critical teaching area needs of the school district.

Have any suggestions? Call these folks:

Nick Gottlob, Lead-Deadwood 6-12 principal

Tami Hummel, Dakota Valley elementary principal

Tim Mitchell, Rapid City superintendent

David Pappone, Brandon Valley superintendent

Jarod Larson, Timber Lake superintendent

Tim Pflanz, Tri-Valley 7-12 principal

Tanya Czepull, Brandon Valley teacher

Brett Distel, Douglas teacher

Becky Lockwood, Brookings teacher

Mary Schneider, Armour teacher

Joann Stephens, Belle Fourche teacher

Amber Stout, Pierre teacher

David Haagenson, Baltic school board

Neil Putnam, Mitchell school board

Mary Williams, Wall school board

Find a full list of all work group members here.