CV&me
CV&me
CV MONTHLY REVIEW - MAY
May 16, 2022
This monthly blog will focus on CVSD school board meeting and committee meeting areas of interests. My goal is to encourage people to be involved in the CVSD as shareholders in our educational system. We are shareholders because we are all taxpayers whether you have children in the district or not. I believe all shareholders should be engaged but also know we all have time constraints that inhibit our ability to research it all. I will strive to give short informational segments to help the community understand important happenings at CVSD.
The next few months will include information about Portrait of a Graduate and the company behind it. Please see my video to help understand this company and the process of Portrait of a Graduate. I do have some concerns regarding Portrait of a Graduate and its company Battelle for Kids that I would like to share. I have spent over 100 hours of my own time researching Battelle for Kids, the National Equity Project, DEI programs, webinars and speakers associated with BFK. You may or may not share my concerns after researching for yourself for various reasons but I believe dialogue is key to any successful and truly functioning community. We should be able to discuss concerns with open and honest conversations and then move forward respectfully.
A few things you may not be aware of:
- The program Portrait of a Graduate cost taxpayers $41,300 and that includes a $7,500 annual membership to Battelle for Kids. It was paid for with ESSR money this time but what will our cost be for the next portion of the program with teacher training, conferences, and membership? We are having a difficult time finding teachers so just want to make sure our monies are being used to support our teachers and employment needs.
- BFK is a strategic partner with the National Equity Project. The NEP has very radical ideology, speakers and instructors regarding equity, white privilege, white guilt, and anti-capitalism. These all can be listened to on many of the webinars and podcasts on their site,
www.nationalequityproject.org . Please try to listen to several so you get a broad perspective of their ideology. This is an organization that is partnered with BFK and so they would be aligned with their concepts and general ideology that they teach and promote. In several podcasts, Karen Garza, president and CEO of BFK states that her “friends” at NEP have helped them on many projects.
Although social emotional learning is actually a very helpful concept and was initiated with very good intentions, I feel it is now being taken out of context and adding the equity component will cause many problems in our schools and our community. All children and adults need social and emotional techniques and skills as they are anger management, stress management and coping skills and techniques. However, there is more that has been added to these programs that is concerning. Karen Garza states that Portrait of Graduate and their programs are anchored in equity. What does that actually mean and how does this play out in our education system and individually with our children’s experiences on a daily basis at school.
Two questions that we need to determine:
1) What is our education system focused on? Is it academic or theology driven?
2) Should politics and theology be interwoven in our public schools?
Educators and promoters of SEL state it is simply vital to address if we are going to have academic performance increase after the trauma of the pandemic. It is all just to help with the academics. We can create a culture of positive attributes with keeping the academic focus with objective standards so we know if our children are learning math, science and reading. Dr. Christopher wrote in his message to everyone regarding the Portrait of a Graduate on our CV website: that after we come up with the terms we will use in our Portrait of a Graduate, “then the real work will begin, which will be to identify how these attributes and skills are embedded into the CVSD curriculum from K-12 to ensure that all graduates are prepared for life after graduation.” What does that actually look like, what does that cost taxpayers, and how will our students be assessed in the future? What does it look like for teachers and how they are trained to work with our children? What extra expectations will be put on our teachers that are already overtaxed at this point?
BFK has many videos that discuss this and they want to move to assessing our students on these “21st Century skills” and move away from grades in subjects. I think we can all agree that standardized testing has its flaws but if we don’t have objective assessments of academic performance than we truly don’t have a public academic education system. If schools are going to focus more on judging critical thinking, creative problem-solving and empathy then we are now judging our students on ideologies and theology and it will be very subjective depending on which teachers are assessing students. I do have many concerns regarding this program as well as Battelle for Kids coming into our schools. I have reached out to Karen Garza several times. We were emailing back and forth but when I started asking specific questions regarding defining anti-racism, white privilege and what equity means for her programming she stopped emailing back to me. My concern is with a company that wants to promote critical thinking and communication until you disagree with or question them and then they simply stop communicating. Please go to www.battelleforkids.org to the learning hub for videos/podcast to understand where we are headed with this program. Please go and listen to “Assessment 21 by Battelle for Kids” and “Redefining Student Success with Ken Kay and Suzie Boss” to start with so you can hear from them directly. There are many more and would encourage you to watch and listen to as many as possible. Really listen to what they are saying and what their concepts look like in real life classrooms.
The National Equity Project is a progressive organization that supports concepts such as:
- The founding of America is based on slavery and white supremacy and believe that has been the problem with America and still is. The Declaration of Independence was not meant to include black people and therefore needs to be removed.
- Capitalism needs to be abolished because it is racist even though DEI business in American is over a $8,000,000,000 business that they are profiting from it in our capitalist society. However, they want us to hate the system that is making them very wealthy.
- White people or their term, “white folk” need to self-reflect and continually assess their unconscious bias and racism. Denying that you’re racist confirms that you’re racist.
- Testing is not equitable and therefor racist, so we need to change the structure of our schools.
- There is systematic racism in all areas and if you deny it, it is only because you are privileged by that system and therefore…racist.
- If you are white and try to not be racist, you are just trying to be a “good” white because you understand you are racist. You therefore have to constantly prove you are not actively being racist, and such admitting you are racist to begin with. So there are really no “good” whites.
- This is one that really confuses me and seems the most bias in nature. Black children learn better from black teachers and therefore we need to have teachers that represent each identity to successfully teach. I had teachers of all ethnic backgrounds and only remembered if I thought they were a good teacher because they made it enjoyable to learn and I therefore was engaged and did well in the subject. It had NOTHING to do with skin color or ethnicity.
Please go to
www.nationalequityproject.com and review as many webinars and podcasts as possible to understand what they believe and want to push in through our public education system. Listen to their own words and then decide if this is good for our children and our community.
Our kids need less time on devices and more time moving in school and out of school if we really care about their mental health! If we are truly looking for ways to help our kids with stress, anxiety, and depression, we should look to proven techniques that show benefits. We should not be spending money and time on trendy, unproven SEL “programs” that have not been able to prove any benefit after decades of broad implementation in school settings. Please read the research that proves movement and exercise benefit children in a variety of ways. Please ask your school board and administration to show proof of what they are implementing is beneficial to our students academic achievement and wellbeing. Nothing trendy or experimental should waste time or resources for our children. They deserve better! Mental Health Benefits of Exercise in Children Jan 28, 2015 Karen Dineen Wagner, MD, PhD Psychiatric Times, Vol 32 No 1 The target for physical activity in adolescents is 60 or more minutes of daily aerobic activity. But it is unlikely that the majority of youths achieve this goal. There was a time when children would play outdoors and get exercise by running and riding bicycles. In recent years, concerns about children’s safety, the popularity of video games and computers, and increased academic demands have contributed to the decline in outdoor play for children. Unless children are involved in sports, gymnastics, dance, or similar activities, they have limited involvement in exercise-related activities. Benefits of physical activity There is increasing evidence for mental health benefits of exercise in children. Hillman and colleagues 1 examined the effects of physical activity on fitness, brain function, and cognitive function in 221 children aged 7 to 9 years. The children were randomly assigned to either a 9-month after school physical activity program or a wait-list control group. The physical activity intervention was 2 hours in duration and focused on improvement of aerobic fitness by engaging in physical activities. The children participated in at least 70 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity, followed by a snack, rest period, and low organizational games such as tag. Pre and post-intervention measures included assessment of aerobic fitness and cognitive functioning. Aerobic fitness was assessed by a test of maximal oxygen consumption during a treadmill exercise. Cognitive functioning was evaluated through tasks that assessed attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility. EEG recordings to deter-mine event-related brain potentials were obtained during the cognitive tasks. At the end of the 9-month intervention, the physical activity group showed greater aerobic fitness than did the wait-list control group. The physical activity group also demonstrated greater attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility. On EEG assessments, only the physical activity group showed a larger P3 amplitude (indicative of greater attention) and a faster P3 latency (indicative of faster processing speed). Children who attended a greater number of the physical activity sessions had more changes in these brain activity measurements. ADHD and exercise Given these findings of improved attention for children who engage in a physical activity program, it would be important to know whether children with ADHD would show improved attention with exercise. Pontifex and colleagues 2 assessed the effect of a single bout of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise on children with ADHD. Twenty children aged 8 to 10 years with ADHD and a healthy matched control group participated in the study. In this within-participants design, children participated in a 20-minute session of either aerobic exercise or seated reading on a motor-driven treadmill. Measures of event-related brain potentials and cognitive tasks were assessed during both of these conditions. Both the children with ADHD and the control group showed greater response accuracy on attention control tasks following a single bout of exercise than following the seated reading session. EEGs indicated that children in both groups had larger P3 amplitude and shorter P3 latency after exercise than after seated reading. On measures of academic performance, children in both groups had greater improvement on tests of reading comprehension and arithmetic after exercise than after seated reading. The investigators suggest that single bouts of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise may be an additional treatment modality for children with ADHD. Moreover, short bouts of exercise during the school day may be a benefit to children in general. Depression and exercise The relationship between depression and exercise in children and adolescents has received recent attention. Kremer and colleagues 3 investigated the associations between physical activity, leisure-time screen use, and depressive symptoms. The data were obtained from the Healthy Neighbourhoods Study, a crosssectional survey of 8256 children and adolescents (mean age, 11.5 years) in Australia. The students completed an online self-report instrument. Students were asked a number of questions about their physical activity behavior, including number of days attending physical education classes; degree of activity during these classes; number of days of being very active after school and on the weekend; involvement in sports or other activities in school and outside of school; opportunities to be involved in sports, clubs, organizations, or other activities at school; and number of days in the past week that they were physically active for at least 60 minutes per day. The students also reported time spent watching television, using the computer, or playing video games on school days and weekend days. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire. Moderate to high depressive symptoms were reported by 33% of these youths. The odds of depressive symptoms were lower when there were greater opportunities for the youths to be involved in a sport or other activities at school outside of class, to be very active during physical education classes, and to play on sports teams both at school and outside of school. Youths who were physically active at least 60 minutes per day were also less likely to have depressive symptoms. Lower levels of leisure-time screen use (video game, computer, television) were also associated with lower depressive symptoms in adolescents. Can physical activity protect against depressive symptoms in adolescence? Toseeb and colleagues 4 examined the association between physical activity beginning at age 14 years and depressive symptoms at age 17 years. A community-based sample of 736 adolescents from the United Kingdom participated in this longitudinal study. Baseline levels of physical activity were evaluated using combined heart rate and movement sensing. Participants were requested to wear the monitor over a 5-day period including 2 weekend days. Participants completed the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire at baseline and at 3-year follow-up. A semistructured clinical interview to assess for current episodes of MDD was also administered at baseline and at follow-up. No association was found between physical activity at baseline and development of depressive symptoms at 3-year follow-up. The adolescents who were physically active at baseline did not have higher or lower depressive symptoms than the adolescents who were less physically active. Similarly, a diagnosis of MDD at 3-year follow-up was not predicted by physical activity at baseline. The investigators conclude that physical activity is not a protective factor in the development of depressive symptoms in adolescence. Conclusion Overall, studies provide support for the benefits of physical exercise in children and adolescents on executive function, brain activity, and depressive symptoms. According to Healthy People 2020, the target for physical activity in adolescents is 60 or more minutes of daily aerobic activity. 5 It is unlikely that the majority of youths achieve this target. The importance of physical activity should be promoted in the school setting as well as in after school activities. Parents should also encourage their children to be involved in physical activities. References : 1. Hillman CH, Pontifex MB, Castelli DM, et al. Effects of the FITKids randomized controlled trial on executive control and brain function. Pediatrics. 2014;134: e1063-e1071. 2. Pontifex MB, Saliba BJ, Raine LB, et al. Exercise improves behavioral, neurocognitive, and scholastic performance in children with ADHD. J Pediatr. 2013;162:543-551. 3. Kremer P, Elshaug C, Leslie E, et al. Physical activity, leisure-time screen use and depression among children and young adolescents. J Sci Med Sport. 2014;17:183-187. 4. Toseeb U, Brage S, Corder K, et al. Exercise and depressive symptoms in adolescents: a longitudinal cohort study. JAMA Pediatr. 2014;168:1093-1100. 5. US Department of Health and Human Services. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. http://www.health.gov/ paguidelines/guidelines. Accessed December 18, 2014.
For the 2023-2024 school year there will be 28 teachers writing curriculum for Studio Classrooms for Portrait of a Eagle for grades 6-12 and 3 teachers working on Digital Lit/Citizenship Framework for “full Year Course Maintenance” for K-12 at an additional cost of $28,620. I am not saying teachers doing extra work should not be compensated. I am suggesting that we utilize our smart, talented teachers and focus on academic learning. At a Curriculum Meeting in January, there were 2 presentations on the Studio Classrooms pilot program. One was given by the 7 th grade Spanish teacher. Studio Classroom seems to be used to administer the Portrait of an Eagle program, which is the District’s social-emotional learning program (SEL). The Spanish teacher admitted that the program “cuts down on content instruction.” This is what we have been saying all along about SEL watering down academic instruction time. SEL requires a lot of internal focus and will make students more narcissistic (constant focus on feelings) and less focused on facts and constructive action. James Lindsay defines SEL as the practice of psychology on groups of children in uncontrolled, non-therapeutic spaces by non-professionals. SEL will be used to shape students’ attitudes, values and beliefs to accept a particular (Marxist) worldview. This will be done through classroom discussion and written/online surveys and “assessments.” Students will have instruction on these “competencies” and assessed on them within the Studio Classroom curriculum. Students will be tracked on how they are scoring on these competencies and the data is being collected and used to move them through until they get the “correct” scores. Please educate yourself on what SEL really is and how educational agencies and consulting groups are appealing to emotion to sell billions of dollars of curriculum and programs to school districts, government and community agencies, and even churches. You can learn more about SEL on the New Discourses web site/podcasts: https://youtu.be/IKdJfJdcjgU The other pilot program teacher was Matt Billman, Human Anatomy and Physiology. Mr. Billman said the assessments are moving to “non-traditional” methods, such as group work. He stated the students were concerned how they were being assessed in these new subjective methods, as they should be! The students did not have quizzes or tests as usual. What did they actually learn? Everyone should ask how group work will affect their students’ learning and grades as they go through middle school and high school.
The information in this blog includes a summary of a curriculum meeting from a taxpayer that regularly attends the meetings and is very active in helping the candidates running for school board this year along with additions from my research on these issues. There were 2 presentations on the Studio Classrooms pilot programs. One was given by the 7 th grade Spanish teacher. Studio Classroom seems to be used to administer the Portrait of an Eagle program, which is the District’s social-emotional learning program (SEL). The Spanish teacher admitted that the program “cuts down on content instruction.” This is what we have been saying all along about SEL watering down academic instruction time. SEL requires a lot of internal focus and will make students more narcissistic (constant focus on feelings) and less focused on facts and constructive action. James Lindsay defines SEL as the practice of psychology on groups of children in uncontrolled, non-therapeutic spaces by non-professionals. SEL will be used to shape students’ attitudes, values and beliefs to accept a particular (Marxist) worldview. This will be done through classroom discussion and written/online surveys and “assessments.” Students will have instruction on these “competencies” and assessed on them within the Studio Classroom curriculum. Students will be tracked on how they are scoring on these competencies and the data is being collected and used to move them through until they get the “correct” scores. You can learn more about SEL on the New Discourses web site/podcasts, and also read this paper: https://pioneerinstitute.org/pioneer-research/academic-standards-pioneer-research/social-emotional-learning-k-12-education-as-new-age-nanny-state/ The other pilot program teacher was Matt Billman, Human Anatomy and Physiology. Mr. Billman said the assessments are moving to “non-traditional” methods, such as group work. He stated the students were concerned how they were being assessed in these new subjective methods, as they should be! Everyone should ask how group work will affect their students’ learning and grades. Again, is it all being watered-down? Use of Technology Update Tech Director Chris Smith gave a detailed technology update. Apparently, the teachers have access to 279 apps, web sites and programs that have not been technically approved for curriculum, but the teachers find through other sources. There has been no control or oversite of these supplemental resources. They discussed putting internal regulations in place to approve these supplemental sources before teachers can use them. For concerned parents there are options. Opt your child out of school Google account: https://www.cvschools.org/support_operations/technology/educational_technology/google_for_education/opt-out_information Pushing Failing Students into Certification Programs Dr. Christopher talked about pushing students who don’t pass the Keystone Exams, which are required for graduation, into one of several certification programs with local colleges. This aligns with the knowledge we have of how the Keystone test scores were cut to make sure a certain percentage of students failed. So it is a back-door way of practically forcing students into certain career paths? I’m not saying these certification programs are bad. But I don’t believe pigeon-holing students based on one exam is helpful or fair to a developing student that may change in ability and interest during the high school experience and young adult lives. Math update The Math department will be looking to testing a K-8 pilot program in the 2023-24 school year. They want to test multiple programs to see which they like best. Remember when they do these pilot programs, this is basically experimenting with your kids. Do parents really understand how different the structure and content of the class with be for their child? This needs to be more transparent. When asked if the math program will be like the new language arts curriculum, the answer was yes. That means that several studies will be incorporated into the math lesson. For example, with CVSD’s new language arts program, the students also have their science and social studies curriculum. How can students get the time needed to develop the specific skills required for math if they are now going to add other disciplines into the lessons??? Dr. Euker stated that the math “vocabulary” is now not consistent across the grades (I assume due to the implementation of Common Core) and this is creating problems. Who knew math “vocabulary” needed to change? Class Rank Dr. Christopher stated that some students have been asked about class ranking and the students want to “get rid of it.” Dr. Blanchard stated that the Board is ultimately responsible for the decision. How will the Board decide and when? Maybe there needs to be some adjustment, but will the administration and school board use this as an excuse to get rid of grades as the main source of assessing students. SEL programming is all for getting rid of grades and moving towards assessing competencies. I do not believe this will help our children as they move into adulthood and whatever competitive work environment that they choose after graduation. There are schools doing this to varying degrees and the outcomes are just as diverse. Here are some examples for reference: https://www.simplemost.com/schools-phase-out-valedictorians/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-accelerated-math-courses-equity https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/gifted-programs-worsen-inequality-here-s-what-happens-when-schools-n1243147 Here are the next three school board meeting dates and they are held at the District Office Boardroom located at 6746 Carlisle Pike, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050: Tuesday, Jan. 21st at 7:00 p.m. Monday, March 6 th at 7:00pm Monday, March 20 th at 7:00pm If you cannot attend in person you can also livestream these full board meetings. The agenda and livestream link are posted three days prior to the meeting at the following site: https://go.boarddocs.com/pa/cmdvsd/Board.nsf/vpublic?open
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Our kids need less time on devices and more time moving in school and out of school if we really care about their mental health! If we are truly looking for ways to help our kids with stress, anxiety, and depression, we should look to proven techniques that show benefits. We should not be spending money and time on trendy, unproven SEL “programs” that have not been able to prove any benefit after decades of broad implementation in school settings. Please read the research that proves movement and exercise benefit children in a variety of ways. Please ask your school board and administration to show proof of what they are implementing is beneficial to our students academic achievement and wellbeing. Nothing trendy or experimental should waste time or resources for our children. They deserve better! Mental Health Benefits of Exercise in Children Jan 28, 2015 Karen Dineen Wagner, MD, PhD Psychiatric Times, Vol 32 No 1 The target for physical activity in adolescents is 60 or more minutes of daily aerobic activity. But it is unlikely that the majority of youths achieve this goal. There was a time when children would play outdoors and get exercise by running and riding bicycles. In recent years, concerns about children’s safety, the popularity of video games and computers, and increased academic demands have contributed to the decline in outdoor play for children. Unless children are involved in sports, gymnastics, dance, or similar activities, they have limited involvement in exercise-related activities. Benefits of physical activity There is increasing evidence for mental health benefits of exercise in children. Hillman and colleagues 1 examined the effects of physical activity on fitness, brain function, and cognitive function in 221 children aged 7 to 9 years. The children were randomly assigned to either a 9-month after school physical activity program or a wait-list control group. The physical activity intervention was 2 hours in duration and focused on improvement of aerobic fitness by engaging in physical activities. The children participated in at least 70 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity, followed by a snack, rest period, and low organizational games such as tag. Pre and post-intervention measures included assessment of aerobic fitness and cognitive functioning. Aerobic fitness was assessed by a test of maximal oxygen consumption during a treadmill exercise. Cognitive functioning was evaluated through tasks that assessed attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility. EEG recordings to deter-mine event-related brain potentials were obtained during the cognitive tasks. At the end of the 9-month intervention, the physical activity group showed greater aerobic fitness than did the wait-list control group. The physical activity group also demonstrated greater attentional inhibition and cognitive flexibility. On EEG assessments, only the physical activity group showed a larger P3 amplitude (indicative of greater attention) and a faster P3 latency (indicative of faster processing speed). Children who attended a greater number of the physical activity sessions had more changes in these brain activity measurements. ADHD and exercise Given these findings of improved attention for children who engage in a physical activity program, it would be important to know whether children with ADHD would show improved attention with exercise. Pontifex and colleagues 2 assessed the effect of a single bout of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise on children with ADHD. Twenty children aged 8 to 10 years with ADHD and a healthy matched control group participated in the study. In this within-participants design, children participated in a 20-minute session of either aerobic exercise or seated reading on a motor-driven treadmill. Measures of event-related brain potentials and cognitive tasks were assessed during both of these conditions. Both the children with ADHD and the control group showed greater response accuracy on attention control tasks following a single bout of exercise than following the seated reading session. EEGs indicated that children in both groups had larger P3 amplitude and shorter P3 latency after exercise than after seated reading. On measures of academic performance, children in both groups had greater improvement on tests of reading comprehension and arithmetic after exercise than after seated reading. The investigators suggest that single bouts of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise may be an additional treatment modality for children with ADHD. Moreover, short bouts of exercise during the school day may be a benefit to children in general. Depression and exercise The relationship between depression and exercise in children and adolescents has received recent attention. Kremer and colleagues 3 investigated the associations between physical activity, leisure-time screen use, and depressive symptoms. The data were obtained from the Healthy Neighbourhoods Study, a crosssectional survey of 8256 children and adolescents (mean age, 11.5 years) in Australia. The students completed an online self-report instrument. Students were asked a number of questions about their physical activity behavior, including number of days attending physical education classes; degree of activity during these classes; number of days of being very active after school and on the weekend; involvement in sports or other activities in school and outside of school; opportunities to be involved in sports, clubs, organizations, or other activities at school; and number of days in the past week that they were physically active for at least 60 minutes per day. The students also reported time spent watching television, using the computer, or playing video games on school days and weekend days. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire. Moderate to high depressive symptoms were reported by 33% of these youths. The odds of depressive symptoms were lower when there were greater opportunities for the youths to be involved in a sport or other activities at school outside of class, to be very active during physical education classes, and to play on sports teams both at school and outside of school. Youths who were physically active at least 60 minutes per day were also less likely to have depressive symptoms. Lower levels of leisure-time screen use (video game, computer, television) were also associated with lower depressive symptoms in adolescents. Can physical activity protect against depressive symptoms in adolescence? Toseeb and colleagues 4 examined the association between physical activity beginning at age 14 years and depressive symptoms at age 17 years. A community-based sample of 736 adolescents from the United Kingdom participated in this longitudinal study. Baseline levels of physical activity were evaluated using combined heart rate and movement sensing. Participants were requested to wear the monitor over a 5-day period including 2 weekend days. Participants completed the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire at baseline and at 3-year follow-up. A semistructured clinical interview to assess for current episodes of MDD was also administered at baseline and at follow-up. No association was found between physical activity at baseline and development of depressive symptoms at 3-year follow-up. The adolescents who were physically active at baseline did not have higher or lower depressive symptoms than the adolescents who were less physically active. Similarly, a diagnosis of MDD at 3-year follow-up was not predicted by physical activity at baseline. The investigators conclude that physical activity is not a protective factor in the development of depressive symptoms in adolescence. Conclusion Overall, studies provide support for the benefits of physical exercise in children and adolescents on executive function, brain activity, and depressive symptoms. According to Healthy People 2020, the target for physical activity in adolescents is 60 or more minutes of daily aerobic activity. 5 It is unlikely that the majority of youths achieve this target. The importance of physical activity should be promoted in the school setting as well as in after school activities. Parents should also encourage their children to be involved in physical activities. References : 1. Hillman CH, Pontifex MB, Castelli DM, et al. Effects of the FITKids randomized controlled trial on executive control and brain function. Pediatrics. 2014;134: e1063-e1071. 2. Pontifex MB, Saliba BJ, Raine LB, et al. Exercise improves behavioral, neurocognitive, and scholastic performance in children with ADHD. J Pediatr. 2013;162:543-551. 3. Kremer P, Elshaug C, Leslie E, et al. Physical activity, leisure-time screen use and depression among children and young adolescents. J Sci Med Sport. 2014;17:183-187. 4. Toseeb U, Brage S, Corder K, et al. Exercise and depressive symptoms in adolescents: a longitudinal cohort study. JAMA Pediatr. 2014;168:1093-1100. 5. US Department of Health and Human Services. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. http://www.health.gov/ paguidelines/guidelines. Accessed December 18, 2014.
For the 2023-2024 school year there will be 28 teachers writing curriculum for Studio Classrooms for Portrait of a Eagle for grades 6-12 and 3 teachers working on Digital Lit/Citizenship Framework for “full Year Course Maintenance” for K-12 at an additional cost of $28,620. I am not saying teachers doing extra work should not be compensated. I am suggesting that we utilize our smart, talented teachers and focus on academic learning. At a Curriculum Meeting in January, there were 2 presentations on the Studio Classrooms pilot program. One was given by the 7 th grade Spanish teacher. Studio Classroom seems to be used to administer the Portrait of an Eagle program, which is the District’s social-emotional learning program (SEL). The Spanish teacher admitted that the program “cuts down on content instruction.” This is what we have been saying all along about SEL watering down academic instruction time. SEL requires a lot of internal focus and will make students more narcissistic (constant focus on feelings) and less focused on facts and constructive action. James Lindsay defines SEL as the practice of psychology on groups of children in uncontrolled, non-therapeutic spaces by non-professionals. SEL will be used to shape students’ attitudes, values and beliefs to accept a particular (Marxist) worldview. This will be done through classroom discussion and written/online surveys and “assessments.” Students will have instruction on these “competencies” and assessed on them within the Studio Classroom curriculum. Students will be tracked on how they are scoring on these competencies and the data is being collected and used to move them through until they get the “correct” scores. Please educate yourself on what SEL really is and how educational agencies and consulting groups are appealing to emotion to sell billions of dollars of curriculum and programs to school districts, government and community agencies, and even churches. You can learn more about SEL on the New Discourses web site/podcasts: https://youtu.be/IKdJfJdcjgU The other pilot program teacher was Matt Billman, Human Anatomy and Physiology. Mr. Billman said the assessments are moving to “non-traditional” methods, such as group work. He stated the students were concerned how they were being assessed in these new subjective methods, as they should be! The students did not have quizzes or tests as usual. What did they actually learn? Everyone should ask how group work will affect their students’ learning and grades as they go through middle school and high school.