Mansfield Legacy High School PTSA

The Mansfield ISD has recently launched a comprehensive Web site dedicated to research, assessment, and accountability data. The primary purpose of this site is to provide the community a “one stop shop” for all data related to student performance.

What do we hope to achieve by providing access to this type of data/research?
Providing performance data will support the district’s efforts of identifying strengths, weaknesses, and any achievement gaps that may exist between groups. With this insight, we will be able to set goals, develop strategies, and plan more effectively, taking into account the unique needs of each student.

Site visitors will have access to all accountability summaries at the district and campus level so progress on state and national standards can be assessed.

Information on this site includes the following:

• Evaluation and research reports
• Relevant links to external Web sites
• Manuals and guides for administering the different assessments
• School and district level reports (and ratings) – both state and federal
• Information for parents
• State mandated test dates
• Three to six years of test results for each school
• State and National Accountability Reports
• College Board results and links on how to register for College Board and ACT exams

Why are we providing this Web site?
While it is great to praise progress, it is counter-productive to avoid accepting and dealing with academic short-comings. Therefore, all data are made available publicly so we can see where the district’s been, where it is currently, and can plan for where it wants to go in the future. The goal is to be pro-active and not ignore those areas where improvement is needed.

Staff Benefits
The old phrase knowledge is power is relevant when one considers the fact that with knowledge comes an increase in one’s ability to utilize resources including time, personnel, and funding in a way that positively affects our students. By having access to current and trend level data, district educators are empowered. Our capacity to more effectively plan begins with being able to identify what’s working and what’s not. By having access to up-to-date data, action plans that are meaningful, measurable, and on target can be developed and implemented. Lastly, and more importantly, providing teachers with easy access to student level data will hopefully prevent any student from falling between the cracks and will enable teachers to identify areas that need attention before a pattern of failure develops.

Benefits for Parents
Parents will have easy access to how their child’s campus is performing on state and national tests and will be able to determine where their support can be most beneficial and effective to the campus. Additionally, in a later phase of the site’s development we will provide parents with access to their child’s test performance. This will enhance their ability to make informed decisions and to monitor their child’s academic progress.

What’s next for the site?
The MISD Research, Assessment and Accountability Department has several online projects currently in development.

• Phase I, just completed, provides readers with campus and district level summary reports, research studies and other articles, and links to external sites. Most of the reports presented at this time are in PDF and easily downloaded.
  
• Phase II of the Web site’s development focuses on a “query-based” system that extracts data from a centrally-maintained database. This phase will be available to the user via the “Report Builder” tab. Access to this function will be available on a limited basis to campus level teachers and administrators. With the implementation of this interactive feature, campus personnel will be able to access student level test data including TAKS and norm-referenced results so instructional strategies can be planned based on the unique needs of each student.
  
• Phase III will expand the “Report Builder” functionality to include campus summary reports based on a series of selection criteria designated by the user.
  
• Phase IV of this project is focused on the development of a portal that will provide parents with the means to access their child’s test performance via a login and password. The goal for providing this access is to empower parents in a way that helps them more fully understand their child’s academic needs so they can be better informed advocates.

Please visit the Mansfield ISD Research, Assessment, and Accountability site and let us know what you think.

Both educators and the general public often view disciplining of students to be one of the most challenging issues in schools today. From minor disruptions to major emotional issues that can affect the learning, appropriate discipline is an important discussion topic.

On Saturday, March 6, 2010 Mansfield ISD parents and teachers are invited to attend a free Parenting with Love and Logic® training seminar at Willie Pigg Auditorium, 8:30 am - 3:00 pm.

This free training seminar is provided through a LOVE CONNECTION grant through the MISD Education Foundation written for parents and teachers in the district by Mary Jo Sheppard Elementary staff.

The grant provides for a speaker from Love and Logic as well as a Parenting Curriculum kit to educate parents on some strategies that have proven to be successful. Join Jedd Hafer for plenty of laughs and lots of practical solutions to some of the most common challenges facing parents, teachers, and anybody who cares for kids. You will hear easy-to-learn strategies, for children of any age, that:

• Help them feel great about themselves
  
• Up the odds of them making wise decisions and resisting peer pressure
  
• Put an end to arguing, back talk, and power struggles
  
• Gain cooperation through the use of choices within limits
  
• Guide kids to own and solve their own problems

According to the Sheppard Elementary counselor, Teresa Franklin, the seminar is "a way to put all the adults in a child’s life on the same page and provide support for the child as well as each other. This program will benefit children all over the district as the most important people in their lives work together to help them develop into responsible citizens in society."

Love and Logic®
According to Charles Fay Ph.D. of Love and Logic, "research has shown that punishment-based approaches actually increase disruptive behavior thus the Love and Logic techniques were established to provide practical ways of teaching pro-social behavior along with responsibility while preventing ever increasing discipline problems."

These techniques are based on five principles including:

1. preserving students self concept;
2. teaching students to solve problems that they have created;
3. ability to share decision-making along with control;
4. providing empathy and warmth along with consequences; and
5. build adult-child relationships.

There will be a morning session as well as an afternoon session on a variety of topics. The training is open to any MISD parent and teacher.

Last November, the initial plans to the community were announced along with a presentation to the School Board on a Proposed Orchestra Program for Mansfield ISD. We will not begin an orchestra program in the 2010-2011 school year.

Mansfield ISD is still very committed to the eventual addition of orchestra to the Fine Arts offerings. However, at this time we will continue to study the issue in order to have a successful implementation. Currently at issue are facility needs at a few campuses that are too great to overcome in a short amount of time.

Starting an orchestra program is no easy task and the administration believes that by taking a measured approach and delaying the program’s start is in the best interests of the District, students, and community.

(Photo credit: Michael @ NW Lens)

On January 27, 2010 Della Icenhower Intermediate School held it's first Dress For Success Day. On this day boys wore a tie and slacks and girls wore dresses/skirts and a coordinating top. Reggie Rhines M.Ed., Icenhower School Counselor, gave some details on this day and the school's plan for more.
"I sponsor a club called Men In Training (MinT for short). This club has been in existence for over 4 years now and is for 6th grade boys only. The purpose of this club is to promote leadership, community responsibility, and professionalism. This year I decided to do things a little differently. I felt that there is a set of skills that every young man should know by the time they reach adulthood. One of the skills is how to tie a tie. After some discussion the boys of MinT wanted to pass this skill on to others in the school and it just kind of expanded from there.

"We are hoping to promote the value of professionalism to our students. It was amazing to see how many students put on a more serious face when they came to school in a professional manner. The students had a wonderful time dressing up and many commented on how nice their classmates looked. We did turn this into a competition of sorts as well. The team with the most students dressing out got a free recess. We had over 70% of students participate in this endeavor."Dress For Success will occur on the last Wednesday of each month for the rest of this school year at Della Icenhower Intermediate School. [See the photo gallery from the day.]

Thanks to last week's snow day, we had a variety of school and athletic events or activities that had to be rescheduled, moved, or otherwise altered in some way. We've made an adjustment to the calendar to make up the day at the end of the year. The flexibility from our District community has helped us get back to needs at hand.

However, there was one item that was overlooked from Friday, February 12 - Love the Bus Day.

The MISD Transportation Department team provided some great information about the work that they do in honor of Love the Bus Day:

• Annually, Mansfield ISD buses transport students 2,479,445 miles.
• Mansfield ISD has 210 buses within its fleet.
• It takes an average of 3 weeks of training before a driver can drive a bus by themselves.
• Each morning, we actually deliver students to campuses 430 times prior to the campus initial bell. During the day, we have nearly 100 buses shuttling students from campus to campus or from home to campus or campus to home. In the afternoon, we take all the students home again.
• With a fleet of 32 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses, MISD is the largest district in the state to use CNG.
  
• We have received grants from Texas Emissions Reduction Plan, Department of Energy, North Central Texas Council of Governments, and the Texas Comptroller (State Energy Conservation Office) in addition to grant funding for emission reduction trap program and for seat back cover education program.
• A modern school bus has the structural strength to hold twice its weight on the roof to prevent a crushing effect if there is ever a rollover. The bus is designed to absorb a side impact in such a way as to channel the impacting car to the area below the floor of the bus, thus protecting the student riders. Our buses generally have 2 roof exits, 2 door exits and 4-6 window exits, should emergency occur.
• Our drivers have a combined 937 years of driving experience.
• All school buses must meet noise level requirements that prevent passenger compartment noise levels from exceeding 85 decibels, consistent with the advice of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to prevent hearing loss.
• According to the Transportation Research Board, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, a child is 13 times safer in a school bus than in other modes of travel. Children driving to school or riding with other teenage drivers are 44 times more likely to be fatally injured than in a school bus. (“The Relative Risks of School Travel,” 2002).

What can parents do to help keep kids safe on and off the school bus?

• Walk your child to and from the bus stop. If possible, wait with him or her until the bus arrives.
• Be alert to traffic. Check both ways for cars before stepping off the bus.
• Wait for the bus driver’s signal before crossing the street.
• Walk in front of the bus; never walk behind the bus to cross the street.
• While waiting for the bus, stay in a safe place away from the street.
• Before leaving the sidewalk, look for the flashing lights.
• Never go under the bus to retrieve something you’ve dropped.
• Teach your child the importance of staying seated on the bus.
• Get to know your bus driver. He or she is a trained professional who sees your child every day; he or she would be happy to tell you about the safety features on the bus and the responsibility drivers have for keeping their young passengers safe.
• Get to know the parents of other riders. You will learn about the other children your riding along with your child.
• See the MISD Transportation bus safety page.
  

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The Love the Bus program, founded in 2007 and coordinated by the American School Bus Council (ASBC), is celebrated throughout February in school districts across the country as a way to raise awareness and appreciation for the hundreds of thousands of school bus drivers who safely transport more than 26 million school children to and from school each day. It is also an opportunity for parents and children to learn more about the safety and environmental benefits of school bus transportation.

Image by paul.klintworth via Flickr

Cyberbullying is a distressing online trend and unfortunately, our District community is not immune to its reach. In addition to providing good news and positive information about the District, we feel it's also important to give our community relevant resources on problem areas.

It is my hope you will take some time and watch the video below and then become familiar with what cyberbullying is, the dangerous effects, and ways to stop it.



Resources
Here is some helpful information from Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids About Being Online (pg. 20 of PDF):

"Cyberbullying is bullying or harassment that happens online. It can happen in an email, a text
message, an online game, or comments on a social networking site. It might involve rumors or images posted on someone’s profile or passed around for others to see, or creating a group or page to make a person feel left out.

"Talk to your kids about bullying. Tell your kids that they can’t hide behind the words they type and the images they post. Hurtful messages not only make the target feel bad, but they also make the sender look bad—and sometimes can bring scorn from peers and punishment from authorities.

"Ask your kids to let you know if an online message or image makes them feel threatened or hurt. If you fear for your child’s safety, contact the police.

• Read the comments. Cyberbullying often involves mean-spirited comments. Check out your kid’s page from time to time to see what you find.
• Don’t react. If your child is targeted by a cyberbully, tell them not to respond. Bullies usually are looking for a reaction from their target. Instead, encourage your child to work with you to save the evidence and talk to you about it. If the bullying persists, share the record with school officials or local law enforcement.
• Protect their profile. If your child finds a profile that was created or altered without his or her permission, contact the company that runs the site to have it taken down.
• Block or delete the bully. If the bullying involves instant messaging or another online service that requires a “friends” or “buddy” list, delete the bully from the lists or block their user name or email address.
• Help stop cyberbullying. If your child sees cyberbullying happening to someone else, encourage him or her to try to stop it by not engaging or forwarding anything and by telling the bully to stop. Researchers say that bullying usually stops pretty quickly when peers intervene on behalf of the victim. One way to help stop bullying online is to report it to the site or network where you see it.
  
• Recognize the signs of a cyberbully. Could your kid be the bully? Look for signs of bullying behavior, such as creating mean images of another kid.
  
• Keep in mind that you are a model for your children. Kids learn from adults’ gossip and other unkind behavior."

Related articles by Zemanta

• Teen Tortured by Cyberbullies Hangs Herself (abcnews.go.com)
• What parents can do about cyberbullying (ncpc.org)
• Teen Arrested for Creating Website to Bully Other Teen (wired.com)

Recently, Legacy High School students in Dena Schimming's Teen Leadership II class presented a $30,000 donation check to representatives from the Moncrief Cancer Resources at UT Southwestern Medical Center for the Mobile Mammography Screening unit. The funds were raised during the campus's Pink Fest, a series of fundraisers and breast cancer awareness programs in October of 2009.

Here's a recap in the latest MISD Minutes series:


Additional details:
The LHS 2009 Pink Fest included an eight-hour walkathon. They chose eight hours because 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

The UT Southwestern Medical Center's Mobile Mammography Screening unit is the only digital mammography unit in a mobile environment available in Dallas and the southwest U.S.

Legacy High School's Pink Fest began in 2007. The efforts included $12,000 alone in Pink Fest t-shirt sales alone.

See the related Rider Online article: Pink Fest Raises Funds for Cancer.

What started early this week as a simple request from District superintendent, Dr. Morrison to put together a staff-wide coat drive in light of the cold weather turned into something really great for the Council PTA Clothes Closet.

The request was simple, campuses and departments were asked to designate an area for coat collections and the MISD staff members were asked to bring in gently-used coats to be given to the Clothes Closet. With record-level cold temperatures it was pretty easy to see the need.

Thanks to the quick and thoughtful response from campus and department staff, we were able to provide over 100 coats and jackets to the Clothes Closet.

The MISD PTA Clothes Closet provides clothing items to students in need. Students are referred (via voucher) by school staff. Campus Administrators, Teachers, Nurses, Counselors, and PTA Executive Board Members may present a Clothes Closet Voucher to any student in the MISD needing the opportunity to visit the Clothes Closet. Donations to the Clothes Closet come from MISD schools, the community and local businesses.

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Special thanks to the MISD Distribution Center staff for their flexibility in adjusting their schedules to provide a truck for pick-up and delivery of donated coats.

What happens in Mansfield ISD when temperatures drop and our area has inclement winter weather?

I checked with our Transportation department and others on the administrative team to help explain some of the procedures, considerations, and decision-making during winter weather events. Here is what I found out:

1. At or before 4:00 AM a decision is made to deploy the Transportation Weather Team staff.
2. Between 4:15 AM and 4:30 AM, the Weather Team visually inspects various areas across the district of streets for icy, wet, or dry roads along with monitoring the weather information channels.
   
3. The Weather Team contacts the Director of Transportation with their road information.
   
4. Road conditions are analyzed along with other related information available from other school districts.
5. If roads are questionable, the Superintendent is contacted after 4:30 AM (but before 5:00 AM) to discuss findings and recommendations.
   
6. The Superintendent makes a decision by 5:00 AM whether or not to close schools.
   
7. We use our standard communication channels if any changes to the district schedule require adjustment including the District homepage, weather page, local media outlets, e-mail (Newsletter list for parents/staff/community) or follow the district on Twitter and Facebook.

Other considerations and notable information

• Many area school districts' transportation directors have a local phone network so they can stay in communication and provide insight to what is happening road-wise with each other.
  

• How does weather forecasting play a part in the decision-making process? While the Weather Team reports actual conditions, what is expected to happen weather-wise is just as important to the decision process.
  

• What about early dismissals? If winter weather conditions worsen during the day, we determine if an early release is needed to get the students home sooner and bus drivers back to the bus barn safely prior to darkness. We try to make that decision prior to 10:00 AM in order to adequately coordinate the dismissal process. Generally an early release will only affect the middle schools as we would typically dismiss them at 1:30 PM since currently they end the day the latest at 4:00 PM. We then continue normal schedules for high, elementary, and intermediate schools. This provides for the least disruption of classes and gets buses off the road prior to darkness when ice becomes the most dangerous.
  
  
• How many different bus routes run every day? Each of our MISD buses run three or four schools. We run 145 buses, including Special Needs, but with three bell schedules, that is 435 individual bus trips each morning and then again each afternoon.

I hope this helps provide a little insight into this process.

Well, I did it again. I got out of the habit of writing regular blog posts for the MISD community and got lulled into a 48 day gap here on the blog. (Actually it was really only 32 days since 16 of those days were over the holiday, but that's really no excuse.)

The last time he had a large break in the posts, we provided a post on eduspeak which was pretty fun and hopefully helpful. This time, however, I'm just going to apologize for being a stranger and move on. (photo credit: Gexydaf)

It has been great to see all of the comments on the proposed orchestra program. We are still in the information-gathering mode for that and nothing new to share at this time. I am encouraged by all of the fans and postings being shared on our District Facebook page and a few campuses that are trying out the social network for their school communities.

There are a few post ideas bouncing around that I'll be writing in the coming days and weeks, but I'd like to hear from you. Is there anything you'd like covered in this District blog? Have you heard any rumors you'd like investigated? The comments are yours.

At the Tuesday, November 17 regular board meeting, school trustees approved measures that decided a location for and puts an official name on the recently approved auditorium and professional development facility.

The new name is Mansfield ISD Center for the Performing Arts. The two venues inside the Center will bear the names of two former district officials: Claude Cunningham Performance Hall and the John Washington Professional Development Center.

Claude Cunningham Performance Hall - Cunningham retired in May 2009 as associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction, after 14 years in MISD and 39 years in Texas education. In 1995, Dr. Cunningham was hired to serve as Executive Director of Student Services and Secondary Instruction in the Mansfield Independent School District. He was promoted to Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction in 1998 and to Associate Superintendent in 2006. During his tenure in Mansfield he has been responsible for the leadership and direction of all student instructional and support programs, campus operations and District planning.
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The performance hall will will accommodate 5500 people with an additional 500 on the stage. This would allow for a seating capacity of 6000 to accommodate our high school graduations. Other uses for the performance hall will include:

• A location for high school performing arts departments' musicals and other large stage productions;
• 5th-12th grade band and choir performances;
• Host UIL band competitions and competitive cheer events; and
  
• Outside group and performance/production use for a rental fee.

John Washington Professional Development Center - Washington, who worked for 36 years in the Port Arthur school district, retired in 1990 and moved to Mansfield. Mr. Washington joined the MISD School Board in 1996, becoming the first African-American elected to the Mansfield ISD School Board. His focus was always on the children, his background in education and his eloquent way have endeared him to not only the students, but parents, staff and community members.
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The main feature of the professional development center's design is one large room that can accommodate up to 500, but can also be divided into six separate rooms for training. This large professional development room could host other events that are currently being housed outside the district.