Woodstock CT Café

Seven different authors contributed articles to the Café this week. As a result the Café earned a ranking of 3rd in the state for this last week from BlogNetNews. Thanks for your interesting contributions. Admin

This subject is one that I have, actually, spent quite a bit of time researching. I became interested in this subject a few years ago. Some friends of mine home-school and I was impressed to learn of some amazing learning tools that they were using (Incredible, really). I learned that many home-school parents (and organizations) have been incorporating virtual learning for some time. I believe that the incorporation of virtual learning IS the future of educating (progressively) our children.

I am not an advocate of virtual schools (no brick and mortar experience) for ALL students. Self-discipline and the ‘home environment’ may not be conducive to this type of learning in some cases. The arts and extra-curriculars are vital to the overall educational experience, in my opinion.

CT Virtual Learning Center
The State of Connecticut is pleased to announce the availability of free online course enrollment for high school students. Funded by the State as a pilot project, at no charge to you, the CT Virtual Learning Center will begin offering courses as soon as January 28, 2008. Students will be able to take these courses through your school for credit. These are dynamic, fully interactive online course curricula that have been pre-approved by the State Department of Education’s Bureau of Curriculum and Instruction and will be taught fully online by CT certified teachers.

‘Virtual schools’ do benefit many who are in situations where attendance is difficult/impossible/etc (health & disability issues, location (unsafe urban situations, etc). The incorporation of virtual learning in the public schools would provide for the oversight and supplemental instruction that is necessary for the success of most students. Combined with the social needs and overall ‘experience’ obtained in the brick and mortar environment? I believe the results would be amazing… Read the rest of this entry »

A link to this article has been added to the “Key Article” section on the right. Admin

For the past two years the high school where I work has offered two programs involving distance learning. One is for highly motivated students who want to take advantage of several courses that are not offered in a typical high school curriculum. The school district contracts with the VHS provider and enrolls students on an individual basis. Each student may utilize study periods while in school to complete course work and continue to work from home, while still enrolled in regular high school classes. The second type of virtual learning is provided by a program that was introduced by a school district in Ohio.

For the past two years I have been assigned Virtual Learning Academy Students that have been long term suspensions or expulsions for up to a year. The Virtual Learning Academy works like this: Each student is given up to (4) academic subjects that must be completed in a specific amount of time. Some students may be enrolled part way through the school year and therefore class lessons are reduced to reflect the time the student has already spent in school. My students are required to attend 3 to 5 sessions a week at a local center that has someone monitor the computer use. This can be the local library or some other venue that provides internet/computer use.

As the designated teacher, I correct each completed lesson. The student can contact me by email and I can offer assistance on any subject the student finds difficult. Has this been a success? Last summer I can attest to the fact that I had a student who was expelled in March and had to make up credits in Algebra, English, History, Health, and Science. Had this program not been made available, the student would have repeated 9th grade. By enrolling in and passing all of his Virtual Learning Academy subjects the student was able to return to regular high school this past September.

If you look at this from a financial standpoint the school system has saved a great deal of money on several fronts. Expelled students are entitled to a full-time tutor. The virtual learning academy eliminated the need for hiring someone full time. Had this student failed his freshman year he would have been on a “five year plan” thus costing the taxpayers an extra year of educational expense. This program could also be beneficial to students who drop out of regular high school. Instead of choosing to enroll in an Adult Ed. Program students could utilize the Virtual Learning Academy program to complete all high school graduation requirements.

Romeo A. Blackmar

I found this interesting article on the Drudge Report this morning: “Connecticut Begins Offering Online High School Classes” High school “Students can only participate if their local school districts are enrolled in the program, and private school and home-schooled students can not yet take courses. ” Could a virtual high school work in Woodstock?

Connecticut education officials (educrats) have opened up enrollment for on-line high school courses. The pilot program does offer courses in basic subjects for students who need credits to graduate. However, it also offers other electives such as mandarin Chinese and Shakespeare In Film. This is the state’s first effort to develop a Connecticut focused on-line program, staffed by registered state teachers. The program, called the Connecticut Virtual Learning enter, is funded by an $850,000 state grant, and is free for school districts and students.

The Connecticut Virtual Learning Center is offering 21 courses for its first semester, beginning January 23.

I couldn’t help but to think of the wonderful implications this has for broadening educational opportunities while ultimately saving taxpayers locally – being state funded means less tapping into property taxes. Instead of one teacher for 25 students, perhaps 150 students per class.

Course retakes and summer classes could lighten the burden of providing resources for summer classes.

Expediation of student graduation would be fostered or maintained particularly in cases of student illness or injury.

Gee, I wonder if the Teacher’s Union will support this trend? But I do have to congratulate the educrats on finally thinking outside of the box.

Although the Selectmen made the wise decision to scrap the Dirt Roads Committee, they did form another committee known as the Silly Walk Tax Abatement Committee. The role of this committee will be to hand out tax abatements to all residents who can demonstrate silly walks on their property. One example of a well recognized silly walk in Woodstock is that of the wild turkey also known as a turkey trot. Anyone who can prove that at least 10 wild turkeys live on their land will get this tax abatement.
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While the Selectmen may be more “efficient”, the newly elected “bring back the balance” Planning & Zoning Commission Republicians seem to be bringing back the special interest i.e. do favors for friends type of management. Case in point- the same strong supporters of developing an 8 lot subdivision on Pulpit Rock are completely pounding a proposal to NOT ALLOW a land owner to get 2 lots out of an 8.5 acres lot where he needed to secure financing for his portion of stopping the large development! Okay- interesting that Dexter Young and Fred Rich berated the applicant to “count salamanders” when neither cared anything about the vernal pool, when Douglas was going to bulldoze it over for 8 house lots !?

What Arrogance! I don’t really want to see any houses built but no one said a smaller number of houses couldn’t have been built! The Republicans are trying to take over his private property- this is almost fuuny-but for the landowner who needs the lot to increase the capital value of his property.

So a special Merry Christmas to the new Republican PZC member. Be careful bending over this holiday season lest you find one or more salamanders crawling up your backside.

Ken Rapoport

Thanks for your comments about the MFATF and reminding people that there has been close to 20 meetings held over the past 1-1/2 years by a group of interested, involved and dedicated people from across Woodstock. Your wife Becki has been a part of the MFATF all of this time. Thank you Becki for your help. And, John, thank you for attending and participating in the first MFATF meeting. I thank Margaret Wholean as well for her help throughout the MFATF meetings. I thank Ernie St Jean for his involvement. I thank each member of the MFATF, past and present, for their hard work. It is only fair to offer credit to where credit is due and that is why I have thanked everyone on the MFATF whenever I have talked about the MFATF.

It is true that the MFATF was not divisive; we came together and looked to better understand many aspects of town government and to find answers through achieving common ground (and by using common sense). I joined the MFATF as a someone who lives in Woodstock and who cares about the community in which I live. I was not an elected official when I joined the MFATF. I did happen to be the Chair of the Woodstock Republican Town Committee at that time (a fact I did not hide), but I did not join for any political reasons. In fact, I kept up with my work on the MFATF even when I was no longer the WRTC Chair. I am proud to have served as the MFATF Chair – a lot of work for me behind the scenes in between meetings, but I met great people and learned a lot. Read the rest of this entry »

“In 05-06, WA experienced an enrollment increase of 65 students (total). And, yet, the BOT agreed to a 0% tuition increase. This was done to accommodate the financial burden to its sending towns. This was done mainly, inarguably to aid WOODSTOCK as we had an increase of 41 students attending the Academy AND 11 debits that needed to be paid”

The Real Story is that in 05-06, with the increased enrollment of approx. 65 total students, WA budgeted for an increase in revenue from tuition paid by sending towns of more than $600,000. Of that increase, Woodstock increased its TOTAL TUITION PAYMENT (inarguably the most meaningful fact worth understanding) by approximately $500,000. 41 of the projected 65 additional students came from Woodstock. Through almost the entire budget season, Woodstock Academy projected per student tuition increase for 05-06 of 3 to 4 percent and communicated this to the sending towns. Thus, with Proposition 46 staring down the barrel at Woodstock BOE, and catastrophic teacher layoffs as the only means to balance its budget under Board of Finance interpretation of Prop 46, the infamous 9th grade proposal was born, and … Viola! … Woodstock Academy at the very last moment in the budget process, pulled the rabbit out of the hat and reduced its PER STUDENT (not total) tuition increase to zero. This was not done to aid Woodstock at all. It was done because Woodstock Academy could thrive with an additional HALF MILLION dollars being paid by Woodstock for that year! Read the rest of this entry »

Within one month of Allan Walker taking his position as First Selectman, and the formation of the new Board of Selectmen with Chan Paquette and Mitch Eaffy, we have already seen evidence of a new, more effective leadership. It’s a small thing but I hope that it is indicative of improved leadership and responsibility by our Selectmen’s office.

At the last Board of Selectmen’s meeting, the Selectmen scrapped a plan proposed by former First Selectman Margaret Wholean last month to establish a ‘Dirt Roads Committee’ to oversee maintenance and upkeep of the town’s many dirt roads. My thought when I heard of this committee was ‘Why do we need a committee to attend to issues surrounding our dirt roads?’ We have our Selectmen and we have Highway Foreman Dwight Ryniewicz. We pay these people, and elected them, to provide leadership and informed decision making. An ad hoc committee of biased individuals predisposed to a certain outcome based on self-interest does not help the Town in making informed decisions for the betterment of the town as a whole. Like I said this is a small example of how our town leadership has changed for the better.

Ms. Wholean apparently needed committees to demonstrate her ‘objectivity’ and intelligence. Take for example her committee called “Municiple Finance Advisory Task Force” formed in late July of 2006. I was invited to attend the first meeting of this committee in place of my wife Becki who was in California at the time. I attended the meeting as a ‘place keeper’ for Becki who had been invited to join the committee. The Cafe had actually advocated the formation of an unbiased committee that could provide objective perspective on financial matters to the Board of Education. Our intent in suggesting that such a committee should be formed was to help the BOE present their budget to the town with the endorsement of objective professional ‘elders’ who would review the budget critically. Read the rest of this entry »

My parents Peter Leavitt (94) and June Leavitt (88) in Woodstock Valley received an assortment of gifts yesterday from the Town Hall with a card signed by Allan Walker with a thoughtful message. There are many elderly in Woodstock who are house-bound like my parents. Like my parents, the elderly always appreciate impromptu visits from friends, service providers, and old reliable meals-on-wheels. My parents are also fortunate to have the attention of the White’s, Dana Basteau’s family, and the Walsh’s.

Thanks Allan for your attention to the elderly.

Let’s not forget the elderly of Woodstock especially around the holidays.

John Leavitt

Yesterday, the Cafe had 316 visits and almost a thousand page turns. Admin

‘Newcomer’ asked the following questions that prompted me to write this article: What is the motivation for WA’s BOT to refrain from growing their endowment fund significantly more than it currently is? Wouldn’t that benefit both sides, but WA most of all?

To answer the first question, the Academy has a new endowment building program called “The Third Century Campaign” described at their website.

Dr. William Masopust writes under the heading “Commitment to the Future of the Academy,” “Historically there never was a substantial endowment. Today the only trust funds that the Academy has are scholarship funds available to graduating students… Otherwise the entire operating budget is funded each year by sending town’s share of the costs that are carefully calculated with input from the community.” Dr. Masopust points out that the Academy could do so much more with increased financial resources. He further states “it is time to establish a much needed, long overdue, permanent Academy endowment “… with a campaign to raise $2,500,000 consisting of $1.5 million in “restricted endowment” and $500,000 in capital improvement funds.

I do not question Dr. Masopust’s sincerity and motivation regarding this campaign. However, Dr. Masopust appears to be unaware of the campaign that has been waged over the last two years by one of the members of the Trustees and his collaborators associated with the so-called ‘Coalition’ and Citizens for Prudent Spending. These individuals have repeatedly accused the Board of Education of malfeasance in news articles in the Villager, the Norwich Bulletin, and even at this website. Over the last two years, their accusations have been a constant theme in the local media and in political campaigns.

The Academy BOT would probably counter the existence of its connection with these attacks by stating that the Trustee in question left the BOT in October. However, this Trustee’s sustained attacks on the Board of Education took place while he was an active member of the Academy BOT. It has seemed as though the Academy endorsed this ‘campaign’ over the last two years, and the Academy has never stated or indicated otherwise. The Academy would probably say that they have no relationship with the other individuals, yet other key Academy supporters have spoken up at the Coalition website as though they endorsed the destructive and litigious activities of these people. Read the rest of this entry »

Our economy is choking. Our manufacturing jobs have fled America in enormous numbers over the last 20 years. The U.S. dollar has been imploding. Our country has amassed huge amounts of personal, corporate, municipal and federal debt. The housing market is crashing all around the U.S. and the amount of defaulting mortgages is staggering, just as Citi Bank. Our Federal trade deficit is unbelievable every day, let alone on an annual basis. The only thing driving our econony over the last 10 years has been cheap money, artificially created by the Fed and new home construction/real estate. Only Americans think they can get rich by selling their homes to each other. We are an energy driven society and haven’t you looked at your electric bill, car gas bills, and home heating costs over the last 24 months? Inflation is running over 7% at least. George Bush passed tax cuts but didn’t cut Federal Spending. ala, more deficits. We are passing more socialist bills everyday and becoming more socialist every minute. We don’t have the most dynamic economy, we have an economy driven by debt and an unfunded war. Real estate has been the only game in town in this country since 911. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s what I cannot seem to make sense of: If Mr. Breen’s above synopsis is correct, why, what is the motivation for WA’s BOT to refrain from growing their endowment fund significantly more than it currently is? Wouldn’t that benefit both sides, but WA most of all? It would provide a continued revenue for the capital improvements that everyone seems to agree are needed and necessary. It would also leave some exisiting funds available for K-8 with no need to raise taxes at all. The money’s already there.

I imagine you may respond to me that many in town feel that K-8 does not deserve one more dime and needs only to better manage what they have. And while I’ve said all along that no system is perfect and there may well be a few areas here and there that could be tightened up or reallocated, I feel that making such improvements should be done, but will still leave the system with a shortfall. There are basic programs such as World Language that WES does not have and should have as some other elementary schools in CT do.

I am admittedly partial to the needs of SPED children because it affects my children. But there are many other families in town who need to seek other placements for their children because the public school cannot provide some needed therapies and accomodations that some children require just to function. Therapies such as sensory integration are crucial just to help some children’s brains and bodies to accept the most minimal sensory input that a teacher would try to present to them. WES does not even have a movement room or suspension equipment and these are considered basic in some other schools. It may be the personal opinion of many that school should not be a rehab facility and that’s true. But there are Federal laws mandating access for free and public education for all – even those whose minds and bodies function differently from that of the general population. Maybe this would reduce the grounds for some of these SPED lawsuits that I keep hearing about? Read the rest of this entry »

First, I believe the Academy’s expansion plans are more than justified and are in fact long overdue. I think the athletic fields are overtaxed and the school should have a natatorium and swim team. I was shocked at the lack of books and periodicals in the library when I toured it two years ago. The question is how they pay for it.

Second, I believe the Academy should and can develop a serious capital fundraising effort and I think it can be very successful over time due to the strong loyalty of its alumni to the school. But this cannot be a local effort – there are Academy alumni all over the country. So this requires a strong communications program and a strong leader of the alumni association, a position currently occupied by Paul Lynn, a janitor at the middle school and longstanding member of CPS who is in chronic employment problems for abuse of sick time and other priveleges. If the Academy wishes to step up their capital campaign effort, they need to get a respected, successful, committed and highly motivated individual into the Alumni position. This is the face of the school to their widely scattered alumni – and they have filled it with a chronically lazy janitor.

Third, rather than undertake a serious capital program in the past, the Academy created what is effectively an independent state agency with a local mission – the power to tax without any public oversight. This is exactly what made the University of California a top state university system, what’s the problem. The problem is Prop 46 – with a restrictive cap on total spending, the Academy’s spending comes out of the K-8 system, undermining the educational system as a whole. Read the rest of this entry »

From Randy: Great page on the Oh Ho Ho Ski slope. You can still see the slope as you travel on Rt 197 right near Polebridge Road.

There have been several discussions here at the Cafe about the deflationary nature of Prop 46 in the past that you can search and find. It boils down to a few simple factors:

1) Prop 46′s allowed growth in town revenues is tied exclusively to growth in the grand list (the list of the value of taxable property in Woodstock). There is no tie to, nor accounting for, inflation. We are dependant completely on property becoming more valuable from year to year in a faster rate than inflation. Hopefully there will be no downturns in the real estate market and people will continue to buy new houses in Woodstock…

2) It gets better, what I said above is only true in non-revaluation years. For reevaluation years (when we recalculate what everyone’s property is worth) we end up with “For revaluation years the total of the dollar increase will be limited to the lowest of the dollar increase of the last year or the average dollar increase of the last three years.” Reevaluation years are locked to a low dollar increase number. So we can’t simply increase the mill rate! In fact, we calculate the max revenue allowed to the town and then back calculate the mill rate to reach that number.

3) But that’s not all. Prop 46 is not only disassociated with any growth in inflation, it is disassociated with growth in the need for services. For example if we build a new house in town and a family moves into it, the growth in town revenues is locked down to the increase in the grand lists that family’s property gave the town. So for the average house, what about $5000 in increased revenues for the town? Each child that family has will cost an additional $10,000 (approx) in extra needed spending by the government for education. That’s a problem. Read the rest of this entry »

The following was taken from Dan Heller’s website . See the article :

“We should treat all the trivial things seriously, and the serious things in life with sincere and studied triviality.” – Oscar Wilde

“Life does not cease to be funny when someone dies, any more than it ceases to be serious when someone laughs.” – George Bernard Shaw

Humor

It’s the most difficult thing in the world. Some people get it, some people don’t. But, no matter what, humor is guaranteed to offend someone—there’s no way around it. With my photos and/or captions (see Heller’s website), I shouldn’t have to spell it out, but the long and short of it is that the target of my humor is not the subject in the photo, it’s deeper than that. While it is rare, I get some very uptight email now and then from someone who finds my photo captions offensive, that I’m making fun of the people in my photos, that I am lacking respect for other cultures, or worse, that I am simply ignorant of others’ feelings. This article isn’t really going to change their minds on the subject, but it does spark a consumate philsopher and deep-thinker such as myself to ponder the more interesting and fundamental roots of humor: Why is something funny? Why do people find offense at what others find funny? To me, these are intensely interesting questions which I’d love to discover through a dedicated a six-year doctorate degree, where I could spend my time on lecturing tours around coffee shops and bookshops around the country. But, I’ve got other things to do first. Instead, this article addresses the much, much norrower subject: why my captions really are funny, even if they don’t make you laugh. Read the rest of this entry »