No cookies allowed

Back in February, Kelly’s post, Junk Food No More?, talked about a possible ban on junk food in schools. I took this as an overhaul of vending machines and school lunches, but apparently the issue of junk food in schools is stretching beyond school grounds in some places.

A recent Washington Post blog linked to an article about an elementary school that imposes some “food rules” on what students can and cannot bring in their lunches.

Children’s Success Academy in Tuscan, Ariz. is a public charter school founded and run by Nanci Aiken, a doctor of physiology and a healthy foods enthusiast. She set up some rules concerning the content of her students’ lunch boxes. Permitted foods include fresh fruits and veggies, natural cheeses and 100 percent whole grains. White bread, lunch meat and food containing white sugar make the “not allowed” list. The school provides no lunches, so students must bring their own.

Now, I’m not suggesting that public schools everywhere are going to start adopting this system anytime soon, but it’s interesting to see how far some schools are going to promote a healthy lifestyle. It’s one thing to cut down on the number of candy bars students have access to at school, but this seems to be affecting parents too. They are the ones, afterall, who must bypass the convenient fruit cups, applesauce and bologna at the grocery store for other lunch items.

So, is banning certain foods from school lunches a good idea or is it crossing the line? On the one hand, childhood obesity IS a problem and maybe schools need to go to extremes to combat that. On the other, let a kid have a cookie.

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MU’s “Adventures in Education” has something for everyone

How’s your weekend? Mine’s going pretty well, in spite of this rain here in Columbia, Mo. It is really coming down, and has been all day.

I know finals are coming up and projects are yet to be finished, but when the weekend rolls around, it’s family time. So, I got out this morning with my family and went to an MU grad school-sponsored event called “Adventures in Education,” which was held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 24 at Jesse Hall. It’s an annual event organized by graduate students, giving them a chance to share what they do with local students.

A few minutes after arriving, I had made a quick survey of the booths and was surprised at how many people were already there for the event. It was a diverse Columbia group. Being a journalist-in-training, I thought, “somebody should report this.” I called the paper, but nobody could get free to come down.

So, I let the idea go and visited some booths with my daughter. She got to extract DNA from wheat germ at the biology graduate students’ booth, which was called “Become a Junior Geneticist.” She learned how to say “automobile” in German (“das Auto”) at the German grad students’ booth, called “Deutsch ist einfach wunderbar!” (German is simply awesome!). At the chemistry students’ booth, we saw and touched a “non-Newtonian solid.” This substance feels very hard if you push on it quickly, but turns soft if you rest your hand on it slowly.

More people kept arriving, and the place was getting crowded. There were still many booths that we had not visited.

“Somebody ought to cover this,” I kept thinking. Basic reporting students don’t usually cover stories unless they are assigned, but some of the topics at this event were not commonplace. Seeing a “sense of discovery” (for lack of better description)  showing on the faces of so many young students was worth sharing.

One that really got my attention was a booth hosted by grad students from the Textile and Apparel Management department, called “Travels of My T-Shirt.” When we got to this booth, we were asked to check the tags on our clothes to find out where they were made. My shirt was made in Honduras, my daughter’s was made in Pakistan — most likely with U.S. grown cotton. The U.S. produces the majority of the world’s fiber for clothing.

Amanda Muhammad, one of the grad students, said the point was to get us to think about why the cotton is shipped to the other side of the world to be made into clothing and then shipped back. Wouldn’t money be saved if the shirts were just made here where the cotton is grown?

I reflect on questions like that during a normal day — so I knew the answer to the question; but it was news to my kid. Clothes are made in other countries because the people who work there don’t get paid very much for their work. That’s something to think about.

After visiting that booth, and deciding there were more than 200 people in attendance, I decided to cover the event. I had a camera out in the car, a notepad and a pencil, so I got started.

I talked to graduate students, parents, children, an event organizer, and I did not forget to talk to my 8-year-old. We visited all the booths she wanted to see before we took off.

That’s how my Saturday went — now it’s back to studying. Stay dry, CoMO!

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Two new views on American education

If you’ve been following not only the Columbia School District but districts across the country and their fight to improve education in financial times, this may interest you. GOOD magazine found Newsweek’s cover story, “The Key to Saving American Education” as well as a cover story from New York Teacher magazine.

New York Teacher, a magazine that circulates among 600,000 teachers, was outraged by the Newsweek article and decided to fight back hinting that teacher unions are the answer.

This echoes some conversations I’ve heard in the boardroom lately. In fact, last Monday’s meeting CMNEA and newly named Columbia MSTA disagreed on possible collective bargaining. CMNEA wanted to consider a timeline for collective representation, but Columbia MSTA’s President Laura Sandstedt is adamant about remaining outside of a union.

“I can’t think of a decision that would be worse,” she said, but despite her disappointment, she said she would never want either organization to lose its opportunity to be heard.

All this talk of teacher performance and unions can’t come without a discussion of merit pay as well, which I’m sure Missourian readers have heard a lot about over the past couple years.

Here is some merit pay background straight from the Missourian.

• UPDATE: School Board wants to continue merit pay discussion
• Merit pay system debated at School Board candidate forum

No one can really be certain what the “key” to education is, but you can bet more of these debates will be popping up as long as education systems are in need of money.

I would love to hear what the community thinks about these issues and, as always, keep an eye on ColumbiaMissourian.com for more updates on the district.

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Language Learning

Hola. Me llamo Kelly. Me gusta manzanas rojas.

In elementary school, that was about as good as I, a native English speaker, or any of my classmates could do in a Spanish conversation: “Hello. My name is Kelly. I like red apples.” To be fair, I doubt there was much my teacher Mrs. Reyes could hope to do with more than 20 restless fifth graders in 30 minutes per week. But apparently, had she been more dramatic, we could have followed a steeper learning curve.

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch article Sunday explained that Kreitner Elementary School in Collinsville, Ill., is collaborating with the Metro Theater Company to help native Spanish-speaking students learn English more quickly through drama and body movement.

“Acting, in a kinesthetic way, can help kids learning vocabulary,” said Emily Kohring, education director for the company.

The program, which began this semester and places Metro educators in a semester-long residency position at the school, has been getting results, according to the article.

“We’re seeing kids feel more empowered to take academic risks and share their feelings,” said Vicky Reulecke, principal of Kreitner.

While the value of programs such as these in allowing Spanish-speaking students to acquire better English skills is clear, it makes me wonder about expansion. I’m curious: could this program be implemented to teach native English speakers other languages at the elementary level? The Kreitner collaboration targets first and second graders.

With state funding cuts a major concern for Columbia public schools, it’s difficult to say whether such programs could be considered, let alone implemented right now. I know the Spanish program that kick-started my love of the language was cut from my elementary school back home years ago.

What do you think, Columbia? Would you like to see programs like this implemented not only for non-native English-speaking students, but native English speakers who might benefit from being bi- or trilingual?

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Get outside and play

Enjoying the warmer weather here in Columbia, Mo.; I personally don’t exercise until the mercury crawls over 40 degrees, but when it finally does I get out on the trails that Columbia has in such great abundance.

I know the subject of exercise and its benefits have been hashed, re-hashed and — well — you get the picture. The subject here is how to improve the students’ attention and hopefully their interest in school.

Howell Wechsler, an official from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent and School Health claimed that some schools in the U.S. have decreased the amount of physical activity throughout the school day in favor of increased classroom time. He said this extra classroom time was spent drilling for assessment tests.

Not so fast with that strategy — it turns out, exercise during the school day may have a greater beneficial effect on students’ classroom performance than more study time.

Wechsler said an analysis of more than 50 studies on exercise and academic performance showed that:

• in about half of the studies there was a beneficial relationship between short breaks for physical activity and subsequent classroom performance
• most of the remaining studies showed a neutral relationship between the two factors
• “virtually none” of the other studies demonstrated any negative effect of exercise

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Columbia Public School students know their geography

Quick, what country shares borders with Libya and Burkina Faso?

I didn’t know the answer either — I guessed Mali …

The correct answer: Niger borders those two countries.

Last Friday, two CPS students, Rohit Rao from Gentry Middle School, and Daniel Shapiro from West Jr. High School, placed second and sixth in the Missouri state geography contest held at Moberly Area Community College.

A chance at a trip to Washington D.C. to appear in the 22nd annual National Geographic Geography Bee was the winning prize, which went to Joshua Vogel, a seventh-grader from Trinity Lutheran School in Cape Girardeau.

I wrote the local students’ stories up for the Missourian — follow this link to read more about the contest and how the students prepared for it.

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Columbia’s new high school needs a name

April 6 was quite a day for Columbia Public Schools, because 77 percent of voters checked the “yes” box for the district’s $120 million bond issue.

The level of support shown for the issue by the public was attributed by a school board member (among others) to district Superintendent Chris Belcher’s clarity about what the issue would cost, and what the anticipated benefits would be.

Now that the issue has been approved, construction for Columbia’s third public high school (after the existing Hickman and Rock Bridge high schools) is scheduled to begin in June.

Name suggestions, anyone?

Architect's conceptual drawing of Columbia's new high school (provided by DLR Group- image from CPS web site)

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LIVE BLOG: School Board Elections

CORRECTION: I originally wrote “Dan Holt” won, which is wrong. I apologize, it was a long night. It is now corrected.

Jan Mees, James Whitt and Jonathan Sessions won the seats for Columbia School Board.

For the results of the election, go to the Missourian’s interactive graphic.

Read our story about the school board election.

Read Kourtney Geers’ story about the bond issue vote.

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Dan Holt’s Watch Party

11:42 p.m. Doug Davis: About 9:30 p.m., School Board candidate Dan Holt looked at the TV in the corner of the Heidelberg’s rooftop patio. Down by about 2,000 votes with 69% of precincts reporting, he said, “I’m conceding.” It was the finish of his second campaign for school board in the last calendar year.

Earlier, I asked Holt how the final days of the campaign had shaped up. He said, “I’ve been very busy on phone calls and e-mail the last 10 days. It’s (voter interest) been building.”

I spoke to Kevin Ventrillo, Holt’s campaign manager, who said the campaign had been distributing door hangers constantly over the last two weeks. Aside from the door hangers, he said the campaign depended on word of mouth and radio to a lesser extent.

When initial election results appeared, Mees had 550 votes, Whitt had about 330, and Holt had 250. I asked Holt for his reaction. He said he thought the race would come down to he and James Whitt competing for the remaining seat as he expected Jan Mees to retain her seat. He said, “I thought Jan would carry her weight. She’s a known quantity. She’s presented herself well.”

Holt’s campaign treasurer, John Karle, said that the merit pay issue, which Holt alone favored (of the school board candidates), was the one thing that concerned him. He felt that people might dismiss it without understanding exactly why and under what conditions Holt favored it.

Holt summed up how he felt about conceding – “You do what all candidates do; try to make your views known and inform the voters of your direction. When you get to the end, it’s up in the air.”

He said after running two campaigns in less than one year, he was going to take his time before deciding what to do about future elected positions. He said, “I feel like I made a difference both times I ran, framing issues in front of the voters.”

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