In so many communities, there are many feel good events (regardless of what some politicians might be telling you.)

Here’s photo gallery of just one school district’s efforts at bringing a love of learning to families.

Those photos are from the Galway school community’s 2nd annual “Read In – Camp Out,” a two-hour adventure where students and their families follow a map of reading activities throughout Joseph Henry Elementary School. The two-hour event is open to all elementary families in the area.

“To make the experience more like a campout, students can come dressed in their pajamas, read books in tents with their families and listen to stories around a campfire,” said Jenn Suydam, Read In Coordinator.

Galway Teachers Association President Carrie Herron said, “Our association provides middle level students enrichment through the STEM program, and our high school students support for a safe Post Prom Party, so we wanted to extend our help to our elementary students. The Read In – Camp Out was a perfect way to do this!”

The activities took students and their families through the hallways, the gymnasium, the cafeteria, and the library at the schools where they created key chain crafts, decorated their own tote bags crafts, made their own trail mix, enjoyed other special treats and snacks, and listened to stories by guest speakers. Parents were also introduced to the Galway Teachers’ STAR Reading program, a service that allows elementary students to borrow a bag of books to read at home. Each student also receives a complimentary book to take home.

Again, this is just one instance of the many positive things our schools are doing across the state.

Here’s an earlier post with more technical info about school budgets, just in case you missed it.

The West Irondequoit school board in Monroe County went a step further. Click here for the full letter signed by the school board, superintendent of schools, the teachers association and the parent teacher student association.

“Together we collaborated on that letter of our shared beliefs about the overreliance and misuse of testing,” said Scott Steinberg, president of the West Irondequoit Teachers Association.

By our count, nearly 40 school boards have taken action to urge the state to reexamine its testing obsession (see list below). Most are also taking action at the federal level, calling on Congress and the U.S. Department of Education to reduce its testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.

The Syracuse school board has not adopted a resolution yet because they are concerned they will lose funds, according to this article.

The possibility of losing funds was discussed in the Sherburne-Earlville school board meeting this week as well. Here’s a link to what you can read without a subscription to the Evening Sun. The complete press account included board members asking Colgate professor Mark Stern about any negative repercussions and his “severe doubts” that state or federal governments could withhold funds from districts who take this symbolic stance.

It is hard to keep up with all the districts that have passed resolutions or sent letters. Here’s the list of the districts we know about. If we missed yours, please just let me know by email at bsandber@nysutmail.org or call (800) 342-9810 ext. 6283. You can also gives us a heads up in the comments section below.

• Averill Park, Bethlehem, East Greenbush, Guilderland, Middleburgh, Saratoga City, Schoharie in the Capital District
• Ichabod Crane and New Paltz in the Mid-Hudson Valley
• Saranac Lake in the North Country
• Geneva, Lyons and Marion in the Rochester region. The Churchville-Chili school district also approved a letter like West Irondequoit but I can’t find electronic copies to share.
• Bath and Candor in the Southern Tier
• Central Islip, Comsewogue, Deer Park, Middle Country, Sayville and West Islip on Long Island
• Baldwinsville and Sherburne-Earlville in Central New York
• Bedford, Hastings, Highland Falls, Middletown, Nyack, and South Orangetown in the lower Hudson Valley
• Hamburg, Grand Island, Kenmore, Niagara-Wheatfield, Kenmore, Tonawanda and West Seneca in Western New York

Here’s a photo of the front of a special wrapper for the candy bar.

On the back is the following message:

The YCT will join with our brothers and sisters from all over New York state in Albany to put an end to the demonizing of teachers, the exploitation of our students as data-makers, and the relentless attacks on public education. We will never be able to out-spend the corporate lobbyists who have turned our schools into their personal cash cows, but we can, we do and we will continue to outnumber them. We are a force to be reckoned with. And it’s time we made them reckon with us.

TELL US YOU WILL BE THERE

It included a letter from senior building representative Janine Gibney urging them to rally with NYSUT on June 8 in Albany. Gibney knows that many June commitments are made months, even years, in advance, so in the letter she writes:

“If you can’t make the rally, please return the button but keep the candy bar as my gift. But perhaps then you can work instead to support your colleagues who are going — make a rally sign, offer to take their kids for the day on June 8, thank them when you see them wearing the button.”

Kudos to Gibney for thoughtfully including those folks who can’t come to Albany.

Sean Kennedy, president of the local that you might recall from this blog post for increasing awareness of workers rights, said the rally is sorely needed to give a physical presence in Albany of the thousands who are upset with the state’s obsession with testing, who want fair and equitable funding of schools and public higher education, to protect the safety of students and staff and to restore local control.

“It’s up to every NYSUT member to do what he or she can to get to Albany,” Kennedy said. “Our union gave candy bars but we are not sugarcoating the message that our public schools and our profession are under attack. NYSUT is only as strong as its weakest members and we have got to show up in force on June 8. We will be there!”

The pledge to be there, whether it’s on a t-shirt, the cover of NYSUT United or spoken through the telephone, often reminds me of the end of The Confrontation song sung in full deep-throated grandeur from “Les Miserables.”

Here’s what I mean (the message should start at 2:04.)

Kelly Wickham, a school administrator and parent from Springfield, Ill., offers her perspective.

If you’re fed up with the state’s obsession with testing, join with the 10,000 parents who have signed the petition at  testing.nysut.org.

This isn’t just about The Test. Capital T, capital T. What we do to students in the American public school system is test them and we do it a lot. But it’s just a test. What’s happening with school testing is the problem. We’re using it in ways assessments were never intended. It doesn’t make any sense; not to me, as a mother of a child whose entire education has been impacted by the over-emphasis on using tests to make children feel like everything is wrapped up in that one thing.

Mason (left) with a friend.

I took my son out of private school when he was in 4th grade.  I was grateful that Mason received a good, solid foundation of phonics and loves to read and talk about what he’s read with me, but I was sad that he had to leave behind friends who he’d met five years prior when he started kindergarten. He brought home colorful drawings and the occasional drill-and-kill worksheets, but I knew I had to get him out of that school because they didn’t know the first thing about dealing with a child who learned differently from the rest of their population.

In some ways, leaving that school behind was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because some of the things he would learn in the public neighborhood school was superior to the way the private school would go as he got older. A curse because, now, Mason was under the domain of a system that would test him as much as they possibly could.

I have many issues with standardized testing for children because, in Illinois, we have yet to experience the continuum of learning that should happen when you take hours and days away from students in order to get them to take the same test in the same way. In 4th grade, Mason took his first standardized test, got the results and felt terrible about himself. In Illinois, we use the Illinois Standard Achievement Test from grades 3-8 and use the results as a measure of No Child Left Behind. Of course, we got the results when he was in 5th grade and, by then, we were already on to the drills of the 5th grade test. The same thing happened every year thereafter and I can tell you, as the mom of a child who doesn’t test well to show what he’s mastered during a timed assessment, testing has always been a horrible time for our family.

Starting in 6th grade, we saw his classroom academic grades follow suit. Mason struggled and we fought with the school to get him a 504 Plan to accommodate his individual needs. Under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, schools can write 504 Plans to help general education students by making modifications that allow teachers to make accommodations in the classroom.

During basketball season, we saw a spike in Mason’s grades because he wanted to be eligible to play sports; we experienced a lot of tears during those months. Frustration for school and of not being understood in his learning manifested itself in our home by rearranging his bedroom (taking everything out and allowing him a Zen-like experience) and implementing behavior modification that we hoped would help him become more organized. I had hoped that, because I am a teacher and can speak educationese, that it would help him be a better student and that I could provide as much direct instruction for my son as his teachers did during the day.

By 8th grade, we failed to get the 504 and the basketball coach, a new coach to the school, found out how much Mason struggled with grades and decided not to allow him on the team so he wouldn’t have to hassle with him.

That’s when my son gave up on school. This trajectory we saw made high school hellish for him (and his parents) and testing was just another way to prove he didn’t know anything. Or so he felt. When we talked to him about doing well in school his constant complaint was that he would never get good grades on the tests he took. The ISAT, the Prairie State Achievement Exam, the ACT, and the myriad district assessments absolutely killed the spirit of learning for my son.

This proves quite the conflict for me: After Mason entered high school, I went back to school to earn a master’s degree in educational administration. I went into the very position whose charge is to ensure that every child is tested. As a young teacher, I learned quickly to steer clear of the teachers’ lounge. I fancied myself as a rebel, an innovative teacher who inspired her students and changed things up with her desks making the shape of a butterfly instead of the aimless rows that lined up for yawn-inducing lectures.  I stayed out of those places where I could be corrupted into hating the system in which I worked.

To some degree, I have remained a rebel. Sure, my job requires that I contact families whose children don’t show up for the standardized test, but I also get to be the one who answers their questions. One mom called me last year to say that her husband would be having surgery for his cancer and that she was so, so sorry that she was taking her children out of school to travel four states away for it during the ISAT.

“Are you joking me?” I asked her. “This is your family. Your LIFE. Take them with you for crying out loud. It’s just a test.”

I still believe that. It is just a test – just one piece of information we use. But it’s in danger of being tied to teacher evaluations (a truly monstrous idea) and now that some lawmakers have lazily adopted ALEC sample bills and brought them into policy, states are furiously vying for a shot at the almighty dollar and are pushing through the Common Core Standards that will continue to kill creativity for children and provide ample test anxiety for them. Teachers and administrators have not even had time to field-test the standards on assessments. In fact, many teachers I know are apprehensive of using the new evaluative tools that tie student achievement to their effectiveness.

Systemically speaking, it’s wrong and destructive to schools and children like my own who have had their futures shaped by schools using the assessment data in unproductive ways. Experienced teachers know that it’s unwise to test students on material that they have yet to practice teaching, especially since states are faced with massive cuts to staff and resources in the midst of all this. We aren’t connecting their learning in the ways we’ve been trained and we would do well to slow the emphatic standardized testing campaigns down until we know they won’t hurt children.

We just don’t have the data to support that right now.

Kelly Wickham blogs as “Mocha Mamma.”

NYSUT United brought you the news more than two weeks ago that fewer districts are trying to override the tax cap and that many are staying well within the cap. That story was based on a NYSUT survey of districts before the deadline to adopt budgets, and 39 told us they would try to override. A lot can change and now only 27 districts are trying to override.

Here are some other sobering facts from a different NYSUT survey. This is unscientific. It is based on reports from the field about how many layoffs are expected in districts as well as how many retirements won’t be filled. (Attrition is the technical term for that.) We are hearing that a total of 3,603 jobs are being sacrificed this year across the state. The complete breakdown is 1,660 layoffs with 1,156 attrition; for support staff it’s 555 support layoffs and 231 attrition.

Reading these numbers reminds me of what the Bethlehem Teachers Association did in 2011 to make the point about layoffs. (They held a press conference where no one could could sit in any of the seats, because each seat was symbolic of the more than 700 Capital District job cuts that year.)

There’s no school auditorium in the Capital District that has the 1,932 empty chairs needed to convey the total number of sacrificed jobs in this region over the past three years. (My math has 1,596 jobs lost through layoffs and attrition from the past two years and then add this year’s projections of 119 teacher layoffs and 40 attrition, and 167 support staff layoffs and 10 attrition.) The largest auditorium in our area has a capacity of 1,502, I’m told.

As a result  many will go to the polls to vote on budgets that mean larger class sizes, or fewer Advanced Placement opportunities or music and art courses. But the alternative, when a budget goes down, is far worse. So, please, make every effort to vote on your local school budget next Tuesday, May 21.

No longer can districts go on “contingency” budgets. Thanks to that property tax cap law, districts can not increase the tax levy one penny if voters don’t approve the budget. (Yes, districts get two chances.)

What also concerns a number of public education advocates is the cost for things far out of the control of a municipality or school district. That’s what the Niagara-Wheatfield schools will have to confront after a fire at the elementary school caused severe damage yesterday. Yes, there are no exemptions for damages to school buildings for floods or fire, nor are their exemptions for things like heating costs or diesel to run school buses. Here’s the link to guidance on what can be exempted.

You may recall, NYSUT has filed a lawsuit against the tax cap.

Feedback or comments on what your local union is doing to get out the vote? Email to bsandber@nysutmail.org, call (800) 342-9810 ext. 6283 or comment below.

This time of year the apple trees are stunning. Delicate, paper-like pink flowers crown the crooked branches in a halo of soft color.

Once the blossoms drop, it is time for farm workers to sort out the branches of the apple trees to make more room for the apples to receive the sun, and to make sure the apples do not get bruised, said Maria Fuerte, a farmworker. Next, it is time to pluck weeds from around the base of the apple trees.

“You’re literally on your knees going from one tree to another,” said Ruth Faircloth, a former farmworker, now 61, working for Rural and Migrant Ministry, and using a cane.  The job is important, she said, because otherwise the weeds will eat up the tree and make the apples bad – with worms in them.

• TAKE ACTION: Support Passage of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act

All of the jobs are important to get food from fields and farms to the table. But in New York, it seems, it is the farm workers who are not considered so important. That’s what the law shows, at any rate. They do not get a day off from their labor, they do not get unemployment, they are not eligible for workers compensation and they do not have the right to collectively bargain.

“A day off a week would’ve been wonderful. You just assume it’s not for you,” said Faircloth.

• PHOTOS: Fighting for farmworkers at the Capitol

Lawmakers today said hope is on the horizon. They believe the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act — which would provide those just conditions for farmworkers —  may finally be approved. After all, a similar law was enacted in California in 1975 – how far behind can New York be?

“I would hope the Senate would realize this is a matter of human rights,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-NY, at a press conference today at the Capitol.

Senator Neil Breslin, D-Albany, who said he has supported the Act for 17 years, said the Democrats have struggled to get the Act passed for so many years. Big farm owners have convinced opponents they will not be able to make money if the legislation is approved, Breslin said.

He is hopeful for change.

“There is extraordinary momentum,” said Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice  & Human Rights who has traveled to Albany numerous times, especially this year, on behalf of the Act. Today she wore a red “Farmworkers’ Justice” bandana around her neck.

“I don’t know a small farmer against this bill,” said Jack Banning, owner of a small farm in Dutchess County.

Like others who spoke, Manning said it was the big agri-business companies opposing the rights of those who work the farms.

“New York’s farm workers are the backbone of the state’s multi-billion dollar agricultural industry, but are not provided the professional support and job security they deserve,” said Assemblyman Carl Heastie, D-NY, chair of the Labor Committee in the Assembly, which passed the Act. “The Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act provides farm workers with the dignity and respect they need to provide for their families.”

“I have been abused in so many ways,” she said, her face suddenly crumbling. She began working farms at age 15, moving all over the country to follow the crops and the jobs, living in sub-standard, crowded housing with her colleagues. She then went on to earn a degree in mechanical engineering technology at RIT.

• SHARE MY LESSON: Activists unite for farmworkers

A poised speaker familiar with talking to legislators and leaders, Paz seemed to surprise herself with the force of her emotion.

“I was so ashamed, I couldn’t even tell my brother,” she said, wiping away tears. “We need collective bargaining. ” Farm workers are afraid to speak up because of the fear, she said. Losing a job means losing housing as well.

Standing proudly beside her was Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the Farm Workers Union with Cesar Chavez. A former teacher, she said today that she left the profession to become an organizer for farm workers after seeing so many of their children coming to school malnourished and worn down.

“I’ve received a number of emails from all across the country, thanking us for what we’ve done and even calling us heroes,” she said. “Some even want to buy our shirts!”

You might recall members wore their maroon local union shirts with the message: “I care more about the people my students become than the scores on the tests that they take.” Others said: “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” They wore those shirts on Tuesday to coincide with State Education Commissioner John King’s visit to the district.

Many of Sherburne-Earlville members are planning to attend tonight’s school board meeting, Moore explained, to ask board members to pass a resolution against the misuse of high-stakes tests. They will be joined by Dr. Mark Stern of Colgate University in speaking against the testing obsession. Prompted by parents and local unions armed with a NYSUT sample resolution, school boards from districts in every corner of the state have entertained action to condemn the over-emphasis on standardized testing and the inappropriate high-stakes consequences. Resolutions were adopted in Saranac Lake, Saratoga Springs, Averill Park, East Greenbush, Guilderland, Schoharie, Middleburgh, New Paltz, Geneva, Lyons, Middle Country, Highland Falls, South Orangetown, Middletown, Bedford, Candor, Niagara-Wheatfield, West Seneca and Tonawanda, to name a few. Here’s a sample of the resolution other boards have passed.

Fourteen SETA members took the time to list their concerns about testing and why they are coming to NYSUT’s June 8 rally in Albany. Here’s a link to short videos and photos.

Also, here are some of their specific concerns:

• More than 53 assessments were given to kindergarten students this year.
• Tests used to be developmentally appropriate. They no longer are.
• The amount of reading needed for the math test was extremely difficult for learning-disabled students.
• The testing format was not at all similar with the samplers provided by the State Education Department.
• The tests are opposite to best practice for teaching and learning.
• No math modules were prepared in advance of the tests for the fourth grade.
• The tests and then the scoring of the tests is taking too much instruction time away from grades 3-8.
• Students and teachers will not get the results of the tests until August. Students will not know what they need to work on over the summer.
• Elementary science teachers have lost 16 weeks of instructional time with their students.
• Emphasis on the tests is taking away opportunities for students in music and the arts.

If that’s not enough, here’s a video explanation of the wide range of issues over testing going on in public education. The video was created by Wendy Gillette, a teaching assistant in the district, and Kathleen Todd, a SETA member and the high school librarian. It’s almost a half-hour long.

Here’s one handy-dandy link to answer a lot of questions about the rally. We’ll keep updating with more info as it comes in.

Then, throughout New York as well as nationwide, teachers wore blue on Thursday. It was part of the American Federation of Teachers’ call for a moratorium on high-stakes decisions being based on high-stakes tests.

Here’s a link to the Syracuse Post-Standard coverage. Here’s a link to the YNN coverage. You will need to be a subscriber to Time-Warner Cable to view the video.

Meanwhile, also on Thursday, more than a thousand rallied in Brooklyn to keep SUNY Downstate Medical Center open. Here’s a link to NYSUT’s coverage of the event. Here’s a link to the NY1 coverage; again, you’ll need to be a subscriber to watch the video.

If you’d like photos from your school or classroom added, just email to bsandber@nysutmail.org and we’ll update as we get them.

Canandaigua students in Ontario County think that the testing situation in New York has almost become that crazy. So they created a scenario where they’re banished from the lunch line if they can’t correctly guess the meal for the day.

And they put it all on film.

It all comes to life, courtesy of the Canandaigua Academy Film Society, an after-school club run by advisor Deborah Sutherland. She is a member of the Canandaigua Teachers’ Association who teaches high school English and an International Baccalaureate film class. In 30 seconds, the video shows the impact of testing on student life and how it has infiltrated the psyche of those who work in schools and those who go there to learn.

The video is to be posted on the new AFT website learningismore.org, which includes a petition to take action against over-testing.  AFT and NYSUT are helping educators, parents and students spread the word that assessments are integral — but that an accountability system obsessed with measuring punishes schools. NYSUT members can take action to voice their concerns about testing. They can also show up in Albany on June 8 to the “One Voice United” rally.

“The kids were very passionate about this issue and did a fantastic job producing a film that really draws attention to it,” said Cheryl Birx, president of the 500-member Canandaigua TA, which includes teachers and school-related professionals. “It’s pretty awesome if I do say so myself.”