Moonhowlings

Inside Nova  tells us that Tina Marie Amato plead guilty to sex with a student.  Immediately, seeing the title, an image popped into my head of an older person taking advantage of a younger person–a sexual predator as it were.  After I read the article, I am not so sure that is how it worked this time.

I knew one of the men who was arrested last year at one of the local schools. I have friends who knew the kids involved.  Every last one of the professional  adults I spoke with felt that the teacher was set up by this kid.  Whoa!  That’s a switch.  Now am I saying the male teacher was innocent.  Oh hell no.  He was stupid, dumb and all the other words that pop up.  And he was set up.  He crossed a professional line that allowed him to be set up.  He got what he deserved for not maintaining his professionalism.

I expect the same thing happened to Ms. Amato.  She was convicted of :

“… three counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor by a custodian and one count of crimes against nature.”

We all know what that means without spelling it out. However, it marks Ms. Amato for life and puts her on the sex offenders list for time immemorial.  If she ever gets her life straightened out and has a family, she probably won’t be able to even go to a parent-teacher conference for her own kid.  She has destroyed any chances she ever had of a teaching career.

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Things sure weren’t like this back when I was in school.

Mr. Wood looks well. He refused to sell his property unless it was designated for a school. It looks like he got 2 of them.

Is Corey Stewart is still harping on the stimulus money the BOCS turned down?   He hasn’t yet acknowledged  the stupidity of not accepting stimulus money last August to hire around 180 new teachers that the school system indicated was needed.  Instead, the BOCS tabled the decision.  What ended up happening?  PWC kids were in over-crowded classes and someone else took the stimulus money,  would be my guess. 

The following quotes were found and reported by a little bird from an unknown blog in an unread land:

“Stewart said the bill was a sign of just how out of touch with fiscal realities and good government Congress is: “It is not just irresponsible, it is crazy. Congress suffers from deficit-spending induced dementia.” 

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From insidenova.com:

An 18-year-old Stonewall Jackson High School student was charged Thursday with sexual assault, police said.

A 14-year-old student at the school told police that Phillip Andrew McNuss, 18, a person she knows, sexually assaulted her in a stairwell inside the school, which is located at 8820 Rixlew Lane, more than one time between April 11 and April 15, Prince William police spokesman Jonathan Perok said.

Perok said the victim reported the incidents on Wednesday afternoon to school authorities, who then contacted police.

McNuss, of the 10200 block of Jamaica Lane, in the Townes of Ashleigh neighborhood, was charged with sexual battery, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and carnal knowledge, Perok said.

McNuss was held without bond.  Police did not have his court date immediately available.

We don’t usually cover crime.  However, this story affects many of our readers.  Maybe it’s time for some of the curtains to come down.  A 14 year old is  sexually assaulted, (whatever that means) inside the school in a stairwell during school hours?  Where were others?   Teachers, students and administrators?  Were  both students out of class?  What about security cameras?  Don’t they have those in stairwells?   How does something like this happen?

The alleged attacker lives off of Williamson Blvd.  That is a little too close for comfort.  Additionally, this is certainly not the first time that a student has been viciously attacked at SJHS.   If this kind of illegality is going on at Stonewall then security must be upgraded.  Prince William County citizens don’t send their daughters, sisters, granddaughters, and nieces to school to be sexually assaulted any more than they send their sons, nephews, brothers and grandsons to school to be brutally attacked. 

Hopefully the school will have some explanation of how this was allowed to happen on their watch. 

And if  someone is accused of sexual battery and they go to school with my family members, then I guess they should know I will plaster their  face on my blog: 

Reminder: (mainly for Moon)  Everyone is innocent until convicted by a jury of their peers. 

School officials in Prince William County were blindsided on Monday with a letter from the ACLU threatening a lawsuit over Internet filters on gay and lesbian sites.  According to the Gainesville Times:

The letter, signed by Rebecca Glenberg and Joshua Block of the ACLU of Virginia, states that the school system is blocking gay support group sites in violation of students’ First Amendment rights.

The issue is filtering software that blocks access to, among other sites, the Gay Student Alliance Network, Day of Silence and It Gets Better.

“The Prince William County Public Schools do not have a legitimate pedagogical basis for censoring students’ access to these websites, which provide support and resources for LGBT students and gay-straight alliances,” states the letter.

PWC Spokesman Ken Blackstone had the following to say on the subject, in the same article:

“The ACLU is making some claims and we’re reviewing them to see if they’re accurate and to see how we can respond to that,” he said. “They bring up important points.”

Blackstone said the school system is required by federal law to use Internet filtering software to keep students and staffers from looking at inappropriate content at school.

The school software, Blue Coat Filtering, filters 32 different categories.  It doesn’t distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate.  Generally, if students or staff believe something is being filtered that is acceptable for use, there is a process by which the site can be reviewed and unlocked.  Mr. Blackstone said that no such request, to his knowledge, has been submitted for  review  of the sites for student appropriateness. 

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From News and Messenger:

A grand jury in Prince William Circuit Court has indicted a Fairfax teen on a murder charge for the November stabbing death of 15-year-old Miguel “Mickey” Hernandez in Manassas.

Boris Alfred Juarez Ascencio, 18, of Blake Lane in Fairfax, is charged with first-degree murder for the Nov. 19 stabbing.

According to court documents, Juarez, who was 17 at the time of the incident, has been certified to stand trial as an adult.

In court documents, witnesses said that Juarez stabbed Hernandez several times as he walked home from school on Bartow Street.

Another teen, 18-year-old Mauricio Martinez of Manassas, has also been charged in Hernandez’s death.

According to testimony at a preliminary hearing, Martinez and Juarez were both members of the criminal street gang of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

Witnesses said Martinez identified Hernandez as a member of a rival gang and then Juarez stabbed him, according to police and prosecutors.

Police and Hernandez’s family members have said he was not affiliated with a gang.

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The Prince William County School Board has passed a resolution asking the BOCS for permission to apply for federal Education Jobs Fund  money to hire teachers in the current school year.  The county school system ended up with an additional 807 students for the current school year which made the current teacher shortage even more severe.  The cost for this many students is just under $8.7 million, or just under $11,000 per pupil. 

According to News and Messenger:

Prince William County Public Schools has been allocated about $17 million through the Federal Education Jobs Fund Program, but the school division can’t use that money unless the county approves it.

The School Board voted 7 to 1 Wednesday to ask the Board of County Supervisors to allocate $5.8 million of the federal money to the school division in the current school year to help pay the costs for the additional students who enrolled. The other $2.9 million needed would come from state funding.

Neabsco District representative Lisa Bell cast the dissenting vote.

The School Board’s resolution also proposes discussing what to do with the remaining $11.2 million in federal money during its budget process for fiscal 2012.

In August, the Board of County Supervisors passed a resolution stating that they would not address the federal education jobs fund money until the fiscal 2012 budget process.

The School Board is hoping they will change their mind.

One has to question Ms. Bell.  What plan does she have to pay for educating over 800 more students?  Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see what the current BOCS does in response to the School Board resolution.   Last August the BOCS got hysterical because they thought Superintendent Walts was issuing contracts to teachers without permission from them to take stimulus money.  They called an emergency meeting even though Corey Stewart, Maureen Caddigan and John Jenkins were out of town. 

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Today, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors unanimously cut  8 more officers from the police department budget.  That makes a total of 8 officers and 12 support staff in the past 2 years.  In addition, a million dollars has been removed from their supplies budget.  This would have covered  training, radar, and other equipment.  Another half million dollar cut is looming on the horizon.  The cut became effective today.

There have been no new police officers added in the past 3 years.  Supervisor Nohe asked if they were really cutting police officers.  The answer is yes.  Even though there were 8 vacancies, there are still 8 fewer uniformed officers out defending public safety today than there were yesterday because these positions were abolished and cannot be filled. 

Perhaps one of the most devastating areas to be cut  is in the schools.  Starting 2011, there will be no police officers in middle schools.  The school police officer program  has been a highly successful one which cut down on neighborhood crime, bullying, gang membership and other annoyances that seem to plague kids of middle school age.  These officers knew the kids, the teachers, the administrators, the bus drivers, and many of the parents and had a good working relationship with all of the above.  They were able to ward of f potential problems.  After this year, the schools will just have to call and get whoever responds.

There are still 6 officers who are authorized to process 287(g) related matters.  These officers in the Criminal Alien Unit only work on issues dealing with illegal immigration and continue to  be funded. 

Prince William residents are going to have to decide how important public safety is to them.  Most folks don’t give it much thought until something happens and they need a police officer, on the double.  The wait time might be getting a lot longer as retiring officers are no longer replaced.  This might be the time to start asking how much more of a loss can we take. 

Reading the paper, it seems that PWC is plagued by more crime that is associated with inner city crime.  Any time something large happens, many officers are tied up on the scene and cannot respond to other calls.  When officers work a large crime scene, that means they aren’t out in your neighborhood or mine.  Are we willing, as a county, to let this happen?  Or should we start howling and demand that PWC begin to budget for these losses from the state.  A few pennies added to our tax rate might make a great deal of difference in public safety in Prince William County.

Anything to get re-elected

Many years ago, in Prince William County, there was a gang on either the BOCS or the appointed school board who were not-so-affectionately named the 4 horsemen. They were seen as enemies of the school system. It seems that the 4 horsemen have been reincarnated, after several decades, on our board of supervisors. I am trying to remember . Why they were named that?   Was it a nice way of speaking of the educational Apocalypse on the horizon or was it short for horse body parts? Perhaps those  readers  who have been around PWC for a while will remember.

But I digress….

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I guess the BOCS showed Dr. Walts. Apparently many of them think he is getting too big for his britches.

From the Washington Post:

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors postponed accepting and budgeting federal stimulus funds for school jobs Tuesday, halting Superintendent Steven L. Walts’s effort to hire 180 more teachers by next month.

“We always respect and honor the decisions of our governing bodies,” Walts said in an e-mail. “While our preference is to have the new teachers in place for this year in order to positively affect our students’ learning as soon as possible, we will postpone our plans. . . . For the thousands of students who will not have the additional teachers this year, I am extremely disappointed.”

Class size will continue to be a problem as long as the budget is tight. The BOCS, however, hit a double. They got to show Walts who is boss, or in their case, who ultimately holds the purse strings. In addition, they all got to show that they wanted to ‘cut spending,’ even though counties run by smarter leaders will get the money.

Class sizes and the organization of special ed classes will continue to keep PWC Schools from being a world class school system. Walts was hired to create the best learning environment for the children of Prince William County. It seems that he walked on other people’s turf while attempting to do what he was hired to do.

The children of PWC will be in overcrowded classes while Walts gets taught a lesson and the BOCS can crow to their constituents that they voted down spending.  And whoever gets the money that would have gone to PWC Schools is laughing all the way to the bank while they use our stimulus money to pay salaries, benefits (including VRS) for additional teachers. 

Prince Billy Bob strikes again. 

Full Story from the Washington Post

Hats off to Frank Principi who tried to postpone a decision regarding the federal stimulus money until the next regularly scheduled BOCS meeting on September 14. That sounds like the right thing to do. However, that was not to be. As it stands now, pressed on by the urgings of CXO Melissa Peacor, stimulus funds will be considered during the next fiscal year.

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With the BOCS sniffing around for money, it might be important to consider the letter Robley Jones, legislative Laison for VEA (Virginia Education Association) sent out this morning regarding  the Education Jobs Fund:

(and it did say Dear Moon-howler:)  

The manner in which the health of the state budget is presented can be most confusing. Trumpets ring as we declare a surplus; but the fact is that for the first time in 50 years, General Fund revenues have declined for two years in a row. The surplus just means that revenues exceeded projections, and a loss was projected.

You will also hear glowing words about the additional $18 million in funding for our schools from sales tax revenues. Sounds good, but sales tax revenues supplant required state and local spending. This $18 million does not add an additional penny for our schools.

But, enough ranting — I have two important things to call your attention to.

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Its Not on the Test

Last night all but one of the PWC School Board members voted to approve a plan to bring pay-for-performance to the county via a federal grant entitled Teacher Incentive Fund. 31 schools are eligible. The objective is to attract and retain good teachers to under-performing schools. Otherwise known as merit pay, teachers, teachers’ organizations, and teachers’ unions nation wide have been opposed to bringing in this time of evaluation process.

Pay-for-performance requires superior evaluators and has been known to cut down on sharing and collegiality in places where it has been attempted. Research is scarce showing that students learn more or better when their teachers are evaluated under a merit pay system.

According to insidenova.com: (full story at insidenova)

If awarded, the federal grant money would go to teachers and administrators at eligible schools that score well on a county-created 100-point scoring system. That system is made up of student performance, student behavior, instructional leadership, climate and instructional delivery performance.

Under these five categories are several subcategories. For example, student performance has seven subcategories which add up to 25 points on the 100-point scale.

There are 31 eligible schools in the county. Eligibility is determined by the percentage of economically disadvantaged student population at those particular schools.
The money would likely be handed out in a tiered system in which principals, Standards of Learning teachers, special education teachers and English for speakers of other languages teachers would receive the largest share. Depending on how much money the division receives, the awards would likely range from $2,000 to $10,000 per teacher or administrator, said Pedersen.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Those who work in ineligible schools will be out of luck and won’t get this opportunity. Of course, those are the teachers and principals who are dealing with less needy students. I wonder how many teachers will be willing to share with someone down the hall if they are being evaluated via pay-for-performance.

As long as there NCLB continues, the playing field will never be level. NCLB assumes that all kids at the same grade level can learn the same amount of material in the same amount of time. Starting off with a false premise leads to false conclusions.

Elena and I have agreed to print a guest post that will ultimately involve many of us here in Prince William County regarding the new elementary school proposal at Stonewall Middle. You will see this same post on bvbl.net. The ladies who present you with this information made arrangements with both Greg and me to disseminate this information to as many people as possible. Please let me know if you need to contact them for more information.  The guest post does not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration. 

Guest post by Allison K. and Chris P.

While there have been no new developments built in the Westgate/Sudley area for 25 years, the PWC School Board is proposing that a new elementary school be built at Stonewall Middle School where the track and the bus lot stand today. For a link to the Planning Staff Report, visit http://www.pwcgov.org/planning/documents/PLN2010-00108.pdf

There are three elementary schools in Westgate and Sudley that are all less than a mile apart – Westgate, Sinclair, and Sudley. Westgate is two short blocks away from the proposed new elementary school, Sinclair is approximately four blocks away, and Sudley is approximately 6 blocks away.

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