First Bell: A magnet-school concept seeks traction; Liberty Memorial Central Middle School name gains favor; standards-based report cards spur concerns

Rick Ingram

I’m hearing more about a potential magnet-school concept that may get a look from leaders of the Lawrence school district.

The program is International Baccalaureate, organized through a nonprofit educational foundation with the stated goal of helping develop in students “the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world.”

International Baccalaureate says it has programs in six schools in Kansas, including Shawnee Mission East and Shawnee Mission Northwest in Shawnee, and Sumner Academy of Arts and Science in Kansas City, Kan.

Whether the concept gains traction in Lawrence remains to be seen, but at least one member of the Lawrence school board, Rick Ingram, wants to check it out. He sees it as a way to boost student achievement while also offering potential for attracting more students to a relatively low-enrollment elementary school or middle school.

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With all the changes going on this year in the Lawrence school district — ninth-graders in high schools, sixth-graders in middle schools, volunteers studying ways to consolidate schools, etc. — it’s no wonder some students, parents and educators may at times feel a bit overwhelmed.

But the new name for the school at 1400 Mass. is anything but problematic for Therese Edgecomb, who teaches language arts and social studies at what is now known as Liberty Memorial Central Middle School.

“I love it,” said Edgecomb, who came to the school after teaching sixth grade last year at Sunset Hill School. “It’s very long, but I do appreciate it. When I speak with people who were here when it was Liberty Memorial (High School), they really appreciate it.”

That’s happened at least five times, when she’s ended up talking with someone about where she works and the conversation turns to what had been central Junior High School, but this summer became Liberty Memorial Central at the behest of the Lawrence school board, which was renaming the junior highs to reflect their new status as middle schools.

The building opened in 1923, as the city’s post-World War I high school. When Lawrence High School opened in 1954, Central became a junior high.

Liberty Memorial alumni still attend school events, and embrace their ties to the building.

“It’s amazing how many people went to school there,” Edgecomb said.

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The district’s use of Standards Based Progress Reports is nothing unusual for elementary teachers, but the usage of such reports cards for sixth-graders — now middle schoolers — will be a four-times-a-year task.

Elementary schools operate on a trimester system, with students receiving their “marks,” or grades, three times a year.

With middle schools operating on a quarter system, teachers of sixth-graders will be filling out such reports four times during the 2011-12 school year.

“That will be a problem,” said Deena Burnett, who teaches language arts at West Middle School and serves as president of the Lawrence Education Association, which represents the district’s more than 900 licensed educators on matters involving compensation and working conditions. “It’s a time thing. These cards are not something you can do while you’re simultaneously teaching the placement of a comma. They take some time.”

Burnett also worries that students and teachers could receive report overload. Instead of one teacher, or team of teachers, filling out a relatively focused report for a student in elementary school, the sixth-grade version will cover more teachers, more courses and more subjects.

And sections where standards are relatively uniform — judging whether the student regularly turns in homework, for example, or shows up prepared for class — could prove challenging for parents, Burnett said.

“Last year, for sixth grade, there was an area on the card for successful learner behaviors,” Burnett said. “That was for the entire day, over the entire week, over the entire grading period.

“Now, teachers will be asked to complete successful learner behaviors for each class period. What parents may end up seeing is successful learner behaviors for eight different class periods. I think it will be confusing for parents.”

District officials intend to implement such progress reports next year in seventh grade and possibly eighth grade.