Comments on: What’s going on with the Skinners

By: dazedandconfused

dazedandconfused — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:27:28 +0000

kck-
i have no idea but i’ll ask. i have chinese friends who say the chinese teacher is amazing [well known].

By: dazedandconfused

dazedandconfused — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:50:13 +0000

thanks M Welch- one of the parents did set up a website that hasn’t been well received and the school i think is considering approaching him to remove it because it looks school sponsored. i sent a signup sheet out for my own class and only got info on 17 of 30 kids. sigh. additionally i went to the PTO [or whatever it's called] and LSC and again there was minimal attendence. not giving up just yet!

By: KCK

KCK — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:38:31 +0000

dazedandconfused, do you know f your daughter is learning simplified Chinese or tradition Chinese?

By: M Welch

M Welch — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:40:24 +0000

Dear Dazed and Confused:

Re your concern about building community: Try establishing a yahoogroup for parents. Membership would of course be voluntary. This has worked at other gifted/classical schools where the families come from all over the city. You can swap info about homework, set up group playdates etc. The school cannot sponsor this, but can’t stop you from doing it either. It has to be totally parent initiated and managed. Stand around with a sign up sheet at pick up and get interested parents’ email addresses, then go to www. yahoogroups.com.

By: dazedandconfused

dazedandconfused — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:17:42 +0000

just skimmed above-
as for the “extras”
skinner west has a gorgeous library with all brand new books and the kids go to library once a week. they have gym twice a week with two gym teachers, my daughter takes chinese [spanish also offered] and has music and art.

By: dazedandconfused

dazedandconfused — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:14:58 +0000

i haven’t read everyone’s comments [although generally i scour this website i've been busy lately ]
but wanted to weigh in on SKinner West. I live on the north side and was reluctant to commute my kindergartener all the way downtown since we fell outside the busing. but in the end i felt like i needed to give my daughter a more rigorous program than i knew my local school provided [although the local school is one of the best]. Academically i am extremely impressed with the caliber of kids, the teacher and pricipal. I had some major issues in the beginning [security issues being number one]. I can’t say the parent participation is as much as i expected which is disappointing. I think largely it’s because we are all coming from far and wide, some busing, some aftercare, some parent commuting it’s been difficult to feel like a community. The school is gorgeous with some odd kinks [like no PA system installed in the "gymnatorium"??] but the prinicipal is a dynamic woman that wants to really make this school amazing. as for home work? i think we have maybe 20 mins on a “bad” day but i also know some kids have more or it may take longer. skinner west has 2 advanced classes and within those two classes they tested the kids in math and reading at the beginning and broke them into 4 smaller groups. i like that they differentiate since kids can be so varied at this age.
recess is an issue [there is technically a recess] and my daughter rarely finished her lunch since that’s when she gets to socialize. i’ve volunteered several times in the classroom and there definitely is alot of learning going on i remember the nap rugs in kindergarten…
i’ve started meeting more parents and we all have lamented the lack of community and are trying to figure out ways to make this better and to raise more money for the school.

By: cpsobsessed

cpsobsessed — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:54:09 +0000

KCK – ah yes… that does make sense. Yes, the funding per school IS based on the number of students. And even worse, there are cutoffs (that are pretty high) for getting things like gym teachers, librarians, etc funded. So does that mean that a new school like Skinner has to wait a few years to reach the levels needed to get these “extras?”
Extra (or “discretionary”) funding is also determined by the number of low income kids in the school. Deacatur, which is pretty decently balanced on race, has only 15% low income kids and thus gets little extra funding to help run the school. I suspect Skinner could be in the same boat (although with the new 4-socio-economic-group plan, that may change.)

By: Southside Classical Parent

Southside Classical Parent — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:36:26 +0000

Funding is based on the numer of students at a school. Schools get a per pupil amount for each child. The schools gets a little extra is the child has a free or reduced lunch. Smaller schools almost always have trouble with funding and it takes a lot of fundraising to make up for it. Until Skinner North fills up the school they will struggle with the school budget. Savvy parents who fundraise and volunteer will be able to weather the storm until the school is at full capacity. For instance, at my son’s school we had to cut the librarian but we have a parent who volunteers everyday for several hours so the children can have library. The principal even had the head librarian from central office meet with her to show her how to close the library at the end of the year and give age appropriate lessons for the children. We let the librarian position go because we felt it was better to have a fulltime writing/computer tech. I hope this information helps the parents at Skinner North tough it out because I believe we need more Classical schools.

By: KCK

KCK — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:08:24 +0000

cpsobsessed, I mean funding from CPS as Skinner North only has a little over 100 students this year. Is it true the less students the school has, the less funding the school will get from CPS?

A friend of mine attended Skinner North Open House earlier this month, a parent volunteer there was wondering if her little one in kindergarten been to the computer lab? The teacher said they needed some volunteers first.

By: cpsobsessed

cpsobsessed — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:20:17 +0000

KCK, do you mean funding from CPS (as in will the school continue to thrive?) or parental fundraising?