Furlough Days

[Rob Tucker]

Punafish is off to a good start with a slogan:

"What Can I do to Help our Kids?"

I would shorten it to:

"Help our Kids!!"

Any other ideas for motivational slogans?

Of course slogans are not what we really need but they can get people thinking.

Another good suggestion was something to do with rope......

Oh Yeah. Dick Wilson: "Buy lots of rope and use it"

It may take a lot of people storming the gates of DOE to get their attention and even then all you would likely find are a bunch of people looking frightened and pointing at each other.

It's a shame there was no public interest in the Constitutional Convention. Too much T.V. and not enough motivation.

[DickWilson]

Agree 100% on the ConCon Rob. Apathy is the enemy here, Lots of inertia for the status quo. Doing something about the current quagmire requires getting off ones ass and organizing and VOTING.

dick wilson
"Nothing is idiot proof,because idiots are so ingenious!"

[JWFITZ]

Voting isn't it. Voting only allows you to participate within a bandwidth of choice of a fraction of a percent. You can have pro-business corporate endowed growth either at 101 percent of full rape and pillage or 99 percent of rape and pillage. That's the choice. Full speed ahead on rape and pillage or "be a little subdued in all that" rape and pillage. That's what the ordained status quo gives you.

If you want elsewise, well, you'll have to "make do as best you can."

http://sensiblesimplicity.lefora.com/

[Chuysmom]

I have found through this whole furlough and RIF process that unless people have a reason to get involved, they don't.

People I work with didn't want to participate in anything, but when Lingle's hammer fell they were pissed. I don't get it but hey, that's just me. I always thought "the squeaky wheel gets the grease," right? Now we will deal with the aftermath.

Much of what is being said here is viable. Kids are in sad shape educationally in Hawaii. That's the LAST place cuts should have been made. Emergency response, Ag Dept, Education...go figure.

Hang on tight, "it's going to be a bummy ride!"

Carrie Rojo

http://www.carrierojo.etsy.com

"The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it." Galadriel - LOTR

[missydog1]

Thanks for the link Bullwinkle. Sorry I haven't responded to anyone who reached out; I quit reading after my last post because I was getting emotional, which is bad for discussing and bad for me.
I was thinking about the IEP plans after my post.
To Dick Wilson, if you understood about IEP plans you would understand what's being destroyed here. You can't understand the special needs situation by looking at it in the broad terms you present. You would have to actually learn something about how the programs work differently from regular school.

I came back to the topic to post results of a poll from the Kaua'i paper (Kauai World) that I ran across. While it is hardly a scientific study, I found it interesting. It's just a poll on the front page, not linked to an article on furloughs, so it's getting general readers.

http://www.kauaiworld.com/?poll=41

quote:

---

As a parent how what will you do with your children on Furlough Fridays?
Stay home from work (60 Votes, 18%)
Bring children to work (21 Votes, 6%)
Daycare (23 Votes, 7%)
Leave children at home alone (118 Votes, 36%)
Have no idea (103 Votes, 32%)

---

______________
punafish and malolo, I'll get back to you, tomorrow or Tuesday.

[missydog1]

having done some reading:
DickWilson asked

quote:

---

why is the lawsuit only appropriate for special needs students. Is this stupid idea of Lingles only affecting special needs students and not the thousands of other students? The thing that gets under my skin about all of this, is that a lawsuit is only filed for a special class of students and not all the students.

---

The attorney is not saying only special needs kids are affected, just the opposite. However, to file a lawsuit that will stick there has to be a viable cause of action. Read this:

http://disappearednews.com/2009/10/count...wdown.html
Attorney Keith Peck said before a meeting of parents on Thursday that by scheduling these days off, the DOE has "anticipatorily repudiated" IEPs (Individual Education Plans).

How to understand an IEP? An IEP is like a contract. If it is done right, it is an agreement between parents and schools that covers the types and location of services to be delivered to a student for a specific period of time and it identifies the service providers. And it is enforceable in federal court.

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/hawaiin...ction.html
At a meeting of parents of children with special needs on Thursday evening, attorney Keith Peck predicted that Furlough Fridays would soon be blocked by legal action. Individualized education plans for special-education students, mandated under federal law, specify the number of minutes of services and instruction required for each child.

"They cannot violate the federal law with their state act," said Peck, who focuses on special education. "One class-action suit in federal court will stop it all."

The state Department of Education, however, vows to continue educating special needs kids as mandated, despite Furlough Fridays.

"We will provide the services that are required in the Individualized Education Plan," Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said last week. "We are looking in some instances at rescheduling, doing makeups. We will work with the parents and schools on what is the best way to get this accomplished." [Star-Bulletin, Parents demand action, 10/18/2009]
______________
Basically, this case can be filed because the state can't go against federal law, not because only a special class of people deserves to be represented.
Should be interesting ...
who knows, maybe this will result in a benefit to all the children. I certainly hope so. It does sound like the DOE is going to try to weasel its way out though.

[mella l]

The new contract, approved by 81 percent of voting teachers, stipulates 17 furlough Fridays during which schools will be closed, with the first happening Oct. 23. The teachers accepted a concurrent pay reduction of about 8 percent, but teacher vacation, nine paid holidays and six teacher planning days are left untouched.

It has gone national now. "In Hawaii, school's out for recession".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_o...ool_year_1



mella l

[punafish]

I'd like to see an investigative journalist do a serious, in-depth "expose" (the noun form of the word) on Hawaii's teachers' union.

[DickWilson]

It sounds to me like what the DOE is going to do is continue the education of students under the IEP's, while the rest of the students in Hawaii get shorted. So someone tell me where the equity is here?

dick wilson
"Nothing is idiot proof,because idiots are so ingenious!"

[JerryCarr]

It has gone national now. "In Hawaii, school's out for recession".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_o...ool_year_1

---quoting mella's post above.

This story has now been picked up by the Associated Press and can be found on at least three national on-line news pages. Probably will appear in print versions all over the world soon.