Turner v. Clayton

By John Urkevich, Executive Director

After the Missouri Supreme Court’s July 16, 2010 ruling on the Turner v. Clayton case, St. Louis area school districts received thousands of calls from parents who are interested in relocating their children from an unaccredited school district into an accredited one.

Unfortunately, school districts don’t have any firm answers to give to inquiring parents at this time. While the Supreme Court did rule that students in unaccredited districts may transfer to an accredited district in the same or neighboring county, the court’s opinion is not self-executing. Parents and districts are left seeking clarification and wondering if and when this ruling will go into effect.

Here are some of the issues that need to be considered:

•  Students in districts that receive transfer students will be suddenly faced with larger class sizes and potentially less individualized instruction from teachers. Resources will be spread thin in many of these districts, and the possible cost to construct new facilities for additional non-resident students will cause an additional strain on districts and taxpayers.

•  Students who do remain in an unaccredited district will be provided fewer resources and those districts will likely struggle to improve their performance and accreditation status.  It will be very difficult to provide a high-quality education when the district is making payments to other districts for students who have transferred.

•  Students who transfer from an unaccredited to an accredited school district may in fact receive a better education.

•  Students who presently attend a private or parochial school but live within the boundaries of an unaccredited school district are also eligible to transfer at the expenses of the unaccredited district. This additional cost could be substantial.

While the developments in this case are ever-changing, our member districts can be assured that at Cooperating School Districts we have the best interests of students in mind as we work toward a resolution. CSD has taken a leadership role by forming a coalition of Missouri educational associations to collaborate in developing possible legislation that will impact how this decision is implemented. The coalition includes CSD of Great St. Louis, CSD of Greater Kansas City, Missouri School Boards’ Association, Missouri Association of School Administrators, Missouri State Teachers Association, Missouri National Education Association,  Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation, and St. Louis Public Schools.

Media Literacy Critical in Today’s Schools

By John Urkevich, Executive Director

In 2010, employers are stressing the importance of not only being technology savvy, but also media literate. One of the biggest challenges in media literacy is to locate and evaluate information and recognize and understand the source. The ability to clearly focus on content and ignore the distractions of the media is critical in our world today.

Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis is proud to support educators in becoming both technology literate and media literate. In turn, students in St. Louis schools are using media literacy skills to create their own multimedia projects while gaining a better understanding of the media that surround their daily lives.

CSD recognizes the importance of media literacy and the role it plays in helping students develop skills including critical thinking, problem solving and story telling. In addition, we are a member of the Gateway Media Literacy Partners (GMLP). Media education, with critical thinking, creative communication, and technology literacy is a key part of a 21st century approach to learning.

CSD has made media literacy skills a focus of many classes in our Virtual Learning Center (VLC) and will continue to search for new ways to promote its importance. The VLC staff stays actively involved and has found the GMLP a great resource for our member schools.

Through the VLC, CSD provides teachers valuable training in areas that allow them to enhance their media literacy skills as well as those of their students. Teachers are now tapping into technology and digital learning on a daily basis.  Classes in digital storytelling, creating book trailers as well as our student movie-making contest Show-Me a Movie are just a few of the ways that we help St. Louis students and teachers develop media literacy skills. Teachers walk away from our classes with the ability to empower students with the tools, skills and confidence to take creative control of their research and presentation projects.

In the Show-Me a Movie digital storytelling contest, Missouri students demonstrate their creativity and digital movie making skills, while basing their movies on curriculum with a content focus.  The videos showcase what students know, care about, and are able to do. Many past winners promote ideas learned from CSD’s CHARACTERplus, supporting critical thinking and positive attitudes.

Winners of the Show-Me a Movie Contest are awarded prizes at our annual Midwest Education Technology Conference. All previous winners are archived on our website to allow for continued learning and sharing. In creating their own multimedia projects and movies, students come to understand how the media at large affects them and their daily lives. In fact, Digital Media is a strand at CSD’s Midwest Education Technology Conference. We are pleased to welcome Renee Hobbs of Temple University as a featured speaker at the 2011 METC. Renee founded the Media Education Lab at Temple University. Educators from across the country will hear Renee’s message of promoting media literacy at METC.

At CSD, we will continue to promote media literacy concepts to our education community and help our teachers understand them as they educate our students.  We look forward to helping further GMLP’s mission while supporting our 21^st century students in the years ahead.