LSC Blog

The Murray Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) is an all volunteer group committed to enhancing the educational experience at Murray through multiple events and fund raisers to support classrooms. The PTO meetings are held the 1st Wednesday of each month.

The PTO is never short on devotion to the school, but sadly often too short on human resources. This situation is bound to wear thin on the small number of parents who seemingly carry the daunting task of planning and implementing numerous events each year.

The PTO is the primary fund raising entity for the school. It is because of PTO that Murray enjoys technology support services and many classroom materials. Let’s all commit to supporting the PTO as a show of our committment to our children’s education.

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Each teacher at Murray posts regular entries on either Schoolnotes.com or MLA Blogs. If you log on you will see that most have offered links to websites related to the teacher’s class that they feel would be helpful for parents to explore with their children.

The LSC Blog has a number of links that may prove helpful for parents and teachers with challenges that may not be classroom specific. Please browse through these links, and let us know if you have discovered other websites that may be helpful to the Murray family.

Recently there have been a number of parents voicing their disapproval of the school’s Honor Roll policy. Currently, any student who receives a check on their Habits and Attitudes page of their report card, that student will not be on the Honor Roll. This policy holds true even if the student earns A’s in every subject on the Curriculum page. It is important to understand that the teachers endorse this policy for a very good reason.

Habits and Attitudes should be a good evaluation of each students behavior. This is important for the social and health development, or lack thereof, of the student. A check mark should indicate that a student has shown a pattern of negative development in a particular area, and not simply a case of having a bad day. If a student is showing a pattern of behavior problems that are not being addressed, chances are they will not become good citizens.

There are many brillant minds that have turned out sour notes in our society. Disruptive behavior will at best take away from another student learning. The disruptive student may be so bright that he/she whisks through classwork, then distracts another student who requires more time to learn. Or, a disruptive student may command a teacher’s attention so much that the other students are denied instruction time.

On the other extreme, many criminals in our society, be they street, government or corporate, are very bright individuals who pride themselves on beating down the other guy. We don’t expect the students at Murray to become future gang leaders, targets of impeachment or masterminds of embezzelment schemes, but things do happen. Most of us either know, or will soon know, a classmate who has chosen a dark path. You know, the ones we talk about during reunions - “He was so smart. She could have really made something good of her life.”

Parents should be advocates for high quality education for their children. That means parents and teachers must work as partners. Given the time many teachers are around students compared to the students’ parents on a normal day, teachers are is a very good position to identify behavior problems. From there, teachers and parents must work together to develop plans of corrective action to benefit the student. Parents must also realize that as children go through adolescence, some social habits will be challenging to correct within a school year.

I think we parents can best support our children’s education by focusing on the second page of the report card first!

Murray has incorporated a program called Balanced Literacy into its curriculum. The goal of this program is to help children become readers and writers who enjoy and value literacy. The program stands firmly on the premise that all students can learn to read and write.

One of the tools used with this program is a writing journal. Many of the upper grade students have been posting writings on their class blogs. Others write their entries in a bound book. Either way, parents are encouraged to review their child’s progress. You may be suprised at some of their thoughts and how they articulate ideas.

The Murray LSC Special Services sub-committee was organized in 2004. One of the committee’s purposes is to observe the school’s efforts to comply with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) corrective action plan for students with special needs. Murray’s school improvement plan for 2006-2008 is specific regarding the inclusion of all students.

During the month of October 2006, an ISBE evaluation team spent a week at Murray evaluating our corrective action plan for students with special needs in a Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). The team randomly choose to scrutinize ten Individualized Education Plans (IEP), observed instruction in the classroom, interviewed teachers, administrators and parents to determine whether the Murray community fully implements all provisions of the action plans, and all LRE practices and procedures.

Our principal, Michael Keno, has announced to the LSC that the evaluation team has recommended that Murray be exited from ISBE monitoring and used as a model for other schools going through the process.

The World Language Computer Lab located in Room 204 is scheduled to be functional by Spring 2007. The purpose of this space is to provide the students with better opportunities for cultural and language immersion. Initially, the room will utilize the existing computers loaded with new software to support the World Language program. We are hopeful that with financial gifts, the room will be redesigned during the Summer 2007 to provide the students with a more user-friendly environment to further their studies.

This is a major development for Murray. Our school needs a dedicated space to address the world language needs for all our students at all levels of learning. Since we do not have funding from CPS for this capital improvement, we must rely on resources generated among the Murray families and community. Anyone who can assist in obtaining grants, or the procurement of furniture and equipment, please let us know.