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It appears more tech-savvy Dads are getting involved both by themselves and with company support, in advancing the resources, information-sharing and cause of Internet Safety. "Cyber Dad" joins the original "Dadministrator" online as a purveyor, instructor and participant in the Internet Safety battle....

This post is from from my other blog here

Here's a review of a recent Loudoun County, Virginia Gang Awareness Seminar (Northern Virginia, outside of Washington DC) - one interesting item to note, was the comments about the significant gang activity online with Myspace - while not necessarily, overtly criminal, it certainly provides a lot of fodder to keep law enforcement interested and engaged, and can only promulgate offline gang activity and behavior. All the more reason to keep your kids away from Internet Social Media until (1) they're thoroughly trained, aware, responsible and can prove it, and (2) their Internet Access is fully understood and monitored by you.

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...time for someone else to step up.

This post is from from my other blog here

Here's a great lineup of 2008 Loudoun Summer Camps and Fairfax Summer Camps inclusive of the surrounding DC metro region, brought to you by Modern Moms Magazine of Loudoun and Fairfax.



2008 Fairfax and Loudoun Summer Camps

Research and sign up early - slots typically go very fast among these popular day camps.

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While we focus on in-school learning here, mostly, it's important to continue to manage critical out-of-school learning and education, especially in "life skills" like learning to drive.

NOVA Insurance in South Riding (20152) has some great Loudoun teenage driving education tips, as well as methods of monitoring their behavior behind the wheel. Evidently helps save your sanity as well as insurance bill.

This post is from from my other blog here

Yesterday's Post section by Jay Mathews on picking a good school should be helpful to some (evidently only those who read his whole column, though), but there's some serious flaws. We'll be brief in responding to each of his 10 points, as parents who've actually been through and are experiencing the process...

1 - "Buy an expensive home and you can almost be sure the local public school will be good" - that's technically somewhat accurate, but there's a lot of range inside the word "good" - that's where the rubber meets the road.

2 - "Look at the data" - absolutely.

3 - "Talk to at least 2 parents of children in different grades engrolled in the school you are considering" - great advice, if you're able to find parents willing to share; you're probably better off trying to do this online - blogs/forums like this are an increasingly-used method for quick communication.

4 - "Visit the school and ask to speak to the principal" - this is fabulous advice, especially the part about "would I hire this person to work in my office"? The problem is, Principals change. Our Elementary School's initial Principal was an efficient, effective Manager of resources and capabilities - the current Principal we wouldn't hire to wash our car work in our office, and ALL indicators of the school's success profile are on their way down. We'd say speak to some of the Teachers, as well, about their "Boss".

5 - "Listen to your Kids" - certainly, and their friends.

6 - "The most competitive high schools do not necessarily lead to acceptance at the most selective colleges" - this is the ongoing undercurrent of Jay's knocking the merits and perceived value among driven parents of Thomas Jefferson (regional magnet school); while it is true that colleges look for the "whole package", why wouldn't you strive to challenge your child to the very greatest limits of their abilities and interests?

7 - "Don't worry about Elementary School" - Jay makes the point that Parents are the greatest influencers and supporters of children during these years, and if the school is safe and you like it, "relax". In our experience, the majority of parents are utterly un-involved in school, especially with respect to core academics (vs. sports), and this avoidance plus "non-worrying" leads directly to lax policies, non-motivated students, non-differentiated teaching, utter discpline chaos and rampant laziness in the classrooms, principals who aren't respectful or effective, and kids whose most impressionable and potential-filled years of learning and brain-expansion are utterly wasted. There's plenty to worry about in a mediocre Elementary School.

8 - "There are no good middle schools" - this is obviously and patently absurd...and if I'm not worrying about Elementary school, and there's no good middle schools, my kids have now spent 9 years wasting away like turnips in our society's drive to create an unmotivated, uncompetitive, brainless population that's the laughing-stock of the rest of the world. There are, obviously some very good middle schools...achieving Algebra I by the end of the eighth grade is an exceptional goal that indicates a good school? Why not Algebra I by the end of 6th grade, like a certain subsection of students are actually achieving in some extremly good private middle schools?

9 - "Look for challenging high schools" - certainly, but I'd hope that all high schools are challenging to some degree, in some range of subjects - be sure also to focus on challenges in academics vs. sports.

10 - "Listen to your heart" - well, sure....but listen very attentively and frankly to those that have gone before and are currently there - perhaps your heart needs to be over-ruled.

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Stevens Miller, and the rest of the Loudoun County BOS - Support the proposed Loudoun Schools Budget intact.

This post is from from my other blog here

Last night's School Board meeting in Loudoun County wasn't the circus some may have expected, over removal of the Penguin book from general access at the particular Elementary school. Several very good commentaries, from the public and supervisors, an explanation from the Superintendent, a quick "stand-up" from 40 or so black-and-white-with-buttons wearing supporters of penguin rights, lots of "deflecting" of the issue in favor (rightly so) of focus this next week on preserving the School Budget request for next year - and I believe the issue was effectively, professionaly and courteously addressed. More discussion around policy and procedure to come, next month.

No time to fully explore all the great material out of the meeting, that'll be in the next post.

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OK, time for a little Government/Web 2.0 challenge. If you don't know what that means, it's basically an Internet-age term for the easier-than-ever ways in which the general public can individually interact with their government (or businesses) using all manner of free feedback and collaboration tools. Here's an example from your Federal Government.

Do a Google search on "Loudoun School Blogs". At this second (since the search engine result pages, or "SERPS", change constantly), here's what you get on the first and second result pages:

1 - Loudoun Schools Feedback - that's us!
2 - Gateway to Loudoun County - prominent and popular Loudoun County blog
3 - Loudoun School Blogs - LoudounPedia - roundup of blogs in a great local Wiki
4 - Blogs Loudoun Times - the only local newspaper with local bloggers
5 - Our Loudoun Schools Loudoun Times - John Steven's reprints in the Times
6 - Our Loudoun Schools - John Stevens (School Board, Potomac District)
7 - Linked Up in Loudoun | LoudounExtra.com - daily review of Loudoun Blogs
8 - Loudoun School Talk Site Launched - Living in LoCo - news item about us
9 - Living in LoCo | LoudounExtra.com | The Washington Post - local blog about Loudoun
10 - Loudoun School System Recognized...Dec 24, 2006 ... old news item from the Post
11 - Loudoun Schools Dais - Tom Reed's blog (School Board - at large)
12 - Loudoun Democrats - blog news item
13 - washingtonpost.com- May 8, 2007 - news item
14 - Our Loudoun Schools - another John Stevens entry
15 - Mommy Life - local blogger with very religious, family-oriented themes
16 - LoudounExtra.com - local blog listing (pointing to us and John Stevens)
17 - Tango is Available to Parents - Loudoun Times - news item
18 - www.citizenet.com - aggregator of blog items
19 - Loudoun Travelers - seeking those looking for school break travel packages
20 - Loudoun Blogs/Wikis - LoudounPedia - local blog roundup

For a business (i.e. the LCPS) prepared to spend nearly a Billion dollars in taxpayer funds, approximately 85% of the budget of one of the "wealthiest per capita" counties in the country, that's all the public, online discussion you get.

You get our little blog, 1 regular and 1 intermittent school board members' blogs, 2 newspapers, 1 newspaper blog, ...and that's basically it.

Where's everybody else?

We know full well that emails are the preferred medium for parent-to-parent-teachers-to-administrators communications, using computers....but it's time to leverage the rest of the web. That's what we're teaching our children to do, in school, by the way. There do exist a smattering of online conversations about the schools elsewhere, like in local HOA discussion groups, homeschooling support sites, professional sites like Teachers.net, and high school Facebook groups; but it's simply appalling that more adults aren't involved online in the discussion.

Here's the challenge - start a blog, wiki, threaded discussion group, portal, website - any kind of online forum/mechanism for public comment on local, Loudoun education and school topics (private, public or otherwise). Regularly update and promote it, so that it gets to page 1 or 2 in the Google SERPs.

Who'll be first on the board? What group or area of the county, or school district, has the most Internet-savvy and Web 2.0/Government 2.0 engaged parents? Can more teachers and adminstrators learn to blog, or at least figure out ways to blog anonymously en masse?

Right now - here's the grades, in terms of "Taxpayer, Administration and Parental support for Loudoun County students, as Demonstrated by Degree of Government/Web 2.0 Online Engagement (not including email)" -

(Ordered by Google Rank, then graded by the criteria above)

1) "Dulles South District Area" - ( Grade=B ) - we obviously are in the Google lead (and will likely always be, with our secret sauce), but traffic isn't as high as it should be, and our District School Board rep isn't online (only via email)

2) "Potomac District" - ( B+ ) - John Stevens is fabulous online, and has a bit of an edge from the number of comments perspective (but still, a shockingly low number)

3) "Journalists" (WAPO - LoudounExtra) - (B-) - while Loudoun-centric educational material is usually pretty good (it's a Multi-Million dollar business, after all, with professional reporters), it's not as active from a feedback/comment perspective as it should be, and tends to focus more on "objective news" vs. "subjective and objective issues and ideas" we all need to talk about.

4) "At Large School Board Members" - (C+) - while an admirable start last year, there's only been 5 entries from Tom Reed since last Summer, and few comments.

5) "Politicos" - (Too Conservative) - (C) - definitely gets good traffic and comments from the local political club, but school topics are sparse and typically relegated to budget/election issues.

6) "Christian Moms" - (Mommy Life) - Loudoun-based, and sometimes Loudoun-focused with respect to special needs in the schools

7) "Government-Watchers" - (The Municipalist) - (C) - Loudoun-based, but not Loudoun-focused - still manages to get in very worthwhile commentary about Loudoun Schools once in a while.

8) "Teachers" - (Teachers.net, Virginia forum) - (B) - some pretty good mix of parent/teacher discussion, though only tends to flare up once in a while...not promoted much, as well, nor is entirely Loudoun-centric.

Get going - if you need help with how to go about online blogging and such, drop us a line...

This post is from from my other blog here

We won't dive deep into this local Loudoun book-banning issue, since our only reliably online School Board member, John Stevens, is so adeptly handling the local reporting already. But, it obviously deserves a quick comment.

It's nonsense, all around. It's utter nonsense that a children's book, that's received many, many distinguished awards from very competent, educated teachers, non-academic professionals and parents, is pulled from the shelf. It's utter nonsense that a single parent's objection isn't vetted further than it seems to have been. It's utter nonsense that we're all blogging and emailing about THIS, while, in the meantime, it's more than halfway through second grade and still half the class can't do simple subtraction or multiplication AT ALL, or without "manipulables".

It's also blatant and rampant hypocrisy, though unintended of course, that our Elementary School children are exposed daily to blatant displays and discussion of alternative lifestyles, including very-nearly cross dressers, comments from teachers about "living with my boyfriend", etc. Happens ALL the time, as commonly discussed among student and parents. The penguins are much more modest and socially-responsible. Believe us, most children by the 4th-grade really do understand these social differences, and really don't care.

However, a good test and scrubbing of LCPS communications protocol, school board policy and adherence to state regulations, and some degree of "awakening" by an incredibly indifferent (to the status and progress of local education) population of Loudoun parents (just heard a new one this week, the PTA referred to as the "Party Talk Association") is all a good thing.

All about a nice (and true!) little penguin book, that when searched for online, is Allowed (by our Internet Filtering/Protection Software), while the School Board member's blog was Not Allowed...need to check our filters, obviously.