Council Report 2014.10.29

Henry Lang reported from the school board that Hanover, as expected, is ahead of state and national averages from all our standardized tests.

OEC talked with custodians, administrators, and folks at Lebanon High and decided that a swipe card system is not a good fit for Hanover.

Abstentions from last week, hastily cut off,

Miriam, the new student rep, abstained because she felt it was irresponsible to vote on a new student issue without consulting the new student body.

Madame Doyle abstained because she thought it needed more discussion before a vote, since the old wording included Lyme within new students, and there was no crossroads

The massive three test motion comes next.

Ms. Adante deconstructed the argument, and examined that the motivation for the motion to empower students, not impose restrictions on others.

This week’s article is short because I didn’t feel like transcribing the meeting, and there was little to say.

Breaking from my normally more objective method of reporting, I want to draw attention to how council has started being more active, as the voters demanded, but stays just the same in terms of productivity. Most of the meeting was wasted on discussing a lengthy piece of legislation related to the three test rule. As it stands, if a student has more than two tests scheduled on the same day, they can request a teacher move a test period to allow the students to be more effective on fewer tests. It’s not complicated, but the council felt like it should be. The proposed wording requires teachers to define what a test is, requires students to give 24 hours notice to a teacher about moving the test, and then it gets weird. If a teacher issues an “ultimatum”, the student has to talk to the department head and then to the curriculum committee. They need to reschedule the test within three days. They need to study for the moved test during its original period. They must move the last scheduled test, not the others.

In short, more rules. I’d like to see an example of a student trying to move a test under reasonable circumstances and being denied. Until that example is shown to me, I don’t want to see more of these over legislated. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Students don’t need more rules to govern their interactions, they need more interaction.