Education American Style

For real true sign - funny

Our last night with the Johnson family at Dos Amigos

High school auditorium

reading nook for girls - these were scattered all around the corridors as well as the classrooms being lit with lamps and comfortable couches and cushions - all to encourage reading.

Football field - with its own stadium

Lots of school busses - all free and every student transported not fair!

The sensory room for the autistic kids - wow , as well as specialised classrooms, speech, OT and Physiotherapy daily.

one of the reading zones all these were themed according to the age of the students

Receiving the mayoral medal and certificate

With our hosts outside the city hall.

Sad to say but today was our last full day in Blue Springs, MO as tomorrow we board a plane for San Jose in sunny Northern California and the ICMA Conference. Nevertheless, Eric set out to make our last day another one to remember with a full programme largely focussed on education. before that, Mayor Carson Ross presented me with a civic proclamation declaring October 14th 2010 to be "Richard and Christine Mabon Day", a commemorative medallion from the recent and very successful "Wall That Heals" Event and a Blue Springs Mayoral medal of valour. It was very humbling. In return I presented him with gifts from the Mayor of Waitaki District, Alex Familton.

Returning to the topic of education, I serve on the Board of Trustees for St Josephs School, Oamaru and Christine previously spent seven years' on that Board including two as Chairperson. We got a chance to compare and contrast different education systems with a comprehensive guided tour courtesy of the Blue Springs School District (BSSD). Education is a REALLY BIG DEAL here in the US. Its not only a key to career success for the students that graduate - its a reason why people come to live in places like Blue Springs which has an outstanding record for the quality of its facilities and its academic and sporting achievements. Our tour guide was Abbie Swisher, Assistant Principal at James Lewis Elementary School (JLE). The tour encompassed a visit to the School Board Administrative HQ, an event honoring student teachers who have been working in Blue Springs Schools as part of their training, an interview with the Chief Financial Officer Kim Brightwell and tours of JLE, Sunny Vale Middle School, Blue Springs High School and Cordill Mason Elementary School. Thank you to the Principals and staff of all those schools who shared their time, and their obvious pride in their schools, so generously with us. There is no way to do justice to all we saw in a simple blog, so I will touch on a few things that made a strong first impression:

• Highly qualified staff. By far the majority of academic staff in all schools held masters degrees. The senior administrators in BSSD typically held PhDs. Their is strong research evidence that higher education leads to better student achievement outcomes.


• Mind-blowing facilities. I say again, MIND-BLOWING FACILITIES. Every school had a gymnasium that would be the equal if not the envy of any school in NZ, and most had a second, bigger one. They all had IT suites that were to die for and ready access to IT equipment (data projector; electronic whiteboards) in pretty much every classroom. All were equipped with a cafeteria that provided lunch - and in most cases breakfast - for any student that wanted one. The High School had an 1100 seat performing arts centre and a football field with a state of the art artificial surface and its own grandstand (complete with press box) surrounded by an all-weather athletics track.


• Amazing programmes for kids with special needs. Two of the schools we visited ran special programmes for children with autism. It would run rings around anything we do in that area in NZ. Cordill Mason hosted a gifted and talented programme for children drawn from all over Blue Springs that had recently won a national award.
  
• Huge school rolls. 500 kids at JLE. 650 at Cordill Mason. 750 at Sunny Vale (thats the smallest Middle School in BSSD; the rest are 1000 students apiece) and 1800 at Blue Springs High.

We were hugely impressed with what we saw and learned about the US education system, but here's the real kicker. Its free. FREE. No, not Clayton's free education like we have in NZ where every school community charges "voluntary" fees to all parents and hard-working Home & School Committees fundraise like crazy 24/7. Bona fide free education. No school fees. No activity fees. Nada. Nil. Zip. Zero. No-thing.

We ended the evening with a mexican meal for the Johnson's and the Mabons at Dos Amigos before the final entertainment spectacle of the Blue Springs visit - a private concert by Red Tape (aka Eric Johnson and Robert Heacock) who do a great gig in local government themed parodies of well known tunes. Check out the video.

PS(Christine) - just read online that My brother(Nigel) and sister in law(Fiona) have just won the NZ National tourism award for their motel business (for our US friends, in NZ motels are more like your hotels here, but with kitchen facilities)- thats !@#$%^ amazing and a huge achievement - well done "Team Humphries" - sorry we can't be there to share it with you. Make sure to celebrate and enjoy your sucess, you have worked hard for this. All our love.

PPS - sorry the video was too large to upload