Did you see the lunar eclipse?  It was totaly awsome.  We started watching it at 10:00 because the tv people said it would start then and be at its fullest at 10:30.  It wasn't at its fullest until 11:00. 

The kids were in and out of the house for an hour and a half.  Luckily we could watch it from the windows, because it's cold    outside. 

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/OH2008.html

We are looking at this website while warming up.

There is important legislation going on that affects cyber schools.

Go to http://votervoice.net/target.aspx?id=pccs:19780512 and contact your legislators. 

http://www.votervoice.net/Core.aspx?AID=691& 

This is part of a letter I recieved from Mrs Barnette,  our schools CEO.

Dear PAVCS family,

Yesterday the cyber charter community suffered a setback due the stunning 22-6 vote of the House Education Committee to send HB 446's cyber charter school legislation to the House floor for consideration. As a result of this setback we must engage in a proactive campaign to educate Harrisburg's decision-makers now that our fate will be in their hands.

Before House Bill 446 gets to the floor of the House for consideration the PAVCS family needs to engage in a powerful grass roots effort to do EVERYTHING in our power to make sure the Representatives of the House are educated with correct information about public cyber charter schools. We need to address why the passage of HB 446 in its current form threatens the very existence of public cyber charter schools and will severely cripple our ability to provide Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) as well as meet the mandates of No Child Left Behind

Every teacher, administrator and parent must contact his or representative by letter, schedule a visit and invite the legislator to see what we do. We must have our students write and explain their personal experiences of what PAVCS has done for them.

Here is the letter I sent, feel free to use it as a template for your own.

Dear Representative Evans:

As a parent, my husband and I have made personal sacrifices to educate our children in a public cyber school, PAVCS. I recently found out that the State House Education Committee is considering a vote on an "amended" version of HB 446 penned by Representative Karen Beyer that is yet another version of legislation that will curtail the growth and limit the educational quality of Pennsylvania's Cyber Charter Public Schools.

As a parent participating in one of Pennsylvania's Cyber Public Charter Schools I am opposed to action being taken on the proposed amendment, A03964 to PN 494 of HB 446, unless there is direct stakeholder input and involvement. As a parent of three of the 20,000 Pennsylvania public school children whose education would be severely altered by this legislation I urge you to delay considering this amendment and have a public hearing on its impact.

For a proposed legislation that has stated requirements for compliance with open meeting laws, it is not right to pass a bill that was crafted without the input of those affected by it!

Our state is a leader in cyber charter public education in the country, and the charter school movement in Pennsylvania is the strongest public school choice initiative in the Northeast United States. Our cyber charter school law is often touted as the best. The Education Committee should capitalize on this position of leadership in the country rather than endorse moves to stifle its growth.

Act 88 currently allows the State's 11 cyber charter schools to serve their students well while providing a dynamic, innovative and safe public school choice that ensures these students will have the skills needed to compete in the 21st Century workplace. Representative Beyer's bill will set us far back.

Cyber charter schools, as well as all of Pennsylvania's charter public schools, are the most economical form of public education in the Commonwealth. By statute, they must always spend less per student than the attending student's district of residence. And, importantly, with this mandated savings per student to the taxpayer, charter schools have performed well.

The House recently adopted a resolution on Cyber School Day that, in part, reads: "Whereas, The promise of public education is to serve every child and to help each child reach his or her full potential;...Students in this Commonwealth's cyber charter schools cover the entire spectrum; those with special needs, students who have fallen behind academically, students with medical issues, victims of bullying, dropouts from schools and students who need a more personalized learning experience.Whereas, Pennsylvania is a pioneer state in online education..." My 15 year old has difficulty with changes, and definitely is not a morning person. In the brick and mortar school he would have to be up by 6:00 AM to start school at 7:00 AM. He actually does better when he can sit down and do a few lessons in a course at one time. He is working at 6th grade Language Arts and 7th grade in his other subjects. My daughter is in 5th grade. She just started 6th grade Science, and at the rate she is doing her Math she should start the 6th grade course before the end of the school year. My youngest is in 4th grade but doing 3rd grade Language Arts and 5th grade Math. Because of his reading problem he needs one on one attention for the other courses. Pennsylvania's promise to my children and other public cyber school children will be broken if this proposal moves forward.

The Augenblick Report, recently released as a state "costing out" study, proposes a minimum expenditure per child of $12,057 to achieve an adequate education (foundation). Cyber charter schools should be receiving more funding from an equity position. The proposed funding measures in "amended" HB 446 would be barely half that amount.

The extreme irony of Representative Beyer's bill lowering expenditures for cyber charter schools while the Legislature considers raising the expenditures of almost every public school district in the state is not lost on my or my fellow cyber school families and the general public. We are all public school children of taxpaying families. Do our children deserve less funding for their education because we choose to be active participants in ensuring their academic future?

We were encouraged that you, through the inclusion of cyber school families in the recent education committee hearings, recognized us as stakeholders in public education. We hope that this was not purely lip service to keep us quiet and distract us while "old school" politics continued.

We strongly urge you to not move forward with this new proposal without stakeholder input.

Thank you for your commitment to public education and please free to contact me with any questions.

Saturday, November 5th my daughter and I went with some friends to expERIEnce Childrens Museum.  The kids had a great time. 

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I googled "letter people" and look shat I found.  Remember that TV show that used to play on PBS?  Someone posted them on U-Tube.  I'm always looking for something to help my kids with phonics.  There are other activities too.

I was going to down load my pictures before writing this, but I forgot, dh has the printer with the port for the camera card at work.  I'll have to add the pictures later.

 Our first stop was the Firefighters Museum.  It is housed in an old fire house.  We learned how the old alarm box system worked.  There's nothing like a hands on demonstration, especially when it involves noise.  They had  old hand pulled pumpers and a hose wagon. Can you imagine the firemen moving everything from the station to the fire by hand?  They let the kids touch the big bell while it was ringing. My youngest son said, "I wouldn't want my head in there when someone rings it."

 The first stop was my choice, the kids chose the rest.  Our next stop was the Childrens Museum  they were disappointed that the actual museum was closed.  The kids did do the crafts and play games.  We will go back if they have activities during National Chemestry Week.  We did that last year, it was fun.

Onward, our next stop was the Erie Art Museum.  The kids were fascinated  by the lifelike painting of fruit.  They liked the 3d wall and the felt board.  The felt board was the only thing they could touch.

Our last stop was the Watson-Curtze Mansion.  They have an awsome antique doll collection.  I think the boys were as impressed with it as my daughter.  The youngest wants to move into a house like that.