beat selection/stories/possible sources

Beats:

I have chosen to write focusing on an education beat, specifically grade schools, learning centers and daycares. . I think this focus is important because it is usually overlooked, especially when it comes to personal stories. Many education stories involve district meetings or school board’s decisions with a few primary resources rather than an individual affected by the decisions.. Many Pullman locals have children in grade school, and parents would appreciate information given from different perspectives in the media about their community public education system. I think covering education will provide both happy feel-good personal stories as well as a few issues surrounding early education. Examples of issues include increased shortage in special needs teachers/assistants in conjunction with an increasing number of students with Autism. Also, other smaller but equally substantial issues could include teacher-student ratios and their effects on attention and learning or new techniques for standardized testing.

Education is important on several levels. It is important on a national level because all public schools will be affected by any larger change with things such as expenditures in federal funding. Covering education is important on the state level because the state government ultimately decides the amount of funding a public school shall receive as well as standardization, teacher salary, and curriculum. This in turn affects local public schools, in which many local citizens have children attending. Therefore it is important to cover all aspects, federal, state, and local.

Good sources to consider to within my proximity would be sociologists, school counselors and psychologists, school officials, PTA, teachers, and even students. With Gov. Gregoire pushing initiatives that promise change in schools, what’s really being done and who is paying for, benefiting from, affected by these changes? How are teachers being compensated for extra time spent tutoring students? How much does Washington spend for standardized tests? Are they working to improve students overall education? How are daycares training staff for early learning? The three articles below focus on similar ideas that I would like to cover. The first has to do with the national issue of the economy and parents’ and schools’ attempts to save money for back-to-school shopping. The second article is focused on the improvement of special needs facilities at a high school, and the third article covers an elementary school’s decision to offer an all-day kindergarten to save money on student transfers. All of these articles pertain to my beat, however I would still like to have more humanistic levels in my articles.

1. New Special Needs classroom training/techniques, with an emphasis on children with Autism

2. Day care employee training, employee satisfaction, and difficulty with funding

3. PTA involvement, what parents are involved and its effects on students' learning.

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/sep/01/kitsap-shoppers-going-back-to-school-on-a-budget/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/sep/01/central-kitsap-high-improves-facilities-for/

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/aug/28/all-day-kindergarten-coming-to-pearson/

Possible Sources: Jefferson Elementary

Brian Moore
Principal
brianm@psd267.wednet.edu

Kim Keifer
Secretary
kkeifer@psd267.wednet.edu

Jane Rosenberg
Counselor/ Psychologist
jrosenberg@psd267.wednet.edu

Susan Horstman
Counselor/ Psychologist
shorstma@psd267.wednet.edu

Runell Gallina
Special Education
rgallina@psd267.wednet.edu

Co-President
Amy Tull
334-5864
amybtull@hotmail.com

Co-President
Julie Tarlyn
334-4486
julietarlyn@hotmail.com

PTA ^

Mark Goddard - Executive Director, M.Ed.

Phone: 509-334-1234

Email: director@pullmanlearningcenter.com