The Multnomah Villager

What’s this you ask? Well, of course it’s a clumsily stitched panorama of last weekend’s Maplewood Picnic! (click it - it gets bigger) We all headed over to Maplewood Elementary for the big neighborhood shindig, put on by the Maplewood Neighborhood Association. Even though this is not a school event, it’s held on the grounds of the school and quite a few of Jr. V’s friends were there.

We didn’t go to this event last year - I can’t figure out why not, but we certainly won’t miss it next year. They really put on the dog. The hot dog, that is. As well as free popcorn, ice cream, coffee, soda water, iced tea and cupcakes! We donated a few bucks after grabbing like our 200th thing of popcorn. As you can see, there were several tents set up - all the free food was along the blacktop, above, and the community booths were out along the ball field. At some point the police showed up with a paddywagon (do they still call them that?) and all the kids piled into the back to be locked in for a bit. I vividly remember when I was a kid, walking home from school, our route took us past the police station, and of we were really lucky - we could talk them into putting us in a jail cell for a while. Some fascinations are timeless I guess. {Insert Lindsey Lohan joke here.}

The new playground is up and in full effect! It was literally crawling with kids the whole time.

Another view of the great new playground.

Did I mention there was live music, and a raffle? Lots of fun was had, and despite threatening clouds, it never rained. We’ll definitely go again next year. Thanks Maplewood NA!

There is a Southwest Charter School open house this Tuesday evening from 7:00-8:30PM at the Multnomah Center. NOTE that there is also a final design meeting for the new Gabriel Park skatepark on the same evening, although I don’t anticipate much audience crossover. The skatepark has the auditorium last time, but I anticipate that they may have to find a smaller space this time around, due to what I anticipate should be a good turnout for the Charter school.

SW Charter School has a website (on which they need to fix their extended ASCII characters, by the way), which is full of information except for one key point. The cost. They define their mission as follows:

Southwest Charter School is a small, public school community that emphasizes safety and caring; a place where neither race nor economic status will determine a child’s potential for success.

There’s been lots of talk about this school in the news over the past year or so. Especially surrounding their unsuccessful quest to rent the former Smith School building from PPS. I’m thinking of popping into this meeting just to find out where they’re going to be. Actually, I don’t really understand the concept of charter schools. I know they’re some sort of hybrid between public and private, but that’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge on the subject. I should do some research, although it would take some kind of major sea-change in the quality of PPS before I would even consider moving Jr. V away from Maplewood, even if I could afford it.

NCES.gov tells us this about charter schools:

A public charter school is a publicly funded school that, in accordance with an enabling state statute, has been granted a charter exempting it from selected state or local rules and regulations. A charter school may be newly created, or it may previously have been a public or private school; it is typically governed by a group or organization (e.g., a group of educators, a corporation, or a university) under a contract or charter with the state. In return for funding and autonomy, the charter school must meet accountability standards. A school’s charter is reviewed (typically every 3 to 5 years) and can be revoked if guidelines on curriculum and management are not followed or the standards are not met.

Here is The list of Portland Charter Schools at the PPS Website.

Here’s an interesting site (GreatSchools.net), although it’s infested with pop-up ads, about public and private schools, including charter schools. It has reviews on it, etc. and this interesting article - Seven Things to Know About Charter Schools.

Again though, missing the eighth thing, which is the cost.

This is not necessarily Village-related, although we have Two Rivers Montessori in the Village and  West Hills Montessori over on Vermont street….

If you’ve ever wondered what a “Montessori School” is, here’s an informative article at Slate.com about the format.

We have a great deal of private, charter and non-traditional schools in and around the Village, and I’ve been long meaning to write a post about WHAT exactly they are, if for no other reason than to learn the info myself. Perhaps I’ll get to that this summer.

I get this question today in my email:

I was just curious, have you considered endorsing any of the school board candidates on your blog? Or have you done so and I missed it?

The short answer to this is. “No”, I have not considered endorsing any candidates.

Here’s the long answer, and the explanation of why I haven’t been blogging on this subject.

I would need to have a far more developed sense of my own importance to “endorse” someone, and think it would carry any weight with my readership, such as it is. We’ve got so many papers and websites and organizations that are busy telling us how we MUST vote, that one more is really not necessary. I specifically avoid overtly political posts - mainly because I don’t want to have to deal with the comments associated with those kinds of posts, and also because it’s just not something I’m terribly interested in blogging about. Don’t get me wrong, I vote - I have an opinion, etc. So what is it you ask?

I suppose, if pressed, I’d have to say I echo the recommendations of (I think it was the Trib) one of the papers when I say I’d vote for Ruth, and David. I served a year on the SWNI schools committee, and can testify firsthand to Ruth’s dedication and competence with seemingly all school related issues particularly in Southwest. I do share the paper’s concern with how she will transition from the role of an activist/advocate/gadfly to an active member of the board and deal with the inevitable compromises that will ensue. As for David Wynde, I agree with the editorial stance that his financial expertise is needed on the Board. Beyond that - anyone who can block out the type of time that being on the school board requires for NO PAY should be commended.

However, I am also concerned that any of these finer concerns about whether or not someone is more or less “open to communication” or “active in the peace movement” are all moot considering the next board will likely spend the majority of its time attempting to replace the Superintendent.

As for politics in general, you’re not getting it here, sorry. If you’re looking for political posts, try The Red Electric, Bojack (Jack Bog’s Blog), or Amanda Fritz - all of which I read. All but Amanda, I should say, are frequently pretty anti-government and often overly alarmist but can be the source of some good information you’re certainly not going to get from the Oregonian. My capsule review of those three blogs is: Amanda is more liberal than Bojack, who is very anti-developer and no fan of the City government. The Red Electric is the strongest voice against the power of the media, the war, and the Bush Administration. Amanda will give you hard information about the specifics of what’s happening at the city government level and she’s personally involved in lobbying her agenda to various councils, etc. Bojack will give you the widest range of subject matter, and all the Blazer news you need.

They’ve got us covered. It’s not balanced, but it’s mostly fair, it’s their viewpoint and they’re putting info out that all of us should at least be aware of, so we can make our own decisions. I believe that ALL of those blogs have endorsed the candidates and measures.

So that’s enough politics for now.

This is going to start out like one of those “Penthouse” letters… “I never thought this would happen to me, but…”

In case, I’m referring to the act of writing this particular post.

But I gotta say it - Maplewood’s “Run for the Playground” messaging is seriously rubbing me the wrong way. Run for the Playground is the latest is a long string of fundraising activities to raise money for the new playground, a cause we fully support, and one we contributed to this past Saturday at the Native Plant Sale. It’s not the event that annoys me - it’s the language that’s coming home on the handouts with Jr. V. Particularly the line (in bold type, and a box, in case you miss it - capitalization is theirs) “Each family is asked to set a minimum FUNDRAISING GOAL of $100.”

Oh, and the top fundraiser in each class will get a prize! I remember stuff like that when I was in school. I was NOT the top fundraiser, to say the least, and my Mom was working like 3 jobs thanks, and needless to say I never much cared for the awards portion of these fundraising activities. But that was in high school. In case you missed it, Jr. V is six. As are many of his classmates, who all are getting this information again, since we all got informed about the minimum goal in another handout that came home about a week ago.

I’ll be honest - we decided that we’d give $50, and no thanks we would NOT be sending Jr. V out to raise funds from all our Maplewood district neighbors. So Jr. V has been giving me a hard time about not giving the full $100. Uh-huh - don’t get me started kid. I’m not some anti-commerce hippie by any means, but I guess I was innocently hoping that I’d have another year at least before Jr. V was being encouraged to develop his sales skills.

I’ve heard lots of variations on this complaint at various times in my life, and like I said, I never thought that I would be the one getting all annoyed about this sort of thing, but still - you should soften up this messaging a little Maplewood. $100 is a couple hours pay for me now, but I clearly remember being the kid whose family didn’t have the money for things like this, and I guess I’ve got some residual “issues” around that, eh? What about Jr. V’s friends who are in single parent households, or who just paid a massive tax bill - I don’t want my kid embarrassing any of them by aksing where their $100 is.

I get it OK, you don’t have enough money to stay open with all the bells and whistles. You know what, I don’t have enough money to keep putting Jr. V in daycare everytime school is closed for inservice days or whatever. It’s a balancing act that we’re ALL doing, particularly those who are not as well-off as my family,  so step off a bit.

Woof - I need a beer - oh it’s Monday night…. Let’s go to Journeys!

Maplewood Elementary is holding a native plant sale this Saturday at the school to raise money for the new playground. There are flyers for this around the Village, but my neighbor Kathy who is heavily involved in about 200 fundraising activities for Maplewood provides us the salient info:

Maplewood Elementary School is holding its annual Native Plant Sale on Saturday, April 14, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m, rain or shine! A great selection of natives (from Bosky Dell Nursery) for both sun and shade. Many varieties sold out last year, so come early. Prices are $4 for 4″ pots; $8 for one-gallon containers and anywhere from $12-$16 for two-gallon plants (those larger ones will be priced according to quality). The proceeds this year are helping fund the new playground at Maplewood.

We’ll be there.

I meant to post about this BEFORE Christmas, but you know how it is this time of year…. Daniel Ronan, of Students for Environmental Action at Wilson High, emailed to remind me that Wilson is recycling Christmas trees to raise money for general beautification work on the Wilson campus. They will come and pick up your tree for $10. Now, due to my lax holiday posting schedule, we’ve already missed our chance to reserve a time for this weekend, but you can request a pickup NEXT Saturday (that’d be the 6th) as long as you make your request no later than this Wednesday (the 3rd). Fill out an online form to reuqest a pickup!

Link to the form is here….

Thanks Daniel.

In other sanitation news, trash pickups are ONE DAY LATER both this week and next week because of the holidays. From the looks of my street, I’m one of the few that got this memo - which came in the form of a pre-recorded phone call this year.

So, I heard that Thinker Toys had a very.good.day. on Saturday, which was “Maplewood Day” up in the Village. Let me tell you, it was standing room only in the store when I was there, and the staff looked like they were having a very full day indeed. The other businesses I stopped into were hopping as well. Thanks for your support on Saturday, if you were one of the shoppers. Jr V, a (rather impatient) future customer of the Maplewood playground, appreciates your support.

Disclaimer: I have to confess that WE bought stuff at Thinker Toys on FRIDAY, before I looked at all of Jr. V’s school stuff and found out about Maplewood Day. But don’t worry, there will be at least 15 more fundraising opportunities presented to us before the Holiday, to be sure.

Hey folks - sorry for the short notice, but tomorrow is “Maplewood Day” in Multnomah Village. What’s this? Well, it means that a percentage of everything you spend (at participating merchants) will be donated to the playground fund! Maplewood Elementary is raising money to replace their playground equipment…

Here’s what you do: Go to a participating merchant, pick out what you want and lots of it, and make sure to tell the cashier that you want your purchases to benefit Maplewood!

Here’s the list of merchants:

• Switch Shoes
• Thinker Toys
• Birdie’s
• Annie Bloom’s Books
• Indigo Traders
• Jules of Morocco
• Village Beads
• Peggy Sunday’s
• Sweets, Etc.

True, Rieke Elementary School is technically not a “Multnomah Village” school, since most Village residents (if they go to public school) go to either Markham or Maplewood. However, the proposed closure of Rieke would have an impact on our neighborhood schools, so this applies to us as well.

For those of you interested in schools, or in the future of Rieke, the PPS reorganization information site has this blurb:

Superintendent Phillips had proposed merging Rieke Elementary School in Robert Gray Middle School to create a K-8. This fall, 282 students are enrolled at Rieke, which is in the Hillsdale neighborhood. The neighborhood and school community asked Portland Public Schools for a chance to grow their enrollment by attracting more families in the neighborhood, allowing them to reach a student body closer to 400, a size the school district considers sustainable and better able to offer a well-rounded curriculum. On October 13, the Rieke community submitted a marketing plan to accomplish that goal.

Here’s a link that contains a further link to a PDF of the marketing report.