Sunday, October 18, 2009

25... 26...


4LAKids: Sunday 18•Oct•2009
In This Issue:
LAUSD’S TRUANCY PROBLEM
Student Recovery Day: LAUSD OFFICIALS TO HIT THE STREETS MONDAY IN SEARCH OF DROPOUT STUDENTS
UTLA ADVISED TO SUE TO BLOCK POTENTIAL HANDOVER OF NEW SCHOOLS TO CHARTER OPERATORS + WILL UTLA SUE?
CORTINES STANDS BY CONTROVERSIAL DEAL TO USE LAID-OFF TEACHERS AS SUBSTITUTES
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
What can YOU do?


Featured Links:
4 LAKids on Twitter
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: an investment we can't afford to cut! - The Education Coalition Website
4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!
4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc.
NEWS ITEM: The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the ‘magical’ 10,000 point threshold for the twenty-fifth time in its history on Wednesday, going up. On Friday it crossed it for the twenty-sixth time, going the other way.

_____________________

LAST WEEK I wrote of my mother in the hospital. She has improved and gone home. And like the Dow Jones has fallen back and returned. Doctors say reassuring things about vital signs being stable and, electrolyte levels being right …but the blood pressure is worrisome. Brows furrow. Nurse Rita – lovely Rita with her Heidi Klum accent and chartreuse scrubs - tries a different cuff and gets a better result. I don’t want a better blood pressure cuff or a better test score - I want my mother to be better. More tests. “We’ll keep her another night for observation.” Thank you readers for your best wishes; they are appreciated. This is not at all what I want, to be sitting in a corner of the ER writing about this. I want to write about the good and bad of public education. I want to write about a big bright new beautiful tomorrow; of success and triumph and positive outcomes. But denial is the longest river and sometimes the Circle of Life circles back.


THANK YOU SUPERINTENDENT CORTINES for coming to our PTA Pancake Breakfast and Leader’s Training Saturday morning. Thank you for listening to the parents – and thank you parents for being leaders and being trained. Both the superintendent and I especially thank the parents who came forward and said things are going right at their schools. We don’t need to hear how we or the board of ed are doing right; we need to hear how the right things are happening at schools. When it’s true/when they are.

¡Onward/Hasta Adelante! -smf


LAUSD’S TRUANCY PROBLEM
By Boardmember Tamar Galatzan, from her constituent e-newsletter

October 15, 2009 -- Should you want to produce numbers to show that the District has a truancy problem, good luck finding them. In recent weeks, I have learned that those figures have either never been maintained or are simply unavailable.

But despite the absence of actual data, we know that LAUSD does have problems with truancy. How many of us have driven past high schools and middle schools in the San Fernando Valley and seen small groups of students hanging out while their peers are attending class? Truancy not only costs the District money (again, we don't know much), but it often leads to more serious criminal behavior.

On October 20th, I am conducting a hearing in the Committee of the Whole to discuss effective ways of dealing with truancy. I have asked representatives from Verdugo Hills High School, which is regarded by Los Angeles School Police as a pioneer in this effort, to speak, as well as officials in the Los Angeles School Police. With the district in the midst of a major initiative to achieve a one hundred percent graduation rate, now is the time to attack truancy with a smart program that focuses on intervention, but is backed up by law enforcement efforts.


••smf’s 2¢: LAUSD, like all major urban school districts, has a truancy problem – no doubt about it – and better and no worse than other major school districts. The data that Ms. Galatzan can’t find is collected by the District and reported to the California Department of Education; it is available online here. It doesn’t take luck to find it, it takes Google.

Truancy and Dropouts are two sides of the same coin, the young people that Ms. Galatzan describes as a law enforcement problem (she is a career prosecutor) ARE in violation of California’s Mandatory Education Law, which requires minors to attend school until they graduate or reach 18. That law says that any student who is absent from (or late to) class without an excuse more than three times in a year is a “habitual truant” – a strict standard in terms of tardiness that may need revisiting.

However a more enlightened approach to this problem than rounding up truants in sweeps (the “Tardy Sweep”, where kids are rounded up for NOT being in class and then KEPT FROM class is a 4LAKids pet peeve …is this Dickensian, Kafkaesque or Orwellian justice?) - or hauling truants and their parents before a judge and fining them - is demonstrated below in the story about Student Recovery Day – which I understand Boardmember Galatzan is participating in.


CDE/DataQuest: Los Angeles Unified Expulsion, Suspension, and Truancy Information for 2008-09 (other years available)



Student Recovery Day: LAUSD OFFICIALS TO HIT THE STREETS MONDAY IN SEARCH OF DROPOUT STUDENTS
by smf for 4LAKids

16Oct -- In what may well become an annual event on this coming Monday, Oct 19 Superintendent Ramon Cortines will lead teams of LAUSD school administrators, local and district staff and school counselors as they fan out across the District and scour the streets and neighborhoods of Los Angeles in coordinated teams in an effort to recover as many students as possible who are no longer attending school.

If the student is not enrolled in school, help via support services will be offered to get that young person back on track towards graduation and a diploma. While a minor not attending school is technically a crime, the emphasis will be on the carrot of education and a better future rather than the stick of a citation and court date.

Driven by an urgent need and commitment to recover as many students as possible, Superintendent Ramon Cortines and School Board Member Steven Zimmer initiated “Student Recovery Day” to recover students who are not enrolled in school. Student Recovery Day is based on a similar program in the Houston, Texas school district - a program that has been very successful in convincing students to return to the classroom– and ultimately turning dropouts into graduates.

The initial rollout of the Student Recovery Day program with Members of the Board of Education, Superintendent Cortines, and more than 100 School administrators, local and district staff with will be at Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley and Fairfax High School, Wilson High School and Fremont High School in Los Angeles. Other Student Recovery Day targeted high school sites include: Monroe, Los Angeles, Jefferson, Huntington Park and Banning High Schools. Schools were selected based upon a high number of students on potential dropout lists.

According to a District memo to staff, each year, LAUSD has over 20,000 students appear on its potential dropout lists.

· Students on these lists are in grades 7-12, and include students that left middle school and never made it to the high school they were expected to attend.

· The lists also include students that left or were withdrawn from school and never enrolled in any other school.

The Potential Dropout Lists are distributed to middle schools and high schools three times per year and typically the Diploma Project Counselors (DPC) and Pupil Services and Attendance Counselors (PSAC) take the lead in recovering our students.

In order to clear the lists, school staff must locate the students to determine if they are enrolled in school either within the District or elsewhere (another School District, another state, adult school, community college, etc.). Often times, these students’ families are highly mobile and difficult to locate. Once located, if the student is not enrolled in school, Diploma Project Counselors and Pupil Services and Attendance Counselors work with the student and family to support the student to earn a diploma. Various pathways and options are offered to the family including returning to the comprehensive high school, continuation school, community day school, adult education, community college, or any combination of the above.


UTLA ADVISED TO SUE TO BLOCK POTENTIAL HANDOVER OF NEW SCHOOLS TO CHARTER OPERATORS + WILL UTLA SUE?
►UTLA ADVISED TO SUE TO BLOCK POTENTIAL HANDOVER OF NEW SCHOOLS TO CHARTER OPERATORS
by Howard Blume | LA Times/LA Now blog

October 16, 2009 | 6:00 am -- Attorneys advising the Los Angeles teachers union have recommended filing a lawsuit to block the potential handover of newly constructed campuses to charter schools, The Times has learned.

Fifty new schools are scheduled to open over the next four years, and charter schools could bid to operate them under a resolution passed in August by the Los Angeles Board of Education. The policy, authored by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, also applies to persistently low-performing existing schools.

Most charter schools are non-union, so an influx of charter schools could weaken United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers union in the district.

The legal advice is contained in a Sept. 30 memo, obtained through confidential sources, from the Los Angeles-based firm Trygstad, Schwab & Trygstad to union President A.J. Duffy.

The memo lists grounds for litigation, including alleged violations of the state Education Code, of rules regulating taxpayer-funded school-construction dollars and of the collective-bargaining agreement between the union and the school district.

The union contract, for example, stipulates that currently employed district teachers are entitled to teaching jobs at new schools built to relieve overcrowding. In other words, when students leave an overcrowded school for a new campus, their teachers are allowed to follow them. Charter schools, in contrast, typically control their own teacher recruiting and hiring.

The lawyers urged swift action.

“If UTLA wishes to challenge the legality of the resolution,” the memo advised, “litigation should be initiated probably no later than November of this year.…Unless the litigation is pursued early, the court could deny equitable relief on the basis that plaintiffs unreasonably delayed.”

A confidential source with a different employee union confirmed that there have been discussions among district unions about the best time to file suit and about who would take part.

In a Wednesday interview, L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines acknowledged that there would be issues to work through involving the provisions of union contracts.

Even as the teachers union prepares for litigation, its officials are urging school faculties to participate in the bidding process for the 12 existing schools that Cortines singled out for action this year. Not just charter operators, but internal groups, including teachers, can submit proposals. The affected campuses include Garfield, Lincoln, Jefferson, Gardena and San Pedro high schools.

On this front, however, the union is struggling with internal dissension that could hinder a grass-roots faculty effort. Members of the union’s Board of Directors have, for now, delayed Duffy’s attempt to expand the number of quasi-independent “pilot schools.” The pilot school model is officially a union-sanctioned reform, but the union’s board has raised concerns about approving more than the 10 small pilots already in operation. The pilot model also is well-regarded by L.A. school board President Monica Garcia and Cortines, who said he "felt sorry for Duffy" over the internal union resistance.

A delay could give charter schools an edge, given that “letters of intent” for reform proposals are due by mid-November.


►WILL UTLA SUE TO STOP TURN OVER OF NEW L.A. SCHOOLS TO CHARTERS?
EdWeek Online | District dossier by Lesli Maxwell

Oct 16 - The Los Angeles Times has snagged an internal memo from lawyers who advise the United Teachers Los Angeles that urges the union to sue the L.A. Unified school district to block Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines from handing over newly built schools to charter operators.

The Los Angeles school board in August adopted a controversial new policy that will allow charter operators and other outside groups to compete to operate some 50 new schools that are slated to open over the next four years. Chronically underperforming district schools will also be opened up to outside operators. Supt. Cortines and his team have been working ever since to hammer out the details of how the competitive process will work.

Union lawyers say the policy is on shaky legal ground for several reasons, including its alleged violation of the current contract between the district and UTLA.

UTLA's president, A.J. Duffy, was threatening legal action two months ago, but since the new policy was adopted, he's also been encouraging groups of teachers to devise their own takeover plans for new and low-performing schools to submit for consideration by the district. According to The Times, however, not all of the union's leaders are fully on board with that idea.

The situation is likely to stay very interesting in the coming weeks as the first deadline to enter into the competition to take over operations at a dozen existing schools, including several high schools, approaches next month.


CORTINES STANDS BY CONTROVERSIAL DEAL TO USE LAID-OFF TEACHERS AS SUBSTITUTES
by Howard Blume | La Times Online/LA Now Blog
October 15, 2009 | 11:47 am updated 5:50 pm

The Los Angeles schools superintendent says he opposes revoking an agreement that has imperiled health benefits for more than 1,000 veteran substitute teachers while costing hundreds of them regular work.

In an interview, Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said he stands by a deal that was designed to help recently laid-off full-time teachers by giving them preference for available substitute jobs over veteran subs with more seniority.

“This was about how could you re-employ, in some form, as many of the teachers as possible that had received pink slips,” Cortines said in the interview Wednesday. "I had said months earlier I would do everything possible to employ them. The teachers union wanted me to hire them all back, and I could not guarantee that we had the money to do that. This was the second best I could do.”

On July 1, in the midst of a budget crisis, the Los Angeles Unified School District laid off about 2,000 teachers, but then quickly signed up about 1,800 of them who wanted to work as substitutes. On average, the L.A. district, the nation’s second-largest, uses about 2,200 substitutes a day. Substitutes have to work 100 days a year and at least one day a month to maintain health benefits.

Cortines objected to characterizations that he’d entered into a secret deal with A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the district’s teachers union. He noted that plans to use laid-off teachers as substitutes were discussed publicly.

But the decision to override seniority did not emerge for two months, when the district provided a copy of the one-year agreement in response to a request from The Times. In addition, the union did not include representatives of the substitutes in the negotiations -- a violation of internal union rules.

Last week, under pressure from rank-and-file members, the union’s governing body voted overwhelmingly to withdraw from the agreement. Duffy said he would try to honor the decision by resuming negotiations with the school district.

Cortines said he had yet to hear from Duffy over the matter. He added that he was not inclined to change operating procedures nearly four months into the school year, which began for some schools in July. He also said union members were unfairly singling out Duffy for blame. He said Duffy’s leadership team was fully involved in the negotiations that led to the agreement.

[Updated at 5:50 p.m.: Union officials have forwarded to The Times a copy of a letter they said they sent to Cortines on Wednesday requesting the reopening of negotiations over the use of substitute teachers.]

Elected leaders of the substitutes vowed to accelerate their activism on the issue.

“We have to create a sea change in the attitude of the [school] board members who dictate policy to the superintendent,” Dave Peters said in an e-mail to fellow substitutes. Duffy “executed this without lawful authority and his scandalous behavior in this matter calls for his immediate impeachment.”

Duffy has apologized for failing to follow internal union policy, but said he has done nothing improper.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
SAN DIEGO BATTLE A PREVIEW ON U.S. DEBATE ON EDUCATION
Sunday, October 18, 2009 8:09 AM
San Diego Superintendent spreads the gospel of 'value-added' teacher evaluations -- In Tenn. and N.C. Terry Grier adopted and expanded a statistical method of tracking student progress. Union resistance scuttled more modest efforts in San Diego, mirroring a brewing national debate. By Jason Felch and Jason Song | LA Times October 18, 2009 - When Terry Grier was hired to run the San Diego


NOT A GOOD DAY FOR HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL: Hollywood High Player Dies, Fairfax Fight
Sunday, October 18, 2009 7:46 AM
Hollywood High School football player dies after collapsing during a game [Updated] -by Eric Sondheimer, LA Times Online October 17, 2009 | 5:44 pm A football player from Hollywood High School's freshman-sophomore team who collapsed during a game Friday evening died this afternoon at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Ellen Morgan.


UTLA: ABSENT FROM REFORM - L.A. Unified is changing, but a UTLA split could cause the union to miss out on opportunities to be part of the transformation. -
Saturday, October 17, 2009 5:41 AM
Editorial from the LA Times October 17, 2009 -- It's easy to see why United Teachers Los Angeles doesn't like the new Public School Choice policy at L.A. Unified, which allows outside groups to apply to take over about 250 new or underperforming schools. Those groups are likely to include a large number of charter school operators that would hire their own teachers rather than sign a contract


CORTINES STANDS BY CONTROVERSIAL DEAL TO USE LAID-OFF TEACHERS AS SUBSTITUTES
Saturday, October 17, 2009 5:39 AM
by Howard Blume | La Times Online/LA Now Blog October 15, 2009 | 11:47 am updated 5:50 pm The Los Angeles schools superintendent says he opposes revoking an agreement that has imperiled health benefits for more than 1,000 veteran substitute teachers while costing hundreds of them regular work. In an interview, Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said he stands by a deal that was designed to help recently


Independent Monitor: PROVISIONS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE RESOLUTION VIOLATE CONSENT DECREE
Friday, October 16, 2009 5:23 PM

WALKING FOR SUCCESS: Promoting College Education and Scholarship
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 8:22 PM
en español: Caminata por el Éxito Written by Alex Garcia, San Fernando Valley Sun Contributing Writer Wednesday, 14 October 2009 -- Ernesto Morales still remembers the knock on the door from Project GRAD visitors during the fall of his 9th grade year at San Fernando Middle School. "They sat down with my guardians and thoroughly explained to them the importance of going to college and the


SLUGGISH RESULTS SEEN IN NATIONAL MATH SCORES + CALIFORNIA SCORES AMONG THE LOWEST + SUPERINTENDENT O'CONNELL'S COMMENTS - NY Times: "Student achievement grew faster before No Child Left Behind, when states were dominant in education policy, than over the years since, when the federal law has become a powerful force in classrooms"
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 7:16 PM
SLUGGISH RESULTS SEEN IN NATIONAL MATH SCORES By SAM DILLON | New York Times October 15, 2009 -- The latest results on the most important nationwide math test show that student achievement grew faster during the years before the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law, when states were dominant in education policy, than over the years since, when the federal law has become a powerful force in


NEW YORK SLASHES EDUCATION+HEALTH BUDGET $2.5 BILLION: Gov. Paterson's word for proposed cuts : 'pain'
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 7:15 PM
…but the recession is over. By Kenneth Lovett | NY Daily News Albany Bureau Chief Groll/AP -- Gov. Paterson will propose $2.5 billion budget cuts Thursday - mostly in health and education - to close a mushrooming deficit the controller says could balloon to a $4.1 billion. Wednesday, October 14th 2009, 4:12 PM -- ALBANY - Get ready for more pain in the wallet. Gov. Paterson will


DEAR RICHARD RIORDAN: An open letter to the former L.A. mayor on making parenting education part of public school reform.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 7:14 PM
By Esther A. Jantzen | Blowback/Op-Ed in the LA Times October 15, 2009 -- Mayor Richard Riordan, your disappointment in the progress of educational reform in the Los Angeles Unified School District, after all you've done as mayor and secretary of education under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was palpable in your Oct. 12 Times Op-Ed article, "Course outline for the LAUSD." This lack of progress


Blog review: THE BROAD REPORT
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 12:11 PM
by smf Sharon Higgins aka “The Perimeter Primate” writes a blog, The BROAD REPORT: A Clearinghouse About Billionaire Eli Broad's Efforts To Dismantle Public Education. Ms. Higgins, Occupation: Mother, former critical care R.N., former Parent Coordinator, wife of criminal defense attorney and Commander in U.S.N.R. (Retired), off-and-on ceramic artist, Neighborhood Watch Block Captain - lives in

PRINCIPAL RESIGNS FROM GARDENA HIGH CITING A LACK OF UNITY ON CAMPUS
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 11:09 AM
by Melissa Pamer Staff Writer | Daily Breeze Tuesday, 10/13/2009 -- Just two weeks after Gardena High School found itself on a list of 12 troubled Los Angeles Unified campuses that could be taken over by outside operators, its principal has quit, citing a lack of unity on campus. Kevin Kennedy, who has been at the school less than two years, announced Friday he was taking an administrative


USING FEDERAL FUNDS TO MAKE UP FOR STATE CUTS (THIS YEAR): LAUSD makes up $140M budget cut with stimulus funds
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 8:41 AM
By Connie Llanos Staff Writer | LA Newspaper Group/Daily News ►from another story: The Department of Education's inspector general reports that some states are using stimulus dollars to replace money they've cut from their education budget — despite instructions to the contrary. When the Department of Education began releasing stimulus funds last April, it told states the money was

UCLA's LAB SCHOOL EXPANSION IS POSTPONED: Tough economic times delay the university's effort to replicate its Westwood educational program in lower-income areas.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 6:46 AM
Lab School Principal Jim Kennedy said he was discouraged by the lack of a commitment to continue the planning and fundraising needed for the project to proceed once the economy eases. "It doesn't appear to be a strong enough priority to survive the current economic difficulties," he said. (Christina House / For The Times / October 9, 2009) By Carla Rivera | LA Times October 12, 2009 -- In a


GIRL, 16. SHOT WHILE WALKING NEAR HOLLYWOOD SCHOOL: Police say the student at Helen Bernstein High apparently was caught in the crossfire of two rival gangs and wounded in the hip. She was taken to a hospital in good condition.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 6:45 AM
By Robert Lopez | LA Times October 14, 2009 -- A 16-year-old girl was shot in the hip Tuesday afternoon within two blocks of Helen Bernstein High School in Hollywood, where classes had just ended for the day, authorities said. The student was taken to a hospital, where she was listed in good condition, said Officer Bruce Borihanh of the Los Angeles Police Department. Police suspect that the


My Stanford researcher is better than your Stanford researcher - or- SCHOLARS SPAR OVER RESEARCH METHODS USED TO EVALUATE CHARTERS
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 6:21 PM
By Debra Viadero | EdWeek Published Online: October 8, 2009 Updated: October 13, 2009 Published in Print: October 14, 2009 The authors of a recent national study that found students in regular public schools outperforming their charter school peers are rebutting criticism that their research suffered from a “serious mathematical mistake” that negatively


SCHWARZENEGGER OKs SCHOOL BILL LINKED TO STIMULUS FUNDS
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 5:18 PM
By The Associated Press from EdWeek October 12, 2009 - Sacramento, Calif. -- California is removing a legal ban on using the results of student achievement tests to evaluate teachers, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill lifts a barrier that prevented California from applying for $4.5 billion under the federal Race to the Top program. Schwarzenegger says more


ONLY SOME ISSUES ARE FOR PARENTS, MAYOR BLOOMBERG SAYS. "It does not make sense for parents to be involved in larger issues like overcrowding, because those issues take years to resolve."
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 4:53 PM
By Julie Shapiro | Downtown Express - The Newspaper of Lower Manhattan Mayor Bloomberg at the New Amsterdam Plein and Pavilion under construction near Lower Manhattan’s Staten Island ferry terminal last month. Parents do not need a role in decisions like new school sites or school zoning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg told Downtown Express Friday. Bloomberg said parents need only be involved in


SOUND BYTE: The "Golden Age" of American Education
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:13 PM
an interview with Tom Loveless, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies of the Brookings Institution from The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU 88.5 FM, Public Radio in DC smf: Last Saturday, in a brief encounter with UTLA Prez A.J. Duffy, we mutually agreed that the “good old days of LAUSD” weren’t; Duffy from his educator perspective (he attended New York public schools, joining LAUSD in ‘74) I from my


SMART CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 12:09 PM
by Tom Loveless, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies & Michael J. Petrilli, Vice President for National Programs and Policy, The Thomas B. Fordham Institute | The New York Times (picked up from the Brookings Institution website) August 28, 2009 — As American children head back to school, the parents of the most academically gifted students may feel a new optimism: according to a recent study, the


GOVERNOR SIGNS SB 19 (SIMITIAN): Education Data Bill Ensures Access to Federal Funds
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 6:48 AM
California Chronicle | California Political Desk October 13, 2009 - SACRAMENTO – Sunday Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law Senate Bill 19, by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), which ensures California´s eligibility to compete for $4.5 billion in federal school funding. The bill puts to rest a controversy Simitian describes as "a tempest in a teapot" over California´s eligibility


Dumb adult tricks: IT’S A FORK, IT’S A SPOON, IT’S A …WEAPON?
Monday, October 12, 2009 1:15 PM
By IAN URBINA | New York Times Mustafah Abdulaziz for The New York Times -- Zachary Christie with his mother, Debbie, his father, Curtis, and the Cub Scout utensil that got him suspended from school. October 12, 2009 -- NEWARK, Del. — Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing


The news that didn’t fit from Oct 18



EVENTS: Coming up next week...
• Tuesday Oct 20, 2009
Juanita Tate Elementary School (aka South Region Elementary School #6): Groundbreaking Ceremony
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location:
South Region Elementary School #6
123 W. 59th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90003

• Wednesday Oct 21, 2009
South LA Area New High School #3: Groundbreaking Ceremony
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Location:
South LA Area New High School #3
825 W. 60th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90044

• Thursday Oct 22, 2009
William R. Anton Elementary School (aka Central Region ES #19 and EEC): Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location:
William R. Anton Elementary School
831 N. Bonnie Beach Pl.
Los Angeles, CA 90063

• Friday Oct 23, 2009
Marshall High School Track & Field and Clinic: Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Location:
Marshall High School
3939 Tracy St.
Los Angeles, CA 90027

*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-893-6800


• LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Yolie.Flores.Aguilar@lausd.net • 213-241-6383
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Nury.Martinez@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Schwarzenegger: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT.


Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them?




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD. He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represents PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee and the BOC on the Board of Education Facilities Committee. He is an elected repreprentative on his neighborhood council. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
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