Sunday, March 31, 2013


Onward! 4LAKids
4LAKids: Sunday 31•Mar•2013 Eastover/Cesar Chavez B'day
In This Issue:
 •  LONG BEACH MIDDLE SCHOOLS TO START DAY AN HOUR LATER + smf’s 2¢ + Scholarly research!
 •  Elementary principal to take district helm: NEW SAN DIEGO SUPERINTENDENT HAS DEEP PARENT TIES
 •  2 ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: Dropouts + Parents Language and Dropouts
 •  HOLD DISTRICTS ACCOUNTABLE FOR RESTORING FUNDING FOR THE ARTS
 •  HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
 •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...
 •  What can YOU do?


Featured Links:
 •  OUR CHILDREN, OUR FUTURE: What will California schoolchildren, your school district and YOUR School get when the initiative passes?
 •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting
 •  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.
Free associating on Google and Wikipedia…

It is the confluence of Easter and Passover and Cesar Chavez’ Birthday. The Torah moves from Genesis to Exodus. The Old Testament moves into the New. A common man becomes an uncommon one and leads his people to a better life and we all follow.


● Long ago at this season, our people set out on a journey.
On such a night as this, Israel went from degradation to joy.
We give thanks for the liberation of days gone by.
And we pray for all who are still bound.
Eternal God, may all who hunger come to rejoice in a new Passover.
Let all the human family sit at Your table, drink the wine of deliverance, eat the bread of freedom:
- The Velveteen Rabbi


Dostoevsky darkly says there were miracles in those days:

● “Oh, with greater faith, for it is fifteen centuries since man has ceased to see signs from heaven.

“No signs from heaven come to-day
To add to what the heart doth say.

“There was nothing left but faith in what the heart doth say. It is true there were many miracles in those days. There were saints who performed miraculous cures; some holy people, according to their biographies, were visited by the Queen of Heaven herself. But the devil did not slumber, and doubts were already arising among men of the truth of these miracles.”


When we don’t find miracles in these days we need only look for them. I was at a Seder this past week – all very secular-and-progressive-to-the-point-of-irreverence with a Judy Chicago Haggadah – but sadly missing the requisite, curious (and usually bored+starved) stars of the Passover Play: the questioning children. “Why, on this night…?”

Thankfully a troublemaker brought a substitute Haggadah with commentary by Lemony Snickett. (one needs only Google this version [New American Haggadah | http://amzn.to/10qRCYx #1 bestseller on Amazon] to see that the irreverence has transgressed into sacrilege if not heresy in the limited imaginations of those who prefer to limit imagination in their orthodoxy.)

The following is not from that Haggadah, but it works in this context:

● “Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear. Some people say that a sunrise is a miracle, because it is somewhat mysterious and often very beautiful, but other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morning. Some people say that a telephone is a miracle, because it sometimes seems wondrous that you can talk with somebody who is thousands of miles away, and other people say it is merely a manufactured device fashioned out of metal parts, electronic circuitry, and wires that are very easily cut. And some people say that sneaking out of a hotel is a miracle, particularly if the lobby is swarming with policemen, and other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morning. So you might think that there are so many miracles in the world that you can scarcely count them, or that there are so few that they are scarcely worth mentioning, depending on whether you spend your mornings gazing at a beautiful sunset or lowering yourself into a back alley with a rope made of matching towels.” ― Lemony Snicket


● “Humans! They lived in the world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that'd happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn't a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time...” ― Sir Terry Pratchett in Small Gods


● “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein

● “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” ― C.S. Lewis


● “We are not in the age of miracles, and yet it is surprising that we can attract, and keep, and increase the type of support that is needed to keep our economic struggle going for 33 months. It is a struggle in which the poorest of the poor and weakest of the weak are pitted against the strongest of the strong.

“Action is necessary. If you don't do anything, you are permitting the evil.

“I would suggest that labor take a page in the largest newspaper and make the issue clear to all, and I would suggest that the clergy also take a page. The message of the clergy should be different, bringing out the morality of our struggle, the struggle of good people who are migrants, and therefore the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak.”

– Cesar Chavez - from speech at an interfaith luncheon of clergy and labor in Manhattan during the Grape Boycott in June 1968


...And so the journey continues hopefully:
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf


LONG BEACH MIDDLE SCHOOLS TO START DAY AN HOUR LATER + smf’s 2¢ + Scholarly research!
By Stephen Ceasar, L.A, Times | http://lat.ms/YCoEXs

March 25, 2013, 7:43 pm :: The Long Beach school board voted Monday to push start times at the district’s five middle schools from 8 to 9 a.m. -- a cost-cutting move officials believe will also boost student success.

The board unanimously approved the plan, spearheaded by Supt. Christopher Steinhauser. Beginning in the fall, students at all of the district's middle schools will start class at 9 a.m. and get out at 3:40 p.m.

The change will save the district about $1 million in transportation costs, Steinhauser said. The savings will be realized by making the bus schedule more efficient by staggering pick-up and drop-off times.

Under a similar proposal, which was not passed by the board, the district's high schools also would have begun the day an hour later. But the board approved creating a pilot program at McBride High School, a new school opening in the fall, which will start the day at 8:50 a.m. and let out at 3:40 p.m.

Currently, district high schools begin the day at 7:50 a.m. and get out at 2:40 p.m.

Some teachers and parents bristled at the idea of changing the start times at all the high schools. Opponents expressed concerns that delaying the start time by an hour would create problems for parents who drop off their kids on the way to work and would disrupt extracurricular activities and sports schedules. A later dismissal time could also create safety concerns, with students leaving for home later.

In a letter, the local teachers union asked that the district delay such a plan in order to gather more information about the effects it would have on individual schools. A change could force additional work on teachers by disrupting their schedules and preparation time.

Steinhauser likened the uneasiness to similar opposition when a proposal to require school uniforms came up. Instead of implementing the uniforms all at once, they began with pilot program before eventually rolling out the policy districtwide.

“The change process is always a difficult one,” he said. “Not all the schools were excited about uniforms, but now that’s a very normal thing in Long Beach.”

Under the plan approved Monday, a committee will research the pros and cons of a later start time for high school students and report to the board no later than September 2014.

Much of the research for the proposal found that an extra hour of sleep for teenagers provided positive changes academically. Steinhauser said that more than 80 school districts nationwide have made similar changes and have reported seeing students do better in class and experience fewer discipline issues.

That potential for an extra hour of sleep, if students actually take advantage of it, could help them, Steinhauser said.

“If they do so, they’ll do better in school,” he said.



2cents smf: Starting school a hour later in secondary is one of those things on the smf/4LAKids wish-list agenda – along with Full Day K, Quality Preschool, Schools as Centers of their Community, Nurses in Nurses Offices, Librarians in Libraries, Educators in Education, Arts and Music Education; Altruistic rather than Self-Serving Philanthropy, All Parents Empowered to Vote in School Board Elections, Field Trips and Recess.

You know: Magical realism, delivered daily in every classroom.

4LAKids has followed with interest the trials and tribulations of fellow parent troublemaker/fighters-of-the-good-fight SLEEP IN FAIRFAX [Start Later for Educational Excellence Proposal] – which has contested the late school start fight against the entrenched bureaucracy and conventional thinkers in Fairfax County VA. The problem with School ®eform Inc is that it is not reform at all – it is a redesign of the Twentieth Century Factory Model to reproduce/reengineered conventional thinkers for the 21st century …when it’s critical thinkers we need.

Critical thinkers know the important questions are never on the test.

Don’t screw this up Long Beach USD – The Whole World is Watching!


Experts: LATER SCHOOL START HELPS SLEEP-DEPRIVED TEENS - Symposium looks at research, solutions by Gina Cairney, Ed Week



Elementary principal to take district helm: NEW SAN DIEGO SUPERINTENDENT HAS DEEP PARENT TIES
by Michele Molnar, Education Week | http://bit.ly/11UVOkO

March 27, 2013 :: Call it "parental prescience."

Two years ago, a parent leader in San Diego introduced Cindy Marten, the principal of Central Elementary School in City Heights, this way: "Meet the next superintendent of San Diego Unified."

It seemed a more-than-generous welcome, considering that about 850 students attend Central, and 133,000 are enrolled in the district, California's second-largest. The elevation of an elementary educator directly to such a level—the superintendency in the 19th largest school district nationwide—would be highly unusual, if not unprecedented, in the nation.
___________________________________

"THE SOLUTIONS ARE LOCAL: PARENTS, UNCLES, GRANDPARENTS, PHILANTHROPIES, AGENCIES. WHATEVER IS IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD, … NOT SOME FLASHY NEW PROGRAM."
– Cynthia Martens, San Diego Unified Superintendent-Designee
___________________________________

Little did Amy Redding, a parent leader attending that Title I Tiger Team meeting, know just how accurate that prediction would be. In early 2013, she would organize a press conference announcing a partnership between a dozen parent groups and Ms. Marten after the principal was appointed by the school board to that very role. The purpose of the partnership is to advance "academic success and educational enrichment for the children of San Diego Unified," Ms. Redding said at a March 5 news conference.

Ms. Redding, now the chairwoman of the district advisory committee for Title I, expressed unequivocal approval of Ms. Marten's selection, saying, "I have seen her complete devotion to doing what is in the best interests of the children."

However, in a phone interview, Ms. Redding echoed the surprise felt by many in San Diego at the school board's method of making the decision: The new appointment came within 24 hours of current Superintendent Bill Kowba's retirement announcement. Ms. Marten will begin her new position July 1.

"Since the board had talked about parent involvement, then chose the superintendent behind closed doors, we thought it would make it very difficult for her," Ms. Redding said. Publicly forging a relationship with 12 parent groups was intended to be "like the first day of school, starting with a clean slate," she said.
Known Quantity

For her part, Ms. Marten has attended parent and community meetings beyond the confines of Central Elementary for years. Parent leaders already know her. And now, so does most of San Diego. Last fall, she starred in the only district-produced commercial urging voters there to support Proposition Z, a $2.8 billion school bond measure on the San Diego school district ballot to make capital improvements like roof repairs and upgrades to fire-safety systems. The electorate approved the measure on Nov. 6 with 61.8 percent of the vote.

The incoming superintendent stresses her commitment to student achievement regardless of the vicissitudes of budget, outside support, or internal strife.

"The district's mission is a quality school in every neighborhood; I believe that what we need is right in our backyard," she said in a recent phone interview, likening her challenges to the "Wizard of Oz" wonderment of finding all the answers at home.

Known widely, but informally, as a "turnaround principal"—Central Elementary is not officially designated as a failing school in need of formal turnaround—Ms. Marten objects to the potential misinterpretation of that moniker. She rejects the idea that she possesses any "superhero" leadership qualities and questions the wider meaning of transforming educational institutions.

"That 'turnaround' term has national implications for corporate America coming in and turning around a school. Outsiders. I don't believe in a paradigm that somebody outside is going to save you. I don't think we even need to be saved," she said. "The solutions are local: parents, uncles, grandparents, philanthropies, agencies. Whatever is in your own backyard, … not some flashy new program."

Ms. Marten believes that, in relying on local resources for her brand of school reform at Central, she has been creating change that is more likely to last and earn the confidence of the community.

"With every decision I've made, [I ask], 'Is this going to be sustainable if the money comes or the money goes? Is it scalable?' " she said.
Scaling Up

For the benefit of San Diego Unified, Ms. Marten's work will need to scale up her approach in a district that runs 118 elementary schools, 24 middle schools, 26 high schools, 44 charter schools, and a number of specialized schools on a $1 billion annual operating budget.

"The biggest challenge is her transition from being a principal to having more responsibility for a district the size of San Diego. But I wouldn't consider that an insurmountable challenge. She's obviously a quick learner," said Dan A. Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, in Alexandria, Va. He said he is unaware of any elementary school principal being named directly to such a position in a district with more than 2,000 students.

Another observer who can appreciate Ms. Marten's challenge is Deborah Jewell-Sherman, now director of the Urban Superintendents Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A former elementary school principal herself, she was the superintendent of schools in Richmond, Va., for six years—but only after studying at Harvard and taking other leadership roles in the district.

"This is a [superintendency] we'll probably be watching throughout the nation," she said. "Part of me is tickled to death. If people who have no concept of teaching and learning can step into the role, she's going to be able to show all of us just what an elementary school principal can do."

Ms. Jewell-Sherman summarizes the road ahead: "Now she will have to do systemically what she was able to do in her elementary school, while taking on fiscal challenges, political challenges, [and] governance concerns."

But Ms. Jewell-Sherman also cautions, "The learning curve is going to be rather steep. My hope is that she will surround herself not only with people who are embracing her ... but also people from a local university or the corporate sector who can help her think about this as a system, as opposed to a school."

Carl Cohn, who served as San Diego's superintendent from 2005 to 2007 and is now director of the Urban Leadership Program in the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif., sees a strong signal from the local school board.

"By this selection, it seems to me that [the school board's] theory of action for change is that it will be school-based, decentralized, collaborative—the opposite of the 'top down' corporate reform model that so many other places are articulating," he said. The choice "grows out of their listening to the stakeholders in that community.

"The San Diego board of education, which appointed Ms. Marten unanimously, gave her a major vote of confidence by granting her the maximum allowable contract—four years—with a starting salary of $255,000, which is $5,000 more than Mr. Kowba's earnings in the position. Ms. Marten has committed to donate that additional $5,000 to a student who is planning a career in education.
Staying Accessible

Barbara Flannery, the president of the San Diego Unified Council of PTAs, which guides and supports 80 PTA units in San Diego, says she thought the board's decision on Ms. Marten was "surprising in its speed," but she does not dispute the wisdom of the move. The current superintendent is "very engaging and he's always been there supporting our PTA effort," she said. She will be looking for Ms. Marten to be similarly accessible.

"In fact, Cindy Marten is coming to our next general meeting, so she's definitely out there, meeting the community," she said.

Ms. Marten said she is eager to tap any parent resource—whether part of an organized group, or not—to accomplish her goals. She especially appreciates Ms. Redding's efforts to get organized parent groups prepared to work with her.

"Amy ignited a parent group that's right there, at the ready," Ms. Marten said. "The parents are the heart of the community," she said. "We do the work together."



2 ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: Dropouts + Parents Language and Dropouts

"THE ENGLISH-LEARNER DROPOUT DILEMMA: MULTIPLE RISKS AND MULTIPLE RESOURCES"
By Lesli A. Maxwell, EdWeek Report Roundup | http://bit.ly/YL77z8

March 26, 2013 :: English-language learners are twice as likely to drop out of school as their peers who are either native English speakers or former ELLs who have become fluent in the language, concludes a report by the California Dropout Research Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Synthesizing much of the research over the past three decades on the reasons behind the low academic achievement and high dropout rates of English-learners, author Rebecca M. Callahan, an education professor at the University of Texas at Austin, finds that many English-learners are still isolated in English-as-a-second-language programs that focus little, if at all, on academic content. That's the case even though most states and districts will not reclassify a student as fluent in English until he or she has demonstrated proficiency in both language and academic content.
English Learner Dropout Dilemma: Multiple Risks and Multiple Resources

Download: Full Report (60 pgs.) or Policy Brief (4 pgs.) from http://cdrp.ucsb.edu/

Reference: Callahan, Rebecca M. (2013). The English Learner Dropout Dilemma: Multiple Risks and Multiple Resources.

ABSTRACT: In the 2008-09 school year, nearly 11 percent of U.S. students in grades K-12 were classified as English learners (EL), and many more were former EL students, no longer identified by their 'limited' English proficiency. This report examines the extent, consequences, causes, and solutions to the dropout crisis among EL students and the extent to which these issues are similar or different among dropouts relative to the general population. Research repeatedly shows that EL students are about twice as likely to drop out as native and fluent English speakers. The social, economic and health consequences of dropping out that threaten the general population likely influence EL students as well. While many of the same factors that produce dropouts in the general population apply to EL students, others are unique: tracking as a result of EL status, access to certified teachers, and a high stakes accountability system. In terms of solutions to the EL dropout dilemma, three main reforms rise to the top of importance: Academic exposure, use of the primary language, and a shift from a deficit to an additive perspective.


"ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS AND PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT"
By Alyssa Morones, EdWeek Report Roundup | http://bit.ly/11TItNu

March 26, 2013 :: A recent brief from the National Education Policy Center outlines ways for policymakers, districts, and schools to improve educational opportunities for English-language learners. Those students tend to be concentrated in schools serving low-income populations and lacking adequate instruction or materials—a problem that is exacerbated by communication and cultural barriers between schools and parents, it says.

School-based efforts to strengthen parental involvement could help increase parental efficacy and advocacy, says the brief, written by William Mathis of the NEPC. Improved communication, collaboration with families, and an embrace of community culture, it says, could help alleviate educational challenges for ELLs. Providing parents with avenues to learn English would also help promote ELL parent involvement and encourage parents to read and write with their children at home.

For policymakers, adequacy studies and identified financial inequities in serving ELL students, once reviewed and updated, should be utilized for improved legislation and budget allocations, the brief recommends.


English Language Learners and Parental Involvement



HOLD DISTRICTS ACCOUNTABLE FOR RESTORING FUNDING FOR THE ARTS

By Mark Slavkin / commentary in EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/XgHIMK

March 26th, 2013 :: A well-rounded education that includes the arts is essential to prepare California students for college and careers. A year of fine arts is required for admission to the CSU or UC campuses. Further, the skills students gain in the arts – imagination, creativity and innovation – are essential for success in the California economy, no matter the industry or sector.

While the California Education Code has long established the place of the arts in the required course of study, actual implementation in California classrooms varies widely. Recognizing these disparities and understanding the need for additional resources, the Legislature in 2006 established the Art and Music Block Grant, a $105 million line item in the California Department of Education budget that provides every school district an allocation based on their total enrollment.

Just as districts began to gain traction in expanding arts programs, the state economic crisis threatened all school funding. In light of state budget cuts, the Legislature granted districts special flexibility, allowing many categorical funding sources to be used to sustain basic operations.

As the state emerges from the economic crisis and school funding begins to improve, it is time to turn back to the question the Legislature addressed in 2006: How can we best ensure all California students have equitable access to quality arts education?

The governor’s proposed 2013-14 budget would eliminate almost all categorical programs in the name of local control and flexibility. We have strong concerns about whether all kids will have equitable access to the arts under this new funding model. Historically, students in high-performing schools in more affluent communities have had the greatest access to the arts. Sadly, those students in underserved communities who might benefit the most from a more engaging and well-rounded curriculum receive the least. We urge the Legislature to give careful thought to this issue and consider the options below to address it.

Establish “innovation matching grants” to encourage districts to invest in the arts. Perhaps half of the existing Art and Music Block grant could be set aside for competitive matching grants for districts that increase student access.
Require districts to publish an annual “arts education report card” documenting the current status of arts education in their schools. This could empower parents and other concerned citizens to understand current gaps and advocate with their school board to make arts learning a greater priority.
Require districts to include their plan for arts education in the overall “academic achievement plan” called for in the governor’s budget proposal.
Require that student learning in the arts be included in the expanded Academic Performance Index now being developed by the State Board of Education.

We look forward to working with the governor and Legislature to ensure all students gain equitable access to arts education.

•••


Mark Slavkin chairs the board for the California Alliance for Arts Education, a statewide coalition working to strengthen arts education in K-12 schools. A former member of the Los Angeles City Board of Education, Slavkin directs education programs for The Music Center in Los Angeles.


●●smf: Most excellent! Except that “perhaps half of the existing Art and Music Block grant could be set aside for competitive matching grants for districts that increase student access” rewards school districts for doing the right thing …and penalizes students who attend districts that don’t!

Competitive grants don’t create equity, they guarantee otherwise.

¿How about just insisting that the California Arts Education Standards be taught and providing enough money so that they will be?


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
Opinion: HOW I BEAT THE POWERBROKERS IN A SCHOOL BOARD RACE: By Bennett Kayser, Op-Ed in the LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/108rnaC

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR MORE BACK-STABBING IN PRESCHOOL: By CARINA CHOCANO, NEW YOTK TIMES | http://bit.ly/164JKxU

NATIONAL SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION SEEKS CURBS ON U.S. EDUCATION SECRETARY: By Tom Chorneau - SI&A Cabinet Rep... http://bit.ly/10Z6ekq

HOLD DISTRICTS ACCOUNTABLE FOR RESTORING FUNDING FOR THE ARTS: By Mark Slavkin / commentary in EdSource Today ... http://bit.ly/11V7aZX

Michelle Rhee: TAKING A CRACK AT CALIFORNIA’S EDUCATION SYSTEM + smf’s 2¢: Michelle Rhee came to prominence as... http://bit.ly/106yArB

2 ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: Dropouts + Parents: Language and Dropouts "The English-Learner Dropou... http://bit.ly/162gt72

Experts: LATER SCHOOL START HELPS SLEEP-DEPRIVED TEENS: Symposium looks at research, solutions by Gina Cairn... http://bit.ly/11TCo3v

Elementary principal to take district helm: NEW SAN DIEGO SUPERINTENDENT HAS DEEP PARENT TIES: By Michele Moln... http://bit.ly/ZFdn8f

LAUSD SALVAGES SUMMER SCHOOL, BUT CLASSES WILL BE LIMITED: ●●smf’s 2¢: …maybe that should be LAUSD Savages Sum... http://bit.ly/11MQbsG

TO OCCUPY… OR BE OCCUPIED…: by smf for 4LAKidsNews: When the following email with the title above popped up i... http://bit.ly/YyMINF

LONG BEACH MIDDLE SCHOOLS TO START DAY AN HOUR LATER + smf’s 2¢: By Stephen Ceasar, L.A, Times | http://bit.ly/Zr4Ndf

What they talk about in D.C. during Spring Break: THE “EDUCATION INDUSTRY” EVALUATES TEACHERS + PLUS SCHOOL DI... http://bit.ly/Zr4Plt


EVENTS: Coming up next week...
Thursday Apr 04, 2013
Washington Preparatory High School Wellness Center: Grand Opening and Ribbon-Cutting
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location:
Washington Prep Wellness Center
1555 West 110th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90047
______________________
• Parents of children with IEPs and all other members of the LAUSD community are invited to provide comments to Mr. Frederick Weintraub, the court appointed Independent Monitor, during two hearings scheduled for Thursday, April 11, 2013 (9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.). The hearings will be held at LAUSD Board Room located at 333 S. Beaudry Avenue.

*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: 213-241.8700


Parents of children with IEPs and all other members of the LAUSD community are invited to prov LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
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! • Find your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • 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 Brown: 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. THEY DO!.


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




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. 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 as 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.
• FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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Sunday, March 24, 2013

'This is not a crisis!'


Onward! 4LAKids
4LAKids: Sunday 25•Mar•2013 ¡Spring Break!
In This Issue:
 •  INCUBATOR SCHOOL IN L.A. SPARKS DISCORD OVER LOCATION, TEACHERS + more
 •  INSTEAD OF CLOSING (or reconstituting, charterizing, privatizing, magnetizing or pilotizing) SCHOOLS - HOW ABOUT (…are you sitting down?) SAVING THEM?
 •  IS HEALTH AND SAFETY REALLY A TOP PRIORITY? + MOURNING THE LOSS OF A STUDENT
 •  HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
 •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...
 •  What can YOU do?


Featured Links:
 •  OUR CHILDREN, OUR FUTURE: What will California schoolchildren, your school district and YOUR School get when the initiative passes?
 •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting
 •  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.
‘Twas the week before Spring Break, and all through The District….

ON MONDAY AFTERNOON 14-year-old Nobel Middle School honor student Aria Dougherty’s sister came home to find Aria dead from “huffing” – inhaling computer cleaner. This is classic needless, senseless tragedy – a young life ended from pure reckless adolescent behavior every bit as dangerous as playing ‘chicken’ in Rebel Without a Cause, And the fatal flaw, in Shakespearean fashion, lies in our adult selves and the failure of our educational mission to educate Aria to the dangers – and her family, friends, teachers and student colleagues to the warning signs of inhalant abuse. Even though the teaching materials and student handouts are in a warehouse somewhere; and the curriculum is in a binder. Seven percent of middle schoolers abuse inhalants; one+ kid in every classroom. There are 2430 students at Nobel, predictably 170 huffers. There are about 84 middle schools in LAUSD. And elementary kids and high school students huff too. Don’t do the math, do the Health Education. [US Consumer Product Safety Commission - A Parent's Guide to Preventing Inhalant Abuse | http://1.usa.gov/X0SLcK]

THE BOARD MEETING ON TUESDAY WAS INTERESTING – and couple of things that came out of it couldn’t have delighted the powers that be.

• A NEW BOARD RULE forbids a boardmember from serving more than two successive one year terms as president – a move opposed by six-times-in-succession board president Monica Garcia. The rule does not apply to this board and it cannot be binding on the board that will be installed next July – but the four-to-three vote shows waning confidence in Ms.Garcia’s leadership. The quote o’ th’ week goes to outgoing boardmember Nury Martinez – who said: “I think this is about something else.”

• Similarly the superintendent’s mission to install a PILOT SCHOOL AT VENICE HIGH SCHOOL (whether they want one or not) met with determined community resistance - and a vote by the board to approve the pilot …but not at Venice! [Incubator School in L.A. Sparks Discord Over Location, Teachers] Thursday the superintendent was back at Venice –Tearing down signs and proclaiming “This is not a crisis!”...while pleading, cajoling or bullying the community to reconsider. Maybe he was sweetening the deal – but some voices say he was threatening to impose a Prop 39 charter school co-location on the campus if they didn’t accept the pilot. This one gets the 4LA Kids understatement-of-the-obvious o’ th’ week, from the LA Times article cited above: “District officials acknowledged their communication efforts fell short.”


I am beginning to suspect that the superintendent sees schools that don’t agree with his vision of their future as nails in need of pounding down – and all the tools in his Public School Choice/NCLB/®eform toolbox - whether reconstitution, charterization, privatization, magnetization or pilotization - as a hammer. There are a couple of articles and a report referencing “Community Schools” following.(“Instead of Closing…”) They need to be read.

WEDNESDAY THE BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE MET, discussed+approved the list of potential Prop 39 charter co-locations (Venice is not on the list) as well as safety upgrades at early childhood centers and to talk about the final settlement with the insurance company over the settlement of the Garfield Fire and the building of the new admin building and auditorium.

THURSDAY The Chicago mayor’s office and Chicago Public Schools (which are running a near one billion dollar deficit) announced that they are closing 55 schools, potentially saving $43 million a year – cutting the deficit less than-one-half-of-one-percent per year.- - if you don’t factor in the $230 million one-time-cost of the shut down. (The CEO/superintendent and the CPS board are appointed by the mayor, essentially making the entire system completely accountable to Mayor Emanuel - who is on a skiing vacation.). Thursday morning there was an impromptu press conference on the sidewalk in front of Beaudry as more allegations of cover-up of wrongdoing at De La Torre Elementary School came to light. Is it all true? There are so many shades of truth; they change depending on where you stand – but the questions are coming around to: “What did the superintendent know?…and when did he know it?”

UP IN SACRAMENTO on Thursday Senator Padilla’s “Bad Teacher” Bill (SB10) – hand crafted by LAUSD – died a early death and was replaced by Assembly Ed Chair Buchanan’s “Not so Bad Teacher” Bill (AB375) which may be more acceptable to teachers even though it still limits right of appeal – but is accompanied by AB1338 – which 4LAKids supports with a happy dance – because it requires school districts to teach and inform school staff of the rules about mandatory reporting of child abuse. (Last month the Brentwood USD superintendent in Contra Costa County was fired in because his staff failed to report child abuse| http://bit.ly/14doYQ0)

Also Thursday the State Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance shot down Governor Brown’s proposal to realign Adult Ed from K-12 to the Community Colleges. While that vote isn’t final – it doesn’t portend well for the Governor’s plan.

And as we are in a happy dancing mood: Thursday afternoon was the ribbon cutting for New Central Elementary School #21- one of the last of the new schools – with boring speeches by adults and fabulous student performances and the best space shuttle ever made from pizza boxes!. A grand time was had by all. The superintendent should really come to these things – there is joy when the community receives the gift it has made to future generations of its own children. And no one is more joyful than the young recipients themselves!

AND FRIDAY? I’m starting to write this Friday afternoon – and so far so good – though there should be something to report from the forced call* of the Venice High School/School Based Management Committee meeting soon.

UPDATE: The Venice High School School Based Management Committee – - which ostensibly has the authority to approve/disapprove The Incubator Charter siting agreement convened in an emergency meeting Friday – but lacked a quorum. They tried to reschedule the vote for Tuesday but no one is available (Next week is Spring Break, so the three components of SBM: Teachers/Staff, Parents/Community, and Students are all off campus) - so the same problem would arise. A teacher recommended not to reconvene until April 2nd when school is back in session.
April 2nd is the day after the deadline that Deasy ordered (so to speak)
A SBM member declared a victory of sorts: -“We will not be bullied by impossible-to-meet deadlines that were not outlined in the amendment at the LAUSD Board of Ed meeting this past Tuesday.”.

And so it was and is and doesn’t always have to be.

¡Onward/Adelante! - smf


*A “Forced Call” is a show biz expression for when the production manager makes you come back early from a late night overtime shoot – essentially not giving the cast and crew enough time to sleep. You may be dirty and sleepy and grumpy (you may be all the dwarfs) …and you’re certainly not very productive – but you are making compound overtime!


INCUBATOR SCHOOL IN L.A. SPARKS DISCORD OVER LOCATION, TEACHERS + more
THE PILOT MIDDLE SCHOOL, WHICH IS SLATED TO OPEN NEXT YEAR BUT LACKS A SITE, WILL TEACH STUDENTS HOW TO LAUNCH A BUSINESS IN ADDITION TO ACADEMICS.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times | http://bit.ly/11wdzdF

March 20, 2013 :: Sujata Bhatt uses online games to encourage her students at Grand View Boulevard Elementary School to aim higher: "Don't just play games, make them."

Now Bhatt will get the chance to teach middle school students how to launch their own businesses at a new campus approved this week by the Los Angeles school board. The Incubator School marks the latest effort in L.A. Unified to spark innovation through "pilot" schools, where district educators are given autonomy over their curriculum, budget, staffing, training and other elements.

Despite enthusiasm for the school's concept, however, the plan became entangled in disputes over its location, union concerns over job placement rules and political tensions.

The board backed off from locating the new campus at Venice High School after parents and students complained they were not informed about it until last week. Sara Roos, a Venice High parent, told the board she wanted more details about the plan, although she sharply criticized it in online comments as an "experiment indoctrinating children in the tricks of an unregulated, free capitalistic market."

Lisa Sobajian, 10th-grade class president, submitted a petition signed by 1,000 students opposed to sharing their campus with the new school.

Bhatt said that she met with Venice High's principal and teachers union representative last October, but that requests to present the idea to the faculty drew no response. District officials acknowledged their communication efforts fell short.

In any case, under an amendment by board member Steve Zimmer, the board approved the school but directed the district and Venice community to work together to seek a location.

That did not disappoint Bhatt, who said she felt "relief and joy" over the board's approval.

"I want students to be excited about learning," Bhatt said. "It's about creating quality schools for kids."

United Teachers Los Angeles, however, has not weighed in on the new school. The union has looked carefully at the 49 pilot schools approved in L.A. Unified because they require one-year teaching contracts that do not place seniority as the top factor in job placement, giving administrators greater power to transfer teachers.

To control the quality of the new school, union President Warren Fletcher said those proposing it should operate it for a year to "get the kinks out" before seeking pilot status and a faculty vote on the shorter contract.

But Mohammed Choudhury, policy manager of Future is Now Schools, a not-for-profit group supporting pilot campuses, disagreed that schools should be required to operate for a year before becoming a pilot. Choudhury said that delaying pilot status would give the union a chance to lobby teachers against signing the shorter contract.

"It's an attempt to protect mediocrity," he said.

The not-for-profit, started by former Green Dot Public Schools chief Steve Barr, contributed $150,000 in stipends for Incubator School's design team. Barr said it was better to place a pilot school on campuses with extra space, such as Venice High; otherwise, the district would be legally required to offer it to a charter school, which is publicly financed but independently run.

Bhatt, a teacher for 11 years who has been credited with boosting student achievement in English and math, said she came up with the idea for the school while working as an advisor for a New York start-up aiming to develop a science application for the iPad. The young entrepreneurs — many of them in their 20s who already had started their own firms — inspired her to think about how to refashion teaching to better prepare students for the accelerated advances in the digital world, she said.

"There's a disconnect between a textbook-based world, the excitement of problem solving and the energy and innovation of the digital economy," she said. "The reason students disconnect from school is that it's not connected to the real world."

The school is scheduled to open next year with an initial class of 225 sixth- and seventh-graders drawn from diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds. The students will learn such real-life skills as financial literacy and time management and they will combine academic learning with hands-on tinkering. They also will work with entrepreneurial mentors in the Westside's growing Silicon Beach and be guided to produce their own start-up business by 8th grade. The school will eventually expand through 12th grade under current plans.

Aside from the Incubator School, the board also approved two other pilot schools, Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley and WISH Secondary Media Arts School in Los Angeles.

ALSO SEE:
• The Incubator Pilot @ Venice High: A PARENT WRITES TO SUPERINTENDENT DEASY: by Mary Smith, reprinted with perm... http://bit.ly/11zIx4O

• Hear Venice HS PTA President Kristen Duerr on KPFK’s “Politics or Pedagogy” from March 21: KPFK 90.7 FM Archive http://bit.ly/10BxeGu

• INSTEAD OF CLOSING (or reconstituting, charterizing, privatizing, magnetizing or pilotizing) SCHOOLS - HOW ABO... (next article - keep reading!)


INSTEAD OF CLOSING (or reconstituting, charterizing, privatizing, magnetizing or pilotizing) SCHOOLS - HOW ABOUT (…are you sitting down?) SAVING THEM?
GIVEN THAT SCHOOL REFORMERS ARE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF GIVING PARENTS “SCHOOL CHOICE,” YOU’D THINK THEY’D LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO WANT THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS SAVED.

. . . YOU’D THINK.

By Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post/Answer Sheet | http://wapo.st/WTfWoo

Updated: March 22, 2013 :: When Michelle Rhee told D.C. school residents that she, as chancellor of public schools in the nation’s capital, was closing 23 under-enrolled schools, she promised that a lot of money would be saved that could be plowed back into academic programs in remaining schools. It didn’t happen; an audit years later found that the closings actually cost the city $40 million.

It remains to be seen how the most recent round of announced closings will shake out: Chicago just said it was closing 54 public schools this year in what seems to be the largest mass closing of schools in U.S. history; Philadelphia said it was closing more than 20 schools, and Washington D.C., 15 schools. School closings have become a tool of school reformers who say the action is needed either because the targeted schools have too few students or are failing academically — even while they support the opening of charter schools in the same neighborhoods. In Chicago’s case, both arguments for closing schools were made in recent years.

Yet promises made by school reformers who close schools — either because they are under-enrolled or labeled academically failing — are rarely kept, studies have shown. The money savings are most frequently less than promised or non-existent, and most students don’t do any better academically in their new schools, researchers who have looked at closings in cities around the country say.

This is not an argument that no schools should ever be closed. Communities change and school systems have to change, too. But in many, perhaps most cases, there are better alternatives than closing schools, ones that school reformers have so far been reluctant to do because they go well beyond the myopic view of teaching and learning as being driven by standardized tests.

There is a reason that a new study by Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation (link follows) shows that there is a divide “between leaders and parents on whether it is more important to preserve neighborhood public schools, even those that are struggling, or whether it is more important to give parents more choice.” Parents, it says, largely want their neighborhood schools improved rather than be closed, it says.

Given that school reformers are always talking about the importance of giving parents “school choice,” you’d think they’d listen to the people who want their neighborhood schools saved. One way is to actually start to address the real reasons that many kids don’t perform well in school: Their lives. Living in poverty has consequences. Living in an unstable family has consequences.

Why not turn under-enrolled schools into community schools? Such a school would offer students the physical, mental and emotional support they need, meals, and extracurricular activities. Parents could take classes, too, and the facility would be open during the weekend too, offering activities and classes that can keep young people engaged. Why not better integrate health services and education services in a way that can actually help students be better prepared to learn? That would not only help individual schools and families but preserve neighborhoods too. Is this the only answer? No. Is it part of the answer? Absolutely.

Decades of standardized-test based school reform hasn’t worked. It has made an unsatisfactory situation in urban public schools far worse. It’s time for a more humane approach. And given that school closings don’t usually save the promised amount

To those who insist there are bad teachers and bad principals who get in the way of students who want to learn, yes, there are bad teachers and bad principals, and no, they shouldn’t be allowed to keep their jobs. But to focus school reform on that issue, when the bigger problems are elsewhere and largely being ignored, is, frankly, shameful.


►ACCOUNTABILITY DILEMMAS: SCHOOLS PLAY MANY ROLES IN COMMUNITIES, AND THE PROSPECT OF CLOSING ONE UNDERMINES MOST OF THOSE.

By Chester E. Finn, Jr. / The Thomas B. Fordham Institute | http://bit.ly/Yu5umr

March 21, 2013 :: A useful new report from Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation (link follows) underscores the painful divide between parents and education reformers on the crucial topic of what to do about bad schools.

In a nutshell, if the neighborhood school is crummy, parents want it fixed. So do community leaders. Ed reformers are far more apt to want to close it and give families alternatives such as charter schools.

As Andy Smarick has perceptively written, schools play multiple roles in communities, and the prospect of closing one undermines most of those. Hence, shuttering a school affects more than the convenience of keeping one’s own kids in a familiar (and generally close-at-hand) facility, maybe even with that nice Ms. Greensleeves who teaches fourth grade there. As Jean Johnson writes on behalf of Public Agenda, based on a recent series of focus groups (as well as much other research), “Most parents see local public schools as important community institutions and viscerally reject the idea that closing schools—even those that are persistently low-performing—is a good way to improve accountability in education.”

On the reform side, however, Johnson writes, “In many communities, school leaders are closing or drastically reorganizing low-performing schools. Many districts are turning to charter schools to replace traditional public schools. Charters are often viewed as more accountable, because if the school does not meet its academic goals, its charter can be revoked. From a leadership perspective, these reforms propel the kind of change that will help more students succeed….”

Yes, she oversimplifies. A lot of school closures (as I’ve noted previously) have more to do with enrollments, capacity, and finances than with performance. And a lot of education leaders have, in fact, done everything they can to avoid drastic interference in low-performing schools—hence the widespread use of the “any other major restructuring” loophole for Title I schools needing “corrective action” due to their persistent failure to achieve “adequate yearly progress.”

The charter part of her reform model isn’t quite right, either. Yes, there are a handful of situations in the charter world—e.g., Ohio’s “sudden death” provision—where test scores alone might cause a charter school to be shut down. But conscientious authorizers do look at other information (e.g., signs of progress, graduation rates, student- and staff-turnover rates, parent and student satisfaction indicators, community circumstances, what sorts of schools would the kids go to instead, and so on). And, of course, heedless or simply greedy authorizers don’t close schools anyway—because they don’t much care, can’t stand the heat, or depend on the school fees for their own revenues.

At the same time, Johnson’s conversations with parents add some important nuance to the school-accountability discussion. They fret that overemphasis on testing fosters dull, drill-centric classrooms and gives rise to incentives to cheat. And it’s clear to parents that there’s more to school quality than test scores, which understandably makes them wary of moves to close or radically restructure schools solely on the basis of such scores. Yes, they favor testing as a useful way of knowing how a school is doing academically, but they lament that too much testing is underway and that test-based data reveal nothing about other important school features and outcomes (examples include character development, creativity, student engagement, and school leadership). Indeed, there’s valuable overlap between the other factors that matter to parents and those that conscientious authorizers (see previous paragraph) apply to their charter schools.

So there is a divide, with merit—and blind spots—on both sides. Yes, it’s ridiculous to judge a school (and take drastic action to intervene in it, even to close it) exclusively on the basis of test scores. Ditto for judgments about teachers. (“Value-added” scores—where feasible and meaningful—are better than absolute test scores, but still are not the full measure of an educational institution or classroom instructor.) On the other hand, student learning is the bottom line, and for too long American public education has paid far too little heed to it when evaluating schools and teachers.

But have we swung too far in the opposite direction? As least as perplexing, do we have—or can we create—additional metrics that tap into these other features of schools and teachers in valid ways, avoiding total subjectivity, favoritism, and caprice?

Such dilemmas deepen as states and schools prepare for new tests being developed to accompany Common Core standards for English language arts and math, as well as new tests that may follow for science. The developers claim that the next generation of assessments will do more than today’s tests to gauge a broader swath of educational attainment. The PARCC consortium, for example, asserts that its “next-generation assessment system will provide students, educators, policymakers and the public with the tools needed to identify whether students—from grade 3 through high school—are on track for postsecondary success and, critically, where gaps may exist and how they can be addressed well before students enter college or the workforce.”

If all of that comes true—and at reasonable cost in dollars and time commitments—we can fairly suppose that test-leery parents may be more satisfied, and that test-weary teachers may find that the assessment results are valuable, not just judgmental.

Today, however, there’s no way to know for sure how it will turn out. We still have two years to wait before the new assessments are administered for the first time. We have no idea where their “cut scores” will be set. And we have no idea how—or when or even whether—Congress will figure out how all of this factors into the next generation of ESEA.

As if that weren’t complexity enough, some educators have asked whether this period of change and uncertainty in standards and assessments should be accompanied by some sort of accountability moratorium, even a testing hiatus. Let the education system—and the teachers—gear up for the new arrangement (and master the new standards and pedagogical “shifts” that are built into them) without having to look over their shoulders at the same time for fear they’ll lose their jobs—or their schools—on the basis of scores on the old tests. Call it the education version of “quantitative easing,” if you will.

It’s not a crazy suggestion. Neither is it a perfect proposal, because “suspending” accountability (and testing) for two years, just as people are getting accustomed to it, would smack of a return to the bad old days and would likely provide cover for some dreadful schools and instructors to continue unchanged, damaging kids for two more years.

I wonder, though, if there isn’t some way to turn down the heat a bit during this transition period and encourage school systems and educators to focus on what’s coming rather than on the academic expectations that are going out of style.

I’m not clever enough to devise that interim arrangement. But it’s worth smart people thinking through, maybe even before the spring 2013 test scores come in.



•Report: “WILL IT BE ON THE TEST?” by Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation



IS HEALTH AND SAFETY REALLY A TOP PRIORITY? + MOURNING THE LOSS OF A STUDENT
From the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles Weekly Update | Week of April 1, 2013 | http://bit.ly/166dFHV

21 March 2013 :: The health and safety of our students and employees is a top priority for the District.

How often have you heard that statement in response to the crisis of the moment? It’s a favorite reply whenever top leadership in any industry is pressed about something detrimental that has occurred. In LAUSD, we hear it all of the time. But, in reality, if health and safety were really the District’s top priority, its schools would be appropriately staffed, not operating with the skeleton crews of today. AALA has been very vocal in citing the need for an assistant principal at every school, regardless of the level or the enrollment. And we mean a generic assistant principal who does not also have the myriad responsibilities of the APSCS. Managing the master program, student scheduling and counseling is more than enough for one person; we cannot expect them to assume all other assistant principal activities.

The assistant principal is not only integral to the smooth and efficient functioning of a school, he/she is critical for the health and safety of students. APs are typically heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of the school as they relate to students and faculty as a whole. Their primary duty is to supervise students, before, during and after school. In addition, they complete reports, enforce policy; assist the principal in the supervision of instruction; observe classrooms; participate in the selection and evaluation of teachers and other staff; order materials; plan staff development; participate in budget development; discipline and counsel students; handle attendance issues; work with parents; liaison with community and civic organizations; oversee paraprofessionals; make schedules and do a plethora of other things. Assistant principals generally cannot plan their days; they must deal with issues as they arise and most of those that do arise tend to involve the health and safety of students. They are the “fix it” people when an emergency occurs, allowing the principal to deal with parents, teachers and the public.

We must emphasize that health and safety of students is the paramount reason why it is imperative that each and every school have an assistant principal. The principal cannot possibly do everything alone and certainly cannot be everywhere. Currently, elementary schools must have 1,110 students before an AP is assigned, which means the great majority of K-5 schools have only a principal. What happens at these single administrator sites when the principal must leave for one of the myriad “required” meetings? Who is in charge? The designee who is frequently a classroom teacher? The SAA? What if there is an emergency—who makes the critical decision to call for assistance? Who takes control? How does the work get completed? It is virtually impossible for principals who have no other administrative support to accomplish everything that must be done when running a school. Even when they work evenings and weekends, they never seem to catch up, leaving them in a consistent state of stress and exhaustion.

In these turbulent times, our students and staff deserve more support at the school site. AALA demands that the District immediately provide adequate administrative and support staff for all schools by improving the norms at all levels.


MOURNING THE LOSS OF A STUDENT

AALA would like to thank Dr. Lori Vollandt, Coordinator, Health Education Programs, for writing this article.

21 March 2013 :: On Monday afternoon, Aria Doherty, an honor student at Nobel Middle School, died from cardiac arrest due to inhalant abuse.

Nothing is more tragic than the death of a child; nothing more important than a child’s health. Just ask any parent or a teacher who has lost a student …or a principal who has received the call of a student passing.

When I was a teacher at Marshall HS, I lost students to shootings, overdose, suicide and accidents. Each one, every single one, was painful. The news, the sinking feeling that dropped me to my knees, the idea that I had to keep it together while I wanted to just grieve. I became even more determined to try and prevent preventable deaths.

When opening our school- based health clinic at Marshall, my then colleague, Board Member Steve Zimmer, said, “I have attended more funerals of students than the amount of times I have attended graduation ceremonies. I hope with the opening of this clinic, we can change those numbers.”

Fewer funerals and more graduations.” A simple but very powerful statement.

Many times, most times, death is preventable, especially for adolescents and young adults. Often, I am asked to show the statistics when I promote health education. Fair enough. The results of the California a Healthy Kids Survey of LAUSD elementary and secondary students provides some alarming facts regarding their self - admitted high risk behaviors.

• Elementary: Key Findings 2009/10 | http://bit.ly/YwPuNz
| Main Report 2009 /10 | http://bit.ly/16NXekN
• Middle School/High School: Key Findings 2009/10 | http://bit.ly/11tmPiK
Main Report 2009/10 | http://bit.ly/1666QWJ
• Supplemental Questions Findings (Secondary) | bit.ly/YwR95z

Prevention isn’t sexy. It doesn’t get the headlines.

It is the day-to-day work of all of us as parents and educators to ensure children’s health. LAUSD has adopted health standards that can be accessed at http://bit.ly/11qRny0
and those for the State of California are located at http://bit.ly/X0jPIZ.

T he following topics are included : • Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs (inhalant prevention starts in grade 2) • Nutrition and Physical Activity • Growth and Development • Mental, Emotional and Social Health (including social - emotional skill building) • Personal and Community Health • Injury prevention and safety (including sexual abuse prevention)

Health standards are skills based and must be practiced. It is not enough to just tell students what they are supposed to do and then send them on without any practice or skill.

Good health habits have to be practiced. Math problems are practiced, plays are practiced, test taking is practiced and avoiding high risk behaviors has to be practiced.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
STOP READING ANYTIME YOUR DISBELIEF KICKS IN : (from LA Schools Report) A new report|http://bit.ly/13oaYUm out from a Washington DC think tank closely associated with the Democratic Party takes a look at the history of “mayoral control” of big-city school systems in which City Hall runs a district rather than an independently elected Board of Education.
According to the report, written by a pair of academics from Brown University and the University of Minnesota (and funded by the Broad Foundation), mayoral control doesn’t work everywhere but is associated with rising test scores and “can be a catalyst for reform.”
••smf: “…can be?” – The Broad Foundation couldn’t even buy a “maybe should...?” What's become of 'Academia for hire'?

The Incubator Pilot @ Venice High: A PARENT WRITES TO SUPERINTENDENT DEASY: by Mary Smith, reprinted with perm... http://bit.ly/11zIx4O

LAUSD TEACHERS SET TO VOTE ON CONFIDENCE IN DISTRICT, UNION POLICIES: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer | LA Dail... http://bit.ly/11zIwxA

Carpenter Community Charter: THE DOWNSIDE OF SUPERSTAR SCHOOLS: It's no surprise that parents go to great leng... http://bit.ly/YpcxiZ

CALIFORNIA VOTERS SPLIT ON JERRY BROWN SCHOOL PLANS + smf’s 2¢: Good policy meets bad process: Fifty percent a... http://bit.ly/15HLNYu

INCUBATOR SCHOOL IN L.A. SPARKS DISCORD OVER LOCATION, TEACHERS: The pilot middle school, which is slated to o... http://bit.ly/11wdzdF

GOOD NEWS FOR ADULT EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA: from the AALA Update | http://bit.ly/166dFHV 21 March 2013 ... http://bit.ly/10u1YJz

INSTEAD OF CLOSING (or reconstituting, charterizing, privatizing, magnetizing or pilotizing) SCHOOLS - HOW ABO... http://bit.ly/Z8K1yT

SENATOR PADILLA DROPS HIS TEACHER DISMISSAL BILL, SB10 - IN FAVOR OF ASSEMBLY ED CHAIR BUCHANAN’S AB 375: By J... http://bit.ly/15AV9VX

ALLEGATIONS OF COVER-UP + FAILURE TO REPORT CHILD ABUSE @ DE LA TORRE ELEMENTARY IMPLICATE SENIOR LAUSD OFFICI... http://bit.ly/11sdY0J
Expand

smf deconstructs the LAUSD school board election, plus Ground Zero reports from Venice High and more than you ever wanted to know about the the Common Co®e on “Politics or Pedagogy” w/John Cromshow live tonight 3/21 @ 8pm KPFK 90.7 - ARCHIVE: http://bit.ly/10BxeGu


ARIA DOHERTY, 14, DIES OF “HUFFING” COMPUTER CLEANER + smf’s 2¢: Aria Doherty, 14, died on Monday, March 18, ... http://bit.ly/Y8MYTl

THE POLITICAL FUTURE OF THE TEACHING PROFESSION: Commentary By Arthur E. Wise & Michael D. Usdan/Education wee... http://bit.ly/10l1Z2n


MORE FROM TUESDAY’S BOARD MEETING: Magnets Redux + Security in Early Childhood Ed: LAUSD considers allowing s... http://bit.ly/15tnQnC

WHY ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA FELL SHORT AS LA’s EDUCATION MAYOR: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez| Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC | ht... http://bit.ly/ZvEzpz

US DEPT OF ED INSPECTOR GENERAL FINDS INADEQUATE CHARTER SCHOOL OVERSIGHT AT FEDERAL & STATE LEVEL: by smf for... http://bit.ly/10hDROe

COMMITTEE WRESTLES WITH INCORPORATING GRAD RATES INTO API: By John Fensterwald | EdSource Today http://... http://bit.ly/11ijKC3

GRANADA HILLS & EL CAMINO HIGH SCHOOLS ADVANCE TO NATIONAL ACADEMIC DECATHLON: Two California teams advance to... http://bit.ly/11igGG8

TUESDAY LAUSD BOARD MEETING: 3 PILOT SCHOOLS APPROVED, GARCIA REPUDIATED: New school to teach entrepreneurship... http://bit.ly/15pYC9I

LAUSD CAN BALANCE BUDGET THIS YEAR, BUT POTENTIAL LOSSES LOOM + smf’s 2¢: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA D... http://bit.ly/YU9o7q

Thursday April 11: PUBLIC HEARINGS ON LAUSD’s COMPLIANCE WITH SPECIAL EDUCATION LAWS: from the Office of the I... http://bit.ly/15myTPn

FRANKLIN HIGH SCHOOL WINS ACA-DECA SUPER QUIZ, FALLS JUST SHORT OF NATIONAL FINALS + smf’s 2¢: FHS had the thi... http://bit.ly/YRzibT

Opinion: LET’S SHELVE THE CSTs SO THE REAL WORK CAN BEGIN: By Merrill Vargo / commentary in EdSource Today | ... http://bit.ly/114Yxro
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Scott Folsom Scott Folsom ‏@4LAKids 18 Mar

CDE, TORLAKSON LEAD EFFORT TO FORGE AHEAD ON COMMON CORE DESPITE CHALLENGES: By Tom Chorneau. SI&A Cabinet Re... http://bit.ly/107EiKW
110SGn2


EVENTS: Coming up next week...


*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: 213-241.8700


• LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
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! • Find your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • 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 Brown: 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. THEY DO!.


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




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. 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 as 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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