In This Issue:
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| • | FRUSTRATED LA SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS’ MESSAGE TO ADMINISTRATORS: PROVIDE DETAILED ARTS BUDGET |
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| • | SCHOOL LIBRARIANS A RARE FIND IN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS |
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| • | Recovery …or Hospice care? NEW ORLEANS DISTRICT MOVES TO AN ALL-CHARTER SYSTEM |
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| • | BILL ADDRESSING PROP. 13 LOOPHOLE CLEARS TWO-THIRDS THRESHOLD IN ASSEMBLY WITH SOME GOP VOTES |
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| • | HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
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| • | EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
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| • | What can YOU do? |
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Featured Links:
| | | | On Thursday the Superintendent, the Board Vice President and a smattering of District staff from Legal+ Finance were in New York City – “Winging to Gotham” on Wednesday to meet with investment bankers and credit rating agencies in preparation for going to the market and selling some bonds to finance the ongoing construction, modernization and technology efforts here in LAUSD. There is nothing earthshaking afoot. (Well …maybe a seismic upgrade or two!) This is all very par-for-the-course – part of everyone’s due diligence before selling municipal+school bonds. Surely the District described the growing property tax base and slow-but-steady economic recovery in California; the progressive fiscal conservatism of Governor Brown and LAUSD’s own financial policy. The credit raters HAVE given LAUSD higher ratings than California in the past.
Those bankers and credit agencies have done their research of course - they already know what (or perhaps better-than) they’re being told. These visits are pro-forma politenessness; a minuet in the key of cash. Wall Street isn’t concerned about LAUSD; they are worried about student loans and pensions and Washington dysfunction and market volatility and Syria and the IMF and Ukraine and the Gas Markets in Russia.
They probably asked about LAUSD politics – they have to see the 3-to-3 split on the Board, they have to note the controversy over technology purchases and the Districts lack of progress in collective bargaining agreements. Gov. Brown’s proposal to address the unfunded teacher’s pensions must make them warm+ fuzzy; the increases to the General Fund through the LCFF sound good …and they also have to recognize just how well run and prudent the LAUSD Facilities Program has been since 1997. That, after all, is what they’re lending the money to fund.
The voters and taxpayers have voted their support 5 times in 17 years. Would you like another cup of coffee? It’s from our own plantation in Jamaica.
ALSO ON THURSDAY, at the Beaudry Boardroom there was bit of dissent about that well-run/voter+taxpayer supported program. The expenditure of those bond funds and all the transparent+accountable oversight was being questioned by the very Oversight Committee the Voters of California and Los Angeles placed to watchdog the process in a Constitutional Amendment, state law, five school bond packages and a Memorandum of Understanding between LAUSD, The Board of Ed and the Oversight Committee. As you read here last week the Board of Ed refused to reappoint a very vocal critic of the superintendent’s iPads effort. A critic, mind you, who had not been successful in quashing the program (and the successful effort to slow the program down was not his alone) - but who had only asked questions about it. Stuart Magruder is one vote and one voice in fifteen – and the Board refuses to re-appoint him.
Magruder’s fiercest critic says that that’s not the reason she led the charge against him – she continues to claim that Magruder’s hidden agenda is to employ architects!
I am just as guilty. I represent an association of parents, teachers and students …and I am big on putting them to work!
NONE OF ANY OF THAT “He Said/She Said” MATTERS. What matters is that a three vote minority of Boardmembers wishes to create a more agreeable Bond Oversight Committee …as in “agrees with them”. When an elected body appoints the folks in charge of overseeing their actions we can toss out any concept of Independent Oversight. We become the LAUSD School Construction Bond Citizen’s Lapdog Committee. We become Monica+ Tamar+ Dr. V+D’s poodles. I don’t think so.
►LETTER: May 29, 2014
Los Angeles Unified School District
333 South Beaudry Avenue, 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Dear Board Members:
We, the undersigned members of the LAUSD School Construction Bond Citizens’ Oversight Committee (BOC), urge you to reappoint Stuart Magruder as the representative of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA/LA) on the BOC.
Mr. Magruder has been properly nominated by the AIA/LA for reappointment and, under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (§3.1.8) between the District and the BOC, the Board should reappoint him without hesitation.
Independence of the Bond Oversight Committee is vital to its proper function.
Disagreement with the comments, questions, and votes of a duly appointed member is NOT a valid justification for the Board to refuse to re-appoint that member when they have been properly re-nominated by a designated stakeholder organization. Stated simply, Stuart Magruder should be reappointed as the AIA/LA representative on the BOC as soon as possible.
[This was signed unanimously by the Oversight Committee at Thursday’s meeting.]
Did/will the Wall Street Bankers and Credit Raters note any of this?
What do you think?
LAUSD is sitting on the potential of selling $7+ billion in bonds in the future. We+the market-makers also know LAUSD has $30 billion in identified infrastructure+repair need. Eventually the District will need to go back to the voters …and the grassroots groundswell seems increasingly opposed. In 2012 this regime didn’t dare place a $255 million parcel tax on the November ballot …not just out of fear of defeat – but out of fear it would taint everything else on the ballot.
ON TUESDAY the LAUSD CURRICULUM INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE – a committee of the Board of Education - met to discuss, among other things, the Arts Education Budget. Nobody from the Arts Ed Division bothered to show up. Or more likely: They were kept away.
ON WEDNESDAY THE SPECIAL COMMON CORE TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE, a committee of the Board of Education (The iPad Committee) held their last meeting. Some questions from previous meetings were answered, new questions were asked (to be answered by e-mail) and it was announced that 60 kids from two LAUSD schools would be taking iPads home in a bizarre ‘last week o’ school’ pilot test. The District official said the schools were being kept secret to avoid “prematurely endangering” students!
LAUSD’s Common Core Technology Project: “We will endanger no child before their time.”
And there were some strange financial disclosures about how money NOT spent in ‘not to exceed’ budgeting will not be returned but instead used for something else! It’s like your kid buying candy with the change! I say using Bond Funds for anything w/o consulting the BdOfEd and the BOC is illegal. This is the kind of thing that upsets both Tamar Galatzan and Stuart Magruder …we may yet see a strange bedfellows alliance!
ALSO WEDNESDAY Mr. Kayser introduced a resolution to reappoint Mr. Magruder to the BOC.
THE REST OF THE THURSDAY BOC MEETING was testy – with the committee asking for much more detail on Boardmember pet projects and support for library modernization, etc.
MEANWHILE ELSEWHERE: The Universal Transitional Kindergarten for all Bill became not so universal and a new State School Construction Bond is headed for the November ballot. It looks like the window on splitting the rolls on Prop 13 has opened. A teacher pled no contest to child abuse and LAUSD got busted for withholding evidence. Teacher Jail is no more.
….and throughout LAUSD kids are Matriculating, Culminating and Graduating! Amen! …or true dat!
NEXT TUESDAY JUNE 3rd IS ELECTION DAY IN CALIFORNIA AND SYRIA. It’s a primary – not a huge election - but there are important races on the ballot including for Successors-to-Giants: Marguerite LaMotte, Zev Yarolavsky and Henry Waxman. Plus county supervisors and sheriff and assessor and judges and what not!
The turnout will be low – which means every vote is actually more important!
There are two education related races on the ballot:
●For Superintendent of Public Instruction 4LAKids supports incumbent Tom Torlakson; if elected his principal opponent would become the Superintendent of Privatized Instruction.
●If you live in Board District 1 please vote early+often … and please vote for George McKenna III ….I have checked the record and the George the Third that Thomas Jefferson wrote all those bad things about is a whole different George!
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
FRUSTRATED LA SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS’ MESSAGE TO ADMINISTRATORS: PROVIDE DETAILED ARTS BUDGET
MARY PLUMMER | PASS / FAIL | 89.3 KPCC | KPCChttp://bit.ly/1tqzWtN
May 28th, 2014, 3:58pm :: Los Angeles Unified School board members on Tuesday repeatedly called for more information on how administrators are providing arts education, saying they've been largely shut out for months.
"This is a point of ongoing concern and frustration," board member Steve Zimmer said during a curriculum committee meeting in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday. "We remain right where we were almost a year ago now."
Board member Monica Ratliff, who heads the committee, said she won't vote on Superintendent John Deasy's proposed 2014-15 budget until administrators provide a detailed budget showing how they'll expanded access to the arts.
A detailed budget was initially due when the district's new arts plan was released last summer, to show how administrators would meet an October 2012 school board decision to make the arts a core subject and drastically increase access.
In February, district officials presented a budget outline that would increase funding by nearly $16 million in the next three years — but most of new funds were budgeted for "arts integration" for classroom teachers. It didn't address how the district would expand arts classes.
Ratliff requested an expanded budget again during an April 29 committee meeting. It was due Tuesday. School administrators failed to deliver it.
"I was disappointed," Ratliff said.
None of the district's arts education staff spoke during the public meeting. Gerardo Loera, executive director of the school system's office of curriculum and instruction, responded to board members' questions.
Some of those questions involved the elementary school orchestra program. Back and forth changes over the past few months have created lots of confusion at schools.
Some that have had a successful orchestra program for many years reported losing it for the upcoming school year because the new form the district required them to fill out didn't make it clear the central office would pay for the classes.
Administrators handed out a list of 165 elementary schools scheduled to get instrumental music classes next year.
But Loera said he didn't know whether schools that want orchestra and aren't on the list might still be able to get it.
"That's something we can definitely research and get back to you," he said.
Ratliff also asked Loera to dig up a staffing list for the arts branch, a breakdown of which schools are paying for their own arts teachers, which get them from the district — and which get none at all.
Without those details, she said, the board can't make informed decisions on the Superintendent's budget proposals.
"This is not about an interest group," Zimmer told Loera as questions piled on, "this is about equitable access to arts education for our kids."
He asked Loera take a message to the administration: the board needs more transparency from administrators so it can craft policies that provide arts access to students who need it the most.
SCHOOL LIBRARIANS A RARE FIND IN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
By Lillian Mongeau, Ed Source | http://bit.ly/1jXUGt9
May 26th, 2014 :: Shannon Englebrecht, who works for the San Francisco Unified School District, is poised to become one of a rare breed in California when her hours are increased next year: a full-time public school librarian.
California employed 804 school librarians in 2012-13, which translates to one certified school librarian for every 7,784 students in 2012-13, according to data from the California Department of Education. That is the lowest per-student ratio of any state in the country. The national average in the fall of 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, was one school librarian for every 1,022 students, according to The National Center for Education Statistics.
The lack of certified librarians has led to a decrease in student access to books, a decline in student research skills and the loss of an important resource for teachers, said Janice See-Gilmore, president of the California School Library Association.
“It’s actually pretty dreadful,” See-Gilmore said. “In 1999 we had 1,300 teacher librarians. We’re just going in the wrong direction.”
There are fewer school librarians in California today than there were in 1988. (Note: Data for years 1989-1997, 1999 and 2009 is approximate.) Sources: California Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
State funding for school libraries has never been steady. Prior to 1994, there was no money specifically set aside for them. Between 1994 and 2009, various statewide initiatives – from a check-off on income tax forms to a block grant program for districts – funneled vastly varying amounts of money to public school libraries. Those amounts ranged from $266,000 to $158.5 million annually.
Beginning in 2009, the funding set aside for libraries became “flexible,” meaning it could be spent on other priorities as districts scrambled to slash their budgets during the recession. Many districts now employ only one teacher librarian who oversees all the libraries in the district.
Cities that have managed to avoid that fate have had to look for money closer to home. San Francisco residents voted in 2004 to set aside money from the city’s general fund that would support “extras” like sports, art and school libraries, among other programs, for public school students. See sidebar.
As tax revenues returned to pre-recession levels this year, the fund has grown significantly, allowing public schools like the one where Englebrecht works – Charles Drew College Preparatory Academy – to increase the number of hours their librarians spend on campus.
FUNDING SFUSD’S LIBRARIES
A decade ago, the San Francisco Unified School District partnered with the city to set aside a portion of the city’s general fund to help pay for school programs and services. The money goes to libraries, sports, arts and music programs, universal preschool, school nurses, translation services for immigrant parents, social workers and other resources.
The budget set-aside, which did not call for a tax increase, passed with 71 percent of the vote in 2004. Known as the Public Education Enrichment Fund, it is up for renewal in November.
Since the fund has been in place, children are checking out books at three times the rate they were the year before it was enacted. The district staffs all schools with teacher librarians, up from 18 percent the year before the fund existed. And the total number of books in circulation now tops 1 million.
“(The fund lets us) make sure that kids who traditionally don’t have access to books, do have access,” said Kathy Fleming, supervisor of the public enrichment fund.
On a recent afternoon in her sunny library at Charles Drew, Englebrecht shifted some chapter books around on a shelf, trying to make it look full. Short, easy-to-read chapter books are exactly the type she knows her young students, who live in a low-income neighborhood of San Francisco, need more of.
Englebrecht gets an annual budget to buy new books and replace dog-eared or out-of-date ones. Since Charles Drew hasn’t had a full-time librarian dedicated to curating the collection for a while, Englebrecht said there’s work to be done. In addition to more chapter-books for early readers, she’d like her 6,000-book collection to include more graphic novels for children who aren’t ready for large blocks of text and more books about sports and other topics that tend to interest boys.
“I’m looking for empowering, enabling books about African-American children,” saidEnglebrecht, whose school population is 80 percent black. “Then (for books about) Latino kids. They also deserve to see themselves in the collection.”
Englebrecht also takes her teacher-support role seriously. She’s created a teacher resource library in a storage room off the main library. Teachers can find collections of books on subjects they teach, lesson plans and curriculum reference materials.
“Having a librarian has definitely directly benefited me as a teacher,” said Englebrecht’s colleague, Laura Todorow.
Todorow, who teaches 3rd grade at Charles Drew, said the library contributes to a climate of learning and valuing books. Her students have had a chance to practice selecting and caring for books, have learned how to use a book catalogue and are more engaged in silent reading in class this year, Todorow said.
“I feel a school librarian is a non-negotiable necessity in any school,” she said.
Across the San Francisco Bay in Oakland, district librarian Ann Mayo Gallagher worries that teachers in her district might not know what benefits a school librarian could bring. Of the 75 school libraries in Oakland public schools, 23 are closed, 10 are run by volunteers and another 23 are run by part-time clerks. Nineteen are staffed by professional librarians, Mayo Gallagher said, but only one of those is paid by the district. The others are paid by individual schools, usually with money raised by the PTA.
And not even the open libraries are open all the time, Mayo Gallagher said. Of the libraries that are open, about half are open less than 20 hours a week.
“Currently (in Oakland), it’s possible to enter kindergarten and graduate high school never having gone to a school that has a library,” Mayo Gallagher said.
Many districts in the state face issues like those in Oakland. About half of the 600 elementary and middle school libraries in Los Angeles public schools are closed, according to a story in The Los Angeles Times. Forty of San Diego Unified’s 180 school libraries have been closed since budget cuts in 2008, according to a story in The School Library Journal. And the problem has spread beyond large urban districts, said See-Gilmore with the California School Library Association. She is the only teacher librarian in her suburban district of La Mesa Spring Valley, east of San Diego.
A few school districts in the state, like Palo Alto Unified, have managed to use their wealthy, local tax base to support public school libraries for years. Despite the difference in demographics, teachers in Palo Alto cited many of the same benefits of having full-time librarians as their San Francisco counterparts.
“The librarian is an amazing resource,” said Beth Maxwell, a fifth-grade teacher at Addison Elementary School in Palo Alto. “Teachers can do a lot, but when you’ve got someone who knows the kids and who can help instill the love of learning and reading, it makes a difference.”
Maxwell said the librarian at her school, Patricia Ohanian, works closely with teachers to support whatever they are working on in their classrooms. In addition to providing appropriate books and resources to match the content of classroom lessons, Maxwell said librarians teach students skills they need to finish their classroom work. During a recent research project on famous Americans, for example, Ohanian taught students how to write a bibliography during their weekly library visit.
Ohanian has been a teacher librarian for nearly 20 years and she’s been at Addison for the past six years. In addition to supporting teachers, Ohanian said she spends time keeping the school’s 16,680-book collection up to date and high quality, hosting special events like visiting authors, answering parents’ questions about their kids’ reading and leading school-wide literacy initiatives.
As Maxwell’s students took their seats in the library recently, Ohanian reminded them to get started on their opening activity for poetry month: Picking poems they liked from the collection of books on each table and copying them down so they would have several to pick from for “Poem in My Pocket Day.” Next, she led the class in reading out loud from a half dozen poems posted on the walls.
“My curriculum is based on Common Core standards,” Ohanian said later, referring to the English language arts and math standards that most states have adopted. “I take different themes of literature and then I weave in whatever I can.”
For school districts without the resources or community support found in Palo Alto, the new Local Control Funding Formula might be an option for better funding school libraries and hiring more librarians.
Districts are still developing their plans for how to spend the money they will receive under the formula and it’s unclear if libraries and librarians will rise to the top of their priority lists.
Oakland has not yet published a draft of its plan. San Jose’s East Side Union, one of the districts EdSource is following closely this year, will be increasing the number of librarians in the district in response to community feedback. West Contra Costa is taking a different tack. Under the new formula, West Contra Costa plans to buy books and other library materials, but makes no mention of hiring additional librarians.
For districts that don’t choose to hire more librarians under the new funding formula, a bill currently before the state Assembly Appropriations Committee, AB 1955, might provide them with extra funding for three school years to hire a school nurse, a school psychologist and a school librarian. Districts would need to have at least 55 percent of their student population classified as low-income to qualify for the funding.
Back in Addison’s library, 5th grader Simrun Rao had a mission. She’d just read a book called“Blue Jasmine,” about an Indian girl who immigrated to the United States and had to build a new life for herself. Simrun, who is Indian-American, wanted her friend to read the book too, so she asked Ohanian for the name of the author. Hearing “Kashmira Sheth,” the two girls scurried off to the “S” area of the fiction section.
Ohanian was glad to know that Simrun had liked “Blue Jasmine” so much, as she had recommended it. Like Englebrecht, Ohaniansaid it is critical for students to see themselves in the books they read and she has chosen the books in her collection accordingly. Her familiarity with her collection is the trait her students say they value most.
“If you tell her what type of book you like, she’ll help you out,” said fifth-grader SamanthaFeldmeier, who visited the library with her class after Maxwell’s class had finished.
“She doesn’t have to look it up on the computer,” Emily Crowley, also in fifth grade, added with a bit of awe in her voice. “She just knows.”
• Lillian Mongeau covers early childhood education. Contact her or follow her @lrmongeau. Subscribe to EdSource’s early learning newsletter, Eyes on the Early Years.
GOING DEEPER:
• A New York Times essay by renowned children’s book author Walter Dean Myers on how a school librarian turned him on to reading by providing books with people who looked like him in their pages. | http://nyti.ms/1tzwfBY
• A summary of research showing the effect a school librarian can have on student achievement by Scholastic. |http://bit.ly/1nFNapa
Recovery …or Hospice care? NEW ORLEANS DISTRICT MOVES TO AN ALL-CHARTER SYSTEM
…OR DR. DEASY HAS SEEN THE FUTURE AND IT’S POST-KATRINA NEW ORLEANS!
by Alan Greenblatt, : NPR Ed : NPR http://n.pr/T4c1VS
May 30, 2014 1:03 PM ET :: The nation's largest experiment with charter schools is expanding.
The Recovery School District, a state control board that runs most schools in New Orleans, shut down the last of its five traditional public schools this week, making it the first all-charter system in the nation.
"Twenty years ago, the first state charter laws showed that districts need not run every public school," says Andy Smarick, a senior policy fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank that backs charters. "The RSD is now demonstrating that urban districts may not need to run any schools."
Already, about 90 percent of New Orleans schoolchildren are educated in charter schools. There is still the remnant of a local school board. But only five of the 89 public schools in New Orleans will be run by the Orleans Parish School Board next fall. The rest will be operated by more than 40 different charter organizations. Some are part of national chains, like KIPP, while others are run by local community groups.
"It's a breathtaking makeover of an urban school system that, before [Hurricane Katrina in 2005], had 120 schools run by an elected school board that was bedeviled by mismanagement and corruption," according to Education Week.
Corruption was so bad in the old days that the FBI and other federal and local investigators had set up a satellite branch in the school board's building itself.
In response to poor performance, Louisiana's Recovery School District was established in 2003 to take over the state's worst schools. Prior to Katrina, RSD controlled five schools in New Orleans.
Its role was vastly expanded following the storm. RSD Superintendent Patrick Dobard announced in December that he would shut down the system's last few public schools a year ahead of schedule.
The RSD and its aggressive use of charters has since served as a model for state takeovers of schools in Detroit, Memphis, Tenn., and elsewhere.
"New Orleans continues to be the new frontier of school reform, with enormous improvements fueled by the dramatic post-Katrina expansion of charter schooling," says Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
The public school population in New Orleans has shrunk since Katrina, to about 43,000 students, from 65,000. District demographics remain similar, however, with African-American students making up 90 percent and low-income students about 80 percent of the student body as a whole.
Since the storm, RSD students have logged steady gains in math and reading scores. The high school graduation rate is now nearly 80 percent — better than the state as a whole and up dramatically from 54 percent back in 2004.
Despite such improvements, the all-charter approach has plenty of critics who maintain there are problems with overly strict disciplinary policies. A civil rights complaint was filed last month against Collegiate Academies, which operates three high schools that had the highest suspension rates in the city last year.
Charters in New Orleans as around the country have also been criticized for the perception that individual schools seek to pick and choose their students in ways traditional public schools can't. The city's worst schools are populated almost entirely by African-Americans, while white students disproportionately attend the better ones, according to The Washington Post.
In a survey commissioned by Tulane University last year, Anglos and Hispanics were largely satisfied with the city's education changes, but only 29 percent of African-Americans said schools had gotten better. Another 29 percent said their quality was about the same, while 34 percent said they were better before Katrina.
"The claim that there is an imbalance is right on the money," John White, Louisiana's superintendent of education, told the Post. "The idea that it's associated with privilege and high outcomes is right on the money."
State and local school officials say they have or will implement policies to address all the major complaints about how charter schools are run in New Orleans, including enrollment, discipline and demographic disparities.
"The Crescent City is showing what happens when charter schooling ceases being an alternative to the system and starts to become the system," says Hess, the AEI scholar.
►Also: NEW ORLEANS CLOSES ITS LAST TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS
June 01, 2014 7:44 AM ET :: Last week, the New Orleans school district became the first all-charter district in the country. NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Sarah Carr, a reporter who's been following the city's changing schools.
BILL ADDRESSING PROP. 13 LOOPHOLE CLEARS TWO-THIRDS THRESHOLD IN ASSEMBLY WITH SOME GOP VOTES
By Melanie Mason, Los Angeles Times |http://lat.ms/1kwMEa4
May 29, 2014 (Sacramento) :: Assembly members approved a bill Thursday that would close a loophole associated with Proposition 13, the state's property tax law that for decades has been a political third rail.
Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima), a co-author of the bill, said the legislation offered "a historic opportunity to fix a problem that has vexed the state for many years."
The legislation would curb businesses' ability to divvy up stakes in commercial property purchases so no one has majority ownership. The maneuver avoids triggering a reassessment of the property that can increase its taxes.
The loophole gained notoriety from the 2006 sale of Santa Monica's Fairmont Miramar Hotel to computer magnate Michael Dell. Dell split ownership shares among his wife and two business partners, with no one taking on more than 49% of the property.
The move saved him about $1 million a year in property taxes.
Changes to Prop. 13, the state's landmark property tax law, have been considered untouchable for decades. But the plan to address the change of ownership loophole was boosted by support from business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., the staunchest defender of Prop. 13 withdrew their opposition to the measure; its president Jon Coupal argued the plan would "strengthen" the property tax system created by the initiative.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), co-author of AB 2372, said the collaboration between those that have often been at odds over Prop. 13 "shows the moral fiber of this chamber."
The measure, which needed a two-thirds vote, passed on a 56-9 vote. Seven Republicans voted for the bill. Three Democrats facing tough reelection fights -- Assembly members Ken Cooley of Rancho Cordova, Steve Fox of Palmdale and Sharon Quirk-Silva of Fullerton -- voted no.
The bill now heads to the Senate.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
LAUSD OFFERS TEACHERS 2 PERCENT RAISE, UNION INSULTED | http://bit.ly/1kxwrwf
LA School Report | LA Unified has opened contract negotiations with the teachers union, UTLA, offering a 2 percent raise for all teachers for the current school year, and another 2 percent increase next year.
“Earlier this year, the LAUSD School Board saw fit to give Superintendent John Deasy the equivalent of a 15.8 percent raise,” Warren Fletcher, the out-going union president, said in the release. “Now they offer classroom teachers a two percent one-time payment? This is nothing short of an insult to every teacher and health and human services professional in LAUSD.”
JUDGE LEVIES SANCTIONS AGAINST LAUSD | HTTP://BIT.LY/1KXY6LJ
Los Angeles Daily New | A judge levied $6,000 in sanctions against Los Angeles Unified on Friday, because school officials
failed to turn over more than 300 pictures of victims who were sexually abused by former Miramonte Elementary school
teacher Mark Berndt.
EX-LAUSD TEACHER PLEADS NO CONTEST TO MOLESTING STUDENTS, RELATIVE | HTTP://LAT.MS/1WOYEXJ
Los Angeles Times | A 58-year-old former Los Angeles Unified school teacher pleaded no contest Thursday to accusations
that he molested students and a relative.
LA UNIFIED SUSPENSION RATES FALL BUT SOME QUESTION FIGURES' ACCURACY | HTTP://LAT.MS/1TZA6Z5
Los Angeles Times | A drop in suspension rates throughout L.A. Unified came after the Los Angeles Board of Education and superintendent called for fewer suspensions as concern grew nationwide that removing students from school imperils their academic achievement and ..
LAUSD CHARTER SCHOOL FORCED TO FIND A NEW HOME | HTTP://BIT.LY/1WOVZGA
CBS Local | DEL REY (CBSLA.com) - An LAUSD charter school in Del Rey will soon find itself without a home after the district informed Citizens of the World (CWC) Mar Vista that it can no longer remain on an elementary school's campus.
LA DODGERS FOUNDATION COMMITS $200K TO FUND BREAKFAST IN LAUSD CLASSROOMS | HTTP://CBSLOC.AL/1GU80OV
CBS Local | LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) - The Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation has committed to giving $200,000 to the School Fuel program, which provides universal breakfast to nearly half a million students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. ●●smf: Apparently the District is now embracing the BIC paradigm from other California districts – using sports sponsorships rather than making it a “damn-the-contract/full-speed-ahead” issue.
BULLYING, LACK OF COUNSELORS ARE BARRIERS TO CHILD WELLNESS http://bit.ly/1nU6Svd
L.A. UNIFIED BOND OVERSIGHT PANEL WANTS iPAD CRITIC REAPPOINTED | http://bit.ly/1tu1Sgh
BOND OVERSIGHT CMTTE TO BOARD OF ED: REAPPOINT MAGRUDER - “Independence of the BOC is vital to its proper function” http://bit.ly/SjSL67
WALL STREET IS WATCHING: Deasy+Zimmer meet w/NYbankers+credit raters as rift between
$9 BILLION STATE SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND MOVES TOWARDS NOVEMBER BALLOT | http://bit.ly/1wrPtO8
FRUSTRATED LA SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS’ MESSAGE TO ADMINISTRATORS: "PROVIDE DETAILED ARTS BUDGET!" |http://bit.ly/1mKizDu
7 CANDIDATES VIE FOR LAUSD BOARD SEAT IN WIDE-OPEN CONTEST Staying power of Supt Deasy's policies could be affected http://bit.ly/auDNT3
LAUSD BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE MEETS TODAY AT BEAUDRY AT 10AM - one item on agenda is reappointment of BOC member Stuart Magruder
LAUSD SCHOOL BOARDMEMBER KAYSER INTRODUCES MOTION TO RE-APPOINT STUART MAGRUDER TO THE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE | http://bit.ly/1kqfo4h
STONER PARENTS WIN, LAUSD REMOVES CO-LOCATED CHARTER | http://bit.ly/1pfw29h
LAUSD SHIFTING ‘TEACHER JAILS’ INTO HOMEShttp://bit.ly/1pv3hmv
SCHOOL LIBRARIANS A RARE FIND IN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS http://bit.ly/1mzwZ9b
SIGN THIS PETITION TO KEEP STUART MAGRUDER ON THE LAUSD BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE! http://bit.ly/1iIJdII
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
TUES, JUNE 3rd ELECTION DAY
VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!.
*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
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
Monica.Ratliff@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!.
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