In This Issue:
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MiSiS FALTERS, LAUSD PERSISTS DESPITE GLITCHES, LACK OF TRAINING, PARENT + TEACHER “PANIC” |
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TEACH ART. IT’S THE LAW |
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LAUSD CUTS BACK LITERACY PROGRAM THAT UNITES FAMILIES, BOOSTS KIDS' READING SKILLS + smf’s 2¢ |
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CLASS CUTBACKS AT WALTER REED MIDDLE SCHOOL RILE PARENTS + smf’s 2¢ |
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things 2 do 2 help kids this week: BE CAREFUL OUT THERE / VOTE / BE AN
ACTIVIST + HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT |
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EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
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What can YOU do? |
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Featured Links:
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On Tuesday all the kids are all back to school.
New preschoolers and kindergarteners will join as first timers; other,
more experienced scholars will return – or matriculate on to middle
school or high school. New classrooms. New teachers and books and
friends and opportunities and challenges. Chapter books and long
division and science labs and changes in our bodies and
‘How-I-spent-my-summer-vacation'. The graduates will not return. Some
dropouts will try to slip-slide-away.
There will be a new student information database – and if that seems
like some real Inside-Beaudry/down-at-the-ESC-Office/ a problem for some
administrator in some other pay grade/department/location
code/”…doesn’t concern me as a student/parent/classroom
teacher/cafeteria worker/custodian/crossing guard , etc…..”
fasten-your-seatbelt-and-hang-on/read-on/dream on!
Implementing a new information system in a monumental bureaucracy is
disruptive at best – when well prepared-for and conscientiously
phased-in with contingencies and back-ups in place. When best practices
are practiced and lessons learned have been learned. When there is
adequate support+training.
That isn’t how we do things in LAUSD.
While Dr. Deasy was talking about the Great New Wonderful Tomorrow at
his Superintendent’s Annual Administrators Meeting last Tuesday I was
hearing about one thing: MiSiS. Usually compared+contrasted with the BTS
payroll debacle of 2007. Charles Burbridge, the LAUSD CFO who took the
rap (and the fall, along with Superintendent Brewer) on LAUSD’s BTS/SAP
implementation: “The history of big system implementations is not a
happy tale.| http://lat.ms/1lN9wPQ”
As I said, new IS systems are disruptive at best. Let us make the best
of this challenge and move forward efficiently and expeditiously – the
old SIS was nothing to mourn! The good old days weren’t.
Let us take care of these children and be safe and supporting of one
another. There are a whole lot of us doing this work, being the village
it takes to raise a child and be the small dedicated few it takes to
change the world. Let’s not each of us save the child whose name is
stuck to the bottom of our seat; let’s all of us save all the kids.
Let’s smile when can. And laugh. And have each other’s back. If you live
in Board District One be sure to vote on Tuesday. Play. Drive safely,
eat healthy, get plenty of sleep and dream the future you want and then
wake up and live it. Play fair. Come to school every day, but stay home
and take of yourself when you’re sick. Read a book Hug a friend. Teach.
It’s more important to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ than it is to not
run in the hallway.
Thank you.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
MiSiS FALTERS, LAUSD PERSISTS DESPITE GLITCHES, LACK OF TRAINING, PARENT + TEACHER “PANIC”
► MiSiS Mess: NEW LAUSD COMPUTER SYSTEM FALTERS
By Thomas Himes, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1A50zd1
8/08/14, 7:05 PM PDT | The computer system for the Los Angeles Unified
School District faltered Thursday, leaving school staff unable to access
records and leaving students without class schedules just days before
the school year starts next week.
The line of parents and students at Van Nuy’s High School stretched down
the hall, almost reaching outside. The parents and students — who were
waiting to speak with counselors — described being shuffled from one
office to another, as helpless staff explained that the district’s new
computer system was in disarray.
Then an announcement came over the loud speakers, instructing everyone
to log off the system for half an-hour due to a school district request.
“They just said the system was all messed up and they were trying to get
it running,” said Jessica Reyes, who was attempting to secure a class
schedule for her son before he starts the ninth grade on Tuesday.
“It’s not just a few kids, there’s a bunch waiting,” she said after emerging from the school’s counseling office.
Parents and students reported being scheduled for the wrong classes,
having their records lost and being denied registration — even those who
filed all the required paperwork months ago.
When Holly Cornell walked into orientation at her son’s new middle
school, Hale Charter Academy in Woodland Hills, she should have emerged
with a class schedule, text books and her son’s student identification
card.
After all, administrators had all her son’s transfer paperwork sitting
on the desk in front of them. It was filed months in advance. But
Cornell’s son was denied registration, and he will now start his first
day at a new school without knowing his classes.
“It was just chaos,” Cornell said. “There was no one there to help us,
just the vice principal and she didn’t know what to do; she just said,
‘the computer system’s down.’ I guess they’re waiting for someone to fix
it.”
Ever persistent, Cornell went to her son’s former campus, Northridge
Middle School, in hopes administrators there could help transfer his
records.
But school staffers shrugged and told her the new system is a
“nightmare,” she said. As it stands, Cornell said she was told her son
would be “temporarily” put in classes on the first day of school, while
administrators wait on the system to issue his real schedule.
The new computer system, called My Integrated Student Information System
or MiSiS, is the result of a federal court settlement. Nearly two
decades ago, the district agreed to build the system in order to comply
with federal laws and protect the rights of students with learning
disabilities.
District administrators had told a 17-year-old student to repeat the
10th grade for a third time because they had failed to find records
documenting her learning disabilities. The teen was reading at a second
grade level while attending classes and being graded alongside peers
meeting higher reading levels.
But building a computer system to track the records of 650,000 students
hasn’t been an easy task, district officials have said. Although they’ve
spent the last decade planning it out and the last few months testing
it during summer school, there are still glitches and user familiarity
issues.
While its rollout could have waited — and the teachers’ union has
requested as much — district officials decided it was better to start
using the system on the first day of school.
“Within the first week we should be in a place where we can get the
students into the right classes; and on some campuses, the first day,”
Los Angeles Unified School District Spokeswoman Lydia Ramos said.
“We’re just asking everyone to be patient, knowing that when we move
entire systems over there are transition periods where we’ve got to make
some fixes and find some solutions,” Ramos said.
The glitches aren’t preventing every child from enrolling. A majority of
district-run schools have reported being able to register students,
Ramos said. Van Nuys High School freshman Tara Limbean’s dad said
enrolling was a breeze.
“It was very smooth, very nice,” Tim Limbean said.
_________________
► SCHOOL’S IN! WELL, NOT REALLY … SCREWED UP LAUSD COMPUTER SYSTEM HAS STUDENTS IN WRONG SCHOOLS
PARENT PERSPECTIVE by Jennifer Marquez in CityWatch | http://bit.ly/1B6g1H8
08 Aug 2014 :: LAUSD’s new computer system MISIS, My Integrated
Student Information System, is quickly becoming known as MYMESS at
schools throughout the district due to the amount of problems it is
creating since it was rolled out last April.
Just days before school is scheduled to begin, hundreds of students in
San Pedro are finding out MYMESS has enrolled them in the wrong schools.
Come August 12th, students will be showing up to school and will not
even be enrolled there. Not to mention, that none of these students have
class assignments.
I know because this happened to my son. He was enrolled at the wrong
school and that school cannot transfer him to the correct school in the
new system.
Students going into 6th grade have been enrolled at the closest
elementary school that has a 6th grade not the closest middle school,
which are 6th - 8th grades. Student’s home schools are suddenly being
changed in the system without alerting students, parents or schools.
Some parents found it suspicious that they had not received any notices
from the middle school and called only to find out their child is not
enrolled at their home school and that they missed orientation.
Parents are scrambling to get their students out of the assigned elementary school and into the middle school.
To get back into the home school, parents must fill out a six-page
registration package which includes questions like when did your child
first learn to crawl and handwriting the same phone numbers over and
over again. Making matters worse, the system has some students enrolled
at two schools.
School staff are spending hours trying to clean-up the district’s newest
disaster while higher-ups in the Beaudry Castle, LAUSD’s headquarter
located in downtown Los Angeles, dream up more directives for the peons
in the kingdom instead of helping clean up the mess they created.
Major decisions in the district are made by a select few, who do not
represent the voices of the people that they serve or the thousands of
employees who work at LAUSD.
Thanks to these mental giants, students and staff are scrambling to make
sense of a computer system … that nobody wanted … just days before
school is scheduled to start. Numerous calls and emails to the district
about the cost of MYMESS went unanswered.
At the rate things are going, school will be ready to start sometime
after Labor Day, which is when school should begin. Seriously, who
wants to start school in the beginning of August?
To find out if your student’s home school was changed, click here: http://bit.ly/1lMzjrn
• (Jennifer Marquez is a parent and writes a column in San Pedro Today Magazine.)
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► TEACHERS IN PANIC OVER LAUSD’S NEW COMPUTER TRACKING SYSTEM
by Vanessa Romo, LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1oyX6j7
Posted on August 8, 2014 3:44 pm | L.A. Unified has agreed to delay
parts of a new student data management system that was set to launch
districtwide on Tuesday, the first day of school, after the teachers
union and other district employees raised concerns that the technology
is riddled with glitches.
But UTLA says it’s not enough, and union officials say they expect widespread chaos when school opens.
The system, called MiSiS — My Integrated Student Information System — is
designed to track every aspect of a student’s academic career by
integrating a variety of existing computer programs. The plan is for
teachers and administrators to track more easily attendance, grades,
health and counseling records from a single location. The system would
also allow parents to access their children’s grades and attendance
records and even monitor class assignments.
LAUSD was forced to develop the program as a result of a lawsuit to ensure that paper files on students wouldn’t be lost.
But now, as the system is ramping up, UTLA officials are saying they’re
being flooded with complaints, mostly from school counselors in charge
of enrolling students. They say the new comprehensive program is not as
user friendly as expected, offering fewer tools than existing systems,
which currently meet the criteria of the lawsuit.
“It’s a dinosaur in what’s supposed to be 21st century technology,”
Colleen Schwab, Secondary Vice President of UTLA told LA School Report.
“It’s far, far inferior to what they’re using now, and our teachers and
counselors are in a panic.”
As one example, Schwab said counselors at Sun Valley Middle School
Magnet reported that they came in one morning to find electronic records
for two thirds of the students who had already been programmed were
wiped out.
“I have counselors who tell me they’re waking up at three in the morning
to log into to the system because there’s less traffic, and they think
they might have a better chance of getting the information to stick,”
she said.
The district’s Chief Information Officer, Ron Chandler, insists that the problems are not so widespread.
“The majority of our schools have already enrolled students and set
class assignments,” he told LA School Report. “The students who will
most likely be affected by the new system will be students who are
totally new to LAUSD.”
Chandler acknowledges MiSiS has a number of problems. “This is easily
one of the most complex technology programs going on in the planet right
now, of course, it’s challenging,” he said.
But he argues the district’s hands are tied in what it can do to slow
the roll out because any changes must be approved by a federally
appointed independent monitor overseeing the MiSiS implementation.
“The district can’t make decisions on it’s own. It has to be a conversation involving all parties,” Chandler said.
For now, K-5 teachers can hold off on using MiSiS to record student
grades until November while 6-12 teachers have a reprieve through
January.
“In the meantime, we’re going to continue training teachers pretty much everyday,” Chandler said.
Union officials said that implementation of the computer system should
be part of contract negotiations that are now underway with the
district, as a way to ensure that educators are not burdened with
additional problems.
UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said, “That the Superintendent was
considering rushing into this continues a distressing pattern of running
headlong into technology fiascos that drain the budget and aren’t good
for students—like the iPad rollout and the Common Core testing
experiences.”
TEACH ART. IT’S THE LAW
by Carl Schafer | Zócalo Public Square :: The New America Foundation | http://bit.ly/1plcCzk
July 24, 2013 :: I started my career as an instrumental music teacher
in 1957. This was in the Ontario-Montclair School District. Since then,
I’ve been a music consultant, teacher, supervisor of a visual arts
program, elementary school principal (I lost my mind for eight years),
founding principal of an elementary school with the arts as core
curriculum (Buena Vista Arts-Integrated School—it’s still thriving
nearly 20 years later), adjunct university instructor at Cal State San
Bernardino and Fullerton, and full-time faculty member at California
Baptist University in Riverside.
To teach arts is to advocate for the arts. For more than 40 years, I’ve
been doing just that—by talking to school boards, speaking to public
groups, attending rallies, sending letters to politicians, meeting with
legislators, organizing parents, and serving on the board of the
California Alliance for Arts Education. I’ve heard every possible excuse
for why our schools have reduced or eliminated arts programs—budget
cuts, limited instructional time, the cost of materials, the difficulty
of finding instructors, greater emphasis on math and language arts and,
like a lot of people in the arts, I’ve spent a ton of time thinking of
creative ways to make the point that the arts are vital and that they
shouldn’t be eliminated from school curricula.
But then, a year ago, I came to a simple realization. I’d been spending
my time on advocacy when, legally speaking, it wasn’t necessary at all.
While browsing through the state Education Code online, I learned
(embarrassingly late in my career) that the law couldn’t be clearer.
Since 1995, the teaching of the arts has been mandatory in California
for grades one to 12.
Section 51210(e) mandates the Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA), which
includes music, dance, visual art, and theater, be included in the
school curriculum for all students in grades one to six. Section
51220(g) mandates that the VAPA be offered to all students in grades
seven through 12. Arts is a “course of study,” and Section 51050 states
“The governing board of every school district shall enforce in its
schools the courses of study.”
In short, if a school district is not teaching the arts right now, it is breaking the law.
Despite all of these mandates, however, there has been no effort by any
authority in California to require compliance. For the last year, I’ve
been trying to figure out why.
My investigation has been enlightening—and frustrating. In July 2012, I
made a presentation to the State Board of Education and was told that
the board does not have the authority to enforce the Education Code.
Last December, at a meeting with members of the California Department of
Education, I was told that neither the State Superintendent of
Instruction nor the department has the authority to enforce the
Education Code. In the legislature, I met with staff of the 12 members
of the California Legislature Joint Committee on the Arts, which has
produced various arts-education-related recommendations, but none
related to enforcement.
I’m trying everything I can think of. New legislation directs the State
Superintendent of Instruction to revise the criteria for high school
review (the Academic Performance Index), so I’ve asked that the arts be
included in the criteria. I’ve asked the California Arts Council to
provide leadership in getting enforcement too. I shall see what happens.
If none of this works, I will pursue litigation.
If the code were to be enforced, school boards could apply for waivers
from the State Board of Education on arts. I do not object to that, as
long as the waiver process provides for parent, student, teacher, and
public input. But to simply allow non-compliance with the California
Education Code is unacceptable. We should teach our children that the
arts matter. And so does the law.
______________
●●smf: Dr Schafer made a presentation to the Special Committee for Arts
Education of the California State PTA last Thursday. The following is
his handout – forwarded by e-mail to 4LAKids. It repeats much of the
above, but repetition aids the learning process – and there is added
specificity.
By e- mail to 4LAKids By Dr. Carl W. Schafer
During my 57 years as an educator, I have observed that the California
governing boards of school districts have treated visual and performing
arts as an optional part of the curriculum. However, beginning in 1995,
visual and performing arts became mandated for inclusion by the
California Education Code. A governing board that treats visual and
performing arts as optional is in violation of the Education Code. I
have found no evidence of attempts to hold governing boards accountable
for complying with the visual and performing arts section of the
Education Code – not by County Superintendents, not by the State
Superintendent, nor by the State Board of Education.
It is my goal to find a way that governing boards will be required to
implement visual and performing arts in the curriculum as described in
the Education Code so that all California school children will have
access to this instruction. I hope that this can be accomplished and
that litigation will not be necessary.
RATIONALE: Education Code section 51210 (e) requires that ALL students
in grades 1 through 6 receive instruction, based on a course of study,
in visual and performing arts identified as dance, music, theater, and
visual art. The important words here are “instruction”, and “course of
study”. The intent is clear; the instruction must be based on a course
of study and not random lessons. The other important word is the verb
“shall”. It is not maybe, should, or if you feel like it. Clearly, it is
not optional. There seems to be a rationale that because there are no
minute requirements that it can be optional. This is irrelevant as all
the subject areas, except physical education do not have minutes.
Instruction based on a course of study implies a significant amount of
time. It has been my observation that very few governing boards have
fully implemented this section of the Education Code.
Education Code section 51220 (g) requires in grades 7 – 12 that courses
in visual and performing arts (dance, music, theater, and visual art) be
offered. Again, the description “course of study” is used and the verb
is “shall”. It has been my observation that most 9 -12 schools meet this
requirement, but most 7-8 schools do not.
Education Code section 51050 requires that the school governing boards
enforce in its schools the courses of study ……… adopted by the proper
authority. In this case the proper authority is the California State
Education Code as prescribed by the California State Legislature.
However, most governing boards ignore this responsibility as it relates
to visual and performing arts.
Education Code 51057 gives governing boards an opportunity, under
certain conditions, to apply for an exemption from a course of study.
Based on information supplied by the State Department of Education, no
school governing boards in California have been granted an exemption
from visual and performing arts.
Education Code 33050 gives governing boards the opportunity to request
from the SBE a waiver to not include a course of study. However,
Education Code 33051 (a) (1) prohibits the waiver if by granting it the
educational needs of the pupils are not adequately addressed. A review
of the CDE websitecde.ca.gov/re/lr/wr/waiverreports , found since 2006,
there have been no waivers for the Visual and Performing Arts course of
study sections of the Education Code.
TO SUMMARIZE, the two Education Code sections clearly mandate the course
of study of visual and performing arts, governing boards are required
to enforce the Education Code, and there are no governing boards that
have been granted an exemption or waiver.
Governing boards are not held accountable for enforcing the Education Code ….and they must!
● In May 2011, Dr. Carl W. Schafer retired as Visiting
Professor/Coordinator of Music Education in the School of Music at
California Baptist University in Riverside, completing 54 years as an
educator. He worked in the Ontario-Montclair School District for 38
years as instrumental music teacher, music consultant, visual and
performing arts consultant and elementary principal. He is the planner
and founding principal of Buena Vista Arts-integrated School, a K-6
school with the arts as core curriculum. Upon retirement, Dr. Schafer
taught at CSU Fullerton and CSU San Bernardino before taking the
position at California Baptist University where he taught for 12 years,
the last 5 full time. He was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Education Advisory Committee, ten years as a judge for the Los Angeles
Music Center “Bravo” award, Board President of the Arts Council for San
Bernardino County, and member and staff of the California Arts Project.
In 2008 he was inducted
in the California Music Educators Association Hall of Fame for lifetime
achievement in music education. He currently is part time Music
Consultant to the Superintendent of Schools, San Bernardino County, is
adjunct faculty and supervises student teachers for CSU Fullerton, is
Board President of the Claremont Community School of Music, member of
the Policy Council of the California Alliance for Arts Education and
performs as a jazz musician in the Carl Schafer
Quartet.
Dr. Schafer can be contacted at artsed@roadrunner.com
LAUSD CUTS BACK LITERACY PROGRAM THAT UNITES
FAMILIES, BOOSTS KIDS' READING SKILLS + smf’s 2¢
• FAMILY LITERACY PROGRAM BRINGS PARENTS TOGETHER AND HELPS CHILDREN LEARN AT A YOUNG AGE
• SUCCESSFUL+POPULAR PROGRAM TO CONTINUE, BUT SCALED-DOWN
By Sara Hayden | L.A. Times | http://lat.ms/1uCWEkw
August 10, 2014 :: It's bath, book and bed for 5-year-old Nathan
Flores. No TV. His parents learned the importance of routine and reading
when they began taking him to a local family literacy program two years
ago.
Now, a sibling is on the way. Leslie Flores, Nathan's mother, said the
program would be great for the whole family. "If they're still around,
I'll definitely be taking my baby there," she said.
It seems at best a detour, and at worst a bridge to nowhere.... It would
be a watered-down version of the program that would not allow us to
produce exemplary results. - Patricia Bauer, a program volunteer
Whether the program that Flores knows is still around, however, remains
to be seen. Grants for it have expired. The Los Angeles Unified School
District plans to foot the bill for the Family Literacy Project but is
proposing some cuts in an effort to keep it sustainable. This year, it's
expected to serve 144 families, many of which are low-income and
learning English, compared with 200 last year.
In a district that enrolls about 650,000 students, the program is tiny but its supporters are passionate.
They rallied in May when they feared the program would end when the
grants expired. Supt. John Deasy in June said he would find $500,000 in
the district's budget to support the program for one year.
Funding previously came from the Toyota Foundation and First 5 Los Angeles.
"This is one of the most effective programs I have ever seen," school
board member Steve Zimmer said in a June statement. "Engaging parents
and young children simultaneously has proven effective in both lifting
and stabilizing families."
Some of the program's advocates, however, express concerns over potential changes.
Everyone brings their culture to the table, and it's so uniting. There's
nothing that's as bonding as mothers talking about their children. -
Sharon Polkinghorn, Shenandoah Street Elementary School coordinator
"It seems at best a detour, and at worst a bridge to nowhere.… It would
be a watered-down version of the program that would not allow us to
produce exemplary results," said Patricia Bauer, a program volunteer.
The district's proposal includes the elimination of program coordinators
and infant care aides. Currently, there is funding for programs at five
locations and the district continues to seek a grant to support a
sixth. The proposal does not include field trips, as it had in the past,
but L.A. Unified officials said trips are generally low cost or free
and won't be affected.
Program coordinators say that the class structure will be the same under
the proposal, and that there are some additions. They hope to improve
service by adding certified early education aides and teachers. Their
goal is to maintain a ratio of eight students to one instructor.
"We're not getting the same budget to run what we used to run," said
Donna Brashear, L.A. Unified's early childhood education executive
director. "We're trying to offer the best program we have with the
budget we have."
The program, which has operated for nearly 20 years, brings families
together for reading lessons, adult education opportunities and
parenting techniques. The program aims to provide parents with the
skills and knowledge to be successful at school, work and home.
"There's a saying that if a mother builds her literacy, it builds the
literacy of the whole family," said Sharon Polkinghorn, who has been the
Shenandoah Street Elementary School coordinator for six years. She
added that families welcome the chance to be together.
"In a big family or a small apartment, they may not have the chance to have that parent-child one-on-one time."
Polkinghorn said one of the most satisfying outcomes is the
relationships built among the families, which have different cultural
and religious backgrounds, coming from such countries as Mexico and
Egypt.
"Everyone brings their culture to the table, and it's so uniting.
There's nothing that's as bonding as mothers talking about their
children.… They create a social network [and] they really help each
other out. That helps everyone out," Polkinghorn said.
The camaraderie has been a safety blanket for Flores, Nathan's mother.
Also important, though, has been Nathan's reading skills. "He's reading
books to me," she said, "and he's not even in kinder yet."
●● smf’s 2¢ :: A Times reader writes in a comment: “So the second
largest school district in the country has a billion dollars to spend on
iPads, but can't keep a small, proven, literacy program alive. I see
something wrong with this picture - do you?”
I often argue against this argument, the woebegone+misbegotten iPads are
paid for by facilities money; the Family Literacy Program needs to be
funded from the General Fund. And yes, the start-up money came from
Toyota and First 5 – but that was a grant to prove the program
could+would work …and that has been proven in twenty years of operation.
Eventually pilot programs need to become the real deal.
“ ‘This is one of the most effective programs I have ever seen,’ school board member Steve Zimmer said.”
Now is the moment to expand the Family Literacy Program: Roll it out, don’t cut it back!
It is now time for LAUSD to pay for the program out of their $6.5
billion dollar budget. Not with charity or donations or ‘other people’s
money’ (or bake-sale-money) …but from the money the taxpayers provide to
educate children.
CLASS CUTBACKS AT WALTER REED MIDDLE SCHOOL RILE PARENTS + smf’s 2¢
By Thomas Himes, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1pJXFpv
Posted: 08/09/14, 6:48 PM PDT :: As leaders of the teachers union push
Los Angeles Unified for more control over the number of classes
instructors must teach each year, parents of students at one middle
school say efforts by educators to execute similar cuts have left some
kids without access to arts and other electives — the very classes that
helped transform the once downtrodden campus into a desirable one.
Over the last decade, Walter Reed Middle School revived its image and
popularity with programs in music, humanities, culinary arts, technology
and environmental sciences.
Now, parents argue, those courses and the school’s vitality are being
jeopardized by plans to cut the number of classes each teacher handles.
“I think the most upsetting thing is the teachers’ union forced this
through,” parent Julie Houlihan said. “I felt like they’re employees of
the school district. I think it’s an abuse of power.”
After a two-year battle with teachers and their union, retiring
Principal Donna Tobin agreed to cut the school day from seven periods to
six longer ones when the 2014-15 year begins on Tuesday.
The decision will leave some students with one elective, while others
enrolled in remedial courses or the English-learner program won’t be
afforded an opportunity to take a subject that interests them — unless,
they can find their way to school an hour early for gym class.
About 150 of the school’s 1,700 or so students can arrive at 7 a.m. for a
“zero period” in physical education. But parent Nina Golden said
finding a car pool that early for her son was proving impossible, also
noting her worry about the additional hour of sleep he would lose.
Golden’s soon-to-be eighth-grader wound up dropping one of his favorite
classes, jazz, because there wasn’t room in his schedule to take it
along with its prerequisite, band. “As much as he desperately wants to
be in jazz, we just can’t make it work,” she said.
Golden and Houlihan ran for the school’s new advisory committee, the
Shared Decision Making Council, in order to have a say in the matter.
Instead, they said, union leaders and the now exited principal pushed
through the six-period day just before the end of the school year and
after teachers stalled the council’s inaugural meeting for months.
Most schools in Los Angeles Unified already operate on a six-period schedule — five classes and a one-period break for teachers.
Managing six classes of between 35 and 43 students, United Teachers Los
Angeles representative Bruce Williams said, is detrimental to students
and teachers alike, adding that helming even the standard five classes
of that size is “excessive.
Walter Reed faculty voted to reduce class load twice in the last two
years. While administrators denied the move to cut classes after the
teachers’ initial vote in 2012, another attempt was made in November,
Williams said.
The second election set a deadline for the bell schedule — which signals
the start and end of periods — to be cut back, and it was approved by
76 percent of Walter Reed’s teachers. A provision in UTLA’s contract,
Williams said, guarantees teachers a say in bell schedules.
But after Reed’s administrators declined to honor the contract, saying
the decision was theirs to make, Williams said UTLA stepped in, filing
an informal “intervention” that led to an April meeting, in which the
two sides agreed to reduce classes to six per day.
“Changing the bell schedule has often been brought up by administrators
as if it’s the magic bullet for solving education problems,” UTLA
President Alex Caputo-Pearl has said. “I’ve been in situations where
changing the bell schedule has dramatically affected, in a negative way,
the instructional program, so the experts in the classroom have to be
part of any decision made in that regard.”
Teachers across the district are also concerned about the official start
of the Common Core — the initiative to implement nationwide standards
in core subjects — Williams said. “It’s not so much with its philosophy
but with the way it’s being implemented — the tests are not ready for
it, and the tests are how it’s measured.”
At Reed, teachers said reducing the number of classes and making periods
longer would let them better transition students to the Common Core.
“The decision to change from seven to six periods a day was not made
lightly, and it takes into account the more rigorous academic challenges
facing teachers and students under the new Common Core curriculum,”
school board member Tamar Galatzan wrote in response to a parent email,
adding that neither the school board nor LAUSD’s higher-ups have the
power to reverse the decision at Reed.
Sigrid Matthews said she’s taken her son out of upcoming eighth grade at
Reed and found a new school, because he wouldn’t have been able to
attend both the culinary academy and participate in band.
“He wasn’t going to be able to get any music, so it didn’t seem like it
was worth staying at that point,” said Matthews, who has another son
starting seventh grade at Reed.
But Reed’s incoming principal, Jeanne Gamba, said she’s convinced the
school will adapt to the new schedule and still provide kids the
opportunity to partake in the subjects they enjoy. In her first week on
the job this summer, she added, parents had already begun contacting her
with ideas for after-school enrichment programs.
•• smf’s 2¢: My daughter went to Reed.
I was PTA President there for 3 years …and the parents working with
the faculty and administration worked together as a team to create
Reed’s seven period day. And contrary to what Ms. Galatzan says about
the Board of Ed having no say – it took direct intervention by the Board
of Ed – and the vote of four board members - to support Reed’s seven
period schedule.
That was then, this is now. But at that time Reed was as
exceptional school with a vibrant, diverse student body. I don’t doubt
that it still is. Reed is not – nor was it then – some mythic white
middle class valley suburban bastion of affluence. It is a working class
predominantly-Latino Title One school with English Language Learners
and Special Ed and Free Lunch and poverty and all the rest. Is Reed
unique? Sure it is! It’s different from all other schools just like
every other school is/can be/should be. Ain’t no cookie cutters
generating schools out there!
Walter Reed was a California Distinguished School – and the only
middle school in the nation that offered Advanced Placement Physics
Classes-- in addition to consistently having the best instrumental and
choral music program in the District and a Drill Team that regularly
beat high school programs in very intense statewide competitions. The
seven period day allowed all students to take one elective class – to be
in a class they wanted to be in – whether Band or Chorus or Drama or
Spanish or Drill Team or AP Physics; whether they were Honors Students
or ELL students or just plain middle schoolers coming to school because
they had to. All of those elective programs were teacher and community
initiatives that succeeded because of teacher, parent, student and
community support …plus the support of administrators downtown who
recognized and honored true success - rather than numbers on a
spreadsheet that earn the superintendent a performance bonus or an
attaboy in
DC.
3 things 2 do 2 help kids this week: BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE / VOTE / BE AN ACTIVIST + HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS
THAT DOESN'T FIT
1. DRIVE CAREFULLY AND SAFELY: There are kids out
there being kids on their way to-and-from school! Because they are kids
for the most part most of them will be paying attention and being
careful most of the time. You have to do it all the time!
2. IF YOU LIVE IN BOARD DISTRICT ONE, Go to the polls and vote for
George McKenna . Take your neighbors with you – make voting for George a
community event! Vote like the future depends on it. They do!
3. PLEASE CALL/E-MAIL OR WRITE GOVERNOR BROWN AND YOUR LEGISLATORS
ASKING THEM TO SUPPORT AB 2235: Allow the Voters To Decide To Support A
School Bond
California State PTA Legislative Action Alert
August 11, 2014 :: Safe and healthy schools make a difference in the
learning environments and academic achievement of our children.
Up-to-date schools and 21st century technology are critical to help
prepare students for college and careers.
This bill would enact AB 2235, the Kindergarten-University Public
Education Facilities Bond Act of 2014, and specify that it would become
operative only if approved by the voters at the November 4, 2014,
statewide general election.
Urge you Legislators tp support and the Governor to sign AB 2235 and
allow the voters to decide. If you have any questions, please don't
hesitate to contact CA PTA Director of Legislation Kathy Moffat at legislation@capta.org.
The nonpartisan LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST:
AB 2235, as amended, Buchanan. Education facilities: KINDERGARTEN-UNIVERSITY PUBLIC EDUCATION FACILITIES BOND ACT OF 2014.
(1) Existing law, the Leroy F. Greene School Facilities Act of 1998,
requires the State Allocation Board to allocate to applicant school
districts prescribed per-unhoused-pupil state funding for construction
and modernization of school facilities, including hardship funding, and
supplemental funding for site development and acquisition.
This bill would delete a provision requiring the State Allocation Board
to conduct an evaluation of the cost of new construction and
modernization of small high schools in conjunction with a specified
pilot program.
The bill would require each school district that elects to participate
in a new construction program funded by the proceeds of any bond
approved by the voters after November 1, 2014, to reestablish
eligibility, as specified.
The bill would require the Office of Public School Construction to
recommend regulations to the board to provide school districts with
flexibility in designing instruction facilities.
(2) Existing law, the California Constitution, prohibits the Legislature
from creating a debt or liability that singly or in the aggregate with
any previous debts or liabilities exceeds the sum of $300,000, except by
an act that (a) authorizes the debt for a single object or work
specified in the act, (b) has been passed by a 2⁄3 vote of all the
members elected to each house of the Legislature, (c) has been submitted
to the people at a statewide general or primary election, and (d) has
received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it at that
election.
This bill would enact the Kindergarten-University Public Education
Facilities Bond Act of 2014 to authorize [an unspecified amount *] of
state general obligation bonds, as scheduled, to provide aid to school
districts, county superintendents of schools, county boards of
education, charter schools, the California Community Colleges, the
University of California, the Hastings College of the Law, and the
California State University to construct and modernize education
facilities. The proceeds of these bonds would be deposited in the
continuously appropriated 2014 State School Facilities Fund, which this
bill would establish, thereby making an appropriation.
The bond act would become operative only if approved by the voters at
the November 4, 2014, statewide general election, and would provide for
its submission to the voters at that election.
(3) This bill would specify that it would become operative only if the
Kindergarten-University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2014 is
approved by the voters at the November 4, 2014, statewide general
election.
(4) The bill would make conforming changes in related provisions of existing law.
(5) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Vote: 2⁄3. Appropriation: yes. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no.
________
* Neither PTA nor 4LAKids is so wacko as to ask anyone to support
giving the lege a blank check for bond funds! “Obviously it's not going
to be put on the ballot without a dollar amount," Assemblywoman Joan
Buchanan, D-Alamo, the author of AB 2235, told the Senate Governance and
Finance Committee on Wednesday. "Ultimately, just like with all bonds,
we're going to have to have that big pow-wow where everyone comes to an
agreement." | http://bit.ly/1sKnxmi
And just as PTA speaks for All Children with One Voice, you don’t need
to be a PTA member to advocate for your child and all children.
CLICK BELOW TO TAKE ACTION AND CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS AND THE GOVERNOR NOW!
________________________
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT
SUMMER SCHOOL: TEENS TRADE CLASSES FOR FACTORY JOBS
Unable to Find Skilled Workers, Southwire Creates Training Program for High Schoolers http://bit.ly/1kUF9fn
LAUSD TO LAUNCH NEW COMPUTER SYSTEM DESPITE GLITCHES, LACK OF TRAINING http://twishort.com/Xocgc
RECENT LAUSD GRADUATE VANESSA PEREZ’ SPEECH TO THE SUPERINTENDENT’S ANNUAL ADMINISTRATOR’S MEETING http://bit.ly/1nr3DY5 [The better speech]
DR. DEASY’S SPEECH TO THE SUPERINTENDENT’S ANNUAL ADMINISTRATOR’S MEETING [The lesser speech] http://bit.ly/1oe1K6c
L.A. Times - "Alex Johnson's attacks on George McKenna are misleading, if not downright inaccurate" | http://bit.ly/1oaZlZQ
L.A. Times Editorial: SCHOOL BOARD RACE TURNS NASTY FOR NO GOOD REASON | http://bit.ly/1oaZlZQ
Updating the ®eform lineup card: MICHELLE RHEE IS OUT, CAMPBELL BROWN IS IN … and who’s bankroll is it anyway? | http://bit.ly/1v4iFwx
George McKenna for School Board: THE LAST FUNDRAISING APPEAL & THE LAST MEET & GREET OF THE CAMPAIGN | http://bit.ly/1pQ8i7o
DIGITAL DIVIDE, LACK OF CERTIFIED LIBRARIANS ‘A NATIONAL CRISIS’ + smf’s 2¢ | http://bit.ly/1pTE9nP
David Boies joins Campbell Brown: CELEBRATED TRIAL LAWYER TO HEAD GROUP CHALLENGING TEACHER TENURE http://bit.ly/1mfk36a
SUPES SURVEYED ON SUSPENSIONS | http://bit.ly/1qM2GwC
VACCINE EXEMPTIONS LINKED TO WHOOPING COUGH OUTBREAK: Read: http://tl.gd/n_1s2sik8
LAUSD District 1 Election: FOR ALEX JOHNSON, ATTACKING GEORGE MCKENNA'S REPUTATION IS KEY STRATEGY IN RACE | http://bit.ly/1os5YXc
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
Tuesday 12 Aug: FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL and ELECTION DAY IN BOARD DISTRICT ONE
*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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