In This Issue:
 |
| • |
BERNSTEIN HIGH FOOTBALL PLAYERS EARN LETTERS — OF PARENTS' LOVE |
|
| • |
DETAILS OF IPADS /COMMON CORE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT PHASE 2 EMERGE |
|
| • |
SOME L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOLS TO SEE CUT IN ANTI-POVERTY FUNDS |
|
| • |
POINT/COUNTERPOINT ON VERGARA v. CALIFORNIA |
|
| • |
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:
|
|
|
|
Saturday’s first ever LAUSD 5K “Move It” Challenge
and Free Health Festival at Dodger Stadium was a tremendous success.
A partnership between LAUSD’s Operations Dept and the Beyond the Bell
and the Health and Human Services Branches together with the Los Angeles
Dodgers and the A.C. Green Foundation sponsored a 5K Run/Walk and
Family Health Fair that was an excellent kick-off for what should be an
annual event. And yes, IT WAS BOTH FUN AND GOOD FOR YOU! ….although
the bacon and garlic topped French fries may not have been the
healthiest possible food option!
Teachers, Parents, Students, School staff and the Community had fun together.
There was running and marching bands and free Starbucks and bicycles
raffled -off and health information shared. There were little kids and
big kids. There were Senior Deputy Superintendents and there were kids
in strollers. There were middle school garage bands and food trucks and a
farmers market and free plants to take home. There were more endorphins
than fear and loathing ….and we were done before noon. It doesn't get
much better than that!
Conspicuously absent: Superintendent Deasy and Boardmember Garcia in
whose district it was; Mónica sent out a zillion o’ e-mail invites but
had something else to do on the day. All the Unions weren’t there now
that I think about it! A tug o' war between the red-shirt union and the
purple-shirt union - with the loser being pulled through a vat of green
Jell-O would've had a certain colorful appeal. Maybe next year!
THE BIZARRE TRAGEDY OF MIRAMONTE played out in court Friday with a no
contest plea and a twenty-five year sentence and no chance of parole.
Maybe now we and the young victims will find closure. [http://bit.ly/17bTieI] ANOTHER INCIDENT OF ABUSE – this by children against children came to light a Chatsworth elementary school (http://bit.ly/1aKpT8t) – with the near identical complaint of the District failing to inform parents of wrongdoing.
THIS WEEK’S THE iPADS PIECE played at the Board of Ed meeting Tuesday
afternoon and evening and late into the night. …with a compromise that
took until Friday night to even define [http://bit.ly/17zuOJr / http://bit.ly/1bDTuVH
/ 'Details Emerge' (following)] -with surprises yet to come. As usual
the solution raised more questions than it answered – and next
Wednesday’s Bond Oversight Committee Meeting will certainly not bring
anything close to conclusion.
WHILE HARDLY ANYONE WAS PAYING ATTENTION Tuesday night the school board
gave the superintendent free rein/reign to unilaterally determine Prop
39 charter co-locations with no oversight, recourse or public process.
One fears naughty schools will be punished and cooperative schools
rewarded. [http://bit.ly/19uCXOZ / Item#13] “Step out of line”, the song says, “…the Man comes and takes you away.”
LEST WE FORGET: WE ARE RAISING CHILDREN HERE – not test scores or
return-on-investment or the value of multinational limited liability
corporations.
Wonderful, beautiful, meaningful things happen every day – see the following.
¡EverOnward/SiempreAdelante! - smf
BERNSTEIN HIGH FOOTBALL PLAYERS EARN LETTERS — OF PARENTS' LOVE
AT COACH MASAKI MATSUMOTO'S PROMPTING, THE MOMS AND
DADS OF DRAGONS PLAYERS POUR OUT THEIR FEELINGS ABOUT THEIR SONS. IT ALL
IMPARTS A LESSON ABOUT COMMITMENT AND SUPPORT.
By Eric Sondheimer, LA Times , Column One| http://lat.ms/I8604p
November 14, 2013 :: Damian Sanchez was downcast. It was the day after
his football team's first loss of the season, and the senior defensive
back from Hollywood Bernstein High was having a tough time shaking the
disappointment.
After a team meeting, he returned to the one-bedroom apartment near
Koreatown he shares with his mother and two younger brothers, took a
shower, then opened the door to a closet to reach for a clean shirt.
That's when he was once again drawn to the piece of paper taped to the
wall next to his clothes. He paused to read the handwritten words.
"I want to tell you that from the moment you were in my belly, I loved
you dearly. I love you then, today and always. You are my world, my
everything. Without you, there's no me."
It was a letter from his mother, Myrna, and it had the desired effect.
"I see it every day in the morning before I go to school," said Damian, 17. "It makes me think everything will be fine."
Myrna Rivera was a teenager herself when she became a mother. Now she
puts in long hours as an office worker to support her family, and there
is little time to rest, let alone collect her thoughts and write a
letter to her boy about how much she loves him.
A request from Damian's high school football coach coaxed her into
expressing her feelings and transformed the relationship she has with
her son.
Bernstein Coach Masaki Matsumoto was raised by a single parent and knew
firsthand the value of feeling loved. He came to the United States from
Japan with his mother, Keiko, when he was 7. "It was just her and I," he
said.
Matsumoto, 31, estimated that 60% of the nearly 100 players on his
varsity and junior varsity teams are guided by single mothers, the
reason, he added, that "my heart is so big for these kids."
The idea for the letter, which he borrowed from coaches at Bothell High,
outside Seattle, was simple: Write a letter to your son and say
something positive while expressing your love. Matsumoto had written
instructions to the parents delivered by their sons — 70 in Spanish, 30
in English, each containing a blank piece of notebook paper.
Once written, the letters were returned in sealed envelopes to Matsumoto by the players, who had no idea what was inside.
When they found out, the reaction was more than anyone imagined.
Damian hand-delivered the envelope to his mother while she was preparing dinner.
Her immediate reaction wasn't positive. "Oh my God, I have to do
homework for my kids? I have to do this?" she recalled thinking.
She stuck Matsumoto's letter in a desk drawer, where it stayed for about
a week. Then, one night as she lay in bed, she started thinking about
Damian and recalling how at 18 she was not prepared to be a mother when
he was born.
She was a teenager and wanted to act like one rather than to always be
responsible for a baby. As he grew older he noticed, and felt abandoned.
"I was there, but going out with my friends," Rivera said. "He was 5 and remembers. He felt I didn't love him."
So she pulled out a pen and poured her emotions onto the piece of blue-lined paper.
"I admire your efforts to be a better person. I am happy to have you in
my life, though I know sometimes I may get on your nerves, but I just
want you to know that all your dad and me want is a better life for
you."
“You know deep inside I love you. And you're the most important thing in my life. You know I would die for you."
Damian's father is in prison, and the boy had been acting out, arguing
with his mother, drinking alcohol and staying out well past his curfew.
But lately he had been trying to do better and was getting mostly A's
and Bs in school. His mother was proud of him, but hadn't really told
him that.
"In the real world, you come home, you cook, you have two other children
that have homework. When do you have time to sit down?" Rivera said.
"You should say, 'I love you,' but we forget."
Bernstein High is across the street from KTLA-TV Channel 5 studios, and
the Hollywood sign, not too far away in the hills, can be seen from the
football field.
When 45 varsity football players arrived at the school's gymnasium in
July, they anticipated performing conditioning exercises. Instead, each
was handed an envelope and told to find a quiet spot where he could read
what was inside and reflect.
What happened next took everyone by surprise. For the next 15 minutes or
so, wherever Matsumoto looked he saw players sobbing — against walls,
in corners, bent over in chairs.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Shalls Jacome, the team's 22-year-old offensive coordinator.
Cesar Orozco, a senior offensive lineman, broke down when he read what
his mother had written in Spanish: "You know deep inside I love you. And
you're the most important thing in my life. You know I would die for
you."
"I don't really get told that at home," Cesar said. "For me to be reading that, it really touches me."
John Mercado, a sophomore lineman, sobbed so hard reading his mother's
letter that he had to pause before finishing. He had come close to
quitting the team when his parents lost their jobs and needed financial
help.
His mother wrote in Spanish: "I'm very proud. You're the nicest kid I've
ever raised and during hard times you don't ever ask for anything."
Matsumoto then gathered the players together and asked whether anyone
wanted to share their thoughts and make a commitment to the team. One by
one, players stepped forward.
A lineman revealed that his father was an alcoholic. Sick in the
hospital because of his drinking, his father had made him promise to
compete in a sport. "That's why I'm on the team," the boy said. He had
quit sports before. He said he wouldn't do it again.
A running back said the reason he wore the same clothes to school every
day was that his family was poor. His father was unemployed, and the boy
had considered him lazy and uncaring. His father's letter changed that
opinion, showing him he really was loved.
Matsumoto seized on what he saw as a teaching moment. "Hey, you guys
know you're loved," he told them. "Not just at home, but here. You have a
family here. Any struggles you're going through, you have a family here
and at home."
Matsumoto played football at a Seattle high school and in college at
Trinity International near Chicago. He earned a master's degree in
special education from Point Loma Nazarene.
When Bernstein High opened in 2008, he was hired as a special education
teacher, and became an assistant football coach for varsity teams that
had records of 0-9, 1-8 and 1-9 the first three seasons. A
fter one year at another school, Matsumoto returned to Bernstein last season as the head coach, and his team went 8-3.
But he's never judged his success solely by wins and losses.
"If your goal is to win, you're never going to fulfill that every year,"
he said. "But if your goal is to change lives and be a positive impact
on them and help them become better people, then I believe that's a win,
and the wins on the scoreboard will come with that."
After a loss to Sun Valley Poly High in the second game of this season,
Bernstein's Dragons have won eight in a row and will enter the Los
Angeles City Section Division III playoffs Friday with a record of 9-1.
Whether the season ends in a championship or not, Matsumoto has met his goal of reconnecting players with their parents.
"I told the parents in my letter that as a young man growing up without a
father it helped me that my mom told me she loved me and supported me,
and the coaches I had cared," he said. "That gave me the motivation to
keep going, and I wanted them to do the same for these kids."
Rivera was resting on her bed after a 10-hour workday when Damian
entered the room. She recalled that his eyes were red and swollen and
she suddenly became alert with concern.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Damian was just returning from that July practice.
"Mom, I love you," he said.
"I love you, too," Myrna said, "but what's wrong?"
He started to cry. "Thank you for my letter," Damian replied, and then he kissed her.
● PHOTO GALLERY: http://lat.ms/I8604p
DETAILS OF IPADS /COMMON CORE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT PHASE 2 EMERGE
BOARD BUSINESS: LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT -
Board Moves Forward With Tablet Rollout: Laptop Pilot and Other
Revisions Added to Phase 2
● from the Common Core Technology Project “Board Business” THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 11, 2013 http://bit.ly/1jdXWeq
● With added material from Board of Ed Report 129-13-14 Common Core Technology Project Phase 2 and Phase 1L
The Board of Education Tuesday voted to move forward with Phase 2 of the
District's Common Core Technology Project (CCTP). The project's goal is
to equip every LAUSD student with the technology needed for 21st
century
learning.
Below is a summary of the amended resolution, which was approved by a
6-1 vote, allowing the District to move forward with Phase 2:
• Nearly 40 schools will receive tablets this spring, giving priority to schools based on need.
24,541 iPads at 38 schools.
• Every remaining teacher and principal across the District will
receive tablets, and a related training orientation, currently scheduled
for completion by April, 2014.
28,385 iPads
• Schools lacking technology will receive shared tablet carts, so
students can participate in field tests of the online Smarter Balanced
Assessments, currently scheduled for spring 2014. The assessments are
aligned with the new Common Core Technology Standards in English
Language Arts and Mathematics.
67,480 iPads in 1,928 carts with keyboards
• Keyboards will be purchased for students in grades 2-12 and half of the students in K-1 participating in Phases 1 and 2.
48,741 keyboards
• In the recently approved amended resolution, up to seven high
schools can voluntarily participate in a separate laptop pilot
(currently up to one non-Phase-1 high school per Board District).
Additional details to be determined.
• Phase 3 will be voted on by the Board at a later date.
item – from attachment A
• individual computing devices
$ 104,279,165
• device carts
$ 7,000.529
• learning management system
$ 1,646.453
• security
$ 654,242
• staffing
$ 1,760,000
• contingency (2.5%)
$ 3,291,095
• • TOTAL: $ 134,934,915
_______________________________
...but wait, there's more:
►BE IT RESOLVED: iPADS AND THE GENERAL STATE OF CRAZINESS!
A longtime 4LAKids reader, a teacher and teacher-of-teachers, e-mails:
Mon, Nov 11, 2013 3:04 pm :: The [teachers union and administrators
union] survey results clearly indicate that teachers need much more
support and training on the use of the iPads in order to feel
comfortable with them in the classroom.
WHEREAS iPads are not a constructivist tool but an informational tool, and
WHEREAS students cannot complete the higher order thinking and
application skills of analysis and synthesis on an informational tool,
and
WHEREAS teachers are unprepared to manage classrooms of 35 and above with extensive special needs students included,
BE IT RESOLVED that the LAUSD has taken its final turn down the path to utter destruction.
What in all that is wonderful and worthwhile is going on?!
SOME L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOLS TO SEE CUT IN ANTI-POVERTY FUNDS
SEVERAL BOARD MEMBERS FAILED IN BID TO REVERSE A
DECISION TO CHANNEL FEDERAL TITLE 1 FUNDS TO SCHOOLS WHERE AT LEAST HALF
THE STUDENTS ARE LOW-INCOME.
By Howard Blume, Los Angles Times | http://lat.ms/HXVVYB
November 16, 2013, 7:50 p.m. :: More than two dozen local schools face
reduced funding next year as the Los Angeles school district funnels
more federal money to campuses with a higher percentage of low-income
students.
The tighter budgets affect 28 schools next year, including the Sherman
Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, Chatsworth and Westchester high
schools and Walgrove Elementary. Some of these schools are relatively
high-performing academically.
Contingents from these schools argued for a reprieve at the Board of
Education's meeting last week. But a measure to restore the funding fell
just short of a majority on the seven-member body.
The proposal would have returned federal anti-poverty dollars to schools
where just under half the students come from low-income families. L.A.
Unified gets this funding for every low-income student, but the money
doesn't necessarily follow the student. Instead, the dollars go to
schools with the highest concentration of poverty. The goal is to
address the cumulative effects of intense pockets of poverty, which
describes much of the nation's second-largest school system.
It's up to L.A. Unified to decide where to draw the poverty line for
these Title 1 funds. For years, schools that are 40% low-income received
some of the money. But in 2011, L.A. Unified redrew the line, limiting
the funds to schools where at least half the students are low-income.
Rio Vista Elementary fell short by nine students, which will cost it
$87,000 next year. That money paid for academic intervention, more hours
for a nurse, a psychologist and teaching assistants, said Principal Pia
Sadaqatmal.
Board member Tamar Galatzan argued for the restoration. She said it
would cost the higher-poverty schools only $5 per student, dropping
their federal anti-poverty aid from $502 to $497 per pupil. The restored
schools would have received $277 per student.
But Monica Garcia, whose schools serve predominantly low-income areas, objected.
"Maybe we don't understand poverty," she said. "Five dollars is a lot.…
Poverty needs to be interrupted. Today we're hearing from the people
that the system works best for…. Even when you take away privilege there
is privilege in the system."
She added: "I'm having a hard time understanding how the kids at the
most successful schools are being somehow harmed in the organization of
this district."
Galatzan countered that affected schools are successful, in part,
because they've used their anti-poverty funds so well, and, in many
cases, have become attractive enough to lure back some middle-class
families.
"These schools are being penalized because they've done exactly what
we've asked them to do," she said later. "We're forcing these schools to
crash and burn before we'll come to their rescue with any extra
dollars."
But her motion failed when Bennett Kayser abstained, saying he
sympathized with both sides. The supporting votes were cast by Galatzan,
Monica Ratliff and Steve Zimmer. Joining Garcia in voting no were
Richard Vladovic and Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte.
POINT/COUNTERPOINT ON VERGARA v. CALIFORNIA
►EDUCATION REFORM THROUGH THE COURTS AND WHY IT’S NECESSARY
commentary By Marcellus Antonio McRae in EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/1cCJGd4
November 15th, 2013 :: In California – and in many other states – the
Legislature has proven devastatingly ineffective at ensuring equal
educational opportunity in our public schools and protecting the
fundamental rights of students.
Fortunately, our government has another branch – the judiciary – whose
express purpose is to protect constitutional rights, to step in when
popular will or an ineffective legislature tramples the rights of the
voiceless and the powerless. It is in the courts where legal challenges
to statutes that infringe on constitutional rights can be resolved, free
from powerful special interests and lobbyists.
Vergara v. California, the lawsuit filed last year against the State of
California by nine public schoolchildren and sponsored by the nonprofit
organization Students Matter, challenges the outdated teacher tenure,
dismissal and layoff system in California that entrenches grossly
ineffective teachers in classrooms while pushing highly effective, but
less senior, teachers out. Because these laws keep ineffective teachers
in schools, especially when there are effective teachers willing to take
their places, these laws violate students’ fundamental right to equal
educational opportunity.
This week, Plaintiffs – public schoolchildren from all over California
from 8 to 17 years old – filed with the court a mountain of evidence
demonstrating that the statutes violate the Equal Protection Clause by
forcing school districts to keep failing teachers in the classroom year
after year, with devastating consequences for the students assigned to
their classrooms. The state and the teachers unions that intervened to
justify the statutes, on the other hand, asked the court in September to
summarily dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims without any trial at all. This
week, I and the other attorneys on the case, Theodore B. Olson and
Theodore J. Boutrous, filed a motion full of compelling evidence to
demonstrate how the State of California is knowingly forcing school
districts to keep ineffective teachers in the classroom, and the
real-world consequences that this has on students.
In a Los Angeles Daily News article about the Vergara lawsuit, a
representative of the California Teachers Association accused the
Plaintiffs of “circumventing the legislative process to strip teachers
of their due-process rights.”
This accusation is simply not true. The uncomfortable truth for many is
that this suit merely seeks determinations that are consistent with what
the Constitution demands; namely, that teacher employment provisions
take student educational needs into account. Rather than attempting to
subvert California’s constitution, this suit is aimed at enforcing the
constitution’s guarantee of equal educational opportunity.
The role of the courts and impact litigation in education reform is far
from new. A long line of cases has paved the way and laid the foundation
for the Vergara challenge today.
Perhaps the most famous education equality lawsuit, Brown v. Board of
Education, decided in 1954, ended the forced segregation of public
schools in America, establishing that separate is not equal.
It is hard to imagine now that some opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling
in Brown v. Board of Education as an improper exercise of judicial
power. It is even harder to imagine where we would be as a nation had
the Supreme Court declined to act. Yet it did, and in doing so, it
educated the nation that fundamental interests trump fear of change,
ignorance and the misinformed view that constitutional provisions are
mere suggestions rather than rights. Just as we cannot countenance
statutes that engender racial marginalization, we cannot countenance
statutes that engender educational marginalization of any child, let
alone our most vulnerable children.
The landmark California state case Serrano v. Priest, litigated in the
mid-1970s, challenged the system of funding school districts through
property taxes, claiming the vast differences in the personal wealth of
families living in different districts resulted in wide discrepancies in
school funding that jeopardized the quality of public education in
poorer districts.
The Serrano case recognized that a child’s right to an education is a
fundamental interest guaranteed by the California Constitution.
And in Butt v. State of California, decided in 1992, the California
Supreme Court ruled that “the State itself bears the ultimate authority
and responsibility to ensure that its district-based system of common
schools provides basic equality of educational opportunity.” Laws that
inflict a “real and appreciable impact” on the fundamental right to
education and that are not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state
interest are unconstitutional.
We know now that educational quality depends on more than just
curriculum and a classroom. Just as students have a fundamental right to
access facilities and educational resources that meet a basic threshold
of quality, students have a constitutional right to equal access to an
effective teacher.
Children do not have a voice in the legislative process, a seat at the
bargaining table or vast amounts of funds to lobby lawmakers. The
challenge to California’s harmful and outdated teacher employment system
must be brought to the courts. When decisions made above children’s
heads violate their fundamental right to have an equal opportunity to
learn – denying many of them their only shot at elevating themselves out
of poverty – the only recourse these children have to defend their
fundamental rights is the courts. It is the judicial enforcement of
these rights that will compel legislatures in California and other
states to fulfill their obligation to respect the educational rights of
all our children.
•••
● Marcellus Antonio McRae, a partner in the Los Angeles office of
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, is currently representing nine California
public schoolchildren in the statewide education equality lawsuit
Vergara v. California, sponsored by the nonprofit organization Students
Matter. Mr. McRae is a member of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s
Litigation, White Collar Defense and Investigations, International Trade
Regulation and Compliance, and Media and Entertainment Practice groups.
_________________________________
►Vergara v. State of California: CTA/CFT TO INTERVENE IN BASELESS,
MERITLESS LAWSUIT BY CORPORATE SPECIAL INTERESTS ATTACKING TEACHER
PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS
From CTA website: http://bit.ly/1jefG9C
March 28, 2013 :: The California Teachers Association and the
California Federation of Teachers have filed a motion to intervene in
litigation known as Vergara v. State of California — a lawsuit aiming to
overturn due process protections for teachers. If upheld, this lawsuit
will make it harder to attract and retain quality teachers in
California’s schools. The lawsuit, filed by “Students Matter,” alleges
that California Education Code provisions governing teacher dismissals,
due process rights and layoffs are unconstitutional and should be
eliminated.
“This lawsuit is baseless and meritless, and hurts student learning,”
said CTA President Dean E. Vogel. “It is the latest attempt by corporate
special interests and billionaires to push their education agenda on
California public schools. This time, in an effort to keep parents and
educators out of education policy decisions, they are doing it through
the courts. This lawsuit is trying to legislate from the bench and
exclude meaningful input from parents, educators and lawmakers.”
The issues surrounding layoffs do not originate in Education Code
provisions or local collective bargaining agreements, but in lack of
funding. The real issues facing California’s students today are the lack
of adequate resources, smaller class sizes, parental involvement and
quality teacher training.
Hiding their agenda behind kids, “Students Matter” named eight kids in their lawsuit including 13-year-old Beatriz Vergara.
“The people who agreed to lend their names to this wrong-headed lawsuit
are attempting to crowd out the voices of all other parents in
California. We should be working to bring students, parents and
teachers together — not driving them apart. Legislation, informed by the
experience and testimony of all members of the education community, is
the best process for improving public education,” said CFT President
Josh Pechthalt, parent of an eighth-grade student in the Los Angeles
Unified School District. “The real agenda of this suit is to attack and
weaken teachers and their unions in order to privatize public schools
and turn them into profit centers for the corporate sponsors behind the
lawsuit.”
The backers of this lawsuit include a “who’s who” of the billionaire
boys club and their front groups. Their goals have nothing to do width
protecting students, but are really about undermining public schools.
If there are legitimate problems width education laws, they should be
addressed through the legislative process where parents, educators and
all community members can be heard, rather than through filing costly
lawsuits.
•••
● CTA and CFT seek to ensure all stakeholders have input in education
policy decisions and to protect the rights of educators. After all, the
students are the ones most affected by any of these decisions and their
voices must be heard.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
smf @4LAKids radio interview on parent involvement, etc. http://bit.ly/HZZCgH
DETAIL OF IPADS /COMMON CORE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT PHASE 2 EMERGE: BOARD BUSINESS: LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DIS... http://bit.ly/1f3PXDo
THE FORTHCOME AMENDED iPAD RESOLUTION LANGUAGE + smf’s 2¢: More and less
than you wanted to know, far later than you wanted to know it... http://bit.ly/1ah0yau
Tonight at 7PM. smf /@4LAKids on #Parent Engagement / Involvement /
Empowerment + Miramonte in the rearview mirror , etc - KPFK 90.7. Call
in! ●●SHOW ARCHIVED AT: http://bit.ly/HZZCgH
AMENDED LANGUAGE FORTHCOMING: Everything you need to know about the iPad compromise reached yesterday: by e-ma... http://bit.ly/1bFyJqU
SELLING THE FARM AN ACRE AT A TIME…: smf writes: Nov. 13, 2013 :: Unreported elsewhere: Last night the LAUS... http://bit.ly/1cUY9pz
L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOLS PLANS TO MOVE FORWARD WITH TRIMMED DOWN iPAD PLAN + smf’s 2¢: A tense vote by sharply div... http://bit.ly/1bDjWwK
LAUSD BOARD WON’T CENSURE PRESIDENT RICHARD VLADOVIC FOR ALLEGED SEXUAL
HARASSMENT, BULLYING: Galatzan’s motion fails to get second... http://bit.ly/1cnAvwT
TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: Informed speculation had been that
Villaraigosa worked out deal: Deasy gets endorsement to stay; Vladovic
censure dies.
TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: 4 insiders: Informed speculation had been
that Villaraigosa worked out deal: Deasy gets endorsement to stay;
Vladovic cens ...
TWEET+RETWEET: @UTLAnow: @LASchools could not move forward with Dr.
Valdovic's censure. No BM would 2nd Galatzan's motion. @Monica4LAUSD was
not present.
TWEET+RETWEET: @LADNschools: Apple and content developer Pearson will
NOT participate in #iPad debate. Because of looming contract, "cone of
silence" i ...
TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: The door remains open, however, for a
possible private meeting between Apple, Pearson and the Board of
Education. ●●smf’s 2¢: Such a private meeting would probably be a
violation of the Brown Act …but maybe a private meeting between Apple,
Pearson and the Inspector General is in order?
TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: Apple also declines to allow Pearson, the
subcontractor providing curriculum, to appear as part of public meeting.
TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: Apple declines to participate in public
meeting on the iPads, according to board member Monica Ratliff at board
meeting.
LA SCHOOL BOARD TO VOTE ON FUTURE OF iPAD PROGRAM: Annie Gilbertson | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.... http://bit.ly/1dmi7FC
Deasy’s Saturday “Midnight Surprise” apparently misses the LA Times’ Tuesday print publication deadline http://bit.ly/auDNT3
LAUSD OFFICIALS CONSIDER COMPETING PLANS FOR 41-BILLION iPAD PROJECT: Openness+Transparency 101: The Superinte... http://bit.ly/1bs1FnT
from the wonderful folks who brought you Parent Revolution & the Parent Trigger: CELEBRATORY SELF CONGRATULATION! ... http://bit.ly/1i69Qt7
BE IT RESOLVED: iPads and the general state of craziness!: A longtime 4LAKids reader, a teacher and teacher-of... http://bit.ly/1dlj5SN
LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS SLOW ROLLOUT OF iPADS AMID SECURITY CONCERNS: By Alex Dobuzinskis/REUTERS, from the New Yo... http://bit.ly/1cQXLbx
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
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!.
|
