Social Media Stores for the Week of March 26
Board Members
While local school boards grapple with creating social media policies, the Fair Political Practices Commission held hearings about what constitutes political communication and the need for regulation.
Schools and the Classroom
With web access vie cell phones becoming more prevalent, more school districts are examining the need to explicitly address issues of cyberbullying from personal devices.
Community Engagement
The need for community engagement is increasing as school boards make difficult decisions about employees, programs and schools. This social media flowchart conceptualizes the relationship between social media, parent and community member experience, and the decision to take action in support of an organization like a school district.
News Impacting CA School Districts Through March 26
Federal News
Besides API and AYP scores there are NAEP scores, which were released this week. NAEP stands for National Assessment for Educational Progress and unlike API and AYP there are no local scores for NAEP. As a result the best you can do is to compare state scores.
Sacramento News
The state superintendent of public instruction is traditionally not one of the glamorous or bank-breaking political campaigns in California. However, when the three leading candidates are receiving campaign donations from different educational groups it signals a brewing fight among traditional Democratic groups.
Expect the list of financially troubled school districts to double or triple in June unless school districts pass local parcel taxes or negotiate significant concessions from employee groups. The list identifies school districts who determined in December they may not be able to meet their fiscal obligations in the coming three years. The list was created before the Governor released his budget reducing public education funding by an additional $2 billion dollars.
Reforming State and Local Governance
With the leading Republican calling for major reform to public employees pensions it is no wonder why some local school districts are feeling angst about the projected shortfall in the teachers retirement system.
With country’s largest annual increases in taxes set to expire at year-end, one wonders how Sacramento will be able to pass budget.
School District Impacts
Putting a tax measure on the ballot is a tough decision especially outside the nine Bay Area counties. As a result, one central coast school district rejected a teacher union request to place a $8 a month parcel tax on the June ballot.
With Federal stimulus monies ending, school districts like this are looking to shorten the 2010/2011 school year by five days.
News Impacting CA School Districts Through March 19
Federal News
The Obama administration released its blueprint for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which would ask states to adopt college- and career-ready standards and reward schools for producing dramatic gains in student achievement. The proposal challenges the nation to embrace educational standards that would put America on a path to global leadership.
The blueprint provides incentives for states to adopt academic standards that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and create accountability systems that measure student growth toward meeting the goal that all children graduate and succeed in college.
School District Impacts
State Superintendent OConnell issued a press release indicating 21,905 teacher received March 15 notices, while the California Teachers Association shows a number of 23,518 on their website as Friday, March 19. I complied a list of over 100 individual school districts from news reports.
The next wave of stories in the coming months will be how many school districts are able to successfully negotiate agreement on furlough days with their unions. Brea-Olinda reached agreement this week for four furlough days in 2010/11 and eight days in 2011/12. Lompoc reached agreement in eight days in 2010/11.
A few districts are attacking the personnel costs in a different manner. Ceres did not issue March 15 notices but instead is asking for a 8.5% pay cut that administrators and nonunion employees took effective January.
If school districts and unions can agree during negotiations, than more school districts will find themselves in fact finding like Capistrano.
More and more school districts are looking to revenue side to deal with the ongoing state fiscal crisis. Eight school districts in Santa Clara county will be holding parcel tax elections.
As State withholds payments to school districts, districts like Tecemula are experiencing cash flow problems.
March 15 Notices – Final
Below is the listing of over 100 school districts who issued March 15 notices to their employees. These numbers were compiled from new reports and some of the reports were unclear on the number of teachers impacted.
News Impacting CA Schools for the Week Ending March 12
Federal
Up to $200 million in federal stimulus funds could be in jeopardy unless the state answers allegations that it is using accounting tricks to cover up a lack of spending on public education.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative released a draft of K-12 standards for public comment. The Educated Guess review the implications for California.
Sacramento
The State Board of Education unanimously approved the revised list of 188 failing schools. The schools on the list are supposed to comprise the 5 percent of “persistently lowest performing schools” in need of drastic intervention. They’ll be eligible to apply for federal School Improvement Grants of between $150,000 and $6 million over the next three years.
Reforming State and Local Governance
Many believe the political process needs reform in the area of campaign financing. The FPPC’s report, entitled “Big Money Talks,” delves into the 25 biggest – at least in financial terms – political players in the state, which have collectively spent $1.3 billion on political actionin the last 10 years.
School Districts Impacts
With March 15 on Monday, school districts completed taking action on approving the issuing layoff notices across California. Here is a list of over 50 school districts from across California.
Capistrano Dixie Encinitas Fontana Glendora Liberty Long Beach Los Angeles Mt Diablo Murrieta Norwalk-La Mirada Oceanside Ontario-Montclair Poway Rio Sacramento City Saddleback San Ramon Valley Walnut Valley
For the links to the other news articles for school districts on the list, read the February 26 and March 5 recaps.
Social Media Stories for Week of March 5
Board Members
When a school board looks to refine policies regarding use of the social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, establishing a line between personal and professional lives is difficult. One school district is experiencing such difficultly while others schools districts are discouraged use altogether.
Community Engagement
School districts looking for additional methods to communicate with the community are using Facebook to start a conversation.
News Impacting CA Schools for the Week Ending March 5
Federal
California didn’t make the cut for taking home cash in the first round of the Race to the Top competition for federal stimulus funds for education.
Sacramento
Democrats in the Legislature took a step toward restoring $900 million of the more than $2 billion that Gov. Schwarzenegger has proposed to cut from K-12 schools and community colleges. The “gas-tax-swap” bill would hold the schools harmless by raising the percentage of the general fund that must go toward K-14 schools. The Governor hasn’t said whether he would sign the bill.
A bill in the California Legislature would give three school districts more freedom in how it spends state money. The bill would relax spending restrictions on state funds for up to three eligible districts as part of a pilot program. The added flexibility would begin in 2011 and run through 2014. The bill was introduced by Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, and sponsored by the Long Beach Unified.
Reforming State and Local Governance
Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said he is prepared to ask the Legislature to put California Forward’s proposal to lower the vote requirement for passing a budget on the November ballot.
With 80 initiative proposals currently circulating throughout California, Secretary of State Debra Bowen today reminded voters of their key rights and responsibilities when deciding whether to sign petitions.
A new study says the economic downturn has prompted 17 states to make cost-cutting public pension reforms during the last two years — lower benefits for new hires, extended retirement ages and bigger payments from workers. California is not among them.
School Districts Impacts
The list of March 15 notices is over 35 school districts.
Los Angeles
The Los Angeles school board unanimously approved sending nearly 5,200 layoff notices to teachers, administrators, counselors and nurses, as the district looks to close a $640 million budget deficit for the next school year.
Murieta
Murieta staff expects about 175 teachers to get layoff notices, including some who have been with the district since 2003.
Pomona
The school board has voted to send out preliminary layoff notices to 321 certificated employees. Of the 321 employees due to receive notices, 293 are teachers.
Chino Valley
Teachers and students are reeling from a school board decision to close the Chino Valley Unified Adult School on July 1. In addition the Board is expected to approve the release of about 87 preliminary layoff notices.
Placentia-Yorba Linda
The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District has reached a tentative furlough agreement with the group that could save the district $1.6 million. In exchange for the 10 furlough days, which amount to about a 2.1 percent pay cut this school year for most of the employees, the district has agreed not to lay off any more support staff during this school year and to not lay off more than 5 percent of staff in the 2010-11 school year.
Brea Olinda
The Brea Olinda Unified School District could be sending layoff notices to more than 30 teachers and an unknown number of classified employees to help resolve a projected $3.5 million deficit due to ongoing cuts in state funding.
Calaveras
The elimination of two dozen teachers - the equivalent of 23.12 full-time positions – would save the district $1.2 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, said Calaveras officials.
Paramount
The Paramount Unified School District wants employees to take four unpaid furlough days next academic year as part of a plan to cut $3.2 million from its 2010-2011 budget. In addition, the board could decide to warn 10 elementary teachers and two intervention teachers that they may lose their jobs at the end of the school year.
Modesto
The board voted 6-1 to begin layoff proceedings for more than 300 teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians, setting up negotiations with employee unions.
Castro Valley
The Board approved just over $5 million in cuts from next year’s budget, which will eliminate about 50 teaching and management positions in the district.
Lompoc
Every employee of the Lompoc Unified School District just lost eight working days from the 2010-11 school year. The question of whether to accept the furlough decision now will be posed to the labor organizations.
Ojai
The board approved layoff notices for 51 certificated employees at a meeting Tuesday night. The list includes about 40 full-time classroom teachers and five full-time support and administrative positions.
Twin Rivers
Twin Rivers Unified School District trustees discussed whether to issue pink slips to more than 400 employees. Of those proposed layoff notices, 226 were to be given to classified employees – clerks, custodians, library workers, bus drivers and maintenance personnel and their supervisors.
Oxnard
Prompted by proposed state funding cuts, Oxnard School District trustees approved a list of layoff notices for about 30 teachers.
Walnut Valley
The Walnut Valley Unified School District board of trustees voted Wednesday night to notify 54 elementary school teachers and about 30 high school educators of their possible layoffs for the 2010-11 school year.
March 15 Notices
Using the weekly recaps of February 19 and February 26, I have created a spreadsheet of issued and potential March 15 notices issued by school districts across California. I will update the spreadsheet each Friday as part of weekly recap of news impacting school districts.
California March 15 Notices 2010