With last weekend’s 6.0 earthquake in Napa County as the latest reminder of the need for earthquake preparedness, LA Unified is progressing slowly in retrofitting school buildings deemed vulnerable.

In accordance with a state law known as AB 300, the district in 2006 conducted a seismic evaluation and identified 667 buildings constructed before 1976 that required possible retrofits to withstand a big earthquake. The buildings were ranked by priority, looking at three risk factors: age, type of construction and proximity to an earthquake fault.

Since the list was released, only 17 buildings on school sites have been retrofitted to protect against earthquakes. Currently, 15 buildings on 10 school sites are in the design phase, meaning that experts are determining the scope of a retrofit or whether the building needs to be torn down and rebuilt.

“This is a further study of our priority buildings. Those are the ones within two miles of a known fault,” Roger Finstad, LAUSD’s director or maintenance and operations told LA School Report.

The survey of buildings begins with a seismic evaluation, which could take up to a year, followed by the design phase and finally the actual retrofit or upgrades.

Diana Friend, whose nine-year-old son attends West Hollywood Elementary, a school on the list of buildings in need of a retrofit, said the Napa earthquake made her think more about her child’s safety.

“What happens the next time when my son is at school and an earthquake hits?” she said. “Will he be safe? Will the building be able to withstand the next big one? That’s a really big issue for me.”

She also plans to send her four-year-old daughter to the same school.

“The safety of my kids is my top priority and I want to know that my kids are safe when they’re in school,” she said.

Meanwhile, Finstad said that when many of the schools were built decades ago, they were constructed according to stringent state building codes in place at the time so the buildings have a good chance of withstanding an earthquake.

“Should we have an earthquake like the one that occurred in Napa, we would expect our buildings to perform quite well,” he said.

However, the ongoing retrofitting efforts will allow the district to bring all of the structures up to current earthquake safety standards.

Tom Rubin, a consultant to the independent Bond Oversight Committee that monitors LAUSD construction spending, said the district has been working hard for many years to do the retrofits.

“All of the higher priority retrofits have been completed,” he told LA School Report. “So it’s now working through the lower priority. There’s a limit to how many you can do in any one time given that some of these require that the schools be taken out of service in many cases or at least some buildings.”

According to the State’s Architect Office, AB 300 doesn’t require school districts to engage in a seismic evaluation or even retrofit their facilities.

 “But the district has gone beyond that when something happens, like a new fault is discovered,” he said. “They’ve taken steps as appropriate to go to a greater standard for safety.”

The total retrofitting will cost between $1-$1.5 billion.

Source: California Charter Schools Association

*UPDATED

A new report by the California Charter Schools Association shows a growing gap between the overall school performance of traditional schools and charter schools in LA Unified.

The report — Portrait of the Movement — says LA Unified charter schools, on average, produce stronger test results than traditional schools in the district. The data shows that charter school median API scores have been on a steady rise over the last six years, gradually expanding the difference over the other schools.

The report covers a five-year period between the 2007-2008 and 2012-2013 school years. A three-point difference in the median API score for charters and traditional schools in 2007-2008 grew to 47 over the five years, as the median API score for traditional scores slipped in the final year.

The charter association said the trend represents just one aspect of the charters’ overall achievement.

“The gap doesn’t just exist on one measure, the gap exists on a host of other measures across a spectrum of performance, whether you look at graduation rates, college readiness data or this particular data,” Elizabeth Robitaille, Senior Vice President, Achievement and Performance Management, told LA School Report.

She said this gap is likely to get bigger as more students in LAUSD start attending top performing charter schools.

The findings also showed that the difference in performance exists between charter and traditional schools that have similar demographics.

Officials compared two schools: Morningside Elementary, a traditional K-5 school, and Downtown Value Charter, which is a high-performing K-8 school. Both have student bodies that are mostly Hispanic, and approximately half of all test takers in both schools are English learners.

Officials used what they call a predicted API to determine how the school should score based on demographics and other criteria.

The report showed that during the 2013-2014 school year, both schools’ predicted API was 810. However, Downtown Value Charter scored 838 — or 45 points higher than Morningside, at 793.  From the analysis, on average, officials say there’s a 5 percent gap between predicted API scores and actual scores for all charters and traditional schools.

On average, LAUSD charters outperformed their predicted API score by 3.5 percent while traditional schools underperformed by 1.5 percent (thus, a 5 percent gap in total in percent predicted API). This gap has widened — five years ago it was only 3.8 percent.

The number of charter schools in LA Unified has grown to 250 this year from 145 in 2009.

*Corrects scores for Morningside Elementary and Downtown Value Charter

Student at Jefferson High School, staging a walk out

Continuing problems with LAUSD’s  new MiSiS computer system prompted nearly 250 Jefferson High School students to walk out of class today in protest over scheduling conflicts.

The students, mostly juniors and seniors, said their schedules were wrong and they have not been assigned the honor or AP classes they need for their college portfolio. They blamed the student data management system for the errors.

MiSiS, or 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. But ever since its roll out at the start of the school year, the program has been riddled with problems, including losing student data and scheduling errors, creating chaos across school campuses.

Senior Daniela Echavarria told LA School Report that she has been complaining to school administrators ever since she noticed that she was missing three classes.

“At first it was a really big mess, I had a bunch of ninth grade classes,” she said. “I didn’t even have an English class.”

She also said many students were missing electives and were scheduled for classes that they had already taken. Others, she said, had been assigned two classes at the same time.

Echavarria put the blame not only on MiSiS, but also on district officials.

“It seems to me that the district doesn’t really care about what’s going on in the school. I don’t feel like they’re doing their job right as educators,” Echavarria said.

Jefferson High School world history teacher Aissa Riley said that these problems are disrupting valuable instruction time.  “Over half the students don’t have accurate schedules; it’s destroying any instruction,” Riley told LA School Report.

The district has acknowledged problems with MiSiS and is working to fix them.

“We absolutely agree that Jefferson Senior High School students deserve a quality education, which is why we have made extra investments to hire more teachers, counselors and other staff to support students to graduate ready for college and career,” Tommy Chang, Superintendent of Intensive Support and Innovation Center, said in a statement.

Making matters even more complicated, students are dealing with new leadership on campus after the district hired a handful of new administrators over the summer. According to UTLA, the class scheduling matrix had to be completely redone because the new school leaders weren’t familiar with the campus and the student population.

Chang said that administrators did make some changes in the master schedule last week, all in the best interests of students.

“We learned that parts of the previous schedule were unacceptable,” he said. “All Advanced Placement classes were slotted in the same period, limiting students’ access to a college curriculum. The same was true for core content classes for English learners, limiting their access to various subjects as all were scheduled at the same time.”

He added, “L.A. Unified is about creating opportunities for all students to take the necessary rigorous courses that prepare them for success. We have a sense of urgency, just like the students.”

The new 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.

Special education teacher Kelly Flores, who teaches at Maya Angelou Community High School, said the problems she has encountered with MiSiS are preventing her from doing her job, costing students valuable instruction time.

“I can’t really use MiSiS. The only thing I can do is take attendance of the kids that I have enrolled in a couple of classes,” she told LA School Report. “I personally have no access in finding my students, so I’m going on the second week, and I can’t service my students. The only thing I can do is know who the students I had last year were and go look for them class to class.”

Overall, thousands of students in the district are affected. As a special education teacher, Flores must be working with her students either in a classroom or learning center, making sure they’re programmed correctly into the classes they need.

“I’m unable to do this because of the new system,” she said.

Flores says there’s a way teachers can access their case load, but it has to go through an administrator, and at this point, she said, no administrator knows how to do it or has the time to do it.

“To me it’s complete chaos,” she said.

She insisted that the only way she knows her students are at school is if she sees them in the halls. She said many of them were programmed in, but some don’t have the correct classes.

“I write down their schedules, but their schedules are being changed,” she said.

Flores said she believes the district made a mistake by shutting down the older, but reliable computer system, without making sure the new system worked properly, leaving teachers without information they need.

“I don’t know how to access my students, and even if I could, I don’t know how because I haven’t been trained,” she said. “It is something that is good in theory, but it wasn’t tested,  and it wasn’t perfected before they rolled it out.”

Making matters worse, she said, teachers can’t identify any new special education students coming in from middle school.

By this time in previous years, Flores said, the special education student case load would already have been distributed, and teachers would find their students by using the former computer system. Now, she said, they haven’t been able to do any of it.

Flores would normally have between 28 and 30 special education students, but currently she only has 10 who have been programmed into her classes.

“I should be in the classroom with all of those 28,” she said. “They should know who I am, and I should have their schedules and be providing services. The system is not working and it’s not allowing special education students to have their needs met.”

MiSiS has been plagued with problems ever since its debut earlier this month. Counselors in charge of enrolling students have complained that the new comprehensive program is not as user friendly as the older system. MiSiS, they say, also adds to their workloads because it has lost a substantial amount of student data that had been entered.

District officials have conceded they are working on the problems and have told teachers they “will not have access to the system while the issues are being resolved.”

Previous Posts: Teachers union blasts Deasy again for new computer system; Teachers union says computer glitch cost students first day; Teachers in panic over LAUSD’s new computer tracking system

A major shift is underway across LA Unified in how schools and administrators approach student disciplinary issues.

LAUSD officials and LA School Police Chief Steve Zipperman are planning to announce new district-wide protocols tomorrow that will define and limit the role of police on campus, incorporating new student protections and providing opportunities for students to receive help and support.

The announcement will take place at Manual Arts High School on Vermont Avenue.

One of the main changes directly impacts the school police and how officers issue student citations.

Officials from the Community Strategy Center, an LA-based human rights organization that focuses on civil rights, environmental justice, public health and the criminal legal system, say between 2009 and 2011, 33,000 tickets were given to young people under the age of 14 for truancy, tobacco, fights or assaults, and 1,000 students were booked and arrested each year.

Most of the citations led to court appearances or probation, undermining student success at school.

However, since the LA Unified school board passed the School Climate Bill of Rights in May 2013, redefining the role of police on school sites, among other things, there has been a significant drop in citations, according to the Center.

And now, officials say, the new policy will continue the trend of ticket reduction. Instead of handing out tickets, police will refer students involved in incidents to school administrators who will then refer them to various city and LAUSD Family Resource Centers for discipline interventions and help that they need.

“This is a new set of policies that is telling the school police, school district and administrators that we need to apply equally and rightfully protections for young people to make the school setting a much more supportive environment to be able to thrive,” Manuel Criollo, Director of Organizing for the Center, told LA School Report.

Another major change is that LAUSD, which previously had no support counselors, is hiring 35 restorative justice counselors this year to help some of the highest need schools, thanks to $4 million in funding from the Local Control Funding Formula.

The funding comes as a result of a bigger effort in May by LAUSD board member Monica Ratliff to provide a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students by boosting the district’s custodial staff and cutting LASPD’s expansion budget.

Criollo said that 35 counselors isn’t enough, but it’s a good first step in a bigger movement to decriminalize student behaviors and maximize achievement.

At tomorrow’s event, Zipperman and community officials will be joined by two LA Juvenile Court judges — Michael Nash and Donna Groman —  and LA Unified board member Monica Garcia.

Officials from FixLA and LA Unified at a press conference, calling for more school crossing guards.

As the new school year gets underway, so does a campaign to increase student safety at LA Unified elementary schools.

District officials, including board member Bennett Kayser, and members of the  FixLA coalition gathered at City Hall this week to express their concern over a shortage of crossing guards at more than 100 LA Unified and charter elementary school intersections, a vacuum they say that puts students and their parents at risk of injury, even death.

They called on city leaders to restore the number of crossing guards at schools.

“It’s about the safety of our children,” said Scott Mann, a spokesperson for FixLA.

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation is responsible for supplying crossing guards to elementary schools within LAUSD.

A department traffic study in March showed that 507 intersections near 307 elementary schools qualified for crossing guards.

Yet, just a third, or 179, of those elementary school intersections that LADOT had identified as dangerous due to heavy traffic remain unguarded, according to a FixLA study.

The FIxLA report also showed that the city has seen a near 40 percent reduction in crossing guard staffing since the recession of 2008, when there were 576 crossing guards.

According to LADOT, the city has only 331 crossing guards currently assigned at intersections, which FixLA says represents a 10-year low. LADOT blamed the shortage on “limited resources.”

LADOT is currently working with the mayor’s office to get approval to add up to 410 crossing guards.

Kayser, who has been a long time advocate of making sure students have safe routes to school and is a supporter of free public transportation to school, said the lack of crossing guards is a K-12 problem because in addition to walking, many older students also use bikes, skateboards and scooters to get to school and also need a guard to help them cross safely.

“As a former health education teacher, I am all for our students walking and biking to school but safety comes first,” Kayser said. “I salute the crossing guards who now serve our children and hope to see many more out there soon.”

Fix LA, an organization made up community groups, faith-based organizations and others who work together to restore vital city programs, say school children between the ages of 5-17 account for 18 percent of all pedestrian fatalities and severe injuries in the city.

“I’ve been a crossing guard for 28 years,” said Doris Weston.  “It’s a great honor to serve our children and their families.  As a coalition of community leaders, crossing guards and other city workers, we stand united to make sure kids across this city receive the protection they deserve.”

As LA Unified students begin their first day of school tomorrow, district officials will be out in force, welcoming them.

Superintendent John Deasy has a full schedule over two days, with plans to greet principals and to tour schools that are under construction.

Planning to visit nearly a dozen campuses tomorrow and Wednesday, Deasy will start his tomorrow with a 5 a.m. appearance at Solano Avenue Elementary School where he will be joined by LAUSD board member Monica Garcia and chief facilities administrator Mark Hovatter, followed by a visit to Dolores Huerta Elementary School from 7 to 7:30 am.

Later, Deasy and Hovatter are scheduled to appear at John C. Fremont High School, while LAUSD board member Monica Ratliff heads to Mountain View Elementary School and then to Van Nuys Senior High School.

At 9 am, Deasy, Hovatter, California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris,  LAUSD board member Steve Zimmer and LAUSD’s out-going liaison to District 1, Sylvia Rousseau, will gather at Baldwin Hills Elementary School and Gifted/High Ability Magnet School.

Deasy ends the day with visits to Playa Vista Elementary School, Paul Revere Charter Middle School and Magnet Center, Emerson Community Charter Middle School and David Starr Jordan High School.

On Wednesday, Deasy is scheduled to visit four schools, joined by Garcia and Hovatter at Dr. Julian Nava Learning Academy, one of four new four pilot schools opening this year, followed by Haddon Avenue Elementary School and North Hollywood Senior High School.  Deasy will be joined by LAUSD board member Bennett Kayser for his final visit to South Gate Middle School.

As for the two other board members, Tamar Galatzan is starting the day tomorrow with her own children, and President Richard Vladovic has plans to visit schools but has announced his schedule.

* Clarifies Vladovic’s plans to visit schools

For the school year opening next week, LA Unified is adding only a handful of Pilot, Local Initiative Schools (LIS), and Expanded School-Based Model Management (ESBMM) schools.

LA Unified and the teachers union, UTLA, signed an agreement at the end of 2011 adding LIS as a third autonomy model to the existing ESBMM and pilot school models, and over over the first two years with all three models, pilots increased to 48 from 34, LIS went to 11 from 1 and ESBMM schools rose to 23 from 17.

In the coming year, however, LA Unified is adding just 4 pilots (two closed last year), 4 LIS schools and 1 ESBMM school, bringing the totals to 50 pilots, 15 LIS and 24 ESBMM.

The four new pilots are Lucille Roybal-Allard ES, Porter Ranch Community School, Boyle Heights STEM HS, and Nava College Preparatory Academy.

The four new LIS include Lokrantz Special Education Center, Panorama City ES, Reseda HS, and Salvin Community Learning Center. The new ESBMM school is Verdugo Hills HS.

District officials say the initial increases reflected new options for autonomy made available to schools, allowing outside management groups and teacher-led groups to work together for change. Those same options attracted fewer such groups for the coming year, the officials said.

Each of the autonomy models provides a varying degree of autonomy and decision-making authority in exchange for increased accountability. The arrangement enables schools to provide innovative programs that seek to improve student achievement.

PILOT SCHOOLS

Pilot schools operate with broad local control and are exempt from district policies and some waivers from the teachers union contract, but they must follow all state and federal guidelines.

Pilot schools also have the unique ability to replace staff at the end of each school year.

An existing, non-pilot LAUSD school or small learning community may convert to become a pilot school if a minimum of 67 percent of all UTLA bargaining unit members who work 50 percent or more of their time in the school vote to adopt pilot status.

John Lawler, principal of the pilot school Cesar E. Chavez Learning Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts for the last three years, said he was attracted to the teacher-led model because of the instructional flexibility it offers.

“As teachers, we were in the best position to determine what would be the needs and the best way to approach instruction for our students,” he said, adding, “Being a small school, we’d be able to offer a really personalized experience for kids and give a lot of attention to their needs and get to know all the kids and really determine what their strengths were and what their challenges were and how we could address all of those.”

Pilot school teachers, though still represented by UTLA, must sign an elect-to-work contract that requires them to put in more hours on the job and participate in supplementary career training.

“The beauty of teacher led is that it is ‘buy in,’ ” Lawler said. “They have the ‘buy in’ to actually follow through and do it. I think the best educators are innovators and this is a venue for being innovative.”

LOCAL INITIATIVE SCHOOLS

Local Initiative Schools have the authority and option to determine local school policy.

Similar to pilots, LIS schools have broad local control and exemptions from district policy. But they are unique in one key respect: the concept of “mutual consent” hiring is contractually embedded. This requires that both the school and teacher agree to placement at the school site, a departure from traditional LAUSD schools, where placement is decided by the district.

LIS schools may elect to waive some union contract provisions if there is agreement at the school site to do so. The  approval  process for an LIS school involves both a petition and a vote of 60 percent of the full time UTLA staff.

EXPANDED SCHOOL BASE MANAGEMENT MODEL

ESBMM schools have a more limited set of options they can customize, which include their budgets, staff selection and professional development expectations, curriculum, and schedule.

“I do not support the negativity that has come out,” Watson told LA School Report. “I never have done that. Trying to scandalize and demean an opponent running is not the way I work, and that’s not what I agreed to.”

Watson said she has reached out to Johnson’s campaign, insisting that her name and image not be used in any negative materials.

So far, none of the negative material (examples are here and here) from the campaign has included the names of Watson or Hahn. Fred MacFarlane, a spokesman for the campaign said he believed they were responding to pro-Johnson material from an outside group. The campaign is barred by law from contacting outside groups, regarding their campaign activities.

“I let the person I endorse, Alex Johnson, know that this scurrilous materials that had been put out on one’s opponent, they can’t use my name, they can’t use my picture,” said Watson, who served five terms in the House, through 2011.

Watson was an early supporter of McKenna, at a time the school board had not decided whether to fill the board seat by appointment or by election. McKenna said then he only wanted the seat if appointed, leading Watson to offer support for Johnson.

After the board voted to stage an election, McKenna became a candidate, but Watson kept to her word and stayed in the Johnson camp.

What she objected to were several recent mailings from the Johnson campaign, attempting to deflate McKenna’s accomplishments over his 35 years as an administrator and educator.

Claiming that the mailers were trying to address the “myth” of McKenna, Johnson’s campaign said the aim was to expose the “real” McKenna.

Hahn, a second-term House member, expressed her concern over the negative campaigning against McKenna to the website City Watch, which quoted her as saying, “Politics can get really dirty sometimes and this looks like one of those times.”

Hahn did not respond to numerous attempts to reach her at her Washington, D.C. office.

MacFarlane said neither woman has asked to be removed from the list of Johnson supporters.

Previous Posts: Zimmer, Kayser back McKenna; Villaraigosa in for Johnson; Johnson campaign goes negative, citing the ‘myth’ of McKenna; McKenna is the union candidate, but CTA gave to Johnson backers

17-year-old Dorsey High School senior Christian Moton, second from right, participates in a group discussion about a book on Nelson Mandela

Every morning for the last six weeks, Dorsey High School senior Christian Moton has been taking part in a highly charged and energetic morning ceremony when he sings, chants and cheers.

“They host Harambee here. Harambee really brings out people’s spirit,” Moton told LA School Report.

The daily Harambee, which means “all pull together” in Swahili, is part of a Children’s Defense Fund program called Freedom Schools, an educational curriculum that helps teach a love for reading and writing and builds self esteem through positive reinforcement.

“I think it’s great,” Moton said. “It’s a way for kids like me who grew up and raised in South LA, for us to get away from it for a good while and learn things that we don’t get to learn.”

Organized by the Community Coalition, a group that works towards improving south LA neighborhoods, the program serves nearly 120 African American and Latino youth from elementary, middle and high schools, mostly from LA Unified. The coalition has been running the program for the last four years.

“It’s all about encouraging them to build their critical thinking skills to give their opinion and really preparing them to engage in the classroom the way most of us don’t learn until we get to college,” Sandra Hamada, director of Youth Programs at the Community Coalition told LA School Report.

During the seven-week summer program, which has been expanding on the West Coast, students gather in groups and read for three hours a day. They also sing and discuss the book’s meaning, while at the same time gaining a sense of self worth.

“We read out loud here and it helps because I know later in life, in college, that I’m going to have to read aloud in groups and I know this is going to prepare me for it,” Moton said.

And thanks to the program’s high impact curriculum, Moton says he has grown more confident and has developed skills that will help him succeed in life.

“It built up my leadership skills,” he said. “I can speak in crowds now. I’m not afraid to express my opinion within groups or with people who are above me in power rank.”

The two were selected in the science category: Kristen Johnson, a fifth grade teacher at low-performing 93rd Street Elementary School, where she has taught for 21 years; and Erica Rood, a third grade teacher at high performing CHIME Charter School in Woodland Hills, where she has taught for six years.

“The subjects these outstanding educators teach so well are part of STEM education, an area that is critically important to the success of our students and our state,” State School Chief Tom Torlakson said in a press release of all the finalists.

“From these early grades, and with such engaged and inspired instructors, we will be able to encourage more students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—the building blocks of learning.”

The nominees must demonstrate a mastery of math or science, appropriate use of instructional methods and strategies, effective use of assessment strategies, lifelong learning, and leadership in education outside the classroom.

The California Department of Education (CDE) partnered with the California Science Teachers Association and the California Mathematics Council to recruit and select nominees for the PAEMST program, which was enacted by Congress in 1983 and authorizes the President each year to bestow up to 108 math and science awards to teachers nationwide.

The awards are considered to be the highest honor for math and science teachers.

The full list of California nominees is here.

Eligible students are Medi-Cal recipients, Native Americans and those without insurance.

Students must have a completed an L.A. Unified immunization consent form and a current immunization record to receive the whooping cough booster.

Under a 2010 state law, when California experienced 9,000 whooping cough cases, children entering 7th to 12th grades are required to be immunized and need proof of a T-dap booster shot before starting school. The state legislature passed the law to guard against further outbreaks. Pertussis is a highly contagious bacterial disease that is usually spread by coughing.

Pertussis cases have been on the rise with elementary, middle and high school outbreaks being reported across the state, according to the California Department of Public Health. As of July 8, a total of 5,393 cases have been documented in California.

LAUSD officials say 50 LA Unified students have contracted whooping cough since June. More than a third of them are from the San Fernando Valley. Officials have reported 84 cases within the district since March.

A new state law that went into effect Jan. 1 requires parents, except for those who opt for religious reasons, to submit a signed doctor’s note proving that they have been notified of the risks and benefits of immunizations.

A list of clinics providing the shots is available here.

The additional funding came as a result of a growing number of school shootings across the country, including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, and the enduring concerns of parents to keep their children safe.

“The community and students can expect to see on the first day of school a high visibility police presence of our police officers throughout different school campuses,” John Guttierez, a senior police officer at LASPD told LA School Report.

The additional funding has provided on-going training for officers, re-training school principals on lockdown procedures and additional safety personal at school sites, including 1,000 aides, which translates into two aides per campus.

They will help officers monitor the school site and report back to them if they see anything unusual. Random searches will also continue on school campuses.

“Parents want to know that we — as a district, as a police department and school administrators — are doing everything we can to keep their child safe,” Guttierez said.

And that includes making sure campuses are free from weapons of any kind, including knives and guns.

“We’re not going to allow someone to walk on campus with a big stick,” Guttierez said. “If it’s reported that they have a weapon or it is believed to be a weapon, any type of weapon, our officers will be out investigating that.”

He says officers will be deployed strategically throughout the district and they will remain on the school site during the day until dismissal. They will also be stationed along various school passage routes.

Police officers, who will be patrolling on foot, motorcycles, bikes and police cars, are going to be greeting students and welcoming them back to school as well as interacting with parents.

“So that the parents know that their kids will be safe and that our officers are here to work with them and facilitate a safe school campus.”

With additional support from the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, officers will also be on the lookout for anything that may cause a challenge to students including traffic issues, loitering or other suspicious activity.

Over the past year, Guttierez said there has been a reduction in crime on school sites thanks to students who genuinely want to get an education and officers who have been successful in keeping the rough element out.

“That contributes to a higher level of education because now kids can focus — and not focus on being robbed, harassed or bullied because our officers are engaged,” he said.

Guttierez encourages parents to monitor LASPD’s Twitter and Facebook pages to stay up to date with what’s happening in the district and at their schools.

And he is asking for community members, parents or students to call LASPD’s weapons hotline at (213) 202-8605 to report anonymously anything suspicious or out of the ordinary.

With less than a month before the runoff election for LAUSD’s district 1 board seat, the race between candidates George McKenna and Alex Johnson is heating up as both both candidates are re-launching their campaigns.

Over the weekend, McKenna, 74, a career school administrator, and Johnson, 33, an education aide to LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, held separate rallies to generate community support and answer questions about their campaigns.

Jewett Walker, McKenna’s campaign manager, told LA School Report that nearly 140 people gathered at McKenna headquarters, including Congresswoman Maxine Waters, representatives for Congresswoman Karen Bass and staff from the California School Employees Association (CSEA) Local 500.

“We thought we did a good job in mobilizing the community,” Walker said. “People were very enthusiastic.”

In fact, Jewett said, the event turned into an unexpected fundraiser. Over $7,000 in campaign contributions was collected, bringing the total of runoff campaign donations to more than $46,000. The largest amount, $1,100, came from CSEA and the rest from community donors.

With only five percent of voters expected to cast ballots, Jewett said the campaign intends to do what it can to re-energize voters, reminding them of the importance of every single vote.

“We’re going to call, we’re going to walk and we’re going to mail,” he said, adding that a low turnout can only benefit McKenna.

“Low turnout elections are skewed to older voters, who take it more seriously,” he said. “That favors us.”

Meanwhile, Johnson, who estimated 250 people attended his campaign kick off event held at his Crenshaw district campaign headquarters, said he will be reaching out to voters across the district to encourage them to go to the polls.

“We will execute a major Get Out The Vote effort in the latter days of July to persuade voters to cast ballots,” he said. “We want to make sure that everybody knows this is a special election in August, and not on the regular election day in November.”

Johnson said his runoff campaign involves organizing and motivating volunteers and executing an outreach effort to contact voters by phone or by visits to their homes to encourage them to vote by mail or at their polling places on election day.

“We have increased the amount of personal visits to voters in their neighborhoods,” he said. “We did a considerable amount of precinct walking during the primary election campaign. In the runoff, we are holding house parties to complement our door-to-door voter contacts.”

Johnson’s campaign kickoff event drew political leaders, union representatives and supporters, parent organizations and education advocates, a list that included Ridley-Thomas, state Assembly members Richard Bloom, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (Mark’s son), L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson, L.A. City Councilman Curren D. Price, Jr. and retired Congresswoman Diane E. Watson.

Johnson says his campaign has raised nearly $60,000 for the runoff by the June 28  reporting deadline, and he’s making an aggressive effort to raise more to stay competitive.

In June’s election, McKenna won 44.3 percent of the vote to Johnson’s 24.7 percent, with five other candidates splitting the remaining votes.

Previous Posts: LAUSD candidates McKenna, Johnson set for election runoff; Vote-by-Mail request for District 1 school board starts today; Labor groups split on support for McKenna and Johnson in runoff

Mural handcrafted by Broadway Elementary students

The LA Unified school district plans to expand its dual language immersion program next fall, adding Spanish language programs to three elementary schools in the district.

According to LAUSD officials, that brings the total number of dual language programs offered by the district to 57, including 43 in Spanish, 10 in Korean, and four in Mandarin.

Hilda Maldonado, the director of the multi-lingual department at LAUSD told LA School Report that the new programs are a result of the schools’ and communities desire for students with different backgrounds to study and gain fluency in both English and Spanish.

“The schools solicit to begin a program,” Maldonado said. “All we do is guide them and provide professional guidance building so they can be successful.”

The three new programs have been approved at Madison, Nightingale and Hooper elementary schools.

Dual language immersion programs are still few and far between in California but are growing in popularity; according to the California Department of Education there were 313 programs in California in 2011, mostly in Spanish. They offer a curriculum in two languages to the general student population –  not just to English language learners, but to English-only students as well.

That has allowed dual immersion to side-step the controversy surrounding bilingual education, an approach embraced by California in the 1990’s, which separated students with limited English from the main student population so they could be taught math, science and social studies in their ‘home’ language. By 1998, bilingual education was being blamed for an achievement gap in the immigrant population and was banned by Proposition 227. As a result, English language learners are required to receive academic instruction in English and then ‘reclassified’ as quickly as possible to join the rest of the student population.

Since the shut-down of bilingual education, dual immersion programs have emerged on a limited basis, only if parents help get a waiver from Prop 227.

Maldonado says in order for the programs to be sustainable, the school, community and parents must work together. There must be an implementation plan in place and certain guidelines must be met such as 50 percent of students in the class must be English speakers while the other 50 must be Spanish speakers.

She also says that the school must be prepared with available teachers, preferably ones who are already on site, who are willing to teach the program.

But while finding Spanish and English speaking teachers is usually not an issue, it does become problematic for other dual immersion programs such as Mandarin.

Even though the district works with Human Resources to recruit dual speaking teachers, a qualified teacher who speaks both languages, “certainly is difficult to find and there is a challenge,” she said. “But we are persistent in our approach.”

Despite the challenges, the Mandarin dual immersion program has seen great results.

For example, City Terrace Elementary, a school located in a low-income neighborhood in East Los Angeles, began offering a Mandarin dual immersion program in 2007 and has seen 90 percent of students scoring advanced or proficient in math and English arts on their statewide tests.

City Terrace’s Principal Elaine Fujiu credits these high scores to the Mandarin dual immersion program and she’s not alone in her belief that becoming proficient in two languages can improves academic success.

The success of dual immersion programs has brought the idea of bilingual education back in the spotlight. State Senator Ricardo Lara of Bell Gardens says that students who are bilingual are better prepared to compete in a global economy.

Lara plans to bring the issue to the voters in November 2016 with a ballot initiative to repeal Proposition 227.

While teachers and school districts across the state will see their contribution rates increase, LAUSD, the largest school district in the state, will pay the lions-share.

The rescue, which will help address a $74 billion shortfall in the teachers pension fund, requires school districts to radically raise their contributions to the fund from the current rate of 8.25 percent, to a rate of 19.1 percent by 2020. Teachers will see a more modest step up, from 8.15 percent to an eventual 10.25 percent of their salary, over the same seven year period. The state’s contribution will rise from 3 percent to 6.3 percent.

But In real dollar terms, the pension contribution price tag for LAUSD is steep: it will eventually more than double by the end of the phase-in period, from its current payment of $213 million per year, to $493 million per year by 2020.

“It is a daunting thought,” Dennis Meyers, executive director for governmental relations at the California School Board Association, told LA School Report.  “Districts were not expecting an increase in the 2014-2015 fiscal year so to have this plan to increase employer rates start so soon was a shock.”

“This doesn’t buy any more services for kids, this is a debt. It’s not going to result in   anything new or improved services for kids,” Meyers said.

According to Edgar Zazueta, LAUSD’s chief lobbyist, school districts requested a one year delay but were turned down.

“The governor’s office and the Legislature didn’t want to go there because they said if you delay a year, it will throw off the seven-year ramp up that the governor had proposed and what they would argue is that it would cost everyone more money.”

Superintendent John Deasy said in his budget report that the district should continue to find creative solutions to address fixed cost and long term liability issues.

“The District must remain vigilant, agile and resilient. There must be adequate on-going funding for all continuing expenditures, such as salaries and benefits for permanent employees, associated with any new initiatives or investments,” he said.

The steep payments leave school districts wondering how they’re going to balance their budgets, afford employee raises and reduce class size.

According to Meyers it’s a harsh reality, especially after the new school funding measure seemed to finally bring good news. “They were excited about the Local Control Funding Formula, the promise of new resources. [But] this increase, for a lot of districts eats away at most or all of that increase,” he said.

As LAUSD kicked off its newly expanded summer school program last month, accommodating more students than ever before, one thing became clear:

Sometimes, more money means more problems.

And one problem district officials didn’t anticipate was finding enough teachers who wanted to work in the summer.

Without a sufficient number, the district scrambled to fill classes with adult education and substitute teachers who found themselves with new summer jobs.

“We had to do the best we could to staff the schools,” Javier Sandoval, an administrator for Beyond the Bell, told LA School Report.

Sandoval said they were able to recruit enough teachers to fully staff classes during the five-week expanded summer school program.

For the first time this summer, Beyond the Bell is offering summer school to 36,000 students, a dramatic increase from last year’s capacity of only 6,000. (Click here for a comprehensive list of summer school programs.)

“Summer school is a safety net that we provide for our students and now that we’ve been able to expand it, more students are being helped and supported,” Sandoval said.

While last year’s program was only available at 16 high school sites and students were only able to take one credit recovery class, this year 75 high schools are offering summer school in which students can take two courses to fulfill graduation requirements.

The program is designed to help children meet grade level standards in mathematics or English language arts.

“There is definitely a need and students respond,” Sandoval said.

“It’s pretty amazing when you think these kids mostly failed classes that they’re taking over in summer and I think they realize that this is their last chance and they’re engaged, they’re focused, they’re paying attention, they’re taking notes, they’re participating in class,” he added.

Elementary and middle school students at 38 middle and 112 elementary schools have access to classes for four weeks over the break, in a program called Extended Learning Opportunity Summer Programs (for more info, click here), funded largely by federal dollars from the district’s Core Waiver from No Child Left Behind requirements.

Additional funding comes from the Common Core State Standards budget and Title 1 dollars from the current school year, which the district was able to use by squeezing in the summer school session before the end of July.

The middle and elementary summer school ends July 11, while the high school summer school ends a week later, on July 18.

Previous Posts: With huge boost in budget, LAUSD expands summer school

In May, nearly 70 school representatives, community partners and LAUSD employees attended the SEEDS program kick-off event, but only eight applications have come in so far.

But no worries, said LAUSD’s chief facilities executive Mark Hovatter.

“I expect a lot of interest,” he told LA School Report. “There are a lot of people who are very excited about the program and who’ve been waiting for it for a while.”

The SEEDS program, which was approved by the school board in 2013 as a $1 million project for the first year, seeks to create and expand green projects throughout the district that directly support the school curriculum, such as science, health and nutrition.

“SEEDS will partner with schools and non-profits to create outdoor environments that will positively impact thousands of our students for years to come,” Superintendent John Deasy said at the time.

The goal of the bond-funded program is to support projects that address sustainability, community building and campus enhancement, promoting student and community health. The majority of the projects will consist of gardens located on school sites.

Hovatter said that over the years, there has been a lot of interest and enthusiasm in building gardens on school campuses, but many people don’t understand the challenges involved in putting a garden on a school site.

“Our idea was to put some facility money towards the project as an augmentation grant that allows people to still bring in what they want to do, and we make a garden-ready plot,” he saids. “So we take care of the soil testing, we bring in the good soil, we make sure that there’s proper irrigation system.”

He says there will be a much greater chance that these efforts will produce a long-term sustainable garden.

Hovatter also said there are other challenges. For example, he said, the gardens’ locations can’t conflict with other school campus requirements such as making sure there’s enough play stations. To save on space, a wall garden or raised planters may offer an alternative solution.

Once the project is completed, it will be up to the school and its partner organizations to install and maintain the plants and landscaping features of the project during the school year and summer months.

To reduce the additional workload on LAUSD facilities employees, Hovatter said the goal is to create low-maintenance gardens and develop long-term maintenance plans with local neighborhood groups and volunteers to help maintain the gardens.

Each school site is eligible to receive a maximum of $25,000 in SEEDS funds, which would cover the costs of labor, materials and project management.

As a one-stop portal, it’s designed to give parents access to real time student information and district resources as well as services that are specific to their children to help them better support their child’s success in the classroom.

Through PASSport, parents and guardians will also be able to access a variety of online tools where parents can monitor attendance, view grades and assignments, track standardized test results, submit online forms and applications for district programs, and help guide their student in preparing for and graduating from high school. Parents will be able to email their teacher with questions or concerns.

“One of the biggest hurdles for parents to obtain information is navigating the numerous offices responsible for all of services offered throughout our district,” LAUSD’s Chief Operating Officer Enrique Boull’t told LA School Report.

“After an initial registration similar to an online banking experience, LAUSD PASSport links the parents’ children to them and follows them throughout the resources connected in the application,” he added.

Boull’t said that PASSport will make the application process for school meals and volunteer programs easier because forms will be pre-populated, saving parents time in completing the application.

But PASSport also assists schools, allowing parents to update their phone and emergency contact information online, eliminating the need to have an administrator enter the information into the system.

Boull’t said that the PASSport represents the district’s new approach for entering, managing, analyzing and reporting all data connected to any student. It’s part of the district’s larger effort to increase parent participation in their children’s academic growth.

“Most schools utilized their websites to share activities happening on their campuses, but very few were interactive and provided live information pertaining to attendance, assignments and progress toward graduation,” he said.

The district, which leveraged existing resources for PASSport, had the parents in mind when designing the site, Boull’t said.

“The design was totally parent-driven based on focus group responses to what our parents felt was most important for them to stay connected with their children and schools,” he explained, adding, “Our District is 100 percent committed in involving our parents in their children’s education. Obviously, the best way for parents to be engaged at school is for them to be informed on what and how their children are performing in school.

“We believe LAUSD PASSport will assist them with this effort.”

Robert Vriesman

The popularity of calculus classes at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES) has skyrocketed, thanks in large part to a unique calculus camp that combines learning with outdoor fun and adventure.

Every year, seniors and juniors at LACES, a high-performing school that serves grades 6-12 and has an API of 897, attend the camp, but this isn’t your typical camp. It’s a four-day intensive calculus review session each Spring that prepares students for their Advanced Placement calculus exams, which take place shortly after camp.

Calculus camp began in 2001 when math teacher Robert Vriesman thought it would be a fun way to help students improve on their AP calculus exams and boost interest in the subject. And the idea has paid off.

Prior to the first calculus camp in 2001, LACES had only around 20 students taking AP Calculus and the pass rate was only about 20 percent.

Thirteen years later, 200 students enrolled this year in AP Calculus. The pass rate for one college-level version of calculus has been as high as 64 percent while the pass rate for another has been more than 90 percent.

“The camp has been a drawing card for students to take the highest level of mathematics that is available in high school,” Vriesman told LA School Report. “We grew every year from that first year … 1,000 percent growth.”

Camp meets every April at its usual location at the Lion’s Club Camp at Teresita Pines in the San Gabriel Mountains, about 90 miles from Los Angeles.

“This kind of relaxed atmosphere just motivates them to continue to spend these four days studying really hard,” said LACES Principal Harold Boger.

Students work together in groups, reviewing calculus problems from a test preparation guide. The adults who accompany the students — LACES teachers, volunteer mentors and instructors from other educational institutions — help guide the lessons.

“It is an extremely powerful experience that has had much more impact on students than I ever thought it would when I first began the camp,” Vriesman said.

Since calculus camp was begun, LACES has had a dramatic increase in the number of students going to college to major in math, engineering and actuarial science.

“I know this because they email me and ask if they can return to calculus camp to help out other students in the way that calculus camp helped them,” Vriesman said. “They are graduates of schools like UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvard and Cal Tech.”

Boger said that calculus camp has generated a new level of appreciation for the subject.

“What calculus camp does is bring in that average student who probably would not have taken calculus or spent a lot of time studying for the AP exam,” he said. “It encourages those kids to stay in the class, to work hard and to give it their best shot.”

The school has engaged in fundraising efforts to help pay for the camp and relies on donations from private organizations and other groups to keep the program alive.