Wondering How San Diego Unified Justifies a Controversial Budget Fix? voiceofsandiego.org, Education

Education

Google Tools Could Return to Schools

San Diego Unified may be able to restore school access to Google tools such as Gmail or Google Docs within the next few weeks, according to an e-mail from the company.

The school district blocked Google services in late May because of a change in Google features that could inadvertently allow kids to see pornographic images, despite filters. Teachers and students who rely on those tools to edit documents and do class projects were peeved by the block.

Darryl LaGace, who oversees technology in San Diego Unified schools, passed along an e-mail from Jaime Casap, a Google employee with the entertaining title of "Education Evangelist." Casap told LaGace a fix was coming "within the next few weeks" and could come as soon as this week.

Time is of the essence: Many schools are rapidly nearing summer break and some teachers had hoped to use Google tools for end-of-the-year projects such as blogs or student websites.

-- EMILY ALPERT

Posted in Schooled, This just in, News on Monday, June 14, 2010 12:44 pm. Updated: 9:49 pm. Comments (0)

Wondering How San Diego Unified Justifies a Controversial Budget Fix?

San Diego Unified says it has the legal backing to use federal money for disadvantaged students to pay for counselors and graduation coaches at schools with poorer students. But so far, the school district hasn't let the rest of us see the legal advice they're relying on.

The school district paid an outside law firm $5,000 to evaluate whether the controversial idea, which we explored in a recent article, is legal.

Critics and a state official say it appears to be illegal because schools are supposed to provide equal services to all schools with their basic funding. The special federal money is supposed to pay for the extra needs of poor children, not pay for things the district would anyway.