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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Wednesday, August 15, 2012

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Tom Torlakson
CA State Superintendent of Public Instruction



Education Headlines

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Twin Rivers Unified School District still facing big legal fees

Trustees who ran campaigns calling for an end to exorbitant legal fees in the Twin Rivers Unified School District have faced two bills totaling $1.3 million in the past two months.

Inland schools battle A/C issues during heat wave

Arrowhead Elementary, Cajon High School and the school district headquarters in San Bernardino closed early Tuesday, Aug. 14, because of air conditioning failures. Other school districts, including Jurupa Unified and Colton Joint Unified, have been struggling with air-conditioning breakdowns during the ongoing heat wave but haven’t had to send students and employees home, officials said.

Earlier start, tougher homework, emphasis on safety for LAUSD's first day of school

Tuesday marked a day of firsts across Los Angeles Unified, as more than 600,000 students headed back to the classroom for the district's earliest-ever opening of a new school year.

Bond spending could be key in Martinez school board race

This year, the board has been wrangling with how to stretch $45 million in bond funds to cover a long list of projects across multiple campuses. How the incumbent board members have voted to spend those funds may play a key role in the upcoming campaign.

Guillen and Hopkins: Give parents and students a voice in teacher evaluations

The problem with the current proposal is that it excludes the voices of students and parents from the conversation. We believe AB 5 should require each school district to involve parents and students in developing its teacher evaluation system and use their feedback as one of the multiple measures used for evaluation.

Dickinson’s school suspension bill gets reprieve, still alive in Senate

A bill designed to restrict administrators from handing out too many school suspensions – voted down by the Senate on Monday – has been resurrected after intervention by leadership and could be taken up again this week.

Fensterwald Los Angeles Unified wants Race to the Top’s last brass ring

The federal Department of Education released criteria Monday for individual districts or groups of districts to compete for the last $400 million in Race to the Top-District dollars. Count Los Angeles Unified in the competition – if Superintendent John Deasy can persuade United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher to sign the application (perhaps a big “if”).

L.A. teachers union urges members to ignore performance program

As L.A. Unified reopened for the new school year Tuesday, the teachers' union is urging its members not to participate in a voluntary performance review program that ties student test scores to teacher evaluations.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Five school districts place bonds on November ballot

Four Kern County school districts have placed general obligation bonds on the Nov. 6 ballot, and one other has placed a parcel tax bond, Kern County Elections Division records show.

Fensterwald: Thursday deadline for resolving teacher evaluation bill

The Senate Appropriations Committee has given Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes three days to figure out how to pay for and, if possible, mollify critics of his bill to redesign teacher evaluations.

Bereaved mother turns grief into action on school-bus-stop safety

Harvard-Westlake student Julia Cukier Siegler, 13, was killed in a school-bus-related accident in 2010. Ever since, her mother has been working for changes.