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| California prepares for more rain this weekend |
Education Headlines
Friday, November 30, 2012
EdSource: Abuse records don’t follow some school workers
California teachers who lose their jobs for misconduct against students lose their licenses to teach, but the state has no similar process for the other 289,000 school employees who are fired or forced to resign due to child abuse. There’s no mechanism for sharing the information on “classified” employees; as a result, other districts and childcare centers may hire a new bus driver, classroom or special education aide or cafeteria worker without knowing why the person left their last job.Audit: College of the Desert bilked state out of $5.3M
College of the Desert officials “improperly and knowingly” inflated the number of students it served over seven years, which led the school to receive about $5.3 million in undeserved state funds, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office announced Thursday.$245,000 spent on Irvine school-cash ballot measure
The political committee that drove the $12 million Irvine Support Our Schools Initiative to victory in the Nov. 6 election received $135,000 in cash donations and spent about $245,000, campaign finance disclosures show.Poway schools boss ranks high in state pay
Poway Superintendent John Collins is not only the highest paid superintendent in San Diego County — his compensation package is third highest among California’s 25 largest school systems.Banned East Bay yearbook photo causes stir
Call it a parting shot, but Amador Valley High School senior Kenton Koos wanted to leave his mark with his final yearbook photo. So he spiked his curly hair, dyed it green, put in an oversized nose ring, and had a tribal tattoo painted on his face with mascara -- a la boxer Mike Tyson. Donning the get-up and the required tuxedo, Koos had his graduation shots taken at a Dublin studio. But school administrators say the photo is too wild, and won't run it in the yearbook -- a move the American Civil Liberties Union says violates the state Education Code.Teachers hope video games teach math skills
The worst that can happen is students will discover that learning is fun, Corona teacher Brian Kenney said about a new effort to teach students math with popular video games such as “Minecraft.”Report: College of the Desert overbilled state $5.2 million
The College of the Desert in Palm Desert will have to pay back $5.2 million because the district knowingly overstated its enrollment and overbilled the state for seven years, a pattern that the state Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team characterized as potential fraud.Audit finds failures, delays in LAUSD teacher misconduct process
Systematic problems within Los Angeles Unified resulted in its failure to report teacher misconduct to the state credentialing agency and costly delays in investigating and disciplining abusive teachers, according to a state audit released Thursday.Dozens of Bay Area districts have used a risky and costly form of financing for some construction improvements
Dozens of school districts in the Bay Area are among 200 statewide that have borrowed billions of dollars to build and upgrade schools using bond financing that critics are blasting because it burdens homeowners with high debts that take up to 40 years to pay off at exorbitant interest rates.LAUSD slow to report on teacher misconduct
An audit finds that the school district failed to promptly inform a California panel about allegations, including sexual ones.Fensterwald: Renewed push for a 55 percent threshold to pass parcel tax
It didn’t take long for a Democratic senator among the newly empowered supermajority in the Legislature to go after a low-hanging fruit: lowering the threshold for passage of a local parcel tax for education.
Thursday, November 29, 2012