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Monday, December 3, 2012

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Education Headlines

Monday, December 3, 2012

Rio Mesa, Hueneme schools go online to fight bullying

Schools have always had their share of bullies. But in recent years, the problem has gained nationwide attention because modern-day bullies are taking their harassment online. Now students and teachers trying to combat bullying are going online, too.

High school counselors find little time to counsel

Barbara Greenwood walked through the doors at Edison High School early Thursday morning and her daylong sprint began.

Horizon Charter Schools won't reopen in Rocklin

Horizon Charter Schools will not reopen a school it closed a month ago in Rocklin because it lacks community support, school officials announced this week.

Students failing algebra rarely recover

California students who fail algebra and repeat the course are pretty much doomed to fail again, a vicious cycle that wastes limited resources and precious learning time, according to a report released Friday.

For dropouts, a way to drop back in

An increasing number of young people neither attend school nor work, a study finds. A new partnership between the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District aims to halt that "unacceptable" trend.

Mt. Diablo school district provides lesson in need for transparency

The Mt. Diablo district provides a cautionary tale for district officials and boards who may be inclined to rely so heavily on bond campaign consultants, underwriters, financial advisers and their legal counsel that they forget to include the public in their decision-making.

Sacramento will be less late in paying schools, colleges and counties

California public schools, community colleges and counties will get an early holiday gift from the state: Sacramento will pay about $1.9 billion that it owes them in December, a month earlier than promised.

The changing plate of school lunches

From West Contra Costa to Oakland Unified to San Jose's Oak Grove school district, cafeterias are filling lunch trays with more produce and vegetarian entrees, along with whole grains, less salt and -- the horror! -- less chocolate milk.

California legislator vows to reintroduce bill to speed teacher firing for abuse

A California state senator said he plans to reintroduce a bill Monday that would make it easier to fire a teacher accused of sexually abusing a student. His statements came the day after a state audit on L.A. Unified's child abuse procedures found the lengthy dismissal process increased the district's likelihood of settling the allegations in exchange for resignations.

Student scores may be used in LAUSD teacher ratings

After months of tense negotiations, leaders of the Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers union have tentatively agreed to use student test scores to evaluate instructors for the first time, officials announced Friday.

Principal put struggling school on new path

In the two years Maria Lewis has been principal, the Academic Performance Index of T.L. Whitehead Elementary campus in Woodland.has grown from 704 to 793.

Rosenblatt: Should America look to school boards as the model for democracy?

November 6th reminded me that there is still one political body that has largely not strayed from our ideals and is not buried under the weight of money or party politics: the local school board.

Common core sparks war over words

As states across the country implement broad changes in curriculum from kindergarten through high school, English teachers worry that they will have to replace the dog-eared novels they love with historical documents and nonfiction texts.

Freedburg: Accrediting agency under federal pressure to be tougher on community colleges

The commission that accredits California’s community colleges, and has ordered City College of San Francisco to prepare for possible closure, has come under pressure from the federal government to make sure that the colleges under its jurisdiction comply in a timely way with the deficiencies it identifies.
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.