Elk Grove Citizen : Archives > News > Solving $42 million school district budget shortfall

Elk Grove Citizen : Archives > News > Solving $42 million school district budget shortfall:

"The Citizen reported last week that there may be a $20 million glimmer of hope in solving some of the projected $42 million shortfall for the Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD) in 2010-11. If approved, it would save a hundred or so jobs.

The school district staff in August asked the seven unions that represent district employees to approve a negotiated plan which would include a reduction of work days, freezing steps and columns, ceasing the lottery payment and other cuts. If approved, it would save nearly $21 million."

For sports, EGUSD Superintendent Dr. Steven Ladd presented a plan at the last public forum that said the district would use $1.5 million of the $3 million saved from changing 12 elementary schools from year-round to traditional schedules.The district, in its proposed budget, planned to cut $800,000 from sports for 2010-11.

Tom Gardner, president of the Elk Grove Education Association (EGEA) and the largest union in the district, said Friday they are not expected to present the plan to their members until January.But he did say his union is considering the furlough days as a definite possibility. However, he said they are still completing negotiations for their contract.

Friends of the North Natomas Regional Park

Just a reminder to join me, the Friends of the North Natomas Regional Park, and the City of Sacramento's Department of Parks and Recreation for a workshop tonight on the North Natomas Regional Park.We will discuss the results of a recent community survey and talk about future development in the Park.

DATE: Tonight, November 4th

TIME: 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM

LOCATION: Inderkum High School
2500 New Market Drive

We look forward to hearing from you. You voice is important, so if you are unable to make tonight's meeting, please feel free to email me with your ideas.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact my office at (916) 808-7001.

Sincerely,

Ray TrethewayCouncilmember, District 1

A White House Chef Who Wears Two Hats - NYTimes.com

A White House Chef Who Wears Two Hats - NYTimes.com:

"TWICE a month, President Obama’s senior policy advisers gather at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to hash out strategies for improving the health of the country’s children. Among the assistant secretaries, chiefs of staff and senior aides sits an unlikely participant: a bald, intense young man who happens to be the newest White House chef.

His name is Sam Kass. And when he’s not grilling fish for the first family or tending tomatillos in the White House garden, he is pondering the details of child nutrition legislation, funding streams for the school lunch program and the best tactics to fight childhood obesity."

Surveillance Video Shows Train Derailment In Davis - KTXL

Surveillance Video Shows Train Derailment In Davis - KTXL: "DAVIS - New surveillance video first broadcast by FOX40 News Wednesday morning shows what happened around 6pm Tuesday when a freight train carrying agricultural lime went off the tracks.

The train spilled approximately 50 pounds of lime, a non-hazardous substance used in construction, according to Davis fire officials.

Doug Walter, membership of the nearby Davis Food Co-Op, told FOX40 News the wheels from one side of a train car appears to be dangling 3-feet off the ground.

Officials with the Davis Fire Department first told FOX40 News they wouldn't likely have the train upright until midnight Thursday. As of 10:00am Thursday, three cars from the train were still off the tracks.

The derailment is not delaying commuter traffic, since the rail line accomodates freight only."

Sacramento Press / Free SMUD trees support the 5 million tree campaign

Sacramento Press / Free SMUD trees support the 5 million tree campaign:

"Tree clean our air and water, store carbon in their trunks, create habitat for wildlife, reduce air pollution, increase property values, and provide countless other benefits. The Sacramento Tree Foundation works to leverage all of the benefits that trees provide to create healthy and sustainable communities through building the best urban forest in the Sacramento region. A major keystone in building the best urban forest is the Greenprint initiative, a multi-decade regional framework created to meet Sacramento's sustainability and livability goals by expanding urban forests and optimizing the benefits of tree canopies. Greenprint partners, comprised of 22 cities and 6 counties, have agreed to double their tree canopy over the next 40 years. In order to achieve this goal, we need to plant 5 million new trees by the year 2025."

Parents Doing Homework?

Parents Doing Homework?:

"The parents of some ninth-grade students in NYC are spending their evenings this fall doing something they thought they had left behind long ago: homework. The ninth graders complete their assignments during class; the parents are supposed to write their responses either on an online blog created by the teacher or through hand written journal entries.

The point is to keep parents involved in their children’s ’ education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement"

Schools get creative to involve parents - News | Reflector.com

Schools get creative to involve parents - News Reflector.com:

"Some of the county's poorest schools continue to come up with creative ways to meet federal requirements for parent involvement.

Federal No Child Left Behind legislation requires schools with a free and reduced lunch rate of more than 40 percent, also known as Title I schools, to implement parent involvement plans with a portion of the additional funding their status earns for them.

There are 22 Title I schools in Pitt County, and Director of Federal Programs Sylvia Mizzelle said each is asked annually to host a minimum of five meetings aimed at increasing parent involvement.

One of the most recent examples of such a meeting was held Thursday at Northwest Elementary. Northwest officials brought in retired teacher and storyteller Ann Lunde to show parents the best techniques for reading to their children and emphasize the importance of it."

Commentary: School cupboards stocked with parental talent

Commentary: School cupboards stocked with parental talent:

"Backpack? Got it. Spiral notebooks? Plenty of those. Markers, folders and three-ring binders? Check, check and check! Parental talents? Huh?

Why would parental talents be on a child's back-to-school supply list? Here's why: Numerous studies have proven that there is a direct correlation between parental involvement and student achievement.

There are many things that fall under the heading of parental involvement, from the subtle (a parent's attitudes and expectations regarding education), to the more overt (reading to your child), to broader, more visible efforts (volunteering at your child's school)."

Every year, volunteers contribute thousands of hours to local schools. But parent volunteers are doing far more than making brownies for bake sales or chaperoning field trips.

Today's involved parents are using their vocational skills, unique talents and personal interests to benefit schools. And while I may be using the term "parent" here, this can apply to anyone who wants to be involved and volunteer in education: grandparents, other relatives, young adults, family friends and concerned citizens.

As a parent and former PTA officer at Jefferson Lighthouse School, I've had the opportunity there to see a wide range of volunteer talents put to use in the classroom, after school and in the school as a whole. Here are just some examples:

Activision kicks off ratings education program for parents - Game Hunters: In search of video games and interactive awesomeness - USATODAY.com

Activision kicks off ratings education program for parents - Game Hunters: In search of video games and interactive awesomeness - USATODAY.com:

"Activision is pairing up with a top mental health and media expert on an educational program for parents on video games, the publisher announced.

The Ratings Are Not A Game initiative is a collaboration between the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero publisher and Dr. Cheryl Olson, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is also the author of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do."

Investigation Into Councilman's Son Takes Twist - cbs13.com

Investigation Into Councilman's Son Takes Twist - cbs13.com:

"One of Sacramento's most powerful men is under investigation.

A local political group is calling out Sacramento City Manager Ray Kerridge about his involvement in home construction in a Natomas flood zone that was forbidden to be built in by FEMA.

Kerridge is the latest target in the controversy that has involved Dan Waters, son of City Councilman Robbie Waters.

The Democratic Party of Sacramento County says Kerridge should have known what was going on, and that he had the opportunity to audit that department but chose not to."

Champions Tour pro comes to aid of Elk Grove school district golf - Sacramento Sports - Kings, 49ers, Raiders, High School Sports | Sacramento Bee

Champions Tour pro comes to aid of Elk Grove school district golf - Sacramento Sports - Kings, 49ers, Raiders, High School Sports Sacramento Bee:

"Those who know James Reede III, Julian Woodfork and Will Smartt say they are good junior golfers and impressive young men.

But impressive enough to inspire a professional athlete in one afternoon to donate $35,000 to save nine boys and nine girls golf programs targeted for elimination by the Elk Grove Unified School District?

Apparently so."

After clinching the season-long Champions Tour points title and a $1 million annuity Sunday at the Charles Schwab Cup in Sonoma, Loren Roberts said as much.
"They were just great, great kids," Roberts said. "Good positive attitudes. … So I just got to thinking about it.

"I said, 'Gosh, it just seems like that might be something that maybe, you know, I could be involved in or have a part in.' That's what the Schwab Cup allows us to do."

Dr. James W. Reede Jr. took the boys to Sonoma on Saturday with tickets donated by the PGA Tour to the Northern California Minority Junior Golf Scholarship Association. The younger Reede, Woodfork and Smartt are buddies through the First Tee of Greater Sacramento and the Sacramento Area Black Golf Club. Each is 15 and in the 10th grade. Their cumulative handicap index is 11.

Sacramento Press / Mayor, councilmembers clash over charter committee

Sacramento Press / Mayor, councilmembers clash over charter committee:

"Councilmembers clashed with Mayor Kevin Johnson over the usefulness of the Charter Review Committee’s work after the committee presented its final recommendations on city governance Tuesday. Johnson and Councilwoman Lauren Hammond questioned the value of the charter’s work, while Councilmembers Ray Tretheway, Kevin McCarty and Sandy Sheedy called for the 11-member committee to keep working past its deadline so that it can address additional issues.

The 11-member committee is advising the City Council to keep the city’s current council/manager form of government. The committee’s recommendations oppose the strong mayor form of government that would be established if voters approve an initiative in June."

Water plan has local goodie - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

Water plan has local goodie - Sacramento Politics - California Politics Sacramento Bee:

"A nonprofit tolerance center in midtown Sacramento, championed by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, could get a vital economic boost from an unlikely source: a mammoth $10 billion water bond proposal.

Nestled among the provisions of a measure approved on a 29-5 vote by the Senate late Monday is language that would earmark 'not less than $10 million' for the California Unity Center."

The center, which is proposed for construction on the site of the old Sacramento City Unified School District headquarters at 16th and N streets, is envisioned as a "statewide hub" to teach tolerance to students and encourage "collaborative problem-solving," according to its Web site.

Language in the bond bill stipulates only that the $10 million "shall be available for capital improvements to nonprofit facilities that provide watershed, environmental justice and urban greening education programs to students in the Sacramento City Unified School District and the surrounding area."

Hindus laud prestigious DePauw University over launching a course on Modern Hinduism

Hindus have applauded prestigious DePauw University in Indiana (USA) for approving a new 300-level class on Modern Hinduism in its Religious Studies Department.

Founded in 1837 by the Methodist church, DePauw already offers courses titled "Religions of India" and "Hinduism".

Its students come from 41 countries and 42 states of USA. It is a private, selective, coeducational, and residential university where selection rate is about 17 percent and annual charges per student $42,070.

Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, described DePauw’s action as “a step in the right direction”.

Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, argued that religion was a complex element of our lives and religion comprises much more than one’s own individual experience or specific tradition. God, as a sign of God’s munificence and benevolence, constructively wished presence of different faiths.

Rajan Zed urged the schools/departments of religion of other major American universities to strengthen their Hinduism sections. Hinduism being the oldest religion with rich philosophical thought and a vast array of scriptures needed more exploration. Zed especially asked the Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Brown universities and University of Pennsylvania to further enrich their Hinduism resources. According to the latest edition of the university newspaper “The DePauw”, the students in this course will examine "the rise of Hindu modernity from the colonial period to the present day."

The main objective is to "encourage an understanding of the embedded nature of modern Hinduism within the historical matrices of culture, society, politics and economics in South Asia." Girls outnumber boys by about 14 percent in DePauw, which is spread over 695 acres in Greencastle and offers 45 majors and “teaches its students values and habits of mind”.

It boasts of alumni like former US Vice President Dan Quayle, Nobel Prize winner Ferid Murad, many Chief Executive Officers of major companies, prominent authors, etc. President is Brian W. Casey; Board of Trustees chair is R. David Hoover; and chair of Religious Studies Department is Professor Paul Watt.

Health foundations join forces to improve California schools | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

Health foundations join forces to improve California schools L.A. NOW Los Angeles Times:

"The California Education Supports project, a new joint venture between three nonprofit foundations, held its first forum Tuesday to address the effects of mental and physical health on California students. Nearly 100 community leaders, students, health and education professionals piled into a Manual Arts High School classroom to talk about those issues.

The California Endowment, the James Irvine Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which are funding the $700,000 effort, plan to release policy papers and hold hearings in the next 12 to 24 months on a range of potential issues from childhood obesity to reproductive health.

The project is part of a broader effort to integrate student healthcare with educational goals, said Cecilia Echeverria of the California Endowment."

Education Week: When Teachers Are the Experts

Education Week: When Teachers Are the Experts:

"I think I’m going to miss the coffee and Danish most of all. I won’t miss staring at the clock with my politely disengaged colleagues. And I won’t miss the guy up front, some former principal or ace teacher, who’s going to teach us about some topic that has been deemed important for the entire staff.

These whole-school workshop sessions that many of us have experienced are what I’ll call “old PD”: professional development in the form of an expert up front and teachers listening passively. If improved teaching practice and better student outcomes are the goal, then these methods of keeping teachers up to date and growing professionally are not working."

Education Week: National Panel Urges Upgrades to Teacher Workforce

Education Week: National Panel Urges Upgrades to Teacher Workforce:

"A report from a high-powered education task force that calls for states and school districts to overhaul how they recruit, prepare, evaluate, and compensate teachers has raised the hackles of the American Federation of Teachers, which dismissed many of its recommendations as “top-down” and disrespectful of the profession.

AFT President Randi Weingarten’s sharp criticism of the report, released Tuesday by Strategic Management of Human Capital, came despite the participation of Ms.

Weingarten and two other AFT officers in the 30-member task force that helped shape a series of 20 policy recommendations to improve the teaching corps in the nation’s 100 largest school districts. Some recommendations are aimed at improving the effectiveness of principals, but teachers are the overwhelming focus of the report."

“There weren’t many of us on the task force speaking for teachers, and I think the report reflects that, especially in the lack of emphasis on principal effectiveness,” said Francine Lawrence, the president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, an AFT affiliate, and a member of the panel. “It doesn’t speak to the professionalization of teaching at all, which is a real disappointment.”

The task force had a total of four teachers’ union representatives, including one from the National Education Association.

Which Schools Will 'Race to the Top'?

Which Schools Will 'Race to the Top'?

President Obama Touts Education Reform on Anniversary of Election

Obama Travels to Wisconsin to Promote Competition for Education Funding

By YUNJI DE NIES, KAREN TRAVERS and MARY BRUCE

Nov. 4, 2009—

On the no-year anniversary of his 2008 election, President Obama is heading back to school and encouraging America's educators to think big in order to obtain more federal money.

At Wright Middle School in Madison, Wis., today, Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will meet with students and the president will speak about education reform and strengthening the nation's schools.

Obama will promote his administration's "Race to the Top" initiative, a $4.35 billion education program funded through the Recovery Act. The program is a national competition among states that the Obama Administration hopes will inspire bold action for education reform.

In the next few weeks the Department of Education will begin accepting applications for grant money.

The awards will start to go out in January, but there will be two rounds of funding, so states that do not qualify or win grants in this first round will be able to apply again later in 2010.

Yesterday the White House said the onus was on states to make the best case for why they deserve funding.

"He's going to talk about his education reform plan and he's going to highlight the importance of innovation and excellence in our public education system," White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes told reporters on Tuesday. "This competition is not based on politics or ideology or interest group preferences. It's based on whether or not a state is ready to do what actually works."

Programmed Designed to Innovate, Inspire

The controversial "Race to the Top" program offers one of the first glimpses into how far the Obama administration is willing to go to create reform.

Through "Race to the Top," Duncan aims to prop up states that innovate and inspire those that have not.

The program centers on four basic "assurances" that states must meet to qualify for a piece of the pie -- turning around low-performing schools, in part by expanding charter schools; enacting rigorous, common academic standards; improving teacher quality and beefing up state data systems.

In July, Duncan told ABC News that while this program "isn't about winners and losers," it is a competition so some states will be left out in the cold.

But Duncan said he hoped that tapping into the competitive spirit of educators and administrators will drive reform.

"I think there'll be tremendous pressure on states, state legislatures where things aren't happening, by parents saying exactly that: 'Our children deserve a slice of the pie, and we want that pressure,'" Duncan said in July. "This isn't about winners and losers... This is about challenging the status quo as a country, getting dramatically better and giving every child in this country a chance they desperately need to have a great, great quality education."

Winners and Losers in Funding Competition

In this race, however, there will be clear winners and losers. States will be judged based on their progress in each of the four areas and -- given the way several states have been using education stimulus money to fill budget gaps rather than to innovate -- it is clear that not all states will be a

Study: H1N1 Poses 'Special Threat' to Obese People - H1N1 - FOXNews.com

Study: H1N1 Poses 'Special Threat' to Obese People - H1N1 - FOXNews.com:

"Swine flu can cause severe disease in people of all ages and appears to pose a special threat to those who are obese, according to an analysis of H1N1 cases in California.
Public health researchers analyzed the state's first 1,088 hospitalized and fatal cases of H1N1 infection between April 23 and August 1.
Like other studies, they found the average patient who was hospitalized with H1N1 flu was younger than what is commonly seen with seasonal flu, but they also found severe disease at both ends of the age spectrum.

'What our study shows was that once you were hospitalized, if you were elderly you have a higher risk of dying,' Dr. Janice Louie of the California Department of Public Health in Richmond, whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association."

voiceofsandiego.org: Schooled... Bright and Early

voiceofsandiego.org: Schooled... Bright and Early:

"I am informed that a school news item I picked up yesterday from Indiana was not, in fact, from Indianapolis but rather from the now famed town of Churubusco. Duly chastened, I return to give you another, geographically correct newsblitz:

We bring you the findings from a just-the-facts-ma'am report report that looks at San Diego Unified from test scores to finances. It's meant to be the beginning of a conversation about how parents, philanthropists and business leaders can help improve schools. But the next steps are unclear. Researchers also found that two options floated to revamp schools, mayoral control and expanding the school board, would lead to battles at the ballot box."

Chula Vista Star News reporter Jon Campbell turned up an amazing story on how Sweetwater Superintendent Jesus Gandara failed to notify the school board and repeatedly denied publicly that he was seeking a job in Austin -- despite the fact that documents from Texas point to him being a candidate. If true, it would be grounds for his termination, the Star News reports. More will certainly come on this story.

KPBS reports that San Diego Unified could get as much as $74 million in federal loans to pay for solar energy projects at schools. The only problem is it has to pay it back -- and if it doesn't think it can reasonably do it, it can't accept all that money. The UT has also reported on this.