Wednesday, January 30, 2013
By the same narrow margin that won him the job seven months ago, Superintendent Steve Lowder received a contract extension, a raise and more job security at Tuesday night's Stockton Unified school board meeting.
After 35 months of wrangling, and at least $1.5 million paid to lawyers, the legal dispute between Tustin Unified and the city of Tustin ended as the trial was set to start. Officials have officially agreed to settle the disagreement.
The San Ysidro School District has spent more than $105,000 defending a lawsuit filed in April by a contractor who claims a solar-power deal was wrongly cancelled by public officials.
The financier at the center of the South County corruption scandal spent two decades in the municipal finance industry before he was accused of plying public officials with dinners, sporting events and cigars to win approval of bond contracts.
A proposal to end an alternative education program for 11th-graders in the Tamalpais Union High School District has caused an uproar among students, alumni, parents and teachers, who have organized online opposition that has drawn more than several thousand backers.
The attorney for a dozen students who claim they were molested at Miramonte Elementary filed suit Tuesday against a slate of LAUSD administrators, including Superintendent John Deasy and four of his predecessors, saying they knowingly allowed teachers suspected of sex abuse to continue harming students.
For state Department of Education officials, from Superintendent Tom Torlakson down, optimism is part of the job description. But California, one of some forty states that have signed up for Common Core, faces an enormous task not only because of the apparent magnitude of the change, but because its education system, and the state Department of Education itself, are so badly strapped in so many ways.
School district administrators and board members Tuesday delivered what at times became an emotional apology to parents for the controversial handling of a special-education teacher's discipline.
A state commission has ruled that the state must reimburse school districts about $1 billion in mandated special education costs dating back 20 years. But like many protracted mandate cases, the victory is largely one of principle. Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to include a small payback in next year’s budget, and the dollars will come from funding within Proposition 98, so it will essentially involve shifting education dollars around.
With Assembly Democrats having proposed a slew of new gun control legislation in the wake of last month’s horrific school massacre in Connecticut, Assembly Republicans are about to roll out a gun-violence plan of their own: Arming teachers or other school employees in secret.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
even months into his tenure at Stockton Unified, Superintendent Steve Lowder is asking the school board for a contract extension. The 61-year-old Lowder could be offered a longer, higher-paying contract as soon as tonight's school board meeting.
With California’s public school system facing economic uncertainties – even with the passage of a tax increase under Proposition 30 – some of the most financially troubled K-12 districts have been elevating the payroll for top administrators, including those in San Ysidro and Ramona.
Breaking new ground, the U.S. Education Department is telling schools they must include students with disabilities in sports programs or provide equal alternative options. The directive, reminiscent of the Title IX expansion of athletic opportunities for women, could bring sweeping changes to school budgets and locker rooms for years to come.
campaign and Team California for Healthy Kids, an initiative he launched to help keep children active and properly nourished.
The PPS and Portland Student Unions will be teaming up in organizing an Opt-Out Campaign in which students are encouraged to opt-out of taking their standardized OAKS tests. The Student Unions want to send a strong message against to the standardized testing system as we believe that standardized tests scores are an inaccurate depiction of a student’s knowledge, have an extremely high correlation to a student’s family’s income, have a high correlation with race, are expensive, and in all are taking up class time that we could use learning things that are more applicable to our lives, as well as be developing better relationships with our teachers and peers.
