Adelanto parents lose charter school bid
A historic bid by Mojave Desert parents to convert their failing
school into a charter campus under the state’s parent trigger law was
turned aside Friday by school board officials.
Board members for the Adelanto Elementary School District voted 3-1 to accept the parents’ petition for an overhaul at Desert Trails Elementary School, where more than three-fourths of sixth-graders fail to read and do math at grade level. But they rejected the parents’ preferred choice for change, a charter campus, after concluding there was insufficient time to start one up for the current school year.
The board voted to reform the school instead by forming a community advisory council to oversee such improvements as an extended school day, new curriculum, more technology, school progress reports and a school site coach. Teachers will be asked to pledge support for the reforms in commitment letters; those who choose not to sign may move to another school. The council, which will be composed of teachers, administrators, parents and community members, will report directly to the school superintendent and school board, board President Carlos Mendoza said.
Mendoza said the action represented the final resolution of a year-long, bitterly contested campaign over the school. Using the state’s pioneering parent trigger law, Desert Trails parents had collected signatures representing more than half the students, asking for a charter school. But more than 90 parents subsequently rescinded their signatures, saying they were misled or confused when they signed. The district threw the signatures out, causing support to drop below the required 50% threshold and rejected the petition.
Parents, in turn, sued the district and board over that action. Last month, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Steve Malone sided with parents and said the parent trigger law does not allow recisions, ordered the district to accept the petition and gave parents the go-ahead to start soliciting charter school proposals. The parents, aided by the nonprofit Parent Revolution educational advocacy group, have invited three charter operators to submit full proposals.
Mendoza said the board has now complied with Malone’s order to accept the petition. But he said the parent trigger law gives officials the right to reject school overhaul proposals they cannot implement. The district will move forward with the advisory council reform plan for Desert Trails, he said.
“It’s done. It’s over,” Mendoza said of the parent trigger process. “Everybody wants progress for the kids, and the sooner, the better.”
But Gabe Rose of Parent Revolution blasted the board action as a direct violation of Malone’s order and said the group would consult with attorneys about further legal action.
“It’s incredible,” he said. “They are continuing to waste money that should be going to kids on legal bills.”
Board members for the Adelanto Elementary School District voted 3-1 to accept the parents’ petition for an overhaul at Desert Trails Elementary School, where more than three-fourths of sixth-graders fail to read and do math at grade level. But they rejected the parents’ preferred choice for change, a charter campus, after concluding there was insufficient time to start one up for the current school year.
The board voted to reform the school instead by forming a community advisory council to oversee such improvements as an extended school day, new curriculum, more technology, school progress reports and a school site coach. Teachers will be asked to pledge support for the reforms in commitment letters; those who choose not to sign may move to another school. The council, which will be composed of teachers, administrators, parents and community members, will report directly to the school superintendent and school board, board President Carlos Mendoza said.
Mendoza said the action represented the final resolution of a year-long, bitterly contested campaign over the school. Using the state’s pioneering parent trigger law, Desert Trails parents had collected signatures representing more than half the students, asking for a charter school. But more than 90 parents subsequently rescinded their signatures, saying they were misled or confused when they signed. The district threw the signatures out, causing support to drop below the required 50% threshold and rejected the petition.
Parents, in turn, sued the district and board over that action. Last month, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Steve Malone sided with parents and said the parent trigger law does not allow recisions, ordered the district to accept the petition and gave parents the go-ahead to start soliciting charter school proposals. The parents, aided by the nonprofit Parent Revolution educational advocacy group, have invited three charter operators to submit full proposals.
Mendoza said the board has now complied with Malone’s order to accept the petition. But he said the parent trigger law gives officials the right to reject school overhaul proposals they cannot implement. The district will move forward with the advisory council reform plan for Desert Trails, he said.
“It’s done. It’s over,” Mendoza said of the parent trigger process. “Everybody wants progress for the kids, and the sooner, the better.”
But Gabe Rose of Parent Revolution blasted the board action as a direct violation of Malone’s order and said the group would consult with attorneys about further legal action.
“It’s incredible,” he said. “They are continuing to waste money that should be going to kids on legal bills.”
O.C. nursing instructor accused of groping 3 teenagers sentenced
A
46-year-old Orange County nursing instructor was sentenced to four
months in jail for sexually touching three female teenage students, who
were 17 and 18 years old.Alfredo Fernandez Gonzalez, a certified nursing assistant and resident of Orange, was accused of placing his hands on the students’ hips, kissing them on the neck and pulling the females toward him. He allegedly grabbed and touched their buttocks "under the guise of simulating nursing procedures," a statement by the district attorney's office said.
He talked about dating them and told them they had attractive bodies, the statement said.
The teens were in a nursing technical education course, known as a Regional Occupational Program, at Park West Care and Rehabilitation Center in Santa Ana. The program provides career training to high school students and adults.
The females told their mothers about the touching, which, according to prosecutors, occurred over a two-month period in the spring of 2011. They then notified Santa Ana police.
Gonzalez’s sentence came after he pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of lewd conduct. In addition to 120 days in jail, he is to receive three years of probation.
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Teacher evaluation bill might not pass muster with feds, official says
A state bill to enhance teacher evaluations won’t necessarily pass
federal muster and bring a bonanza of federal dollars to California, a
spokesman for U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday.
The question of whether AB 5 would help California win a waiver from federal requirements for improving low-performing schools and bring $350 million to the cash-strapped state drew sharp disagreement this week in debate over the bill. The bill by Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar), which is headed to the Senate floor next week, would establish a statewide, uniform performance review system with more frequent classroom observations, more rigorous training of evaluators and a requirement that evidence of student academic growth be used as one measure of teacher effectiveness.
States win waivers from federal No Child Left Behind requirements if they adopt their own rigorous plans for effective teacher evaluation systems and improved student achievement. In every successful waiver application so far, state standardized test scores are used in part to evaluate teachers, according to Peter Cunningham, U.S. assistant education secretary.
But AB 5 would effectively eliminate current state requirements to use that measure and instead requires negotiated agreement between unions and districts over how to gauge student academic growth. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the teachers union has fiercely opposed a voluntary evaluation system that uses test scores.
“I don’t know what we will do if they have a proposal without state standardized test scores,” Cunningham said of a California application. “The waiver requires that a significant percentage of teacher evaluations be linked to student achievement. In California, the measure of statewide achievement is standardized test scores.”
Earlier this week, Fuentes said his bill could serve as a “key piece” of a successful waiver request. Sue Burr, executive director of the state board of education and Gov. Jerry Brown’s educational policy adviser, said initial federal feedback on whether the bill would meet requirements for a waiver was “favorable.”
But in a letter sent to Fuentes, 10 educational advocacy groups said they opposed AB 5 in part because they did not believe it would qualify for a federal waiver. Among other things, the letter said, the bill’s evaluation plan did not require state standardized test scores as one measure of student growth and did not have at least three levels of teacher effectiveness.
On Friday, Burr said federal officials also told her the bill’s plan needed three levels of effectiveness and more clarity on the extent to which student academic growth would count in a teacher’s review.
It was not clear what state assessments could be used to measure student growth besides the standardized tests, known as CSTs. Burr said high school exit exams, a test for students with disabilities and another exam for students who are not performing at grade level were the only other statewide assessments available, but they are not given to nearly as large a group of students as the CSTs.
In any case, Cunningham said that teacher evaluation systems are just one part of a state’s application for a federal waiver.
“This bill alone does not guarantee a waiver,” he said.
The school district strongly opposes the bill, in part because it would require collective bargaining.
ALSO:
The question of whether AB 5 would help California win a waiver from federal requirements for improving low-performing schools and bring $350 million to the cash-strapped state drew sharp disagreement this week in debate over the bill. The bill by Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar), which is headed to the Senate floor next week, would establish a statewide, uniform performance review system with more frequent classroom observations, more rigorous training of evaluators and a requirement that evidence of student academic growth be used as one measure of teacher effectiveness.
States win waivers from federal No Child Left Behind requirements if they adopt their own rigorous plans for effective teacher evaluation systems and improved student achievement. In every successful waiver application so far, state standardized test scores are used in part to evaluate teachers, according to Peter Cunningham, U.S. assistant education secretary.
But AB 5 would effectively eliminate current state requirements to use that measure and instead requires negotiated agreement between unions and districts over how to gauge student academic growth. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the teachers union has fiercely opposed a voluntary evaluation system that uses test scores.
“I don’t know what we will do if they have a proposal without state standardized test scores,” Cunningham said of a California application. “The waiver requires that a significant percentage of teacher evaluations be linked to student achievement. In California, the measure of statewide achievement is standardized test scores.”
Earlier this week, Fuentes said his bill could serve as a “key piece” of a successful waiver request. Sue Burr, executive director of the state board of education and Gov. Jerry Brown’s educational policy adviser, said initial federal feedback on whether the bill would meet requirements for a waiver was “favorable.”
But in a letter sent to Fuentes, 10 educational advocacy groups said they opposed AB 5 in part because they did not believe it would qualify for a federal waiver. Among other things, the letter said, the bill’s evaluation plan did not require state standardized test scores as one measure of student growth and did not have at least three levels of teacher effectiveness.
On Friday, Burr said federal officials also told her the bill’s plan needed three levels of effectiveness and more clarity on the extent to which student academic growth would count in a teacher’s review.
It was not clear what state assessments could be used to measure student growth besides the standardized tests, known as CSTs. Burr said high school exit exams, a test for students with disabilities and another exam for students who are not performing at grade level were the only other statewide assessments available, but they are not given to nearly as large a group of students as the CSTs.
In any case, Cunningham said that teacher evaluation systems are just one part of a state’s application for a federal waiver.
“This bill alone does not guarantee a waiver,” he said.
The school district strongly opposes the bill, in part because it would require collective bargaining.
ALSO:
Firefighters battle stubborn scrap metal fire on San Fernando Road
Los Angeles firefighters were battling a stubborn blaze at a 40-foot tall metal scrap pile on San Fernando Road in Sun Valley, officials said.The blaze began Friday afternoon at 8821 N. San Fernando Road, which is the location of Kramar’s Iron and Metal, Inc., according to the company’s website. The firm describes itself as buyers and sellers of scrap metals since 1951. The website says the firm has a four-acre processing yard and called it “one of the largest in the San Fernando Valley.”
The scrap metal pile that was ablaze was about 50 feet in length and width, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey. One worker suffered an ankle injury after jumping from a platform. He was taken to a clinic by coworkers and was in good condition, Humphrey said.
Metal scrap piles can ignite as a result of being mixed with other flammable items, Humphrey said. Authorities have not determined the cause of the blaze.
A call to Kramar's Iron and Metal was not returned late Friday evening.
A Los Angeles Times investigation published Sunday found that fires and explosions have been a problem at scrap metal facilities in California. The newspaper reported that there have been at least 23 fires and explosions at scrap metal facilities statewide in the last three years.
At least five people have died in workplace accidents and at least 35 have suffered serious injuries, according to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
The Times investigation reported that the number of metal recycling operations in California has grown rapidly, far outstripping the ability of regulators to contend with the health and safety risks they pose.
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