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Encinitas Teacher of the Year

I had the pleasure of attending the Salute to Teachers at the Balboa Theatre over the weekend. First grade teacher Wendy Craig, from El Camino Creek Elementary School was EUSD's teacher of the year. Of the 43 teachers selected county wide, Wendy made it into the top ten.

I've had friends go through the teacher of the year process and it is no small feat, let alone making it into the top ten. From the top ten, five school teachers were selected to represent the county for the next year. Congratulations, Wendy!

And from the 'not ready to let this story die' department comes this pretty intensive summary of Mike Hazelton's career in charter school education. According to this report, he has left a trail of deceit and bankruptcy across the Southern California charter school community, yet manages to get hired back for more. One quote from the article likens him to one sixties animated series character.

"Is he Mr. Magoo who has left a trail of destruction? Or is it a cover he's perfected?" she asked. Either way, Flesh said, "he found a gravy train."

Oh, Magoo, you've done it again!

North County Transit District needs to know they're affecting our kids

From Transit pollution at PEC

From Transit pollution at PEC

From Transit pollution at PEC

I remember the first day I volunteered in my son's kindergarten room, which directly faces the train tracks in these pictures. When a train went by, I turned to look at the teacher and class full of 5 year olds, expecting that all of them would have hit the deck from the noise. However by that time, they were already so adjusted that they hardly paused before going back to work. I did not adjust as easily and am still irked that the power brokers in school, city and NCTD have not made at least this hundred yard stretch through Leucadia a priority to clean up and quiet down. The scary thing is that the noise is probably the least of all evils when I think about what is in those dust clouds blowing by. I remember not to long ago when the tracks from north to south were mulched. My understanding is that tree trimming companies were allowed to dump their mulch along the tracks. J.P.  at Leucadia Blog has written about this numerous times and has said that the NCTD put a stop to the mulching. J.P's writes in his most recent post: 

"The following is copied from the San Diego Air Pollution Control District
website:

"Prohibition against causing a public nuisance. California Health and Safety Code [
http://www.arb.ca.gov/bluebook/bluebook.htm ] Section 41700 states that no
person can discharge air contaminants that cause injury, nuisance or annoyance to any considerable number of persons or the public, or discharge air contaminants that endanger the comfort, health or safety of such persons. 

If a business violates this prohibition or any other air quality requirement, the District may issue a Notice of Violation to the business.

If a Notice of Violation is issued, the business must take action to correct the violation and pay a monetary penalty to the District.

Penalties are determined in accordance with Health and Safety Code Sections 42400 – 42403."



If you are annoyed by the air pollution caused by the trains, please go to the following website and fill out the Nuisance Complaint Form.

http://www.sdapcd.org/comply/cplt/cpltprog.html



Please send this to anyone else you know along the tracks, perhaps if a "considerable" number of people complain something will be done.

Maybe the PTA for Paul Ecke Central could start a petition and encourage all members to send in a complaint considering NCTD is polluting our kids lungs while they are out running around in the playground.
"

 Our school has never looked better and the NCTD needs to know we're not stopping with the landscaping and a fresh coat of paint. Get everyone you can to sign a Nuisance Complaint form. It's time for PEC parents to make some noise about the noise!

Got fluff?

Ugh. Test scores. It saddens me that state API scores create such a frenzy in the media, especially when, even as a teacher, the breakdown of scores into subgroups and sub-subgroups baffles me. Yet these are the numbers that up real estate values, printed in the newspaper as three digits that for the masses simply signify whether a school is 'good' or 'bad'. Paul Ecke Central School teachers should be commended on their hard work every day and that the school is no longer designated by the state as 'Program Improvement' is even more cause for celebration.

What is serendipitous about reading all the news about North County test scores this year is that the first school I ever taught at was also just taken off the PI list and, far away in the 900's, the school where I currently teach received the second highest scores in the county. I thought I'd have some valuable insight from being at two schools so far apart on the API spectrum, but I don't. Walk by any classroom in either school, and you are going to see dedicated and enthusiastic teachers delivering the best instruction they can with the resources they have to students who are eager to learn. One school is older than the other, but physically there is really no difference between the two. All the rest that would effect standardized testing (and pan out in subgroups) is out of the hands of teachers.

What you will see at both schools I have taught at are enrichment activities going on every day at every grade level. The same is true for Paul Ecke Central. The PTA at all of the schools in the EUSD work hard to enusre that students are receiving enrichment istruction in art, music, and ideally, science and technology. That is why it pains me to read in the North County Times today that principal Anjelica Lopez credits their jump in scores to eliminating the 'fluff' of enrichment during the school day. Assuming she was not misquoted, this shows a misguided vision of education. Sitting at the last school board meeting as test scores were looked over with a fine tooth comb, superitendents and board members fawned over Ocean Knoll's improvement. I can't help but wonder if we can look forward to a cutback on 'fluff' just as our PEC PTA has raised the money to hire technology and science consultants. As always, keep an eye on the school board agenda for upcoming meetings. Make your voice heard.

And the API is in.....