Board Meeting Notes 5/20/08

This was the first board meeting I attended start to finish. I’ll plan on attending future meetings (while Red Bull supplies last) and posting observations.

• Board meeting started on time and both new principal candidates were quickly recommended and selected. Paul Ecke Central School’s new principal is Adriana Chavarin Lopez. Flor Vista’s new principal is Stephanie Casperson.

• Robin Waters was recognized as parent of the year for PEC. Thank you Robin, for all your hard work with the PTA! Deanna Alman was recognized as student of the year for PEC.

Public Comment

• Four parents from Paul Ecke Central spoke about the benefits of the Alternative Language Program and hopes for additional and future support from the school district.

• TIP Academy parents and students spoke. The main point many made was in regards to the dispute between the district and TIP’s alledged mishandling of funds. One parent made a strong argument that it was reckless of EUSD to publicize it’s allegations against TIP in the media so early.

Parents and students clearly love this school. Hopefully, the district and TIP can work this out.

Dr. King’s opening remarks

• Another school district on the East Coast complimented the EUSD website.

I agree our website is getting better. I talked to Dan Grider problems I had with the EUSD site a few years ago, specifically that you could not open the site in Firefox and that staff email addresses were not available. Both of those problems have been fixed. The site now even offers RSS feeds of agenda and minutes from meetings. I still find the site hard to navigate. What do you think?

Theory Into Practice Charter School Monthly Report

• Mike Hazelton and board went over fiscal reports. Made me dizzy. My observation was that Mike and the board seem to have a good working relationship. From the reports in the paper this week, I expected this dialogue to look more like bareknuckle boxing, but it was very civil. The board asked questions, Mike answered the questions.

Business

• EUSD is adopting a new science curriculum this year. Typically when adopting a new curriculum, a few will get selected to be ‘piloted’ in classrooms through the year. Teachers who piloted the program then discuss which they liked best and with board approval, that is the one that gets adopted. EUSD teachers liked Houghton Mifflin best, and that is the one that was chosen. I teach in the Del Mar Union School District, and we adopted this one, too. So, long story short, buy stock in Houghton Mifflin (NYSE:HTN)

• Second adoption up was the health program. Schools get state funds for teaching a research based health curriculum. Our district decided on ‘Too Good for Drugs’. As a teacher, I’ve never liked the ‘Red Ribbon Week’ curriculum in the districts I’ve taught in. I think the message may have been strong when it started, but has gotten diluted through the years. Maybe this program will take it’s place.

Closing discussion:
There was a question by a parent earlier in the meeting about why the Hispanic ALP parents had not been invited to the ALP meeting at PEC Tuesday afternoon. The board asked Debbie, who attended the ALP meeting at PEC if this was the case. Debbie said it was and that in talking to Stephanie Niess, she learned that when Connie Cintas was principal, English speaking ALP parents had been invited because this is actually only an ‘alternative’ education to English speaking students, not to native Spanish speakers, or something to that effect. In closing the discussion, they seemed in agreement in the future all parents of the ALP program would be invited. Debbie mentioned that at the meeting they discussed that the 4th grade ALP model would resemble the one being started in the Del Mar Union School District. I won’t try to explain what that model looks like, but if you were at the Tuesday ALP meeting, please feel free to comment on what you heard.

Last Observations:
• Sound was nonexistent! The boards little ‘newsman’ microphones were not working or not hooked up, so in the early part of the standing room only crowd, you couldn’t hear anything.

• As I said, standing room only crowd! With all of our big beautiful Multi-Use Rooms in the district, shouldn’t we now be moving into one of those? I think the once ‘little’ EUSD district needs to realize they have 10 schools full of involved parents and need to accommodate us. They showed a video from one of the school’s classes that only about ¾ of the audience could see because of the terrible sightlines.