School safety has been at the forefront of every public school board meeting this year due to a group of bullied children’s parents who have pressed the issue at meetings during public comment.
BENICIA — Humiliated, unloved and alone, the teenager thought there was only one way out.So, carefully, he packed the charges into the pipe and placed them in his backpack.
Throwing a hood over his face, he headed to campus and gently positioned the bombs in the corridors and awaited the chaos.
Members of the Solano Community College basketball team visited the Suisun Valley Elementary School campus recently. Team members read to students, talked about their college experiences and answered student questions.
via SCC BASKETBALL TEAM VISIT SUISUN VALLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Ms. Jaye’s first grade class at David Weir Elementary School enjoyed a Skype visit from MSU quarterback Denarius McGhee and MSU volleyball great Kasey Schlatter last week. The college students answered questions generated by the first graders about college life. As part of Weir’s No Excuses University program, Ms. Jaye’s class chose MSU to inspire college goals and support academic achievement this year. They wear MSU t-shirts, display MSU banners and become honorary Bobcats to strengthen their ties to a college future. Special thanks to Denise Ferrin (FSUSD teacher and MSU alum) and Amanda Patriarche (MSU Athletic Department) for organizing this event.
via MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY’S VIRTUAL VISIT
Ms. Jaye’s first grade class at David….
Superintendents representing a coalition of 10 California school districts are scheduled to meet with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan today to make a personal pitch for a district waiver from provisions of No Child Left Behind, which they plan to formally submit next week.
February 28 is the deadline for the handful of remaining states that don’t already have a waiver approved or pending to apply for relief from some of the most punitive aspects of the federal education law in exchange for developing their own accountability systems. Duncan rejected California’s waiver application after the state applied under a different section of federal law rather than agree to conditio
via Superintendents in D.C. to talk district waiver with Duncan – by Kathryn Baron.
Maria Betts, Suisun City
The Crystal Middle School’s choir and arts students presented “We Haz Jazz” on Jan. 30 and the next day your paper presented a story about the young peoples’ production along with a photo of some of the students on stage.
The caption below the photo highlights my son’s name and states that he “gets excited before speaking his lines.” My son was a major participant in the production, having had the most lines to memorize and a solo to sing. With support from their music and art teachers all of the students had taken steps toward unfolding their potentials for theatrics and performance. A Daily Republic photographer was on site at the stage taking a multitude of pictures throughout the show.
SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said today he is encouraged by the growing percentage of California high school graduates both taking and passing end-of-course Advanced Placement® (AP) exams that give high-school students a taste of college-level work.
“More of our high school students are challenging themselves by enrolling in college-level courses, and more of them meeting that challenge by passing these Advanced Placement exams,” Torlakson said. “These results reflect the high value California students and families place on being ready for college—and the increasing success our students and schools are having in achieving that goal.”
By Keri Luiz, Assistant Editor
Superintendent Janice Adams on Thursday will request that school district trustees approve a closed campus at Benicia High School beginning next school year.
“The Benicia High School Administration facilitated an inclusive process to review the current Open Campus Lunch policy,” Adams said in a report to the Benicia Unified School District Board of Trustees, citing Benicia High Principal Damon Wright’s months-long study that included an informal staff survey, discussion with the Student Senate, a community forum and a survey of local companies that profit from student business at lunch time.
Assemblymember Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) is reintroducing his bill to limit the use of willfully defying authorities or disrupting school activities as a reason to suspend or expel students.
Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a different version of the bill, saying disciplinary practices should be left up to local school districts. The Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) and the California School Boards Association (CSBA) did not originally support the bill, though they later withdrew their opposition to the amended version that passed the Legislature.
via Second effort to limit ‘willful defiance’ as cause to expel and suspend – by Susan Frey.
A federally appointed education-equity commission is proposing a five-pronged agenda for states and the federal government to help the 22 percent of children living in poverty and eliminate what the commission calls a “staggering” achievement gap.
Three years in the making, the new report released today stems from a 2010 congressional directive to the U.S. Department of Education, which created the Equity and Excellence Commission. The report, called “For Each and Every Child: A Strategy for Education Equity and Excellence”, makes recommendations in a number of areas:
via Federal Commission Urges Bold Steps to Boost Education Equity.
FAIRFIELD — School district trustees will hold a special meeting Tuesday to discuss the budget and technology.
The Fairfield-Suisun School District Board of Trustees will meet at 5 p.m. in the district office at 2490 Hilborn Road.
FAIRFIELD — Gordon Doughty, Elisa Brosius and Frank Marrero are survivors.
All three faced life-altering tragedies, but all three made it through.
For Doughty, it was walking home to find his daughter had shot and killed herself. For Brosius, it was the news that her brother hung himself from the porch. And for Marrero, it was the sound of his wife’s blood-curdling scream as she discovered her son dead on the floor.
FAIRFIELD — Solano Community College police are looking to sell shotguns, pistols and ammunition.
Civilians need not apply.
The department is proposing to sell the excess or unneeded arsenal to other college districts, police departments or police officers.
FAIRFIELD — Solano Community College staff recommends giving the job of overseeing Measure Q to the group that has been keeping an eye on spending of Measure G funds since 2002.
The SCC District Board of Trustees will hear the issue Wednesday when it meets at 6:30 p.m. at the Vacaville campus at 2001 N. Village Pkwy.
Solano is in the beginning stages of planning for Measure Q, a $348 million bond passed by voters in November to construct new buildings on three campuses while adding new programs.
LONG BEACH – Jandella Faulkner crouches beside a table of busy third-graders in Jennifer Larsen’s class at Edison Elementary School. The students have pencils in hand, outlines spread around them, and a story about penguins and otters in progress.
Faulkner stands to call across the room: “Loving how this group is already talking, Ms. Larsen.” Then she swoops down on another table of young authors.
Faulkner is a teaching coach in the Long Beach school district. Her job is to train a select group of teachers at Edison Elementary, including Jennifer Larsen, in a new literacy curriculum called Write From The Beginning. It’s part of a districtwide training system that relies on teachers working with each other to improve classroom practices. So, with Faulkner’s help, Larsen and the other site coaches at Edison train their colleagues at the school how to use Write From The Beginning in their own classrooms.
via In one Calif. school district, teachers help teachers get better.
By Donna Beth Weilenman, Staff Reporter
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges is keeping Solano Community College on “warning” status, even as it recognized SCC has done “considerable work” toward removing sanctions against its accreditation, Shemila Johnson, coordinator of marketing and student recruitment.
The college had been waiting for the ACCJC’s letter, she said. “The letter and the ACCJC Report show that faculty and the Board have made remarkable progress in addressing all the issues in a short period of time.”
Sarah Chapman, president of SCC’s Governing Board, said, “There remain very few issues to address, and we are certain that these mandates wil be satisfied by the next ACCJC visit in October.
via At Solano College, uphill accreditation fight continues.
By Keri Luiz, Assistant Editor
Eighteen-year-old Brady Hartinger wanted to convey a message: One word can change a life.
A senior at Benicia High School, he made a two-and-a-half-minute video that shows the consequences of a rash act on a school campus, with the help of friends and the Benicia Police Department.
Hartinger’s video recently won a $2,500 grant that will help fund the next Challenge Day — an international program that inspires participants “to live, study and work in an encouraging environment of acceptance, love and respect” — at Benicia High on Feb. 27.
via Teens, parents work to make ‘Challenge Day’ a regular school event.
On Thursday, President Obama unveiled some of the details of his proposal for universal pre-K education. Robert Siegel talks with University of Chicago economist James Heckman, who’s studied the benefits to society of early intervention.
via Study: Pre-K Investment Pays Off With Higher Incomes, Reduced Crime.
YOU’RE INVITED!
RSVP to Mark: 707.399.5064 or
mark.britton@sodexo.com
via YOU’RE INVITED!
RSVP to Mark: 707.399.5064 or
mark.britton@sodexo.com.
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
This is the view from Crystal Middle School’s administration office at 9:30 this morning. The Valentine wishes from family and friends will be delivered to students at the end of the school day.
via LOVE IS IN THE AIR
This is the view from Crystal Middle School’s administration….