FAIRFIELD — The Yippie Foundation is accepting student applications for its fifth Yippie Job Training Academy.
The nine-month program begins Sept. 10 and provides job readiness training, vocational mentoring, financial education, career development classes and paid work experience in the Yippie Yogurt Training Center to qualified applicants ages 16-24 who live in Fairfield or Suisun City.
via Yippie Foundation accepts training academy applications Daily Republic.
Like other school district leaders statewide, with classes set to begin next week, Fairfield-Suisun Unified trustees seek clarification on just what Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2013-14 budget holds in store.
The governing board meets in open session tonight and will hear a budget update from Kelly Morgan, the district’s chief business official.
via Budget questions top Fairfield-Suisun school board agenda – The Reporter.
An update on the state budget, information about a Spanish-English dual immersion language program, and employee and staff reports are on the agenda when Dixon Unified leaders meet tonight in Dixon.
Cecile Nunley, the district’s chief business official, will update the five-member governing board on Gov. Jerry Brown’s $96 billion 2013-14 budget, well more than half of which is earmarked for K-12 schools, community colleges and the state’s two university systems.
via Dixon school trustees to look at finances, language program – The Reporter.
“Is it good to tell a first-grader, ‘You might be a dropout?’”
The obvious answer would seem to be: Uh, no. But when Thomas C. West posed this question recently to Education Week reporter Sarah D. Sparks, he had a genuine dilemma in mind. West, who is an evaluation specialist at Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, has devised a tracking formula that can predict, with startling accuracy, which students will drop out of high school—as early as their second semester of first grade.
via What Are the Risks in Using Data to Predict Student Outcome? | MindShift.
My dog and I have become paper trained. Call me old fashioned, but I still get the print version of the daily newspaper. Each day I engage in a trivial, but memorable tribal dance with the delivery person. Timing is everything in this archaic ritual, and simple nuances in the unseen interchange between us nag at me all morning like a food particle stuck between my molars. His/her job is to precisely toss the daily rag into a ten foot diameter invisible circle on my driveway at approximately the same time each morning. My job is to retrieve it in a sweeping motion that consumes exactly the amount of time it takes a Golden Retriever to relieve herself on the front lawn. If he fails to hit the mark I notice. If I fail to awaken at the appointed hour my dog notices and becomes an insistent telepathic alarm clock at my bedside.
via Tom DeLapp’s PR Perceptions: Are Newspapers Becoming VCRs?.
By guest blogger Christina A. Samuels
After decades of increases, the obesity rate among young, low-income children showed a decline in 19 states, according to information released today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The findings came from weight and height data collected in 2008-2011 from about 11.6 million low-income children ages 2 to 4 who live in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories. The states and territories participated in a monitoring system called the Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System.
via Obesity Rate Drops Among Low-Income Preschoolers – Rules for Engagement – Education Week.
Details about the voter-approved Measure Q bond measure are on the agenda when the Solano Community College District governing board meets tonight.
Trustees will consider the “recommended structure” for the measure, formally called the SCC District Student/Veterans Affordable Education Job Training, Classroom Repair Measure. It is a $348 million bond measure, approved by county voters in November. Trustees will consider whether to hire a consultant to oversee the spending of the bond money, keep the job in-house or use some combination of those arrangements.
via Solano College board to discuss bond measure management – The Reporter.
By Michele McNeil
UPDATED
The U.S. Department of Education granted an unprecedented waiver Tuesday under the No Child Left Behind Act to eight California districts that together educate 1 million students, upending a long tradition of state-based school accountability.
The first-of-its-kind waiver, good for one year, essentially allows the eight districts to set up their own accountability system outside of the state of California’s—and largely police themselves through their own board of directors. The districts known as CORE, for California Office to Reform Education, will operate under a new “school quality improvement index” that will be based 60 percent on academic factors such as test scores and graduation rates, 20 percent on social-emotional factors such as the absentee rate, and 20 percent on culture and climate factors such as student and parent surveys. The CORE districts are Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Sanger and Santa Ana.
By Kathryn Baron
Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s approval of the CORE districts’ waiver from unattainable provisions of the No Child Left Behind law, exposed some old and some new internecine disputes in California education.
Duncan called it the “right thing to do” for the 1 million students enrolled in the eight districts. Others used different words.
Among policymakers and advocates who commented on the decision, EdSource Today found common themes among differences of opinion.
via A compelling or distracting NCLB waiver? | EdSource Today.
Teachers and administrators from Anna Kyle, Tolenas, Dan O. Root and E.R.Sheldon Elementary Schools, Crystal Middle School and the district’s Educational Services team attended the No Excuses University Conference in July.
By John Fensterwald
Eight California school districts collectively will receive the first district waiver from penalties under the No Child Left Behind law, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Tuesday.
Duncan praised the districts’ “creative, thoughtful, innovative proposal.” He said that 1 million students will benefit from the districts’ “rigorous expectations” and that other states will learn from the collaborative strategies that the districts are pledging to carry out. “Frankly, working directly with districts wasn’t an easy decision,” Duncan said. “We’re not taking this up because it was simple, but because it was the right thing to do.”
via Eight California districts receive historic NCLB waiver | EdSource Today.
By Susan Winlow
FAIRFIELD — Suisun City and Fairfield schools stand to benefit from an infusion of state money that helps close a persistent budget gap but will not immediately bring back cuts taken from the district in recent years.
Members of the Fairfield-Suisun School District governing board on Thursday will look at a revised 2013-14 district budget that reduces the general fund deficit by nearly half after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state budget.
via School district sees more money from state Daily Republic.
By Richard Bammer/RBammer@TheReporter.com
For nearly 60 incoming Vacaville Unified freshman, school was already in session Tuesday, 10 days ahead of their peers, as they began the inaugural class of the district’s Early College High School program at Solano Community College Vacaville Center.
A joint effort between the district and SCC, the program — a chance for high schoolers to earn an associate’s degree or up to 60 transferable college credits during high school — targets low-income youth, English-language learners, students of color, and those who will be among the first in their family to graduate from college. Books and tuition are free. Those who earn the maximum number of college credits would be eligible to completing a four-year degree in half the time — and at half the cost.
via Vacavile students get a jump on their education – The Reporter.
When a long-awaited and much-needed bill to streamline transfer from community colleges to California State University passed the state Legislature three years ago, it had sweeping support: unanimous approval among lawmakers and a list of backers more than 80 deep. All is not so harmonious for its younger sibling, Senate Bill 440, which would compel campuses to move faster to develop transfer degrees.
Despite a spate of amendments in recent weeks, including several just released Monday, prominent community college and CSU officials and organizations have voted to oppose the bill by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, when it comes up for a hearing Tuesday in the Assembly Higher Education Committee.
via Resistance greets pumped-up effort to streamline community college, CSU transfer | EdSource Today.
By Annie Murphy Paul @anniemurphypaul
An article in Education Week sparked a controversy recently when Thomas C. West, an evaluation specialist at Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, announced that he had devised a tracking formula that can predict, with startling accuracy, which students will drop out of high school—as early as their second semester of first grade.
via Your First-Grader is Going to Be A High School Drop Out | TIME.com.
Brianna Boyd, Editor
It looks like there might be a race after all in November for three seats on Dixon Unified’s board of trustees.
It has been three weeks now since Solano County began its declaration of candidacy period for the November election, and although one potential candidate, Caitlin O’Halloran, pulled papers on July 16, the Dixon Unified race has otherwise been silent.
Until now.
via School board race heating up O’Halloran… – The Dixon Tribune | Facebook.
By Lanz Christian Bañes/Times-Herald staff writer
The Vallejo school board will consider finalizing Wednesday a district response to a critical report on Vallejo High School safety.
The Solano Grand Jury issued its findings in May, laying out concerns that Vallejo City unified School District officials, the Vallejo High School administration and the school board did not do enough to mitigate safety concerns at Vallejo High School.
via Vallejo school board to consider grand jury response – Vallejo Times Herald.
Galvanized by a national reading campaign, communities across California are launching innovative partnerships that are resulting in new early literacy programs in schools, libraries and even laundromats.
“There’s a lot of books here, really good books,” said 9-year-old Melanie Garcia-Macias, who sat with her back to a big red bookshelf at the end of a long line of washing machines at the Clean Express Coin Laundry in Richmond one recent Wednesday. A copy of “The Night Before Christmas” was splayed open on her lap.
via Early literacy programs receive boost from national campaign | EdSource Today.
By Susan Winlow
FAIRFIELD — The Solano Community College Governing Board will hold a study session at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at 360 Campus Lane on the first floor in the “West Lobby.”
On the agenda is a second reading of an administrative leadership group proposal for a revised board policy regarding student learning and service area outcomes. This satisfies one of the recommendations put forth by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges during the findings of an evaluation team visit in November 2012. In order to increase institutional effectiveness it was recommended that the college “develop and implement appropriate policies and procedures that incorporate effectiveness in producing student learning outcomes into the evaluation process of faculty and others directly responsible for student progress,” according to staff reports.
via College governing board to hold study session Daily Republic.
By Amy Maginnis-Honey
FAIRFIELD — Violeta Chavez, 11, wants to learn more. Marco Correa, also 11, aims to brush up on his academic skills and have some fun doing it.
Jimmy Guzman, 12, sought help for reading. Maileth Nunez, 12, just wants to keep busy.
The four are enrolled in the Summer Academy for children of migrant workers. Their education is tied to harvest season.
via Program offers summer school to children of migrant workers Daily Republic.