Saturday, March 6, 2010

Board Meeting March 9th - Agenda

Some very important items on the agenda this time around, including:

BUDGET CUTS - see agenda item for spreadsheets and supporting data in order to cut over 15 million dollars annually. Includes district wide support staff, special ed cuts, change of high school graduation requirements, more.

The Second Interim Report will be discussed.

14.4 Resolution ordering an election to authorize up to $348 million of General Obligation Bonds and establish specifications of the election order. Resolution PDF

Parent Involvement Policy Revisions

Certificated lay-offs / Agenda Item

Elimination of PM custodians at Diablo View Middle currently funded by City of Clayton

Roll over (through 2013) of current collective bargaining agreement with MDEA. Agenda

24 comments:

  1. Good luck having any deadlines met. Nothing will be done in time. Nothing can get done with no office help.

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  2. THe office help at my school already sucks, so it can only get better.. yes, really.

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  3. It is being proposed that the high school graduation requirement be reduced from 230 credits to 200 credits. Does anyone know if this means that high schools are only going to offer 5 rather than 6 classes per year? I surely hope this is not the case because that will make me pull my kids out of our district so please if you know, do share.

    And can anyone clarify if the proposed cuts on the agenda mean our high school students can no longer take classes at the community colleges? Thanks!

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  4. Yah, I don't understand what it is saying... they are saying they are reducing the grad requirements, but if that also means they will proportionally reduce class offerings and/or staff, then how will the kids still get the needed UC/CSU requirements done. This change will only effect those non college bound kids I assume.


    Kelly, how do you read that about DVC? I only have an 8th grader now but am very curious about all of this as it will effect us very soon.

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  5. Dr. Lawrence said very clearly at the PAC meeting that the reduction in graduation requirements will not affect regular class offerings or electives, or AP class offerings, but is rather designed to allow some room in the schedule for those that need to re-take certain basic classes for graduation, room to do so during regular class year, rather than summer school. Thus reducing costs and offerings at the summer school level. And, it will actually allow some seniors or juniors to take a period at another location, such as DVC or other school offering something that isn't offered at the home school. Regular six period day will still be in effect.

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  6. The proposed reduction of the mandatory number of credits for graduation will not require students to only to take 200 credits. All that it does is allow students to take fewer credits if they wish. There may be students who would like to take classes at DVC or LMC. There may be students that are headed into a technical career education program. There may be students who are headed into the Military. For students who are headed into State college or into the UC system, they will still have the ability to take more classes. Where this may save the district money is where you have students who have missed a class and, under the current requirements, they have to make that class up during summer school. If we did not have to pay to offer summer school for students who are making up a class, staff has determined that it will save about $400k per year. The good thing about this is that it will not take a program away from a student. The only students that should see a change will be those students that voluntarily decide that they are going to take fewer credits. You may all be surprised that the State of California only requires 130 credits for a student to graduate high school.

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  7. I am a parent of children who use the bus. My children ride from The Crossings to both Highlands elementary and Northgate high school. I understand they have cut the busing for students in my area. We pay 540.00 dollars a year per student. I see lots of students riding the bus. I don't understand how this will save any money and or cut down on traffic. I don't know how I will make it from Northgate to Highlands and get both my children to school on time. Isn't there a different solution. Has anyone worked with public transportation to see if they could pick up the slack?

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  8. Anonymous 10:22pm.
    I apologize for my delay in response to you. I have been in contact with several board members to get clarity on the relaxing of the graduation credit before responding. Things are not good and I would be happy to talk with you off-blog. Please feel free to contact me via email. Just click on my name to reach me, i think.

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  9. Bel Air, Meadow Homes, Rio Vista, Shore Acres
    Oak Grove Middle School and Mt Diablo High School on state fail list.... All MDUSD schools now what the blazes does this mean for the district? What will be the consequences to these schools? How does this effect the other schools?

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  10. 12:48, those aren't the only schools on the list, there are schools statewide and in other neighboring districts also on the list. I just posted links and information to the California Dept of Education site. WE'll have to wait and see what is in store for these schools, obviously big changes are now being mandated.

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  11. I think reducing the graduation requirements is a great idea. My daughter is college bound and this will not effect her. She will still continue to take the a-g requirements to get into college. My friends child who is not interested in going to college will benefit because she can start her technical education instead of taking classes just to take them. We are looking at closing schools in this district, cutting everything! This is a great way to make reductions, thinking outside the box. I see nothing wrong with it.

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  12. The District is looking to reduce the time of the Secretarial staff by a quarter!!! They are the backbone of the school, don't expect to get you child's report card in time and good luck on getting transcripts sent out to colleges! This is ridiculous, schools cannot run like this. I hope the board realize what has been proposed is way too much, cutting the jobs by half a month would have been hard enough but reducing everyone's day by a quarter will cause gridlock in the office!

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  13. Anonymous 3:00

    If everything remained constant, reducing graduation requirements might be an idea worth considering (if it can save us $400K). You indicated that your college bound daughter will not be affected, and I hope she is not (I too have two high school students). However, I am concerned that our students very well may be affected.

    Relaxing high school graduation requirements to 200 credits means that high school seniors will only be required to take TWO classes! To those students wanting to take more, the board is offering no assurance that classes will be available. Availability of these classes will depend on enrollment. If a decent % of seniors decides take only 2 classes, those remaining students may have little available to them. The board has offered DVC as a solution to our kids who want rigor but this is not truly viable as DVC classes are usually full before they even open enrollment to concurrent high school students.

    While completing a-g requirements is necessary for UC/CSU admission as you pointed out and that your daughter will indeed be able to take in our district, it is a minimum standard. UC looks to 14 items in college applicants as per their website. The decision by our board to relax graduation requirements could impact 4 of these items:

    1. Academic grade point average in all completed "a-g" courses, including additional points for completed University-certified honors courses.

    3. Number of, content of and performance in academic courses beyond the minimum "a-g" requirements.

    4. Number of and performance in University-approved honors courses and Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and transferable college courses.

    6. Quality of the student's senior-year program, as measured by the type and number of academic courses in progress or planned.

    Financially, for the district, this may not make sense. If a decent % of students takes only 2 classes, we stand to lose a significant amount of ADA. In a block schedule, a senior would only have to go to school 2-3 days/week.

    In an effort to save $400K, this action item has considerable weaknesses. We may be able to overcome them but it needs further thought and the outcome of such action needs to be anticipated BEFORE the vote is taken.

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  14. There is Ed Code policy that students must attend school for a minumum number of minutes. This ensure that seniors will be in school for at least 3 or 4 periods. I have daughters who are college bound and one in high school. I don't see this affecting her AP or honors classes because the student who would be taking 4 classes would mostly likely not be going to college or would be taking additional classes so that they could meet the graduation requirements.

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  15. Anon 3:26 about the secretaries. Can you expand? I thought the last proposal would've cut them to 1/2 time sharing between two schools? Now they are keeping them all where they are but reducing by a quarter? That sounds better to me than half.. what am I missing?

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  16. Can anyone tell me when Gary is up for re-election?
    Thanks.

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  17. 7:09. All that information is easily available on the mdusd.org site. But since you asked here I can tell you just want to start s&$^ right? So go look it up :0

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  18. Well if things work out and the recall effort gains traction then I would say that Gary will be up for election shortly.

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  19. Wow, interesting, so a recall just puts someone right back up for election again? I guess someone should've told Gray Davis.

    Have fun with that you fruit loop, Gary has a lot of supporters. The STATEWIDE budget crisis certainly isn't his fault, but that's awesome of you to think that it is.

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  20. This blog - I guess most blogs -get so frustrating. Why is is so difficult to stay on topic?

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  21. It seems that the high school College & Career advisor position is being addressed tonight. The proposal is a cut from one full-time job to .75% job at all high schools. My high school is nearly twice the size of some others and is the largest in the district. Our lone advisor will have much difficulty in accomodating all students.

    It is not fair to our advisor nor is it fair to our students to ask her to work more than the other advisors. Can't we consider a more fair solution such as a formula based upon students served?

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  22. I have been saying all along that the budget needs to be happen however, we can not cut the budget and think that everything will be ok. We need to make the changes in teaching our children. For instance there is no reason that a junior high science teacher should be teaching a child who is not an english learner how to read.

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  23. Instead of cherry picking, why not toss the budget and start from scratch? I realise it might be more work, but it might make more real sense. Start with mandated programs - is there enough to cover those? Great. Then move on from there.

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  24. I do not believe that reducing graduation requirements is the solution or in the best interest of our students. According to Greg Smith, Associate Vice-President of enrollment at Cal State East Bay, 20% of freshmen with a 4.0 or higher need some degree of remedial math, English, or both. Stating that our children can take classes at DVC is also suspect, since most of those classes are difficult to get into. In addition, DVC is currently on probation regarding their accreditation.

    Gary Eberhart states that students who are headed into a State college or into the UC system, will have the ability to take more classes. The question is, where? He also states that if MDUSD does not have to offer summer school, it will save the district $400k per year. He then follows up with “the good thing about this is that it will not take a program away from a student.” Isn’t summer school a program?

    If MDUSD is going to take away options from students, then the district should provide new ones. BYU’s independent study program is just one option the district should consider. It is accredited and the cost is reasonable for parents. The problem is, MDUSD, under its current policy, wont accept on-line programs. This is one solution that benefits both parents and students, while still allowing the district to address their current budget concerns.

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