One of the stranger concepts that I have been exposed to since taking public office is the notion of the “furlough” day. This essentially means that public agencies tell their employees not to come into work a certain number of days so that they can reduce their pay proportionally. Often such terms need [...]
The San Mateo County School Boards Association (SMCSBA) just announced the winners for the 2010 Kent Awards. The awards are given to outstanding and innovative programs either in the classroom or outside the classroom as well as district-wide programs. Applicants must demonstrate their programs promote student success, employ a high degree of creativity, [...]
In what can hardly be described as shocking, California was not selected as one of the finalists in the Federal Race To The Top (RTTT) program. 41 states applied to be eligible for this program, which could include awards of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. However, most education leaders in this state [...]
Last Fall I posted an entry about our schools’ API scores. As I pointed out then, all of our schools have both excellent and improving scores. I have also stated many times that, by design, our four K-4 elementary schools offer an equally excellent education. Although most parents and District staff understand [...]
In June I blogged about the hiring of our new Superintendent. At the time, because of the short time frame we had, we assumed we would hire an “interim superintendent” for a single year and then go out for a broader search for a permanent Superintendent. Well, we got lucky and found someone [...]
San Carlos is an unusual School District in that 6 of its7 schools (all except Central Middle School) are “charter” schools. I suspect most parents don’t even realize this because, with the exception of the San Carlos Charter Learning Center (CLC), all of the schools appear to be fairly “traditional.” CLC, which was [...]
Yesterday, the California Department of Education released the annual Academic Performance Index (API) report. These are standardized test scores used both for State and Federal targets. The scores are on a 200-1000 scale, with 800 being the State target for every school. As you will see in the report, currently only 58% [...]
The beginning of the school year is always filled with a lot of energy — and this year was no exception — energy from the students, the teachers, and the parents. I now have both a middle school student as well as an elementary school student, so it was great to spend some time [...]