Okay, okay ...

You are right, I have been remiss and have not posted to this blog as I should.  It seems with the end of the year I have been up to my ears and beyond with projects, commitments, etc.  As several of you have pointed out, I have not posted since June 10th.  Sorry, I will do better and get back on track.

Best regards,

Rick

And OUT of the Darkness Comes…

I am reminded that when things get dark and cloudy in the mountains and it looks very foreboding – there comes light and brilliance as we approach the goal. So through the darkness we can suddenly see the mountain goal in its brilliance.

While things certainly have been dismal with budget issues, state funding, etc. in the past months …I am reminded here as well that there is brilliance in the midst of this all. If any of you doubt that, I wish that you had attended the commencement exercises (a culmination of 12+ years) at our high schools in the past several nights. We have extraordinary students that are doing extraordinary things – and often with extraordinary stories of perseverance and overcoming – thanks to their teachers and families.

Last night (much as in prior evenings this week) it was a collage of great student music, “graduating” (retiring) staff members, inspiring student speeches, diplomas, and Junior Class ushers waiting their turn. Of course, all topped off with a dance of joy and glee between students and faculty in total celebration. If it doesn’t make it to YouTube – it should, as it was total and appropriate exuberance.

Congratulations to all of our teachers & staff and the graduating students!

So Now It Is Official

On Friday, our 4 elementary schools that have been recognized as 2010 California Distinguished Schools officially received their plaques and designation from California Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell. It was especially gratifying to have our own California Teacher of the Year, Amber Carrow (Chemawa teacher), announce each of our four schools. 

It is always good when we have others recognize the great work and performance of our teachers and school staff. The California Distinguished School Award process is much more rigorous than in earlier times. The process starts with a “nomination” based on performance data, which is followed by an “application” from the school describing their “signature practices.” That application is reviewed and a smaller number of schools are selected for “validation visits” where CDE representatives come to your school for the day to review and validate the substance of those identified practices. Finally, there is a subsequent selection of the California Distinguished Schools. This year, there is a comprehensive listing of signature practices (from California Distinguished Schools) from across the state by various attributes – which provides a mechanism for sharing best practice.

Congratulations to the school, parents, students, and staff of each of our 4 California Distinguished Schools:

• Benjamin Franklin Elementary
• Mark Twain Elementary
• George Washington Elementary
• Woodcrest Elementary

Let the Graduations Begin

Yesterday morning the Board of Education voted in favor of all the RCTA agreements presented and will have the MOU for ratification on Monday, June 14th. 

However, the main event of the year began last night with the graduation for 20 students in the Project TEAM program at the Adult School.  Kudos to both the students and the staff for their diligence and mutual caring.  Great performance and great culmination to their work.

Monday, we will begin with all the high school graduations and middle school promotions.  In all the cases, the culminating activity not only for the students and their families, but for the staff and what they have been working on all year -- or even all decade.  I am looking forward to those activities that I will be able to attend (can't make them all due to duplication of times).

So What Does This All Mean?

I trust that as you read this, the School Board has today done the following:

• Rescinded most of the 7-12 RIF notices such that we have the normal contractual staffing levels
• Had a public disclosure of the MOU (ratification will come on June 14th) that was ratified by RCTA last week, and
• Hopefully, approved the ERIP based on mutual determination of how it will be paid for (it was not cost neutral).

Which I am sure raises the question with many of you (and with me) – where are we then in the restoration of the many certificated employees that have been notified of possible layoff (RIF). THAT is not an easy question as there are multiple variables and many moving parts in that equation. However, let me make an attempt at it realizing that this is an estimate (not a specific) and I will probably be close, but not perfect.

We started with notices that affected 455 people – in a variety of categories including teachers, counselors, administrators, librarians, etc.  What is included herein is based on people not FTE (Full Time Equivalents), as this is an issue that obviously impacts people not statistics.

455 Original notices of possible lay off
-90 Notices that were rescinded in early May based on: resignations, retirements, leaves of absence, etc.
=======================
365 Balance
-74 Rescission of RIF notices to secondary teachers
=======================
291 Balance
-56 Rescission's based on the MOU that will affect some elementary teachers and librarians
=======================
235 Balance
-64 Rescission's based on the possible retirements reflected in the ERIP
=======================
171 Balance
-43 Rescission's based on reduction/elimination of credential impacts
=======================
128 Balance

Huge progress has been made on a very difficult task. While none of us can quite imagine the size of the problem when we began, together we have been able to make a sizable dent in the problem. However, 128 left with NO rescission is too many, AND it is still clear that this causes genuine damage to our schools:

• to what happens every day in schools and what resources are available to our students
• to staff members and families that still are in layoff status
• to the future unless these agreements are extended …as this is only a 1 year (2010-2011) agreement

The related question is – if my RIF notice has been (will be) rescinded – where will I be placed for an assignment? Clearly, our interest is to maintain as much stability as possible and as such NOT move people unless absolutely necessary. However, again the situation is effected by many variables including: how many staff are allocated to a particular site; rules, contracts, and policies governing this situation; specifics regarding each individual (e.g., credential and seniority); etc. Bottom line, probably the key determiner will be seniority.

In any case, thank you all for your work and cooperation to moving these issues forward.

R and R

I hope that you all had a great weekend and Memorial Day. Hopefully, you took time to remember the purpose and meaning of Memorial Day within the holiday gala. I had the great pleasure of “getting away” with my son and going to where I can best gain perspective – the High Sierras – hopefully above 10,000’ – “Woo Who”. Day one we saw 7 people and on day two we saw 4 people. It was great and restful – hopefully it was the same for you.

For those that are interested, I don’t usually look like my standard blog portrait (above), but rather more like the picture to the right.

It was also a time for catching up on some reading and reflection. Had the opportunity to read The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey. It was an interesting read that talks about the requirement of trust in a global, 21st century environment.

Furloughs

I extend my most ecstatic congratulations to RCTA and the certificated staff of our District that have agreed to furloughs to save the positions of our fellow employees. This past Friday RCTA passed their ratification of furloughs in excess of 82%. This adds to the furloughs that have agreed to by our administrators and managers in the District. The School Board will have public disclosure of the RCTA agreement (public disclosure is by law required 10 days before ratification) on Thursday, June 3rd. They will then ratify the MOU with RCTA on June 14th (after the prescribed disclosure period and review by the county office). We are hopeful that there will be more good news as the data from the ERIP is being considered.

We are in difficult and unusual times indeed!! Who would have ever thought we would need to take such action to do the right thing for each other and for the well being of our public education institution?

The budget and funding issues from the state level continue to be a mess and RTTT continues to border on the bizarre -- and we are left to attempt to do what is best for our students as well as the rest of us.

Realizing that time is drawing close to the end of the year; I know that there are lots of questions about what will happen to people's jobs and lots of other things. While there rarely are answers as quickly and clearly as we would hope, we do need to work with as much energy and focus as we can muster to find and deliver those answers. As such, I want you as readers to be aware that there is a Special Board Meeting that has been scheduled to as expeditiously as possible give answers to some of the pressing questions such as: 1) the MOU with RCTA that can save certain ELEMENTARY (primarily) certificated positions and 2) restoration of Secondary staffing levels that will bring back many that have received notices of possible layoff.

Many of these issues cannot be resolved until there is a formal action of the Board and there are certainly rules, laws, and requirements regarding how those meetings are structured and function. As such, the first meeting regarding the MOU on June 3rd meets the legal requirement to "disclose" the financial impacts of the agreement. There will then be a second meeting on June 14th to actually approve the furlough/elementary teacher MOU (this is similar to what you saw on some of the earlier MOU agreements).

This is hurtful to fine people and their families to go through these horrific budget impacts handed down from the State. They involve all of our employees including classified, certificated, and management. We have been and continue to work with all due diligence to gain solutions as quickly and accurately as possible.

Budgets and Early Retirement

As many of you might be aware, there is now a 3rd Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP) discussion taking place. On the negotiations update website, there is a copy of the current discussion. It should be noted that this is NOT actually an agreement.  It is a mechanism to reduce the assumptions and determine if there is some workable ERIP that is possible at this time. While we would hope that it works, you will notice that section 6.0 points out that when the data is collected, there will be a determination as to whether it is cost effective (IF it is not then it won’t be done). You will also notice that we must utilize transfer options to make this ERIP plan workable (currently there appears to be over 20 positions that may require such an action to make this effective).  Additionally, if the plan does not prove cost effective then those that make indicated they might retire may rescind their retirement.

In like kind, there have been and continue to be discussions about the possibility of furlough days, salary changes, etc.  As been reported on the Negotiations Update, there appears to be possible RCTA agreement over furloughs, etc that would move us to the ratification and public disclosure process (a specified legal procedure).  There is a similar CSEA possible agreement as well.

Ultimately, it is my opinion (and everyone else is entitled to their opinion), that the only way out of this budgetary mess created by the state – is for all of us to take in some equitable manner salary reductions. The fact is our funding level has reverted back to the 2000-2001 level – we have lost 10 years of funding. While this is by no means comfortable for any of us, it will only be all of us together that can make this work and succeed for our students and community.

Margaret Mead may have stated it best, when applied to our situation, she said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” On the other hand, she did not indicate nor would I that it would either be easy or simple.

California Funding of Public Schools

To continue the discussion of the Robles-Wong v California, there are interesting “beyond California” perspectives in the Washington Post and NY Times. While this is a big splash it will quickly go to a quiet, court-laden process. The more interesting question will be how any or all the candidates for State office will respond to the issue: either IN the campaign OR once elected to office. This is about the future of education and funding in California – not quick answers!!
An interesting book that is due for publication any day is Smart Money by Jacob Adams. He and his colleagues from a policy perspective ask, “How do you use resources to realize ambitious goals?” Within that question they believe there are four components:

1. How much money will it take? – the adequacy question
2. Are the resources equitable?
1. In state
2. Across states – which has never been looked at before
3. Are the resources used productively?
1. Within the using of resources
1. We typically and exclusively have measured compliance within budget categories rather than effectiveness
2. But the real question is have we used the resources effectively (On a policy basis, we don’t have much information as NO one has really ever researched this from that perspective)
4. Do we account for the resources within the ambitious goals that have been established (did it make a difference?)?

It might be an interesting read for Legislators

Lawsuit Filed

In an era when we see budget woes all around us and certainly we are all aware of how those issues affect our students, our families, and our programs in RUSD, what can we do?  In that regard it has been an interesting week. On Wednesday afternoon there was a demonstration on Olivewood and 14th by CSEA trying to point to the problem and encourage local citizens to be proactive in contacting their legislators to do something to assist our schools and students. That is certainly a move in the right direction.

On Thursday, there were press conferences in both San Francisco and Sacramento announcing a historic class action-style lawsuit (Robles-Wong v. California) against the State of California based on the long-standing inadequacy of funding for California schools. We, as RUSD along with parents and students in the community have joined with PTA, ACSA, and CSBA in filing this suit challenging the constitutionality of the current situation.  The challenge is that the funding process is "irrational, unstable, and insufficient" funding for the 21st century challenges.

There has been news coverage at a local, State, and national level regarding the suit and its relevance.  Clearly, this type of matter is not a quick fix and not a fix for our current budgetary situation -- rather a challenge to the basic system AND an opportunity to fundamentally change the system itself.  The resolution of such a suit will obviously take time (years) but is essential to the long-term health and well-being of California citizens.  Failure to invest in our students is a failure to invest in our future and ourselves.

If you are interested in more detail about the suit -- either now or in the future, you can find the original documents along with much more on the web at:  http://www.fixschoolfinance.org/

Monday Night's Board meeting

Okay so I am not particularly emotional and demonstrative about things that occur (at least as my family tells me). That being said, I was moved to a fairly emotional state on Monday night with our regular School Board meeting. We had each of the high school AVID (Achievement Via Individual Determination) programs come forward and introduce approximately 10 of their AVID students and then one of those students shared their story and dreams.

The student stories were all about overcoming, persevering, and the strength of the AVID “family.” The personal experiences of these students were borne of situations such as: immigration, arrival speaking only a language other than English, poverty, child protective services, adults that didn’t believe, and overall difficult life situations.

Enter passionate, dedicated educators at the elementary, middle school, and high schools – that made a huge difference and even saved lives. If those in Sacramento are wondering about their investment in public education in California – they need only to visit with our AVID students and hear their stories. Thank you all!!

FASTER, Faster, faster...

This is always the time of the year when we are hurried, rushed, and pressed. It is the annual race to graduation (or the end of the school year). Between Spring break and graduation week (June 7th through 11th) it gets increasingly intense each week with testing, wrapping up units, trying to “get it all in” before the end of the year, and less and less sleep. Graduation (and commencement) is not only the ultimate education exercise for students, but also for us as educators.  This year has been and will be no different in that regard. We are now just 3 weeks away from that culminating week and the last day of school on June 10th – the pace picks up. Thank you all for your urgent and brisk work at this time of the year on behalf of our students.

May Revise

We have been waiting in anticipation for some time for the May Revise to determine what further impacts that we would have on our local RUSD budget. The Governor released his budget on Friday at 1 p.m. Generally the news is bad, as there is dramatic impact with a number of state programs. However, in the arena of public education the Governor’s May Revision is GREAT – overall there is basically no change from his January proposal and commitment to “protect education.” While analysis is still going on he seems to have lived up to his promise. That is certainly great news for all of us.

The next question is what the Legislature will do in adopting a budget?  Most prognosticators are indicating that there will be a substantial debate over all of this and we should NOT expect the May Revise to hold. While I am a bit more optimistic than that, I am clear that the Legislature does not like the large reductions or eliminations in the social programs. On the other hand, I don’t believe they wish to impose further reductions (beyond the Governor’s recommendations) – particularly in an election year.

All that being said, it should be an interesting summer.

i3 Grants?

Several people have asked about some of the current terminology that has been discussed with the most recent federal initiatives. While there has been much discussion here and elsewhere about Race to the Top (RTTT), there has been less discussion about what has been called the i3 grants.  In the world of Eduspeak, the i3 stands for Investing in Innovation Fund.

There are essentially 3 different kinds of i3 grants. You must specifically apply the one you are interested in. The basic idea behind i3 is that each of these potential grants must be supported by evidence and research rather than anecdotal observations. As such universities (or similar institutions) are key partners in most of these i3 efforts. The 3 types of i3 grants are:

• Scale-up – These are large scale grants ($50 million) that are targeted to states and other institutions or agencies that can affect thousands of students.
• Validation – These are middle grants ($30 million) that are targeted on projects that will validate with further evidence existing published research. The barrier is rather high regarding the research base in this case.
• Development – This final category is a bit more exploratory in nature and there are small awards ($5 million) for projects that have promise and some basis of prior research evidence – but insufficient research to be conclusive.

While RTTT had primarily a state focus, i3 focuses on local school districts (or consortiums of such).  We have applied for both validation and development grants -- or more accurately we are partners with others in those efforts.  While this all appears to be interesting and have some promise, I am reminded that RTTT (Round 1) also had a lot of promise and states generally responded in an aggressive, competitive manner.  However, the delivery on RTTT seemed to be quite another thing with 15 out of 40 being shortlisted and ultimately 2 states being funded.  Those two states (Delaware and Tennessee) are both small and limited amounts of the promised prize were distributed.  The other 38 states have been left with lots of policy changes that happened rapidly with limited development time and agreement of parties

We will see what happens with the many, many i3 grant applications that are being submitted.

Thank you Staff members for your Passion and Dedication

This is the time of the year when we pause to recognize and thank all of our hard-working employees: Today is California Day of the Teacher and next week is Classified School Employees Week. I am especially grateful for the hard-working staff here at RUSD. This district is lucky enough to have the best of the best working at every level of our organization. Thank you all.

While we are all faced with horrible budget issues (that are out of our control) and our colleagues being affected by RIF notices and devastation to their livelihoods, our staff continues to bravely serve our students. Given what the state of California has passed on to us and every other school district we continue to look for all options to resolve these issues while recognizing that we need to remain financially solvent.

In a time of great difficulty and distress we can be encouraged and know what is right in Riverside. As only one great example of the kind of teaching and instructional support from all staff members was the 25 Remarkable Teens presentation last night at City Hall. I know of no other city that takes city council time to genuinely review and appreciate our teens. Though many of these students are fairly “unassuming,” we definitely have remarkable teens.  Each one with an incredible story of achievement and perseverance.  Beyond that they are supported by their teachers, school staff, and parents to help them achieve and overcome at the levels that they do (as was stated by the students themselves). Of the 25 students:

• One student was from Arlington HS
• One student was from Chemawa Middle School
• Two students were from King HS
• Eight students were from J.W. North HS
• Two students were from Poly HS
• Three students were from Ramona HS, including the Most Remarkable Riverside Teen

Thank you teachers and staff for what you do every day to make a difference in the lives of these and many other students.

Note:  Last years 25 Remarkable Teens are noted on the left-hand side of our District website.  We will have the newest version up to replace last year's in the very near future.

Anniversary

Well today is the first anniversary of the initial posting on our blog. We started a year ago on May 11, 2009 …some 210+ posts ago. First my immense thanks to those of you have taken the time to read the blog. We have had over 150,000 “hits” during the past year of which 2/3 have occurred within the last 6 months (which is reasonable). I also appreciate those of you who have taken the plunge and have commented on the posts. Obviously, I don’t agree with all of the comments – but this is really about providing an open forum for a conversation to occur.

I also extend my thanks to those who “talked” me into this initially. Believe me; I was rather uncertain about all of this. I have learned a lot – often times in areas that I didn’t expect. I believe that we need to expand our understanding and use of this and other media tools in our 21st century environment. I found Groundswell to be an interesting read which addresses many of these issues – though from a business perspective.

Certainly during the course of the past year we have covered a wide range of topics from the more mundane (at least in the opinion of some) to the more controversial (as evidenced by some of the responses). As we proceed forward together as a community and school district, it is my belief that we need to continually work to improve both our communication (and listening) and relationship. At the “end of the day” what we really have is each other and our community together. Once again, I thank you for your participation and involvement.

Best regards,
Rick

Mea Culpa

My apologies to Chris Marker-Morse for incorrectly listing his school site as Madison rather than Magnolia Elementary School.  My apologies to Chris and to all --and once again Chris congratulations!

SAFETY of Students and Staff

We at RUSD, and myself personally, are concerned by the direction being taken by our local transportation agency, RCTC (Riverside County Transportation Commission). RCTC is proposing what they call the Perris Valley Line – which is an extension of the current Metrolink commute rail service that comes to Riverside. While we all support public transportation options we do NOT support choices such as these that put our students at risk. Specifically, this has a direct impact on the students and staff at both Hyatt and Highland Elementary Schools.

We understand that the train tracks have “always” been there (before the school), but if RCTC improves the train track as part of the project – it brings more train traffic (Metrolink for sure) and, prehaps more importantly, opens the potential for a lot more freight trains (which pose an even greater danger to our students). In the draft EIR report (Environmental Impact Report) RCTC has disregarded our concerns and requests regarding the safety of our students (see pgs 2-43 and 2-44 of EIR).

Bottomline, we are concerned about safety based on 3 basic items:

• Grade crossings – clearly there has already been a history of injury and death regarding these crossings including the most recent loss of an Arlington HS student a year ago.
• Possible derailment, etc. – obviously a “tumbling” train is a huge risk to students that are less than 100 feet away from the event. As you can see from the picture above, gravity also plays a part in all of this.
• Jet Fuel Line – you probably didn’t know this but in the RR track bed at Highland school is a 6 inch Jet Fuel line that operates at 1000 PSI (pounds per square inch). This line is only a couple of feet underground in some places and again some type of serious train derailment, could obviously rupture the pipe and create a horrific explosion in extremely close proximity to our children.

As one of the representatives who met with our Board of Education stated, “accidents do happen.” That explanation and the suggested “mitigations” in no way make us feel comfortable nor do we believe that this is in the best interest of our children. We will be formally addressing this matter regarding the draft EIR prior to the May 24th deadline. You may wish to do the same or you can contact the RCTC commissioners (both local and otherwise) prior to the end of May.

Guaranteed Success?

Clearly we are in the time of year when we are in a flat-out race to graduation in June. Last night was no exception with the Annual Senior Recognition Ceremony for our AVID (Achievement Via Individual Determination) students. The experience is somewhat like attending a rock concert (with overflow chairs outside that were in use) with these 2000+ students that are excited by their accomplishments, school spirit, future ahead of them, and well just their excitement. It was exuberant noise, jumping up and down happy, and when requested the “quietest hand clapping” you can imagine. These students were representative of Riverside County only and 46 of the 50 high schools in the county.


These predominantly first-time college attendees had received 1,624 acceptance letters to date with more arriving every day. Ultimately 90% will have letters of acceptance. Many (most) will have multiple acceptances with consistent scholarship opportunities. 25% of the crowd had been accepted and were anticipating attending UCR which might explain why we were on the UCR campus with Chancellor White hosting us.

Our flagship AVID program at Ramona HS, which is 22 years old, is a good example of the kind of experience most of the AVID students receive across the county including our other high schools. The AVID class at Ramona is the largest in the nation (and the history of AVID) at 113 strong (exceeding last year’s record class of 104). To date they had received 395 letters of acceptance (averaging over 3 acceptances per student) and $1.5 million in scholarships (on the way to $2 million).

What a great program and the focus is all about learning and achievement. Where else can you sign up for a class and have 90+% chance of being accepted to college with a scholarship (or two) and the keys to a bright future? However, I must say that the biggest applause and recognition for the evening was reserved for the AVID teachers and counselors that continue to lead the way. Well-done!!