Comments on: Live blog of April 23, 2012 MDUSD board meeting

By: Theresa Harrington

Theresa Harrington — Sat, 05 May 2012 23:34:47 +0000

Here is a blog post about Sun Terrace, which points out similarities between this situation and those that occurred at CVHS and MDHS during the past year: http://bit.ly/JnJrnO

By: Doctor J

Doctor J — Sat, 05 May 2012 22:38:09 +0000

Could this type of scandal happen in MDUSD ? http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_20550608/uc-berkeley-fires-leite-after-affair

By: Flippin Tired

Flippin Tired — Sat, 05 May 2012 04:55:33 +0000

“Who is in charge at the sites where there is no Vice-Principal ?”

The office staff has to handle everything, unless the TIC has to come down to the office for an emergency, and then someone from the office has to cover the classroom.

We don’t even get a sub principal until the second day the regular principal is out.

By: g

Sat, 05 May 2012 01:29:13 +0000

There was so much going on at the last board meeting one thing seemed to just slip on by…RDA, who by all appearances has not done a very good job of its last contract, part of which was to aid in keeping the district on track in its SIG turn around efforts, was given a new $10K contract to create a survey (at the end of a school year!) designed to ask parents what the district can do to help keep parents involved at SIG schools!

True–parent involvement is poor to none.

For less than a penny I could tell the district that the majority of those parents “feel” disenfranchised–and for good reason!

By: Doctor J

Doctor J — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:53:38 +0000

@G The district had to send CDE a request with detail of their progress toward meeting the SIG requirement of Principal and Teacher evaluation using student performance as part of the evaluation. I hope Theresa follows up with CDE to get a copy of MDUSD’s application supporting the waiver. Interestingly it was never presented to the Board for approval.

By: g

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:42:33 +0000

Dr. J: This is a sad sort of dilemma. We all want every kid to get the benefit of every dollar we can get our hands on—but one of the first things you should learn as a parent is to make a rule, make sure your kid understands, and then stick to your rules.

What has the District learned? They’ve learned that they can ignore the rules, and get a second, third, fourth chance. By the time they begin to follow the rules (if ever) entire classes of kids have been shuffled up and out without the benefit of the funds that were meant to specifically help them.

By: Doctor J

Doctor J — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:04:04 +0000

MDUSD & Cohort 1 SIG Schools get temporary extension from US Dept. of Ed to implement teacher and principal evaluations, in part on student performance. Item 16 of next weeks CDE Agenda includes approving all Cohort 1 California schools for the waiver granted back in January by USDE. http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr12/documents/may12item16a01.pdf

By: Doctor J

Doctor J — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:56:24 +0000

“Major responsibilities”: 1. direct support to assigned school; 2. ongoing coaching and support of principal; 3. direct assistance and support of staff 4. Monitor curriculum and instruction and provide feedback to administrators and staff; 7. Professional development of assigned school; 8. Implement Single Plan for Student Achievement in assigned school; 22 Total. Note most of the first 8 are related directly to the “assigned school”. If any of these 8 had been happening at Sun Terrace, there would not be a large number of children behind grade level in Reading which now requires intervention the last three weeks of school. The question remains: What was the principal’s coach doing ?

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:55:53 +0000

The bullying goes on all over the place. Unfortunately I don’t know of any principal that handles it effectively. I know first hand what has been going on at sun terrace. I know a child that was tormented so badly by kids and teachers this child is forever traumatized.
I know children in Clayton that nothing gets done. Then to put frosting on the cake the people who are supposed to set the example openly bully other adults. What a mess we have.

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:25:51 +0000

I don’t believe the SASS administrator was “doing her job” because as I understand, sun terrace’s principal is relatively new to MDUSD.