UPDATE: Oops, I was mistaken about the gender of the student who’s serving as co-president with Lily Mei’s daughter at their school. The correction is noted below:

ORIGINAL ENTRY: If you follow local school news, then you know by now that Lily Mei was one of three people elected to the Fremont school board on Tuesday.

Well, it turns out she’s not the only politician in the family. The same day that Mei was voted onto the school board, her daughter was elected president of her elementary school’s student council. Actually, the younger Mei tied with another girl boy. Rather than hold a runoff, it appears both girls students will serve as co-president this year.

Could you imagine having two U.S. presidents simultaneously?

Today’s story about local school board candidates raising money for their campaigns named Fremont’s Bryan Gebhardt as the top fundraiser, having amassed $34,296.

Well, he may be the biggest fundraiser among school board candidates in the Tri-City area, but he’s no match for the politicians in the West Contra Costa school district.

There, incumbent Karen Pfeifer has raised nearly $100K (about what the five candidates in Fremont have raised collectively), and Robert Studdiford has collected about $42K. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you haven’t heard, a Sacramento Superior Court judge on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order that bars the state Board of Education from implementing the new algebra requirement for all eighth-graders until a public hearing has been held in December.

Back in July, the board — following a last-minute letter from Gov. Schwarzenegger in support of increasing standards — decided to require all eighth-graders to be tested in Algebra I, starting in three years. In essence, this would have required all eighth-graders to take algebra.

The request for a temporary restraining order was filed by the California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators. Jack O’Connell, the state schools chief, supported the request. Read the rest of this entry »

I attended a gang and drug awareness info meeting at Washington High last night, put on by members of the Fremont PD and Southern Alameda County gang task force. Here are a few stats I picked up from the meeting:

* There are 3,105 known gang members in Fremont, Newark, Union City and parts of Hayward as of last month.

* About 98 to 99 percent of these gang members reside here.

* About 230 of these gang members are 14 to 17 years old.

* Some gang members are as young as 9 years old.

Fremont school board President Ivy Wu, who is seeking re-election, e-mailed me after reading today’s story about campaign fundraising. She said she’s not accepting money “from developers or any organizations.” That’s why she declined the two grand the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association had offered to her.

Also, FUDTA President Jeff Poe explained why the union gave candidate Bryan Gebhardt $2,500 but only offered $2,000 to Wu and Lily Mei.

When the union “pre-endorsed” Gebhardt early on in March, it wrote a check, using funds from FUDTA’s own political action committee. However, after deciding to endorse Mei and Wu this fall, FUDTA turned to the California Teachers Association’s political action committee for money to give the candidates. CTA decided it would offer only $2,000 per candidate. Hence, the discrepancy.

Poe said FUDTA has not decided whether it will offer more money to the other candidates (not that it matters to Wu).

By the way, Poe believes Mei has accepted the $2,000 from the union, although it sounds like she received the check after filing her most recent campaign finance statement with the Registrar of Voters Office. I guess the money will show up in her next finance statement, which is due Thursday.

UPDATE (5:35 p.m.): Leesa Jack passed away Tuesday morning. A service will be held at 5 p.m. Oct. 18 at Morgan Hill Presbyterian Church in Morgan Hill. There will be a story in tomorrow’s paper about Leesa.

ORIGINAL ENTRY (1 p.m.): I just found out that Leesa Jack, principal of Hopkins Junior High in Fremont the last five years, has died of cancer. She was 57.

I’m not sure when she died, since the school district never contacted me with the news. I happened to stumble upon the district’s announcement just now while looking for other information on its Web site. I’m checking to see if there will be any memorial service, etc.

Feel free to share your thoughts and stories about Leesa.

The Fremont Bulletin, a sister paper to The Argus, had a story about Fremont police wanting closed campuses to help deal with gang issues at schools. Click here to read it.

I wanted to go to this meeting on Monday, but I wasn’t able to get out of the office in time.

In July, I posted an entry about the negative impact of budget cuts on summer school. Fremont reduced the number of elementary schools offering summer courses from five to three, and class sizes were increased from 30:1 to 35:1.

So how did the students fare under these conditions? Check out the district’s summer school report (starting on page 7).

One thing I hate about elections season: campaign finance. Sure, it could be important, and even interesting, to know which candidates have accepted money from special-interest groups and who’s backing whom. But getting one’s hands on those financial statements always ends up being a big pain in the butt.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gov. Schwarzenegger has vetoed Senate Bill 1446, which would have exempted special ed students from having to pass the California High School Exit Exam to receive a diploma. The exemption would have been good through 2010.

State schools Superintendent Jack O’Connell applauded the governor’s veto.

Since 2006, California students in regular ed have had to pass the exit exam, which tests students in 10th-grade English and eighth-grade math skills. For the class of 2008, 90.2 percent of students statewise passed, and almost 54 percent of special ed students had passed as of May. We wrote a story about this last month.