Equity and access was a common theme throughout the conference. In his opening remarks, CSBA President Mike Walsh said, “We, as education leaders, have a responsibility to see that these [computer science and Next Generation Science] standards are implemented with fidelity and in a way that prepares all students — regardless of background — for success in college, career and civic life.”
- Visit www.csba.org/Newsroom for links to digital versions of current and past issues of California School News.
“School leaders need to ask the right questions of their staff to ensure that school sites, administrators and coaches are educated and trained in signs, symptoms and treatment, and that they have Emergency Action Plans in place,” said California Interscholastic Federation Executive Director Roger Blake.
- Heat illness during sports practice is the leading cause of death or disability among high school athletes in the U.S.
- Emergency Action Plans are critical for schools to have in place
- AB 2800 requires California coaches to complete heat illness prevention training
Troy Flint | tflint@csba.org
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Mike Walsh | Butte COE
President-elect:
Emma Turner | La Mesa-Spring Valley SD
Vice President:
Xilonin Cruz-Gonzalez | Azusa USD
Immediate Past President:
Susan Henry | Huntington Beach Union HSD
CEO & Executive Director:
Vernon M. Billy
Send address changes to California School News, 3251 Beacon Blvd., West Sacramento, CA 95691.
News and feature items submitted for publication are edited for style and space as necessary.
Like many of you, I am an advocate of continuous learning. So, for me, the term summer vacation is mostly aspirational. I spend each summer teaching leadership to high school students from around the world at the UC Berkeley campus. The students come to explore careers in health care, engineering and biotechnology. This summer, it served as a perfect framing for my time at CSBA’s 2018 Leadership Institute: “The Science of Leading Students to STEM Success.”
Among the many notable remarks delivered by presenters at the Leadership Institute, this quote from governance expert Susan Decker stayed with me, “The purpose of life is living a life of purpose.” As school board members, we already have a profound purpose defined for us: to create the conditions that give all students the opportunities required for success in college, career and civic life.
SB 866 — signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on June 27, 2018, the day the Janus decision was issued — took effect immediately and contains several provisions, one of which will impact certain district communications. This bill provides that any mass communication made by a public employer to multiple employees concerning public employees’ rights to join or support a union, or to refrain from doing so, is subject to the meet-and-confer process with the union. In the event the parties are unable to reach agreement on the content of the communication, the district may still distribute the communication, but would also need to simultaneously distribute the union’s own mass communication. “Mass communication” is defined as “a written document, or script for an oral or recorded presentation or message, that is intended for delivery to multiple public employees.”
The state plan was developed over a two-year period with feedback and input from thousands of stakeholders.
ESSA approval brings with it funding for low-performing K-12 schools as well as funds for after-school programs, teacher training and migrant student aid. To meet the federal requirement for assessing a school outside of academics, California chose to focus on school suspensions for elementary and middle schools, and on suspensions and college and career readiness for high schools.
As part of the negotiations, the State Board agreed to move up the decision of how California will identify the lowest-performing low-income schools in need of help from 2019–20 to 2018–19. To receive the $2.4 billion in federal funding for ESSA, the state has to identify the lowest-performing 5 percent of low-income schools for support and aid — expected to be about 300–400 schools statewide.
legislature
Several key CSBA co-sponsored bills are slated to be heard by the Senate Appropriations Committee in early August, including Assembly Bill 2808 (Muratsuchi, D-Torrance), which would significantly increase the level of the Local Control Funding Formula base grant targets, and AB 1951 (O’Donnell, D-Long Beach), also known as the Pathways to College Act, which would allow local educational agencies the flexibility to administer an alternate assessment (for example, the SAT or ACT) for 11th-grade students in place of the Smarter Balanced Summative Test.
AB 276 (Medina, D-Riverside), the CSBA co-sponsored charter school transparency bill that would require charter school adherence to the Brown or Bagley-Keene Act, California Public Records Act, Political Reform Act of 1974 and Government Code 1090, will also be heard by the Appropriations Committee after passing the Senate Education Committee in June with support from the California Charter Schools Association.
Directors-at-Large and Regional Directors shape policy and set organizational direction. As part of the Board of Directors, they are also responsible for oversight of CSBA’s corporate functions, including programs, products and budget. The Board of Directors also provides insight on the impact of legislation and state policy on local boards.
The Board of Directors consists of four officers, 21 regional directors from across the state, five Directors-at-Large, the California County Boards of Education President and any California board member serving on the National School Boards Association Board of Directors. The Delegate Assembly elects directors to serve a two-year term beginning immediately upon the close of the Annual Education Conference and Trade Show in December.
More information on the election process is available on the CSBA website at www.csba.org/ElectBOD.
GovernanceCorner Practical tips from our MIG facultyThe start of a new school year is a time for school boards to renew their commitment to operating as a highly effective board. In this newsletter, we focus on one goal of an effective governing board — Keep the district focused on learning and achievement for all students. One important strategy that can support this focus is effective family engagement.
Family engagement strategies include transparent communication, diverse opportunities for families to be involved at the school site and district level, and ways for families to provide feedback. Such strategies provide important information on the school district’s vision and goals to families. In turn, families are able to become stronger partners in their child’s education, better support continued learning at home, and provide continual feedback that contributes to the district’s efforts of improvement.
Board members can ask the following guiding questions to assess family engagement efforts:
Who have we engaged? Where in the district do we see high family engagement? What are the successful strategies that have been used to engage these families on a school site and district level? What contributes to this success — can those conditions be replicated?
Who have we not engaged? Where are the gaps in our engagement strategies? What are the barriers that prevent families from participating on a school site and district level? Are our engagement strategies current and do they take into account shifting demographics and conditions within our district? What are other data points that we need to consider?
What are we going to do about it? What adjustments need to be made to ensure that our engagement strategies are culturally responsive? Are there community partners and resources that can be leveraged? How will we use this assessment to inform our next steps?
Thinking through these guiding questions will provide your board with direction, inform next steps to continued effective family engagement and support a culture of student learning and achievement.
resources
In 2012, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services conducted an audit of three LEAs, and notified the California Department of Health Care Services that it would defer payments for SMAA claims due to noncompliance with federal regulations until the state revised its claiming methodology.
In October 2014, the DHCS reached a settlement agreement with the CMS for payment of deferred invoices from fiscal years 2009–10 through 2014–15, as well as a new methodology for resolving SMAA claims. As part of this agreement, many districts owe money for overpayments the districts received.
Two years after the passage of Senate Bill 277, the California 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld California’s landmark law that banned the religious or personal belief exemption to vaccination requirements for entry into public or private schools. In Brown et al. v. Smith, the Court rejected the argument that the law violates the plaintiff’s freedom of religion or their fundamental interest in attending school. Therefore, school districts must continue to verify that all new students entering the district and every student entering transitional kindergarten, kindergarten and seventh grade have completed the vaccinations required by SB 277.
- SB 277, which requires children be vaccinated to attend public or private school in California, was upheld in an appeal
- At least 95 percent of a population needs to be vaccinated to prevent an outbreak of a highly contagious disease
According to the California Department of Public Health, the proportion of kindergarten students in 2017–18 reported to have received all required vaccines was 95.1 percent, a 0.4 percentage point decrease from the 2016–17 school year. The 2017–18 rate is the second highest reported for the current set of immunization requirements for kindergarten — which began in the 2001–02 school year — down from an all-time high rate set in 2016–17. This is a marked improvement from 2010–11, when the kindergarten immunization rate was just 90.7 percent. Experts say that at least 95 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated to prevent an outbreak of a highly contagious disease.
— Robert Tuerck, CSBA Assistant Executive Director of Policy and Governance Technology Services
To have the greatest impact, policy development needs to be a proactive, thoughtful process that invites broad input from district stakeholders and facilitates board discussion based on accurate information. “Board policies are essential to local control,” said Robert Tuerck, CSBA’s assistant executive director of Policy and Governance Technology Services. “It is important that the governance team works together to develop and maintain policies that are consistent with the law and reflect local practices and priorities.”
Faced with a large number of staff set to retire, the Santa Clara County Office of Education has developed a new generation of leaders. Working with a team of stakeholders, the Santa Clara COE developed a program that uses cross-department mentoring and project-based service learning to develop leaders.
Launched in 2009, Santa Clara COE’s Champions for Leadership, or CFL, matches future leaders with a mentor and provides program participants with professional development opportunities. All permanent employees including existing managers, teachers, office staff, classroom staff and service workers are eligible to participate.
Participants attend seminars once a month on such topics as effective leadership, communication, team building, change management and interviewing skills. In addition to the seminars, participants meet with an organizational mentor to develop a professional development plan and complete an action-learning project related to their work and Santa Clara COE goals. They also are a part of a cohort.
MIG Courses 1 & 3
MIG Courses 1-5
MIG Courses 2 & 4
MIG Courses 1-5
MIG Course 5
