Comments for Rachel Norton: SF Board of Education

Comment on Special Education by rpnorton

rpnorton — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:02:18 +0000

I would be surprised too, since as you know transportation is obligatory if is part of the IEP. Can you email me off blog at rachel “at ” rachelnorton.com and i will look into this for you ( i need the school name).

Comment on Special Education by chris francisco

chris francisco — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:34:11 +0000

Rachel: My son who is in a sped class in middle school and who has transportation included in his IEP was told, along with all his classmates, that his/their sped transportation services would be stopped in the next two to three weeks. He was extremely upset, as am I. HIs teacher said that letters had been mailed. I have not received anything and have no knowledge of this change. Can you clarify if this is a new policy? I am astonished that my son would hear of this change in the middle of class without me having any information.

Comment on Happy Valentine’s Day! (Feb. 14 meeting recap) by Mark

Mark — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:01:44 +0000

Thank you very much for your vote last night to approve Leadership High School’s charter. I have taught at Leadership for 12 years, and it was heartwarming to hear all the commissioners’ praise for the school.

I respectfully disagree with Caroline. Grade inflation — if it exists — is a challenging and complex phenomenon to track. It doesn’t seem fair to characterize the practice as a “charter-sector trick.”

Thank you again, Ms. Norton, for your support — and for ignoring the CCSA’s political move.

Comment on Happy Valentine’s Day! (Feb. 14 meeting recap) by C. Sweet

C. Sweet — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:49:53 +0000

Your statement: “Cutting TK funding is a proposal, not law” appears inaccurate. We haven’t seen any proposal to cut funding for TK. Gov. Brown has proposed eliminating the mandate for school districts to offer TK, he has not proposed cutting funding for districts that proceed with their TK plans, although he has proposed a new hoop to jump through to get state funding: implementing a waiver system. Your comment that it would be too difficult to offer families waivers sounds like an excuse. World economies are changing quickly, affecting all of us in different ways. Most of us working in the private sector face budget cuts similar to those in the public sector and we have to manage huge changes in real time, yet we still have to compete against our rivals and create high-quality products and services like we did before. Other large school districts appear to be handling the budget uncertainty more smoothly than San Francisco. San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach and Oakland school districts are proceeding with their TK programs while they seek greater clarity on state proposals. San Francisco is in danger of losing credibility over its handling of this issue.

Comment on Happy Valentine’s Day! (Feb. 14 meeting recap) by Edwina Lopez

Edwina Lopez — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:12:55 +0000

The school district should have had a plan in place for Transitional Kindergarten when the law was passed in 2010. I began calling when I learned about it then, and SFUSD had no clue about it. At least be fair to the families and give some sort of notification beyond a random post on the web site. Send us a letter. Tell us our options. Tell us why it’s impossible to provide waivers even though other districts do it and there is precedent. Don’t leave more middle class families in the cold and have us flee from the public school system. Be an advocate for kids Rachel, not for bureaucracy. Do the right thing like San Jose is doing.

Comment on Happy Valentine’s Day! (Feb. 14 meeting recap) by Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:57:13 +0000

I agree with what Jill Wynns said about the Leadership issue: Charter schools overall are not a good thing for school districts and public education, but let’s not disrupt a school community by closing it — and the California Charter Schools Assn. did throw Leadership under the bus for political reasons. (Yet also, charter folks need to stop with the “a public school couldn’t have done this for us” stuff.)

I don’t believe that the supposed higher standard of “requiring” students to get a C or better in the A-G classes to graduate is actually higher, though. It’s just grade inflation, and a way to “qualify” more students for college — since the Envision charters (CAT and Metro) in SF do the same thing, it’s apparently a charter-sector trick. A lot of public school high-schoolers WISH their schools had the same supposed “standard,” but alas, in other schools, if students do D work, they get Ds.

Comment on News flash: SFUSD will not implement Transitional Kindergarten by Bob Smolenski

Bob Smolenski — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:13:03 +0000

sf_mommy noted that a friend had found no info about petitioning the SFUSD to get early entry.

“The EPC representatives with whom she spoke all told her, no, there are no exemptions; there isn’t even a form to request exemptions.”

We all need to find the actual state code that allows for early entry assessment. Other districts have this set up. SFUSD needs to abide by state law.

Comment on News flash: SFUSD will not implement Transitional Kindergarten by Bella

Bella — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:17:00 +0000

It was a bit late to drop the announcement, after all parents did their research homework and turned in the application. What choice do they have now?

I also think it shouldn’t be the District to decide which kid is ready and which is not. Why not ask all pre-K teachers to have a say about that? In our classroom, some kids are more than ready and will be bullying the others. It’s very damaging to a child learning process to be bored in school and insufficiently engaged.

Comment on News flash: SFUSD will not implement Transitional Kindergarten by Lucille Cuttler

Lucille Cuttler — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:11:34 +0000

It’s time to stop blaming these wrong headed decisions on lack of money and instead say the truth: it’s lack of critical thinking. Where will the money come from to enlarge a burgeoning prison population resulting from an education system that’s gone awry? Witness the truancy and dropout rate, and ask why we are failing to provide the education a democratic nation promises. Do we want to continue to be a pipeline to prisons? A little cost/benefit analysis is appropriate. Lucille Cuttler

Comment on News flash: SFUSD will not implement Transitional Kindergarten by Heather

Heather — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:33:22 +0000

Rachel, I agree that the governor cannot have thought this through and that it is unfair of him to simply push the problem on to the school districts. But, surely by cancelling TK the district is also being unfair by pushing the problem on to families. And the lower income families will be hit the hardest.

As the law currently stands the district is still mandated to provide Transitional Kindergarten. Given the current uncertainties as to whether the governors proposal will even pass it seems a little premature for SFUSD to just cancel TK on the basis they won’t get funding. I would have preferred to see SFUSD add their voice to the chorus of people calling the governor out on this one.