Legislative Updates

A quick update on a couple of laws that crossed Jerry Brown's Desk recently.

AB484 was signed, which allows the State to suspend API (STAR Testing) for this year.  With the broader move to Common Core, using an outdated test didn't make much sense.  Indeed, LASD has already seen that our own teaching is more in line with the future (Common Core) and so the older assessments are not as relevant.

AB375 was vetoed, which is also a good thing.  This bill was touted as a reform to the teacher dismissal policy, but the final version really weakened the ability of school districts to address performance issues.  I'm pleased to say that our relationship with our staff has meant that this isn't typically an issue in our District, but it's good to see public education headed in the right direction overall.

Neither of these is earth-shaking, but they are relevant, and we do occasionally get asked about what's going on at the state level.  These are two bills we'd been tracking, so I thought I'd share with everyone.

Welcome, education innovators!

The Poway School District is building a new PK-8 school known as the "Design 39 Campus".  The school itself is focused on revolutionizing learning, so we take it as a great compliment that the principal and staff are coming to LASD to talk with us about how we do staff development.  Staff from Milpitas are also planning to attend the meetings.

This isn't a "big" thing, but it's important for folks to understand that LASD is out there on the leading edge.  I've spoken previously about how other schools seek to learn more about our practices and roll them into their own programs.  That's part of what we do as a public entity- we share best practices.  Welcome, Poway, and Milpitas!  We hope to learn from you also, and to exchange exciting ideas.

MacGyver vs. Bond (Thoughts from Blach)

One of the interesting things about being on the Board is that I get to see the weekly newsletters from all of our schools.  Sandra McGonagle over at Blach always has an inspring story to lead off her newsletter.  I've asked her permission and may occasionally share some of her thoughts, because she's really tuned in to what's going on in kids.  I loved this one because I think it speaks to the change in how we need to prepare our students for the real world..

Blach Banner News

09.26.13

Dear Blach Families,

Not sure if you know this, but I am a pop culture junkie. I love clever references and was recently thrilled to watch a TED talk about the problem solving skills our kids need today that had a great link to two of my favorite pop culture icons, 007 and MacGyver. Marc Chun, an Education Program Officer at the Hewlett Foundation, gave a convincing talk about the need for our kids to be able to transfer their learned skills and knowledge throughout life to solve problems.

When we look at the problem solving skills of James Bond, they are fairly predictable. At the beginning of each film, Q gives Bond a few nifty new tools. It might be an exploding pen, decoding device, or a tape recorder hidden in a camera. At some point throughout the movie, each of these tools is used just in the nick of time. From my experience, this is how much of the problem solving experience at school works. Students might be taught a new strategy or skill and then be given a problem to solve. It’s effective and necessary, but it’s not that exciting.

Cut to MacGyver now. Mac always had a Swiss Army knife and some basic supplies on him, but his genius was in the area of creative thinking. When a problem arose, he was quick on his feet to scan his surroundings and jerry rig some random supplies into something that saved the day. Our kids need to know how to solve problems in this way as well. They should have an entire tool kit of skills and knowledge to choose from and use what works best to solve the problem at hand. In my opinion, this is much more real world than the world of Bond.

Here’s to having both 007 and MacGyver skills!

Sandra

Thanks for the support

Over the past 24 hours I've heard from a number of people who wanted to express their outrage at the BCS press release issued yesterday.  People who attended the meeting know I didn't say what BCS alleges.  (For those who didn't attend, the video is up on the District website.)  I reached out to BCS yesterday for confirmation of the release, but they have not replied.  In any case, I appreciate the words of encouragement from so many folks.  Trust me, my skin is thick enough that this kind of crap is annoying, but it won't dissuade me from taking the right path.

Some have suggested that I should take legal action against BCS.  I haven't made up my mind yet.  The press release contains intentionally false and misleading statements.  Frankly, I thought that our community was above such smear campaigns. 

Regardless of their poor handling of me in the press release, I'm much more concerned about the quotes attributed to their Board members.  LASD is investing a tremendous amount of time and energy considering BCS's request for short-term improvements to their facilities offer.  Those requests would have significant impact on the broader community.  Lobbing caustic quotes into the public during that process does not build support for their position.  Further, the District has been crystal clear that our willingness to support changes to the current facilities agreement are tied to the BCS willingness to cooperate with us on a long term facilities solution.  Comments like this do not build confidence in the general public, and indicate a combative mindset from BCS.  I can only hope that cooler heads will prevail at some point.

Again, though, I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of support.  It is ironic that in their attempt to vilify me, BCS has triggered a strong showing of support.

It's all in your persepctive

I've been thinking a lot about communication lately- how people view problems, and how their perspective impacts the way they view what is being communicated.  In my day job, I run a professional services practice, and this is second nature.  If we communicate the same information to a large number of clients, I know that some clients will react differently based on their own view and how the information is affected by where they are in their respective businesses.  This really came home to me when I watched two of our teams describe their perceptions of the same interaction.  Folks from both sides viewed it through their own specific lens- their role in our organization.

This was interesting, but it became a sort of epiphany this week as I was watching the videos of the first two LASD-BCS negotiation sessions.  For those who are interested in the videos, they can be found here:

Video 1: August 27th meeting
Video 2:  Thursday, August 29th meeting

There's an exchange at the end of the second meeting where BCS Board members are questioning the need for the detailed CEQA study, and LASD Board members are pushing back.  It got me thinking about the different perspectives at the table.

BCS is a charter school.  They are, by definition, not encumbered by most of the regulations that apply to traditional school districts.  Hence, it shouldn't surprise us when BCS board members are skeptical of the detailed process we have to follow.  They don't live in that same world, so they don't have the first-hand experience that compels us to be process-driven on issues like this.

Likewise, their leadership is appointed, not elected.  They feel that their ultimate accountability is whether or not parents choose to enroll students at the school.  This gives them the flexibility to do what the directors feel is right, and then see whether people continue to attend. 

The District operates very differently.  This isn't to say "better"- I'm simply highlighting how our operating environments drive different behaviors. 

LASD is not a charter school, so we have a lot of regulations that apply to us.  It's been estimated that charter schools only have to worry about 25% of the EdCode in California.  That means LASD has 4x the regulations that we deal with every day.  It is no wonder, then, that our institutional memory drives us to follow detailed processes.  That's not to say we don't innovate- we do, and we are very proud of the work that happens in our classrooms.  However, we also have to make sure we keep up with the myriad requirements from the State and Federal Government that are part of our daily existence.

The other piece is that we're an elected board, and we're driven by that connection to the broader community.  As mentioned above, a charter school is more-or-less accountable only to the parents of kids who attend.  LASD has enjoyed an extremely supportive relationship with the entire community- they support parcel taxes and bond measures, parents and community members volunteer as art docents and library assistants and lunch servers, and they participate fully in the process of running our schools.    In order to maintain this support, we are very careful to be extremely open, to include the broad community in all that we do. 

As a simple example, the LASD Blueprint Process intentionally included members of the public and folks who don't have kids in our schools.  When BCS did their strategic planning, they focused on input from existing parents.  The differences in how we operate drives the differences in our behaviors.

I'm not sure where to go with all of this.  It helps me think about their behaviors, and hopefully they'll understand our frame of reference too.  I don't yet know how we can help their board members understand our operating environment (other than continuing to explain it), but I'm going to be thinking about it.  In addressing this difference in our perspectives, we might find a way for us to bridge the gaps in our expectations.