May
2015
Vol 6:6
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Congratulations to the members of the Class of 2014 upon completing the Educational Leadership Doctoral Program at San Francisco State University.

 

 

The EDDL Annual Recognition Ceremony featured keynote addresses by President Leslie Wong and Nancy Villacana Reyes, the Distinguished Student Award winner from the Graduate College of Education for 2015. Members of the graduating class pictured here are Front Row: Left to Right:  Tram Vo-Kamamoto; Courtney Paulger; Kathleen Schoenecker; Mary Streshly; Paula Hsieh; Suzy Williams; Christine Solari; Nancy Reyes; Rosaura Diaz. Back Row:  Left to Right: Barbara Henderson; David Hemphill; President Les Wong; Dean Judith Munter; Eurania Lopez; Stephanie Sisk-Hilton. Kneeling: Robert Gabriner

In This Issue 
 
Prospective Students
 

About Current Students and Graduates

About_Students 

Kelly Stuart (graduate, 2012), Vice President for Implementation at the Center for the Collaborative Classroom, wrote recently about a convening of education leaders she coordinated on the important role integrating academic and social development plays in classrooms to support student development and equity.  The convening heard Virginia Edwards, Editor-in-Chief for Education Week; Barbara Chow, Program Director of Education with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Executive Director of the National Writing Project; Diane Kornegay, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction for the School District of Clay County, FL; Kent McGuire, President and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation; Hugh Price, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute; and Tim Shriver, the Chairman of the Special Olympics, among others.  Here's a video of some of the talks.

 

Anita Sunseri (graduate, 2011) will be the Co-Coordinator of Field Experience for Santa Clara University as of September 1....William Watson (graduate 2010) has been appointed Interim VP of Student Services at College of Alameda starting June 1st. William writes "I'm feeling grateful for my ED.D. Program every day but especially now.".... Nancy Martinson (cohort 2014) and Robert Nakamoto (cohort 2014) did a joint presentation at the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education (APAHE) conference in San Francisco in April. Their presentation titled "From a state of hope to a state of being dope: Culturally responsive, trauma informed practices with urban youth in marginalized AAPI communities" explored the role and impact, trauma/PTSD, have in the educational pipeline for urban youth in marginalized AAPI communities across the nation. The presentation addressed: prevalence rates, common triggers, brain impact, behavioral manifestations and trauma types. The pair emphasized the critical role that educators can play in fostering healing through utilizing various trauma-informed practices.
 
 

Follow Your Heart - A Talk by Nancy Villaca�a Reyes

Follow
 

The Recognition Ceremony for the graduating class of 2014 was held on Saturday, May 16 at the Seven Hills Conference Center.  Nancy Villaca�a Reyes was chosen to speak on behalf of the entire class.  She is also the recipient of the Distinguished Student Award for the Graduate College of Education for 2015.  

 

President Wong, Dean Munter, distinguished faculty, family, friends, and fellow members of the Class of 2015, first and foremost, I want to thank you, my classmates, for nominating me as the Education Doctorate recognition ceremony cohort speaker. I am truly honored and humbled by your recognition. As I reflect on our time together, I feel truly grateful to have been part of the 2012 cohort. We began our studies August 2012, and at that point, many of us did not know what to expect, we did not know if we would be able to manage the academic course load and much less knew how we would manage our working and personal lives. We embarked on the doctorate journey and at the conclusion of our first year; we shared a toast to May 2015. Today, we are here and what a truly incredible journey this has been. At some point, we were all confronted with challenges, be those personal, academic or professional, but it is our passion, persistence and drive which allows us to share this moment today.

 

Celebrating Our Accomplishments

We are here to celebrate our accomplishments and honor the time we have shared as classmates. Many sacrifices have been made in order to attend classes every other weekend and truly engage in critical dialogue. Oftentimes, we heard from our professors that we were unlike any other cohort because we were relaxed, kind and respectful. We did not always agree on certain views, issues or perspectives, but we engaged in insightful conversations. We began as a cohort, but as the years went on, we became friends, and today I can honestly say we have become a family. As a family, we feel joy when one of us achieves a promotion, recognition or obtains that employment position we have been working to achieve...There are many talents we have in the 2012 cohort but it is not in our individuality that we have grown and gained strength, rather in the collective. The collective is always stronger than the individual and together we have persevered.

 

We all come from different walks of life, but one thing that is true for all of us is that family is important. We would not be here today if we did not count with the unconditional support and love of our family and life partners. While it is true that we often missed family gatherings, we never forgot about who we were doing this for. I know that each and every person that is in this room today is important and played a critical role in our ability to achieve this important milestone. On behalf of my classmates, I want to thank you for being here today and sharing with us this special day.

 

Today I am filled with joy to know that our desire to pursue a doctorate degree is fueled by our passion to ensure social justice and equity for ALL students. As we continue our professional journeys, we must never forget that students are counting on us to advocate for them. Many students are dealing with invalidation wounds, while others are led to believe THEY are the problem. In our day-to-day discussions, I urge all of us to constantly keep students at the forefront of what we do because our students represent the future. Regardless of whether we work at a K-12 institution, a California Community College, a UC, a CSU, a private university or an educational non-profit, students are counting on us to advocate for them. Every interaction we have with students represents an opportunity to heal students from past invalidation wounds and confirm to them that they posses skills, abilities and talents that allow them to achieve educational success. 

 

Cari�o

Student validation, cari�o, which means genuine caring, and critical hope, as many of you know, are at the heart of the work I strive to achieve on a daily basis and represent the heart of my dissertation. I feel so strongly about such concepts because more than concepts, they are expressions of love. I have been fortunate to meet educators and mentors that embody and exemplify validation, cari�o and critical hope. In our work, we must never forget that we are dealing with humans, be those administrators, faculty, or students that have feelings. When we engage in such work, it might be disregarded as being "too touchy feely," but are we not humans that have feelings? Our past, present and future students have feelings and it is our responsibility to ensure that social justice and equity is achieved for all. Will engaging in such work be easy? It will probably not, but we must not forget that this doctorate program and our life experiences have prepared us to become educational leaders. During these three years we have learned to be bold, to be confident, to take initiative, to embrace change, to take risks, to be present, to maintain our integrity, to find our passion, to trust ourselves, to believe WE CAN and most importantly of all, to follow our heart. Will we make mistakes? We probably will, but it is in the failures where growth and learning takes place. We cannot be paralyzed by our fear of change. I feel proud of all of my classmates, my family, because I know you are all change agent.

 

I look forward to our continued success and before I conclude, I want you to thank each and every one of you here today for your continuous encouragement and support. It truly made a difference in my life and for that, I will forever be grateful to the 2012 cohort. Thank you and congratulations to the Class of 2015!

Article

Math Placement and Disparate Impact on Students of Color
 Math

Mary Streshly is the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for Campbell Union High School District. She graduated this month from the SFSU Educational Leadership Program

My initial focus in this doctoral program centered around subjective math placement practices that had a disparate impact on students of color. Failing to take high level math classes in high school can have significant ramifications on the student's future economic and social success. If the student is able to get into college without high level math classes, he or she will be behind other students at college. Moreover, without advanced math classes in high school, a student is effectively frozen out of the highly compensated, highly sought after fields of science, technology, engineering, and math ("STEM"). Most, if not all, students who choose majors in STEM fields come to college well-versed in high level math and science concepts.

 

Unfortunately, many 9th graders are being forced off of the college-readiness path on the first day of high school. Data indicate that many 9th graders are being improperly placed in 9th grade Algebra I classes, despite having passed the class in 8th grade and/or having met or exceeded state standards on California Standards Tests ("CSTs"). More alarmingly, data indicate that minority students are being disparately impacted by these improper placements: specifically, a number of San Mateo and Santa Clara County schools and districts are regularly misplacing certain minority 9th graders in low-level math classes. 

 

Math Placement Consortium

Although Change Leadership and Female Superintendents was my final dissertation topic, my work continued on the topic of math placement in the last three years in my position of Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for Campbell Union High School District. To address the problem of variable and subjective math placement practices between 8th and 9th grade, I formed a six district consortium with our K-8 partner districts and began a series of articulation meetings that included superintendents, principals and department chairs.  We not only identified the misplaced students and took corrective measures, but we then set about established common, objective placement criteria and a common assessment and agreed upon cut scores in partnership with the Silicon Valley Math Initiative.  Additionally, since most misplaced kids were identified as "held back" by teacher recommendation, we agreed upon a "default expectation" of placing the student at the next level, unless there was clear, objective criteria to hold them back.  This six district consortium grew in strength and purpose and began to investigate Common Core aligned Integrated Math pathways resulting in a common six district K-12 Integrated math pathway beginning in 2014.

 

The work of our district consortium has become a success model spurring legislative action aimed at holding districts accountable for alleviating math misplacement due to subjective measures and its disparate impact on students of color statewide.  Senator Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles sponsored the bill with support from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the Lawyers' Committee on Civil Rights.  Subsequently the bill has gained support from the NAACP, the ACLU, the Latino Colleges and Universities and Senator Jerry Hill of San Mateo County.

 

A video of the hearing on Senate Bill 359 can be found Here