The Santa Clara County Office of Eudcation will host the first annual EdTech Innovation Symposium on Oct. 27.

The symposium will focus on bringing together the best practices in district leadership, school site leadership and classroom methods in order to develop deeper educational technology collaborations across the Silicon Valley's school districts, while also ensuring effective integration of technology with the Common Core State Standards in the classroom. 

Co-sponors of the event include the San Mateo County Office of Education, Campbell Union School District, Los Altos School District, Ravenswood Elementary School District and Union School District.

For more information or to register for this free event, click here.

 On Sept. 19, the California Department of Education (CDE) released the 2013-14 California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) results.

  An analysis of the CAHSEE completed by the Santa Clara County Office of Education's Assessment and Accountability department shows that Santa Clara County students as a whole continue to outperform their peers across the state on both the English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics portions of the CAHSEE.  

 However, the analysis also indicates that in 2014 some Santa Clara County subgroups were outperformed by their statewide counterparts in passing rates on both portions of the CAHSEE.

 Highlights of the SCCOE analysis include:

• Grade 10 Asian and white subgroups are performing at or near the ceiling of performance for both portions of the CAHSEE. In 2014, grade 10 Asian students in the county passed the ELA portion at a rate of 95 percent and the Mathematics portion at a rate of 98 percent. For grade 10 white students, the rates of passage were 95 for ELA and 96 percent for Mathematics.

• Over the last nine years, grade 10 Hispanic/Latino students have shown the greatest improvement of all subgroups in their passing rates on the ELA portion of the CAHSEE, with an increase of 10 percentage points, from 64 percent passing in 2005 to 74 percent passing in 2014.

• Between 2005 and 2014, both grade 10 Hispanic/Latino and African American students have demonstrated the greatest improvement of all subgroups in their passing rates on the Mathematics portion of the CAHSEE, with respective increases of 15 and 14 percentage points. 

• Although the county's subgroups outperform most of their counterparts statewide, Hispanic, Filipino and Economically Disadvantaged students scored lower on both parts of the test than their statewide counterparts. English Learner results were the same for Santa Clara County students and their statewide peers on the ELA portion of the test.

The CAHSEE is administered each year to ensure that students who graduate from public high schools demonstrate grade level competency in reading, writing and mathematics.

  

Four years ago, the First Generation College Attainment Coalition, Santa Clara County Office of Education and several community partners saw a need for better outreach to students and families about the college-going options available to them. It was from this partnership that College Day was born as a community-wide effort working to create a college-going culture in Santa Clara County.

The founders of College Day envisioned a program that would help children and young adults design their own path to college, via conversations between educators and youth, creative lesson plans, speaker series and other college-promoting activities. A wealth of resources for schools and educators can be found on the the College Day website, which are broken down by grade level and tailored to each age group.  

 This year's College Day event will be held on Friday, Oct. 10 and will focus on inspiring and supporting first-generation students in their pursuit of a college education. 

 Parents are also encouraged to get involved and begin the conversation about college options and opportunities with their children. A Family and Community Conference will be held on Nov. 1 at San Jose State University as a companion event to College Day. This free event will provide families with information on how to begin preparing, saving and paying for college. The conference will also feature a college fair with representatives from numerous institutions of higher learning.

 Others interested in participating in College Day or sharing their own personal college story, can get involved by visiting the College Day website. Getting people talking to kids about college with a can-do attitude is the ultimate goal of the College Day effort, helping students design their own path to college.

 The SCCOE will host The Leader in Me author Sean Covey on Oct. 15 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. as part of his 30-city North American book tour.

Based on the 7 Habits, The Leader in Me has inspired thousands of schools in more than 25 countries around the world to implement its principles of leadership development into daily curriculum, activities and school culture. Focused on giving students the tools to set and achieve meaningful goals, take responsibility for their learning and work collaboratively with their peers, The Leader in Me has helped to increase parental involvement and enhance student learning.

To purchase tickets to this event, click here. The $25 registration fee includes a copy of the newest edition of the book.