Clovis/ W.D. Gattis Middle School & Lockwood Elementary School: New Construction on Schedule
By Benna Sayyed
Clovis News Journal
October 27, 2012
Construction of the new W.D. Gattis Middle School and Lockwood Elementary is on schedule, according to John King, director of operations for Clovis Municipal Schools.
Both schools are scheduled to open in August 2013. Bradbury Stamm Construction is doing both projects.
- "One big thing that will be immediate and seen across the district is the relief from our elementary schools because of moving six graders to middle school," King said.
King said construction of the new middle school, which is located at Wilhite and Thornton on the city's north-side, is just more than half finished.
"There's work going on all over the place," King said.
"The crew is kind of working fast track from the south to the north. By the time they get to the end of the classrooms on the far northeast end, they'll be done with the school."
Details of the new W.D. Gattis Middle School:
- Construction started on the south-side of the campus with the gym.
- The facility is designed for grades 6-8, with capacity for 900 students. It is the biggest project in size and price - 132,000 square feet and a $27.2 million project.
- The school will have two gyms, and most of the classrooms will be constructed as part of a two-story design.
The school is being built to address a growing student population in the district's grade schools. The move includes shifting sixth-graders from the district's 12 elementary schools to middle school, which now houses seventh- and eighth-graders.
King said when sixth graders are moved to the new middle school, portables on campuses will no longer be used.
According to King, the new Lockwood Elementary, which is being built on South Oak Street just north of the existing campus, is about a third complete.
King said workers are preparing to set steel, the buildings' concrete walls are being built and concrete floors are being poured.
"It's (the new school) giving the students, teachers and staff a new facility that's going to be conducive to learning," King said.
"Right now they're in a very crowded old facility that needs renovation."
Details of the new Lockwood Elementary School:
- The facility is designed for 364 students in grades K-5.
- The campus is 56,000 square feet.
- The project is budgeted at $11.5 million.
- The school will use a geothermal system. The system uses the earth as a heat source in the winter and a place to dump excess heat during summer months, helping reduce heating and cooling costs.
The school is being built to replace Lockwood Elementary, which is in need of renovations. King said the cost of renovating Lockwood was so excessive that it made more sense to replace the school.
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Grants/ Mesa View Elementary School Receives $25,000 PED Bonus for Improvement
By Donald Jaramillo
Cibola Beacon Managing Editor
October 30, 2012
Looks like Christmas will come early at Mesa View Elementary School.
The Grants' school went from a letter grade "D" to "B" in this year's state Public Education Department grading system-enough of an improvement to gain some extra dollars for supplies.
The grade, according to Grants/Cibola County Schools Assistant Superintendent Gloria Chavez, is based on last year's data.
Because of its improvements, Mesa View Elementary will receive an extra $25,657 for books or instructional material.
During a staff meeting on Friday, Principal Mike O'Connell made the announcement to the schools staff. Superintendent Kilino Marquez and Chavez attended the meeting.
"The school's award speaks for itself," said Chavez. "They have embraced the district's initiative. The school is following through with a plan and the students' academic growth speaks for itself."
PED only approved dollar awards to schools that received a letter grade of "A" or those which were recognized as a "Top Growth" school. Mesa View Elementary was recognized as a "Top Growth" school.
"Thankfully, Mesa View Elementary made significant improvement," said Chavez.
Laguna-Acoma High School improved from letter "D" to "E," which was not enough for additional dollars.
Chavez said the extra dollars must be used for supplies, not salaries.
The money is expected to be available in December, following a budget adjustment to be approved in November by the school board.
O'Connell said the funds will be divided evenly between all grade levels. The school's management team will make recommendations. The team consists of teachers from each grade level.
The principal credits the teachers and parents for the improvement. "We improved in language arts and math. The teachers and parents need to stay on top of the children. It is because of them the schools' grade improved," said O'Connell.
Initially, the school improved to a letter grade "C." O'Connell appealed the grade and was thankful that he did.
- Mesa View Elementary scored a 13.5 in growth of highest performing students. Highest possible score was 20 and the state average was 7.3.
- In overall school growth, Mesa View scored 9.5. State average was 5.8 and highest possible was 10.
O'Connell emphasized his school's "opportunity to learn" ratings, a score that measures the students' desire to attend school. Highest possible score is 10. Mesa View scored a 9.2. The state average was 7.5.
"They like coming to school," O'Connell said smiling. "That is important. The children actually like us."
Statewide, 41 schools appealed their score, only 13 were adjusted, Mesa Elementary School being one of them.
"We (principal and staff) are impressed with the award," said O'Connell. "I am glad PED is giving out such awards."
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Santa Fe/ Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences: Bookshelves Lead to Nobel Winner
By Kathaleen Roberts
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
October 30, 2012
A student-run book program luring more than 1,000 Santa Fe children into reading has drawn a Nobel Prize winner into its pages.
Started in 2011 by a student group called Youth United from the Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences, Hooked On Books was named the winner of the 2012 Global Call to Action Challenge.
Co-sponsored by the Arvada, Colo.-based Pearson Foundation and PeaceJam, the award landed the students $1,000 and a trip to Denver to meet 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee on Nov. 13. Gbowee led a peaceful women's movement in Liberia. Her efforts played a pivotal role in ending the Liberian Civil War. Gbowee will visit the students here in Santa Fe sometime later this year.
The students learned of the accolade at school early Monday morning.
"I put the conference call on speaker phone and held it to a microphone," principal Rayna Dineen said. "They all cheered and couldn't believe it."
In honoring Santa Fe, PeaceJam lauded its "citywide effort led and coordinated by Youth United to inspire and encourage children with the joys of reading. In a short time, Youth United's efforts have made a major impact on the children and community of Santa Fe," according to a press release.
No one with PeaceJam could be reached for comment.
Dineen learned something was brewing last week when a PeaceJam spokesperson called to let her know the school was one of the top four finalists in the U.S. Earlier, she had filled out a form describing Hooked On Books and sent the organization a video of the students working on the campaign.
"I didn't understand at the time what it was for," she said.
Some of the youths had once struggled with their own reading.
Seventh-grader Indu Holdsworth, 12, said she comes to school nearly every Saturday to help judge contest entries and conceive new ideas for the contests that form the impetus for Hooked On Books. He also helped mentor some "reading buddies" by reading to them.
"They were really sweet," Holdsworth said. "They really wanted to learn."
"I had heard the literacy rate in New Mexico was pretty low," he continued. "It made me feel like I had to do something about it.
"I was a bad reader, and I felt really horrible," he continued. "It doesn't feel good when you can't read really well."
The classrooms burst into cheers and applause when the students heard the announcement.
"We all were freaked out," Holdsworth said. "We all clapped. A few of us jumped up and down."
Seventh-grader Nathan Hield, also 12, became involved after he won a Hooked On Books contest by designing a book cover.
"We go around to schools and deliver the rules of new contests and the winners of contests," he said.
He also helped set up bookshelves at the Division of Motor Vehicles for youngsters waiting with their parents.
- "We also did a prison project," Hield continued. "The children of the inmates can't see their parents. We had the parents record a book on a CD so the child could read the book while hearing the parent's voice."
Community service
All students at the School for the Arts & Sciences are required to perform community service. Concerned about New Mexico's abysmal literacy rate (49th in the country), about a year ago they designed a contest to convince non-readers that reading is fun.
When they learned some children couldn't read well enough to enter a contest, they created a two-week summer reading camp. They based the camp on intensive phonics through hands-on activities and games. Participants began as a "page," then grew through the royal ranks to become a "knight," "prince" or "princess" by playing phonics-based games like Word Jousting, Reading Baseball or Vocabulary Twister. Their achievements were rewarded with accessories like crowns, magic wands and swords.
Many of the young readers were one to two years behind in school and in danger of being held back, Dineen said. Many of their families spoke only Spanish. All of the participants grew an average of one year in their reading skills by the program's end, Dineen said.
The project germinated last fall when about 50 youths ranging from ages 14-17 formed a steering committee called Youth United. The group met on alternate Saturdays.
- First they decided they needed prizes to jump-start learning. They knew once a student grasped the joy of words, their adventures were just beginning. A national Albertson's nonprofit program awarded the project $10,000.
- Entrants could choose a reading contest based on the requirements and prizes. The first prize was an iPad. Other incentives ranged from ice cream coupons to Kindles and skateboards. One lucky winner won a free trip to the Los Angeles premiere of "The Hunger Games."
- Realizing books could become magnets if shelved in corners where children wait, the youths painted bookshelves and installed them at the DMV, the Christus St. Vincent emergency room, the state Children, Youth and Families Department offices and local urgent care and pediatric clinics.
- Group members donated many books for young readers to borrow and donate back. Local businesses responded by creating their own lending libraries.
- Youth United will use the $1,000 in prize money to buy more books.
Dineen isn't sure how many members will make the drive up to Denver. The number depends on how many the foundation can accommodate.
- "We had always been connected with PeaceJam because I think the work of Nobel Prize winners is really important and inspiring for kids," she said. "I didn't really imagine we would be winning anything."
Gbowee will visit the Santa Fe school sometime before the end of the year to discuss new approaches for the campaign.
In the meantime, Dineen dreams a generous donor will fund a trip to Disneyland for one lucky new reader.
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ABQ/ More Teacher Collaboration Benefiting Students
By Hailey Heinz
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
October 30, 2012
Teaching was once an isolating profession, in which instructors interacted only with their students and not one another.
- "The old model of teaching was I go, I do my own thing, I close my door and I don't interact with anybody," said Eddie Soto, an associate superintendent of Albuquerque Public Schools.
He said the district is working to change that by giving teachers shared time during the school day to collaborate, compare notes and help each other improve.
Groups of teachers working together are called "professional learning communities," a term used nationwide to refer to the practice of scheduling collaboration time for teachers.
The strategy is frequently cited by leaders of high-performing schools as a key to their success. This summer, when the Journal talked to the principals of the five New Mexico schools with the highest A-F school grades, four of them cited a culture of teacher collaboration as a reason for student growth.
And the idea has gained traction across the nation as a feature of schools that work.
Different schools use different models, Soto said.
- Among elementary schools, teachers are generally grouped by grade level, so everyone teaching first-graders can share lessons and strategies, for example.
- At the middle- and high-school level, teachers can be grouped either by grade level or subject.
Soto said in the six years APS has been using professional learning communities, teachers have mostly said they prefer being grouped by the subject they teach.
That is, math teachers have a common period during the day when they can get together and compare lessons, results and ways to teach math effectively.
- "Content teams want to meet; they feel there's a stronger connection there," Soto said.
He said he believes the collaboration time will be even more important as the district rolls out Common Core standards, a set of standards adopted by most states that require teachers to go into more depth on fewer topics. The opportunity for teachers to work together will be particularly beneficial as they adjust their lessons to reflect the new standards, Soto said.
At Manzano High School, teachers are grouped both by grade level and content. Principal Therese Carroll said that was done deliberately, so teachers who meet will have some students in common but can also dig more specifically into their subject areas.
On a recent morning, all of Manzano's math and English teachers who work with ninth- and 10th-graders met in a conference room.
They talked about District Benchmark Assessments and other topics affecting all students, before breaking up into a math group and an English group.
The math group was discussing and critiquing a lesson observed in teacher Michael Kamman's class. During the lesson, students were assigned to explain in writing how they had solved problems, with a strong emphasis on being able to justify each step. So, Kamman said, students would lose points if they simply said two angles were congruent, without explaining that they are congruent because they are vertical angles.
"I always tell the students, 'you're not explaining it to me. Think like you're explaining it to a younger brother or sister,' " Kamman told his colleagues.
The group included teachers of regular math classes, special education and honors classes. One woman who teaches honors math said her students are always reluctant to explain their steps because they can do the problems in their head. She said Kamman's strategy of requiring explanation as a major part of the assignment grade might be helpful.
As teachers packed up their meeting and headed to their respective classrooms, Kamman and his colleague, Pat Florence, continued talking about the lesson.
Florence asked Kamman whether he grades students on grammar and punctuation in their written explanations, and Kamman replied that he corrects mistakes but doesn't take off points for them.
Kamman said the two men teach the same classes and work together often to ensure their classes are consistent. Kamman pulled out a stack of assignments he had graded, and then had given to Florence for him to score. The idea is to ensure the two are grading consistently.
"We're looking for equity; an 'A' in my class should be an 'A' in his class," Kamman said. "It shouldn't just be what teacher you get."
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Santa Fe/ Superintendent Boyd Calls Teacher Absences 'Startling'
By Robert Nott
The New Mexican
October 29, 2012
Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel Boyd presented a 40-page report Monday evening on his 100-day "Entry and Learning Plan."
The plan was designed to guide his first three months on the job and assess the state of the district, which is struggling to deal with a 56.5 percent graduation rate, mediocre test scores, a lack of data-driven decisions and poor teacher morale, among other things.
The report, compiled by Boyd and a team of six advisers, stresses the need to set new standards, offer support services to meet them, and hold district personnel and students accountable.
Yet Monday's report does not constitute an action plan, Boyd said. He will offer a more complete version of his recommendations in his State of the Schools address, tentatively slated for Monday, Nov. 26.
Since he began on Aug. 1, Boyd has often spoken of what he sees as the issues and challenges for Santa Fe Public Schools, and in some ways the report simply re-emphasizes many of those points.
- Among his priorities is creating a culture of urgency, overcoming what the report calls "a self-described culture of maņana" and providing and supporting instructional leadership guidelines.
Boyd has acknowledged he is moving pretty quickly, but said so far he is mostly hearing, "Let's go," rather than, "Too fast" from those he encounters. He said he gets the sense that in the past the district has moved at a "tortoise's pace."
- Moreover, "There doesn't seem to be strong accountability [procedures]" for student outcomes," Boyd said before Monday's public session. The district is already working with principals to teach them how to conduct classroom observations of teachers and to ensure that they are not pulled away for administrative meetings off-campus, he said.
- Along those lines, he is developing his own teacher-evaluation system called Santa Fe Teachers Standards, which he hopes to introduce in late November.
"We have no standard of what quality teaching should look like," he said during Monday's presentation, adding that district teachers have told him that they often do not know what their principals expect of them.
- Among the entry team's other findings is that absenteeism among Santa Fe teachers is about twice that of the national average, with Santa Fe teachers missing an average of 17 out of 180 days of work.
"Holy smoke," board member Steven Carrillo said. "Either we have a lot of people who are sickly when we hire them or they are unhappy in their work." Boyd called the absentee numbers "quite startling."
Bernice Garcia-Baca, National Education Association president for Santa Fe, questioned whether researchers dug deep enough into the reasons behind the absenteeism. "Yes, some are unhappy," she said. "Some are working two or three jobs. Some are single parents. Some have children who are sick." Still, she said, if the estimate is accurate, "It needs to be reduced."
- The report suggests that the district lacks focus in its strategies for getting and using Title 1 federal funds.
- Also, English-language learners, special-education students and exceptionally gifted students have needs that are not being met by the district.
- For instance, about a third of the district's ELL students are underserved because the district does not have enough certified bilingual teachers. "We need every teacher to be bilingual," Boyd said before Monday's presentation.
And in some cases, the district needs to ensure compliance with certain Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandates.
Board President Frank Montaņo said that the big question now is, "What are we going to do next?" Boyd said the community needs to play a continued role in shaping an action plan for the district. The district will not provide a funding analysis until Boyd and the school board decide which of the report's recommendations to pursue.
The report should be on the district's website, www.sfps.info, by Tuesday, Oct. 30.
During the meeting, Boyd also announced that he has hired James Lujan, principal of Ernie Pyle Middle School in Albuquerque, as his assistant superintendent, at a salary of $97, 500.
Lujan is expected to start working for Santa Fe Public Schools by the end of November.
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Grants/ School Staff Strive for 'Black Belt' Certification
By Bob Tenequer
Cibola Beacon Staff Writer
October 30, 2012
Research has shown that 60 to 70 percent of the incoming freshman entering colleges and universities in the United States are severely underprepared, according to Sharon Haddy, a senior faculty member of the Common Core Institute.
Haddy spoke to the Grants/Cibola County School District board members about the common core standards and the urgency in preparing students for college and career readiness. She presented the information at the Oct. 16 school board meeting.
The Common Core standards purpose is to get students in the 12th grade ready to enter college or career paths without remediation, according to Haddy.
- Twenty-eight G/CCSD teachers and administrators participated in the workshop that was offered by the Common Core Institute.
- Gloria Chavez, G/CCSD assistant superintendent, said each school principal participated and they in turn handpicked a staff person at their school site.
Haddy told the board members that 48 of the 50 states have adopted the common core standards. She went on to say, "How people handle the 'huge shift' in education will be interesting."
In preparing for this change, Haddy praised the G/CCSD, "for taking the 'bulls by the horns' and saying we can do this," referring to the school district's attempt to implement the Common Core Standards district-wide.
"We have to see the light at the end of the tunnel and prepare a pathway to get there," said Haddy.
"It's all going to come to a head in 2015 when all the new standards are tested," said the Institute faculty member.
She expressed a sense of urgency in preparing for the change. To illustrate her concern, she spoke about a certification program and dire statistics relating to the current status of education in the United States.
- To help in the transition from the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation to the implementation of common core, her organization has established the "Black Belt" certification.
- The certification builds internal expertise on various components of Common Core State Standards to help the school district sustain their efforts through continuous in-depth opportunities.
"It is about building a core cadre of leaders that are going to be experts and nobody is going to know more about Common Core than them," said Haddy.
What is great about the Common Core Standards is that in each grade you will be able to see a natural progression of progress year to year, she said.
"Now, children in the first grade in California and New Mexico will all be working on the same standards," said the educator. "It is so satisfying, we now have a common curriculum."
In her presentation Haddy provided some current statistics on education in America.
- First, she stated, the quality of our math and science education lags behind many other industrialized nations.
- Second, America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree. In addition, by 2018 sixty-three percent of the jobs in the U.S. are going to require a college education.
- Third, American students' proficiency in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) declines in career interest throughout high school. The decline in interest often begins, as early as third grade to the 12th grade, and by the time they are seniors only 17 percent of students are math-proficient and interested in a STEM career.
Haddy told the board, "I know we can do better."
William Estevan, board member, said he was interested in how the people attaining the "Black Belt" certification will implement the change in their schools. "As a former teacher, I know that there are some teachers who refuse to accept change," said Estevan. "We need to show them where they can benefit."
Assistant Superintendent Chavez said, "If we can show teachers that they are not working harder, but working smarter and they have the data to show that they are making a difference in their student's proficiency, they will come." She added, "Build it and they will come."
Superintendent Kilino Marquez said, "Common Core is not coming, it is here!" He continued, "What we are telling our staff is to get yourself prepared as well as you possibly can."
Board Secretary Richard Jones asked Haddy, "From a national perspective when will we be seeing the results of Common Core?"
"All I can say is that it will all come to a head in 2015, when the new standards are tested," answered Haddy who cautioned, "but you don't want to wait till then because you are going to 'bomb out'."
Jones added, "What I likes about 'Common Core' is that we will be able to see the scores next to the people who succeed and the people who don't. And to give more money to the people who succeed." Jones' comments drew applause from the audience.
Board Vice President Jerry Smith said there is always a lot of optimism at the onset of a change process, however when the optimism wears off, people return to their own ways of doing things.
"We need to insure will have the infrastructure to support this change and implement a reward system that is inline with what we are trying to accomplish," he stressed.
Board member Dion Sandoval, board member, said that he was glad that the district was pioneering the effort to implement Common Core.
Assistant Superintendent Chavez said, "in implementing this change there will be 'push back', but we made a conscious effort to be on the forefront, because our children are important."
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Springer/ Reactivating Agriculture Education: High school Reviving Vo-Ag, FFA Programs
By Bob Morris, Sports Editor
Raton Range
October 30, 2012
Although specific history and timelines may not be readily available, one thing is clear: It's been a few years since Springer High School had a top vocational agricultural program.
Springer schools Superintendent Gregg McMann told The Range the last time the vo-ag program and FFA were in place was 2007, although he and the high school's new vo-ag teacher, Mike Daugherty, have heard from some people that it had been longer than that since the program was really at the top of its game.
One thing McMann did learn: People told him about how Springer High School once had a top vo-ag and FFA program for 20 to 30 years "and then it fell off the map."
When Daugherty came to Springer in July - he taught in Melrose last year, after having taught in Colorado for eight years and, before that, at Des Moines for more than 20 years - he noticed that the classrooms that had previously been used for the vo-ag classes were filled with a lot of equipment - much of it equipment that the school could no longer use for the program.
But since then, the school district has acquired a lot of new equipment and plans to hold an auction for the equipment that can no longer be used. The equipment the school cannot use is still in good condition but, according to McMann, it does not meet the OSHA standards for equipment that children may use.
And even as the high school vo-ag program is "starting from scratch," as Daugherty puts it, the interest from students is already there and there's plenty of excitement in the community about the return of the program.
- "The people I have talked to said they are very excited to have ag and FFA back in the school," Daugherty said. "The worst thing is it just takes time to get this up and running."
Increasing learning opportunities
When McMann first started his school superintendent duties more than a year ago, he "had a sense that we were not offering kids enough opportunities - we had the basic classes and not much else."
He looked at the region and noticed that it is "still very much an agricultural, vocational driven economy."
Seeing that some students were transferring out of the Springer school district, McMann said he believed reviving the vo-ag program would help increase student learning opportunities and might help the district retain its students.
Daugherty said that when he first came to Springer, the wood shop classroom was "packed full of junk." He said the district filled one roll-off trash container with items that were no longer usable and is currently filling a second.
Usable items were inventoried and new equipment was ordered - equipment that will allow the vo-ag and FFA students to create projects that Daugherty said they should be able to sell and then put money back into the program.
- Springer High School has increased its technology usage in the classroom, so the vo-ag classes are similar to others in that computer workstations are in the classroom. But then comes the equipment that can be used for special projects.
- One such item is the Plasma Cam, a computer-generated torch than can be used to cut and etch metal. Students create designs on a computer, which is then mounted to the Plasma Cam, then the torch does the rest.
"The kids are only hampered by their computer ability and their imagination," Daugherty said.
- The district also purchased a pipe bender, which can be used to bend pipes and metal rods to create fences, decorative material and other items. Daugherty said plans are to get students started on building benches.
McMann noted the equipment available to students now is more advanced than what students worked with years ago. "Our shop class is not like what it was when we (adults) were in high school," he said.
As the students become more skilled at creating items and projects, Daugherty said, they will have more items they can sell and thus put more money back into the vo-ag program.
- "I'm looking eventually to be self-supportive here," Daugherty said. "It costs a lot of money to have the program, but I want to get to that point that we are not asking the school board for money all the time."
- Along with the new equipment, there are animals on site in pens behind the building that houses the ag and shop classrooms. Daugherty's daughter Kylie is raising a steer, pigs and goats and the animals have been brought to the school so other students could learn how to care for such animals.
"Some of the kids are surprised to see we have animals here at school now," Daugherty said.
Building a program
Currently, the high school is offering what Daugherty said is the equivalent of an "Ag One" class to freshmen and sophomores, a wood shop class, a metal class and introduction to ag mechanics. Daugherty added he is working with one senior, Sam Garcia, in a class that involves more advanced projects.
- "I have about 30 kids in my classes, which is about half the high school, and I'm pretty happy to end up with that," Daugherty said, adding that 14 students have joined the FFA chapter at Springer.
"We're a small chapter but we have a lot of good kids who are really interested in it," Daugherty said, adding plans are underway for the students to participate in a FFA district contest.
McMann said a major reason why Daugherty was hired was because of his experience in teaching vo-ag and how much work he puts into making such programs strong.
- "Wherever he has gone, he has built the kind of program that is self-sustaining," McMann said. "I believe with his leadership that, over time, that's exactly what we will get."
McMann noted Daugherty, who is certified as a school bus mechanic, is already working with a few students on basic bus maintenance that students are allowed to complete, which will help the district save money on maintenance, along with allowing students to learn new skills.
Daugherty added that many of the students enrolled in the classes live within the Town of Springer and aren't just the students who live on area farms and ranches.
"Most of the kids in these classes are in-town kids," Daugherty said. "They don't know much about the ag side, the wood side or the metal side. We have a few kids who took some advanced metal classes at Luna (Community College, which has a satellite campus in Springer) and some do have a workshop with their dads, but most of them don't (have the knowledge)."
But even though just four of Daugherty's students have a background in agriculture, they are all eager to learn, and their parents are excited they are involved with the classes.
"The interesting part is that they don't know what they are interested in," Daugherty said. "It's a wide-open deal until things balance themselves out, but they are ready and willing to try something new."
As he tells his students, it's good for them to try out different classes so they can learn more about what may interest them and what opportunities are out there.
"I told the kids, 'Don't exclude anything. Try everything and see what you're interested in,'" Daugherty said.
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Farmington/ Johnny Depp Gives $25,000 to Navajo Nation for Scholarships
By Jenny Kane
Farmington Daily Times
October 29, 2012
Actor Johnny Depp, who will play Tonto in the upcoming movie version of "The Lone Ranger," gave the Navajo Nation $25,000 for scholarships, according to the Native News Network.
The gift was reported Friday. The Native News Network said President Ben Shelly accepted the donation, and the Navajo Nation's Health Education and Human Services Committee voted to accept the $25,000 so it can be appropriated for vocational scholarships.
"The Lone Ranger," which tells the fictional story of a masked ex-Texas Ranger who fights injustice in the Old West with his American Indian spirit warrior companion, was largely shot in the Southwest.
Scenes feature several local locations, including the Shiprock monument, which can be seen in the movie's recently released trailer. Shiprock is seen with a train tunnel going through it in the first seconds.
Monument Valley, a tribal park near the Arizona-Utah border, also is featured. Monument Valley has provided an Old West backdrop for Hollywood movies for decades. Scenes also were filmed in Oklahoma and other areas of Indian Country.
"The Lone Ranger" is scheduled for a June 3 release.
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ABQ/ EDITORIAL: APS Tone Deaf About Benefits for Top Brass
ABQ Journal
October 30, 2012
Albuquerque Public Schools has about 14,000 employees. They have not had a cost-of-living raise or increase in benefits in four years. But four lucky employees this year saw improvements in compensation.
Guess who they are?
Superintendent Winston Brooks is one. His retirement benefits got a $23,000-a-year boost in January. He earns $256,000 a year now, and if he stays with APS until he turns 65 in 2018, he will collect $82,250 a year in state retirement instead of the $58,750 he would have received without the pension boost. Sweet. In the long run, APS says this move will save the district money. But taxpayers certainly will be asked to shore up a state educational retirement program with $5.9 billion in unfunded liability.
The other big winners are associate superintendents Eddie Soto, Diane Kerschen and Raquel Reedy. The got 6.6 percent pay-raises this summer to boost their annual salaries to $125,000.
This largesse to a few comes despite decreased state funding and increased class sizes affecting the district's 90,000 students and roughly 6,000 teachers.
Several board members justified Brooks' pension bump as an enticement to keep him from jumping ship. He has been asked to interview for posts in four other urban districts. Brooks says he wasn't threatening to leave or sell his services to the highest bidder, but it was a factor in contract negotiations.
And Brooks justified giving his three associates pay hikes because they have taken on extra duties as positions have come open and not been filled - again, he says, ultimately saving the district money.
Everyone understands that in a perfect world when you take on additional work it is nice to be compensated for it. But in today's real world, who hasn't had to do more just to stay employed? For sure, APS teachers, educational assistants, principals, secretaries, nurses and maintenance workers have. So why not APS brass?
Ellen Bernstein, the president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, points out "although it makes perfect sense that when someone has more duties added to their job that they make more money, there will be incredible resentment among the thousands of people I represent, because their jobs continue to grow, their responsibilities increase, the amount of work they do has gotten to the point of being overwhelming, and nobody's offering them a raise."
Meanwhile, Brooks and an entourage of 17 recently went to an out-of-state conference on the taxpayer dime. The tab was $34,463, a pittance in a $600 million budget, but nonetheless another symbol of the district's tone deafness in today's climate of economic austerity.
Brooks says the APS folks will host the conference next year, and all wore pins promoting Albuquerque. A case where convention and visitor work trumps improving test scores, which we have been told isn't that important.
At the end of the school day the dollars might not be large, but those at the top in APS should consider how it looks to the many at ground level - and to the taxpayers who foot the bill.
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San Francisco CA/ San Francisco Flex Academy: Flexibility, Support Build Student Independence
Students work through online courses at their own pace with classroom support
By Katie Ash
Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 9 [Edweek.org.]
October 30, 2012
Connor Kearns did not expect to spend his junior year thinking about college.
"In 7th grade, I thought I might as well join the Marines and then do trade school like my dad," said the 16-year-old California student.
In fact, for his final semester in 9th grade at the school he then attended, Mr. Kearns said he received two D's and failed the rest of his classes. Although that school, Northgate High School in the Mount Diablo school district outside of San Francisco, was considered one of the best in the area, "I was a number failing through the system," he said.
Mr. Kearns is now entering his second year at the 152-student San Francisco Flex Academy, a blended charter school operated by the Herndon, Va.-based K12 Inc., the largest for-profit provider of K-12 online learning.
"Now, I am in AP and honors classes, and I passed with a higher than 4.0 GPA last semester," said Mr. Kearns. "I came here and turned things around, and started thinking about college. 'Where am I going? What am I going to do?' I've never asked myself these questions before."
Students in the flex model, which now has two locations-one in San Francisco and the other in Silicon Valley-spend five days a week at school working through the K12 Inc. online curriculum for part of the day and attending breakout classes taught by teachers face to face.
"[Students] are not being confined to time, path, pace, and place," said Leah Rodgers, K12's senior director of academics for blended learning. "They're not being told, 'This is when math starts, and this is when it stops.' ... If [students] are learning, that's what we care about."
The San Francisco Flex Academy, located in the heart of downtown in the city's former Press Club, is the original flex academy, opened during the 2010-11 school year. The school serves grades 9-12 and is now in its third year.
- Part of the 55,000-student San Francisco school district, it is overseen by a Board of Trustees for the Flex Public Schools, the nonprofit organization that oversees both the San Francisco and Silicon Valley academies.
- The school has breakout rooms as well as a large "flex" center where study carrels fill the room beneath crystal chandeliers.
On a Monday afternoon in late September, students were quiet and focused as they scrolled through Wikipedia, typed essays, and worked through their online curriculum. In one carrel, a student worked on math problems; in the next, a student studied science.
Academic coaches circled the room, leaning over to help students when they raised their hands. Those coaches typically are noncertified teachers who are often pursuing careers in education but have not yet finished their certification, Ms. Rodgers said.
"These are the people who are generally asking kids to get back on track, making sure that they're doing what they need to, and removing barriers that potentially prevent students from learning or accessing the curriculum," she said.
Focus on Data
Royce Conner, the head of school at the San Francisco Flex Academy, said the academic coaches are "the greatest source of qualitative data on students."
- Coaches and teachers at SF Flex are equipped with tablet computers so that with a few clicks, they can pull up a myriad of data on each student to help inform their discussions and make sure that students are on track.
That emphasis on data runs deep in both of the flex academies.
- On Fridays, the teachers at each school gather to discuss the data gathered from the week through assessments in the online curriculum, observations from academic coaches and teachers, and overall course averages, among other growth factors.
- Using the data, teachers come up with a schedule of breakout sessions for the next week to provide targeted instruction; students receive the schedule on Monday morning.
How many breakout sessions a student goes to each day depends on the amount of support the student needs, but the average is about three sessions a day, said Mr. Conner.
Ms. Rodgers, from K12 Inc., said teachers do not provide direct instruction from the curriculum in those sessions, but specifically target problem areas for students. Breakout sessions include no more than 15 students at a time.
Parents also have access to the data portal so they can see their children's progress, and students themselves can see exactly where they are and what they need to do to reach their goals.
In addition to breakout sessions, students attend a daily advisory session, aimed at helping them learn skills to prepare for college and the workplace.
Outside of the breakout and advisory sessions, students have the autonomy to make up their own schedules. Although students are required to hit weekly goals to keep on track, they are allowed to choose when and how they reach those goals on their own. For instance, if a student wants to work on math all day Monday and on English/language arts all day Tuesday, that's fine, Mr. Conner said.
That flexibility also allows students to move at their own pace, spending extra time on subjects in which they may need more help, he said, or quickly moving through parts of the curriculum they have already mastered. That's one of the reasons students are attracted to the flex model, he said.
Starting Over
Flora and Diana Chen, 16-year-old twins in 11th grade at the school, embody two of those reasons.
"The reason that I came to Flex is because I was not doing well in my [former] school and ... our class sizes were really big," said Flora Chen, who says her scores on the California Standardized Tests, or CSTs, were below basic in almost all subjects before she came to her new school.
"I wanted to start over somewhere different," she said. "Maybe I could do better."
Flora is starting her second year at the school. She is now enrolled in three Advanced Placement classes and in pre-calculus, she said.
The support and confidence of her teachers and academic coaches have allowed her to excel in a way she was not able to achieve in her previous school, she said.
Diana Chen said she came to SF Flex because "my old school was too easy for me."
"I had a perfect record throughout the whole year in 9th grade, and there was no challenge," she said. "It felt kind of like cheating."
However, despite her straight A's at her previous school, when Diana received her scores on the CSTs, she found that she ranked about average on some of her core subjects, while in others she was below average.
Now that she's starting her second year at SF Flex, she said she no longer has straight A's, but "it doesn't feel like I am cheating. It feels like I earned it."
The transition to a blended environment was hard for her at first, Diana Chen said.
"In a public school system, you're in a classroom and the teacher is always pushing you, so you never really have to push yourself much," she said. "So when I came here, the first semester I got really behind because the course was pretty easy, and I thought I could do it tomorrow."
She said that with the help of her teachers and academic coaches, she has now become more organized and self-directed, two skills she expects will help her succeed in college.
While both Flex academies are still gathering a baseline of data by which to better measure overall academic growth and success, parent and student satisfaction with the schools is high, both heads of school said.
"We're still working on refining the best ways to determine the success of these models," said Ms. Rodgers from K12 Inc. "We want to know that the academic investment is paying out in the end."
The 216-student Silicon Valley Flex Academy, which serves grades 6-12, is now in its second year. It is part of the school district operated by the Santa Clara County Office of Education, which oversees the county's charter schools and alternative education programs.
The school's bright, marble-floored two-story lobby fans out into two wings-one for middle school and one for high school. The building was originally built for a mortgage company, said Jean Southland, Silicon Valley Flex's head of school. That explains the detailed molding and luxurious restrooms, more reminiscent of an upscale department store than a public school.
Although the first floor is taken up by open, office-like rooms of study carrels and classrooms, the second floor is largely empty.
"Room to grow," Ms. Southland said with a smile.
Both wings of the school open up into large areas where rows of study carrels snake through the room. Each cubicle is equipped with a laptop computer. Pinned to the side of each workstation is the student's name, a list of the expectations of students while they are at school, and a sheet where students have filled out their goals for middle school, high school, college, and careers.
Progress-tracking is clearly visible throughout the flex centers in the Silicon Valley Flex Academy. For the high schoolers, there is a paper baseball diamond hung at the front of the room with student ID numbers scrawled on paper baseballs lining the baselines. The bases have percentages on them, representing students' overall course averages, Ms. Southland said.
Students receive incentives, such as permission to have lunch off campus, for rounding the bases and making significant progress, she said.
In the middle school flex center, two separate race-car bulletin boards track student progress in English/language arts and math. Students' paper race cars move through the track based on the percentage of the curriculum they have finished.
Unlike the high school curriculum, K12 Inc.'s middle school curriculum is mastery-based, which means that students must score 80 percent or higher on assessments to determine mastery before they can move on to the next objective.
Middle school students are required to master at least 90 percent of the curriculum by the end of the year, which averages out to about one lesson a day, said Ms. Southland.
Preparing for College
Connecting pre-collegiate education to college and career readiness is a major focus of the flex program, Ms. Southland said. All of the breakout rooms at the Silicon Valley academy are named after colleges, and students at the school also attend advisory sessions focused on real-life skills that will help them succeed in college and the workplace.
On a Tuesday morning in late September, science teacher Jessica B. Keybl led her advisory class in a discussion about what to look for when visiting potential colleges. She went through a list of such questions as "What percentage of students live on campus?" and "What kind of meal plans are available?" with a group of 11th graders.
Ms. Keybl came to Silicon Valley Flex Academy when it opened in 2011-12, she said. "I really loved the small class-size situation," she said, "and the ability to really extend student learning with projects and critical-thinking activities."
She teaches biology, chemistry, and 8th grade physical science. The flex model encourages and empowers students to take control of their own learning, even at a young age, according to Ms. Keybl.
"One of the things that I've seen with our students here, especially with our middle school students, is they have to take so much responsibility for what they're doing and keeping themselves organized and on task ... that once they get the hang of it, they're really set," she said. "I'm excited to see when they make that transition to college. They'll already be their own personal time managers."
In-Class Benefits
Gurroop Khasla, a senior at Silicon Valley Flex, said having face-to-face teachers to support her work in the online curriculum is essential to her success.
"[There are] times when I'll do a lesson, and I don't quite understand what they're saying, but then when I go to breakout ... they'll teach and I'll understand what they're saying ... because someone actually told me," she said. "And it's different when someone tells you rather than just reading it."
Junior Camille DeRome agreed with Ms. Khasla and added that having the opportunity to collaborate with other classmates helps her learn.
"Sometimes I will learn better if I explain it to someone else, or if they explain it to me," she said.
Ms. Southland, the head of school, added: "As the administrator watching, it's great to go and see, because you see that kids are talking, but when you get close you realize they're actually having academic conversations, which is really powerful. At their age, that peer-to-peer interaction, we know that so much more learning happens in that kind of environment."
Joseph Davey and Gurbhej Khasla, both seniors at Silicon Valley Flex, agreed.
"We'll have conversations about current events and stuff going on in the news," said Mr. Khasla, the twin brother of Gurroop Khasla. "The other day, Joey and I were having a conversation about history and how the political scheme has changed over time and the four different stages of federalism."
"We had a pretty good debate going on," Mr. Davey said.
