Our school hears Dr. Anthony Muhammad on Transforming School Culture

We sent one teacher from each grade team and our Principal. They found his presentatin powerful and inspiring.
Here's what his web site has to say about him:
Anthony Muhammad is one of the most sought after educational consultants in North America. As a practitioner of nearly twenty years, Dr. Muhammad has served as a middle school teacher, assistant principal, middle school principal, and high school principal. His tenure as a practitioner has earned him several awards as both a teacher and a principal.

Dr. Muhammad’s most notable accomplishment came as principal at Levey Middle School in Southfield, Michigan, a National School of Excellence, where student proficiency on state assessments was more than doubled in five years. Dr. Muhammad and the staff at Levey used the Professional Learning Communities at Work (PLC) model of school improvement, and they have been recognized in several videos and articles as a model, high-performing PLC.

As a researcher, he has published articles in several publications in both the United States and Canada. Dr. Muhammad is a contributing author to the book The Collaborative Administrator published in 2008. He also authored Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division, published in 2009.

My state lags in funding education

California is number 47th in spending per pupil.

From Google Alerts: Tracking the budget cuts.

High-ranking jobs are targeted for cuts
Press-Enterprise - Riverside,CA,USA
Brown said his district has to make cuts because it faces the prospect of $6.2 million in midyear cuts in state revenue through the California budget crisis ...
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Students, communities pay when schools cut busing
CNN - USA
School districts all over the nation -- from San Diego County, California, to Walden, New York, to Collier County, Florida, and myriad locales in between ...
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Economics Sore Subject for Public Schools
Kansas City infoZine - Kansas City,MO,USA
When the South Carolina Legislature met in October to plug a $488 million budget gap, lawmakers cut elementary and secondary school funding by 3.6 percent ...
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District's contingency funds helping it weather state cuts
Orangeburg Times Democrat - Orangeburg,SC,USA
Dr. David Longshore said the district has used approximately $1041000 from its contingency fund this year as a result of the budget cuts. ...
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Kermit King: A school devoted to creating a family atmosphere
Paso Robles Press - Paso Robles,CA,USA
Parent support, and especially the school’s Parent-Teacher Association, has been crucial in the navigating recent budget cuts that have plagued schools ...
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HUSD seeks to save $2.5 million by offering special education ...
Hesperia Star - Victorville,CA,USA
At their January 5 meeting, the HUSD school board approved $4.2 million in budget cuts, in an attempt to rein in the district's budget crisis. ...
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Districts Scrounge for Low-Pain Budget Cuts
Education Week News - Bethesda,MD,USA
When the 15000-student Capistrano Unified School District in Southern California sent out 266 pink slips last spring to teachers, threatening to drive up ...
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State indecision stymies school budget planning
Gilroy Dispatch - Gilroy,CA,USA
But based on proposals, the district will have to cut about $3 million from this school year's general fund budget of about $86 million, $5.5 million next ...
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Next cuts: The deepest?
Manteca Bulletin - Manteca,CA,USA
By Vince Rembulat Sacramento’s failure to stop the current state budget hemorrhaging means Manteca Unified must now cut $9.5 million for the current school ...
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Willows teachers on chopping block
Willows Journal - CA, United States
Among the major cuts tentatively approved by the WUSD board last week were class-size reductions in the elementary school grades of kindergarten through ...
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California Math Wars

The Chronicle has an article up on Superintendent of Education's response to the new algebra standards pushed by the governor:
O'Connell to Schwarzenegger: Here's the bill, where's the cash?
O'Connell estimates the bill for this failed policy decision at 3.7 Billion dollars.
In my eyes, this is just a continuation of the math wars of the nineties; it appears that the power of the small band of fundamentalist fanatics who run the Mathematically Correct: website still outweighs the opinions and wishes of the math teachers actually in the trenches...

We went to the beach

A demonstration of what the kids could do when asked "What did you do over the summer?
We took eight kids and ten adults to the beach last weekend...

State Senator Jeff Denham's District 12 :266 more layoffs in Modesto

More here about how to contact Jeff Denham
From the Modesto Bee

More than 200 school jobs in danger

Modesto board will decide about issuing layoff notices

By MERRILL BALASSONE
mbalassone@modbee.com



Pink slips will be on the way for more than 200 classified employees in Modesto City Schools next week if the Board of Education votes tonight to issue a round of layoff notices.

About 266 full- and part-time support staff positions may be cut or face a reduction in work hours, including classroom aides, book room clerks and library assistants. Sixty-three of those 266 positions are already vacant and will remain vacant, said Chris Flesuras, associate superintendent of human resources. If people who are facing layoffs have experience in another district job, they may be "bumped" to another position. Read more

Senator Jim Battens District 37 :School Closure at Wildomar

WILDOMAR: Trustees plan to discuss school closure Tuesday

Parents, teachers oppose shutting Jean Hayman

By RANI GUPTA - Staff Writer | Friday, April 18, 2008 7:02 PM PDT ∞

Principal Nori Chandler reads to second-graders at Jean Hayman Elementary School on Friday. Lake Elsinore Unified School District administrators will meet Tuesday to discuss the possible closure of the Wildomar campus. (STEVE THORNTON / Staff photographer)

WILDOMAR ---- School trustees are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to close Jean Hayman Elementary in the fall to bridge an expected budget gap. Lake Elsinore is in State Senate District 37. Read more...