Singing Children - May, 26 2009 Meeting

First of all, school board fans (school boarders?) apologies for the late update. Sadly, internet issues have kept me from you until today.

I'll start off with some professional reports on the meeting. Palo Alto Online, correctly realizing the importance of the school board, has not one but two stories about the meeting. The first is about the slowing enrollment growth; the second about a small growth in class size for early-grade classes.

The Paly Voice, not to be outdone, also published two stories about the meeting. One is about the addition of AP Mandarin to Gunn and Paly next year, the other dealt with impending budget cuts.

As you can probably tell from looking over those links, Tuesday's meeting covered a wide variety of topics, and ran for over four hours. That's longer than a marathon. (Also, that's what she said.)

The low of the meeting was undoubtedly when the board and long-suffering audience members were serenaded by Mandarin Immersion students as a prelude to a presentation about the Mandarin program in the district. Maybe some people find the voices of small children adorable, but this board watcher would rather watch Kevin Skelly dance a jig. However, the discussion of the formerly controversial MI program was enlightening, and it was interesting to hear the progress that has been made in that program.

Other topics covered included a lower enrollment than projected, which caused the board to postpone Garland's reopening, and a discussion of budget reductions.

Meeting Highlights:

-Ohlone's principal is now a believer in MI.

- Some wonky capitalization: "Carl D. Perkins Vocational and applied Tech. Funds" Why is vocational capitalized and not applied? Why are tech funds capitalized if applied isn't? Does logic exist?

Mid-Fortnight Report

For those of you suffering from mid-fortnight school board withdrawal (or maybe that's just me), here are some marvelous articles to tide you over until next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

First of all, the Paly Voice's coverage of the most recent meeting can be found here. The article focuses on the new Spanish textbooks the board discussed last week.

On the other hand, Palo Alto Online focused on the College Bound program at Barron Park Elementary School. That article can be found here, as well as in the print edition of the Palo Alto Weekly.

Speaking (or reading or writing) of the Palo Alto Weekly, and of this humble blogger's favorite school board member, Mr. Dana Tom is featured in the Weekley's article about Asian Americans serving our community, as is Barbara Klausner. Check it out if you haven't already.

Dana Tom's Gavel - May 12, 2009 meeting

School board meetings often contain more meandering hypotheticals than actual decisions. May 12's meeting was a prime example of this. A discussion of a college readiness program at Barron Park elementary school lasted nearly two hours. The program is a laudable one; a group of students who may otherwise have difficulties getting into college have a program to assist them. Longer school days and a longer school year as well as increased teacher involvement are all part of the program. Yet once the board started asking the teacher representative and Barron Park principal questions, it seemed as though the meeting would never end, and the board room emptied. The discussion was intended to simply update the board - without STAR data, a full quantitative analysis of the program isn't possible. Nevertheless, the board had a thousand questions, most of which had little bearing on the situation. After two hours, it was nearly a mercy when the board moved on to discuss the purchase of fuel for the district.

Meeting Highlights:

-Dana Tom was presented with a gavel by his fellow board members. He joked that he would use it to preside over dinners at home. There's a reason Mr. Tom is Betty's favorite board member.

- Camille Townsend mentioned, during the endless discussion of Baron Park's college bound program, the Kinsey Reports. Hope she didn't mean those Kinsey Reports.

- New Spanish textbooks were adopted. These books were chosen for their technological components. Terminator Textbooks? The governor would be proud.