A Quest for Excellence
3RD QUARTER 2017 PROGRESS REPORT
We are more than a month into the 2017-18 school year and all of our school sites are bustling, as is the district office. Here are a few highlights and places my attention is currently focused:
Enrollment Numbers. While the schools in the southern end of the district and in Willow Glen are fully enrolled, many of the downtown schools in the northern end of the district are seeing significant declines in enrollment. Requests for record transfers show that many families are moving out of the area to cities where housing is considerably more affordable than it is in San Jose. The high cost of living and dearth of affordable housing is affecting not only our students, but teachers as well. Part of the teacher shortage we are experiencing is the result of the high cost of renting or purchasing a home in the vicinity of any of our schools. Housing affordability is a regional issue - and, in my mind, perhaps THE moral imperative of our time - and we must find solutions in the very near future. Kids and families can't wait.
Emotional Well Being. While a school district's priority is the academic education of students, we must also pay close attention to the emotional well being of our students if they are to be successful in school. Over the past several months, many students have exhibited greater symptoms of stress and anxiety, often tied to issues related to immigration status. Our district has partnered with the Santa Clara County Office of Immigration to provide information and resources to students and families. Counselors are prepared to address student concerns through this lens. And the board will soon update the resolution we passed last February to include reassurances for any of our employees who are currently protected by the provisions of DACA.
Our board has appointed a number of community members to the Parcel Tax Oversight Committee for a two year term. This committee is charged with ensuring that the dollars collected through the district's first parcel tax will be used exactly as intended: to support teachers and other school site staff members. I am deeply committed to supporting our certificated and classified employees in any way I can - these are the professionals who serve 31,000 students every day and our students will be successful if the adults charged with educating and caring for them are well resourced and supported in their roles.
San José Unified has been selected by Sprint to participate in the 1Million Project. The goal of this five-year program is to provide one million students who do not have adequate internet access at home with the resources they need to be successful in school. Beginning in the 2017-18 school year, the district will be able to offer 242 mobile hotspot devices to qualifying high school students. The hotspot and data plan are provided by Sprint at no cost to the student, their school, or the district. The data plan provides 3GB of LTE data a month, and unlimited data at 2G speeds after that. The hotspots are connected to a Sprint CIPA compliant content filter so that students only have access to content that is appropriate. More information is available from the San José Unified Public Information Office via email or by calling (408) 535-6444
Finally, in my continued commitment to engagement and transparency, what follows is my assessment of the developments in the 5 areas that defined my "Quest for Excellence" in my 2014 campaign for this office.
P.S. My Facebook is updated regularly and is the easiest way to stay current with Area 2 news!
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Town Hall Meeting. On September 25, our district held the first town hall meeting of the 2017-18 school year. A number of elected officials plus more than 200 parents, students, teachers and classified staff members gathered at Willow Glen High School to receive an update on the district's strategic plan and to share comments, concerns and compliments about personal experiences with SJUSD. The comments were thoughtful varied and provided a good sense of the type of experience people are having with our schools. Some of the common themes that were raised include the following:
need for student internships at local businesses
concern for undocumented families and how the district is ensuring their safety
special education: meeting student needs in a timely and satisfactory way
parent involvement: too much, too little, reliance on parent fundraising to provide supplemental student programming
social emotional & physical well being of students
desire for rigorous academics but not too much homework
advantages and disadvantages of a later school start time for high school
District staff members took copious notes to capture individual and global concerns. They will reach out to individuals whose questions are child specific and will create a general information document on the foregoing topics that will be available to ALL stakeholders.
Stakeholder input is extremely valuable if our district is going to continuously improve and grow to meet the needs of our students and the expectations of our community. I am grateful to all of you who took the time to attend the meeting, particularly if you shared your thoughts with the group. Thank you to State Senator Jim Beall, Assembly members Ash Kalra and Evan Low, San Jose City Council members Dev Davis and Don Rocha for sharing your policy priorities that impact education and especially Senator Beall who remained for the entire meeting to hear from community stakeholders; that meant a lot to our teachers, parents and students.
Our new district website is live after the last year of development. We took all of your feedback in to consideration and have made some great improvements:
A new calendar built into the site to make it easier to find events
A blog where you can learn about the latest district news
Expanded information about our schools and programs
Easily accessible resources for parents, students, and community members
An easy-to-use web form for contacting the district
Visit www.sjusd.org and have a look around!
San José Unified's exemption process for our Measure Y parcel tax received and processed nearly 1,200 applications in time for the 2017-2018 tax year, and we're happy to make the exemption application available year round. If you're 65 years or older, or you receive Social Security or disability insurance, you can visit our website, send us an email, or call us at (408) 535-6444 to request an application. You can also pick one up in person at our District Office at 855 Lenzen Ave. in San José.
SCHOOL LINKED SERVICES
Many people aren't aware of the extensive safety net services SJUSD offers to vulnerable students and families, yet these services are as important to student success as are academic programs and resources. As the needs of our community have grown, so have those services. For example:
For many years, the number of homeless students in our district hovered around 120. However, over the past three years, that number has increased by approximately 100 students per year, leading to the current number of 525 unhoused students. Many of these families are truly living on the streets while others are double and triple housed or "couch surfing" with friends or family members. Our Coordinated School Health Council partners with community based organizations such as the Bill Wilson Center to provide immediate services including rapid rehousing, bridge housing and other shelters to get families off of the street.
Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, approximately 20% of our students had MediCal insurance. With the ACA, that number has increased to 35% and our district provides for a wide range of reimbursable services, from insulin shots to anti seizure medication to breathing treatments in response to asthma attacks. We provide 1:1 aids for students with extraordinary medical needs so that they are able to attend school with their peers. In fact, our district has one of the best nurse:student ratios in the state, with 1 nurse serving every 1200 students (the more typical ratio is 1:2400).
Our board passed a series of wellness policies, directing schools to implement wellness programs that focus on a range of topics from nutrition to suicide prevention. A council comprised of district staff members, parents and representatives of community based organizations is charged with ensuring that the policies are actually implemented at the school sites.
An important aspect of early childhood development is access to high quality early educational experiences. Our district preschools serve 600 4 year olds each year whose family income exceeds the cap set by the national head start program ($24,000) but still falls well below the self sufficiency standard in Silicon Valley.
Next month, the SJUSD district office on Lenzen will become the third site for School Health Clinics of Santa Clara County (there are already clinics at Washington Elementary and San Jose High schools). When parents come to the district office to enroll their children in school, they can head down the hall to the clinic to receive vaccinations, sports physicals or connections to more comprehensive services at Valley Medical Center.
Resources for Immigrant Families
CHARTER AND NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL COLLABORATION
Two charter petitions were presented to our board recently and I voted no on both of them (See: Promise Academy). I am committed to ensuring that students who reside within the San Jose Unified School District boundaries have access to excellent educational opportunities and that parents have options to choose the models that are best for their children. A proposed charter school is not a de facto legitimate option if it does not offer a sound academic plan, cannot clearly meet the needs of all students and imposes requirements that are not developmentally or academically appropriate. There are absolutely places in which I would welcome collaboration if there is demonstrated need and a proposal that would address that need in a responsible manner. My focus will always be accountability to the students and families who reside in this school district (wherever they go to school) and I will continue to support the work of our teachers and administrators who work exceptionally hard to serve the 31,000 students who choose to attend any of our 41 schools.
STUDENT SAFETY
The physical and emotional safety of all of our students, as well as all of the adults, on our campuses is of paramount importance. Particularly in light of the current political climate, we need to be particularly vigilant in guarding against speech or action that could be described as motivated by prejudice, bias or discrimination against any group of people. I encourage staff members, parents and students to speak up if they feel unsafe or targeted for any reason. Almost all of us are feeling vulnerable and need to have one another's backs.
Check out SJUSDs dedicated Immigration Services page
See here for important Teen Dating Violence resources
Kids of all ages are swiping and scrolling, totally transfixed by screens of all sizes. Welcome to the new frontier of parenting. If you have questions on how to take control of, or at least keep up with, the technology in your kids' lives, check out Common Sense Media.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Congratulations to Allison Pruitt of Washington Elementary! Allison was named Teacher of the Year on Thursday, Sept. 14th, at the Campbell Heritage Theater by the Santa Clara County Office of Education.
BEYOND THE BOARDROOM
Many of my personal efforts serve to inform my role as a trustee, build relationships, and think strategically about how best to improve outcomes for all SJUSD students. I am actively participating in a number of projects related to education policy and social justice:
I helped to facilitate a County Wide Civics Education Initiative called The Power of Democracy. The purpose of the gathering was to galvanize educators, elected officials and funders to expand access to civics education opportunities in our schools.
In the same vein as the above, I moderated a panel at the 3rd Annual Government and Civic Tech Innovation Showcase in which I spoke with Sid Espinosa, Vice President for Technology & Corporate Responsibility at Microsoft, Emma Humphries, Chief Education Officer, iCivics and David Moren, Bay Area Executive Director, Generation Citizen. The focus of the conversation was the need for businesses and community based organizations to partner with schools to provide more opportunities for students not only to learn how government works, but to experience why political participation is an important part of engaged citizenry.
Civic education in schools has a parallel in civic engagement by adults in our community. I spoke at a Women's Networking Allianceconference on this topic, focusing on civic engagement as a powerful relationship building tool as opposed to a relationship that is focused on transactions; in other words, asking what can we do together to improve some aspect of our community rather than, what can you do to advance my business and what can I do to advance yours? Shared passions is a far stronger and more durable strategy through which to forge relationships which may also yield professional advantages, but create something more significant along the way
In my role as Senior Director of Community Development for The Silicon Valley Organization, I designed and led a day of programming designed to raise awareness of current issues in public education. We began the day with a panel discussion on The Purpose of Public Education that included local Superintendents as well as representatives from a charter school and two nonprofit supplemental education providers. The goal of the day was to raise awareness among business leaders of the (local) state of public education and the challenges to its greater success.