Mission Statement: All San Diego students will graduate with the skills, motivation, curiosity and resilience to succeed in their choice of college and career in order to lead and participate in the society of tomorrow.

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, it’s a time to reflect upon the many things for which we are thankful. Oftentimes, during our busy, daily schedules, it is difficult to reflect on what is truly important to us. I hope that during this time, you will be able to do so. I wish all of you a happy and healthy Thanksgiving season. Thank you for all you do for the children of San Diego.

The California State University (CSU) has announced a priority application deadline for admission to most CSU campuses for incoming freshmen for the 2009-10 school year. The deadline for students to submit applications is Sunday, November 30, 2008. With California State budget cuts and fewer enrollment spaces available, applications submitted by November 30 will receive priority consideration. Applications can be submitted online at http://www.csumentor.edu/ . If you have questions regarding CSU admissions policy, please go to the CSU Web site at www.calstate.edu.

As we await word from Sacramento on the mid-year budget cuts, we continue to work very hard to identify areas of savings. During Wednesday’s school board meeting, we discussed changes to our food services department that could generate approximately $5M in annual savings once implemented. These changes include:

• Expand Breakfast in the Classroom. We currently have 12 elementary schools participating in our Breakfast in the Classroom program, with the capacity to expand the program by two elementary schools per week for the balance of the year—bringing this year’s total to 42 schools and generating a savings of $470,000 for this school year. The remaining 20 schools will be added during the 2009-10 school year. Once the entire program is implemented in all 62 schools, we anticipate an annual savings of $3M per year.
  
  
• Lunch on Elementary School Minimum Days. Currently, only 40 percent of our elementary students who eat lunch during a regular school day also eat lunch on early release days. This 60 percent reduction has a significant negative impact on our cafeteria revenue. By working together to adjust schedules that will allow all students who usually eat lunch to do so on minimum school days, we can save approximately $865,000 annually.
  
  
• Multi-period High School Lunch. Most San Diego Unified high schools have only one short lunch period each day. It’s impossible to serve lunch to all students who want to eat during a 30-35 minute lunch period in high schools with 1,300 to 2,900 students. I’ve invited Dr. Lynn Canady, a nationally recognized expert on developing school and class schedules, to visit us in January 2009 and work with high school principals and their scheduling staff to develop multi-lunch periods. If we implement a multiple lunch serving plan in our high schools for the 2009-2010 school year, we can generate approximately $1.2M in annual savings.

These savings can help reduce the general fund support of our cafeteria program, making those funds available as cost savings reduction options to the board. The board voted unanimously to approve these implementations and timelines. If you have ideas on how we can make these transitions as smooth as possible or any questions, please contact me at (619) 725-5506.

P.S. To learn more about the Breakfast in the Classroom program, please read the article in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune.

The first in a series of guest speaker presentations was held this week featuring Gary Hoachlander, president of ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career. Hoachlander presented Multiple Pathways for High School Success, a proven approach that combines college-preparatory curriculum with exceptional career and technical education. Watch the presentation.

In September, Dr. Thomas Hehir completed a follow-up report to his 2007 evaluation of our special education system. In this follow-up report, Dr. Hehir outlines a process to achieve the recommendations made in his 2007 evaluation. The first part of this process requires establishing specific outcomes for improvement in areas such as student achievement, placement in the least restrictive environment and special education suspension rates. The second part of this process requires developing plans for achieving these outcomes. Over the past two months, three separate workgroups have been analyzing baseline district data to establish outcomes for improvement and developing initial plans to achieve them. The groups range in size from 9-11 people and their membership includes principals, parents, school improvement officers, teachers, related services providers, central office managers, a paraprofessional and a charter school principal. In December, the groups will complete their work on the outcomes and plans. Read Dr. Hehir's initial Evaluation , the Recommendations Report  and the Follow-up Evaluation Report . For more information, please contact Arun Ramanathan, chief student support officer, at aramanathan@sandi.net.

Twenty committees comprised of classroom teachers, central office staff, community members, parents and advocates for special student populations (English Learners, GATE, Special Education) are busy viewing publisher presentations, determining criteria and evaluating instructional materials in eight subject areas and 27 specific courses . Following independent and group review with assistance from curriculum resource staff, committees will recommend new instructional materials to the Board of Education in the spring for implementation in the 2009-10 school year. A collection of current, district-adopted materials is maintained in the Instructional Materials Department for parents and other stakeholders to review throughout the year. To view and comment on materials currently being reviewed, stop by one of the Open House events taking place December 8-12, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, December 13, 9 a.m. to noon, and Wednesday, December 17, 3 - 6 p.m. The Instructional Materials Department is located at the IMC. For more information, please visit the Instructional Materials Department website or call Robin Clabaugh at (858) 496-8466.

The Food Services Department is holding its Sixth Annual Holiday Toy Drive to support ten needy families within our district community. These families will be given a holiday food basket and gifts for each child with donations coming from our generous food services employees. If you would like help a family during this holiday season, your donations are welcomed. Donations of non-perishable food, gift cards, and new, unwrapped toys, games, books and sports equipment are appreciated. Donations can be brought to any of our cafés or to the food services central office, located in Room 5 at the Revere Center. For more information, please contact Shirley Cabri-Rumrill, food services labor supervisor, at (858) 627-7317, or Gary Petill, director, food services department, at (858) 627-7301.

Often thought of as the Washington Post of the school bus industry, School Transportation News is distributed to more than 22,000 readers monthly. The November 2008 cover story features the San Diego Unified Transportation Department, focusing on the department’s leadership and the district’s connection with other large urban districts. Representatives from the magazine were in San Diego last month and spent time with transportation administration and fleet maintenance in order to observe first-hand the daily operation and logistical challenges. For more information, please contact Alex Robinson, director, transportation department at arobinson@sandi.net.

Faculty from Madison, Morse and Patrick Henry high schools attended the National Academy Foundation (NAF) Leadership Summit this past weekend. These leaders met with administrators, directors and academy teachers from across the nation to discuss the successful implementation of academy programs in large urban districts. Academy programs in finance, engineering and information technology provide San Diego Unified high school students with a rigorous career-themed curriculum, internship experiences and mentors from local businesses. Nationally, NAF academy programs have a 90 percent graduation rate with more than 80 percent of those students going on to college. Locally, the Academy of Finance at the School of Business at San Diego High School had a 100 percent graduation rate last year. For more information, please contact Virginia Eves, director, Office of College, Career and Technical Education, at (858) 496-1838 or at veves@sandi.net.

Steve Seidel, director of Harvard’s Project Zero and the Arts in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will present the completed findings of his Wallace-commissioned study, Qualities of Quality: Excellence in Arts Education and How to Achieve It. The information will be shared via webinar on Wednesday, December 17, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the San Diego Office of Education, Bldg 4, Rm 401, 6401 Linda Vista Road, San Diego (92111). The webinar will be followed by a question and answer session, facilitated by Ron Jesse, visual and performing arts coordinator, San Diego County Office of Education, and Karen Childress-Evans, director visual and performing arts, San Diego Unified. RSVP to scivapa@sdcoe.net. For more information, please contact Karen Childress-Evans at (858) 539-5349 or kchildressevans@sandi.net.

Fifty years ago, Clairemont High School opened its doors for the first time to 950 junior and sophomore students on Monday, November 17, 1958. During the course of its history enrollment reached a peak of 2,389 students. Today, the school serves approximately 1,450 students in Grades 9-12. To celebrate this milestone, parents, community members, board members, district personnel, alumni and students gathered in the school’s cafeteria from 8-10 a.m., Thursday, November 20, 2008. Eight members of the first staff, including the vice principal, along with ten alumni from the first year, joined the festivities. Councilmember Donna Frye presented Clairemont High with a Proclamation from the City of San Diego. We salute and congratulate Clairemont High School on this historic event. For information, please contact Lenora Smith, principal, at (858) 273-0201.

Discover all the exciting events happening around the district. A complete list of San Diego Unified School District Upcoming Events is posted on www.sandi.net.

• AFT President Sees Value in Merit Pay
  Recently elected American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten on Monday conveyed an openness to discussing new approaches to such issues as merit pay and teacher tenure. "With the exception of vouchers, which siphon scarce resources from public schools, no issue should be off the table, provided it is good for children and fair to teachers," Weingarten said. The New York Times (11/17), Los Angeles Times/The Associated Press
  
  
• Report: Nearly 4 Million College Students Enroll in Online Courses
  Acceptance of online degrees is growing as nearly a quarter of all U.S. college students took at least one online course in fall 2007, up nearly 13% from the year-ago fall semester, according to a report from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "Every year, we think it will level out, and it hasn't done so quite yet," said the report's co-author, Jeff Seaman. "At some point, the demand is going to be met and [enrollment numbers] will meet some sort of steady state." eSchool News (11/17)
  
  
• California School Staff Must Not Inject Children with Insulin
  Only school nurses are permitted to administer insulin to the nearly 14,000 California students with diabetes, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled Friday, overturning a 2007 settlement that also allowed specially trained school staff to inject students. While improper insulin administration can have potentially fatal results, some parents said the shortage of school nurses forces them to leave work to give injections or keep children out of school entirely. The Sacramento Bee
  
  
• Proposed Education Cuts Cheat Children in California
  More than $2 billion in state funding for K-12 California schools may be cut mid-year as part of a new gubernatorial package to shore up California's budget shortfall -- which is in addition to $3 billion cut from education funding in the current budget. Such cuts, as well as those to higher education, jeopardize an entire generation of students and the state's future in the global economy, writes Saree Makdisi, a University of California, Los Angeles, English and comparative-literature professor. Los Angeles Times
  
  
• Study: Preschoolers Need to Learn Academic and Social Skills
  Preschoolers do better if they are taught both social and academic skills, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. "If preschools focus just on the facts -- let's just get the letter knowledge in, let's just get the number knowledge in -- they're really missing the engine that's going to drive the desire and motivation for learning," said lead researcher Karen Bierman, a Penn State University psychology professor. Google/The Associated Press (11/15), ScienceDaily (11/14)
  
  
• Three States Eye Bold High School Reforms
  As part of the education reforms recommended by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce to prepare workers to be competitive in the 21st-century global economy, three states have agreed to take innovative measures to prepare students that include college at 16, teacher-run schools, and state exams with assignments. Christian Science Monitor
  
  
• Teach Technology Skills, Ethics Across The Curriculum
  Social Web technologies are having a huge influence on students, even the youngest ones. Yet adults are failing to help them explore the safety and ethics of the "digital footprint" that they are leaving behind, writes Will Richardson, author of "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Tools for Classrooms." Not only should students be encouraged to explore topics that interest them, but they must also learn to use technology wisely in the general curriculum, he writes. A short lesson on Internet safety is not enough. Read more.
  
  
• Big Picture High Schools Put Students in Charge
  Nearly 95% of students at the 60 Big Picture schools nationwide go on to college after designing their own curricula with the aid of a hands-on adviser and internship mentors. "This program is about helping a kid find their passion," said Big Picture adviser and former science teacher Leonardo Oppedisano. "I am not a vessel with information trying to impart it all on them. I am advising them on the path that they should take toward learning. It is much more a cooperative relationship." Read more.