In this week’s update, I’m going to touch on three different topics: budget update, the impact of the central office reorganization on our schools and the supervision of schools.

Budget Update

Earlier this week, I sent a message to staff about the impact of the Governor’s May Revision on our district’s budget. I said that our budget situation had improved. Our district’s estimated deficit has dropped from $80 million to $53 million. Even though this is an improvement, I reminded staff that we should not celebrate a $53 million cut to our district. We are still in a very difficult financial situation. The May Revise is not the final state budget. We must continue to advocate for an education budget that fully funds our district.

I also stated that I would recommend to the Board next Tuesday that we use these revised numbers to begin the process of personnel restorations. Based on a careful analysis of our budget situation, including a risk assessment if the state budget situation worsens, I am recommending that we restore the positions listed in Board Agenda Item, E.4. If you wish to see these restorations, click on the following link . The restorations to these positions are subject to Board approval on Tuesday.

Given the uncertainty about the final state budget we are not recommending the restoration of 206 probationary teachers or 223 classified positions at the school level, at this time. We will be reviewing our Special Education program to determine if restorations are required to ensure the implementation of our recent Special Education program evaluation. We will also be reviewing classified staffing at the school level to ensure that each school has the support it needs. These analyses may produce further restorations once the bumping process has been completed and we receive the final state budget.

Central Office Reorganization

One of my top priorities is to improve the performance of our central office. Customer service, efficiency, innovation…all the principles that help businesses succeed in highly competitive environments must become our guiding principles. San Diego Unified cannot afford, and I literally mean afford, to fail in a competitive environment. That is why I began my time in San Diego with the process of central office reorganization.

In tough budget times, the process of “right-sizing” is vital to our financial health. In my first week, I required each central office department to align its budget and personnel needs to its core mission. This was a difficult work and some departments had to go through this process more than once. After this work, we identified more than $17 million in cuts.

Many of these cuts fell on our central office employees. Most of these people have devoted their lives to public education. Many of them came from our schools.

Some people forget that central office employees who lose their positions may have a right to their last position in the district. This means that cuts at the top produce shifts in jobs and people throughout the system through a cascading process of bumping. At the end of this process, the cuts produce job losses among our employees with the least seniority.

I have a hard time believing that we cannot find a better process for our employees. As we look to the future beyond the current crisis, I hope that we can all embrace changes that are less disruptive in the lives of our employees and the work of our schools.

Supervision of Schools

The effective supervision of schools is my primary responsibility. In a system this size, our schools and principals deserve consistent support, supervision and informed evaluation.

That is the reason that one of my first changes was to shift from the old structure of seven area superintendents with four to seven support staff to a new structure of school supervision. This structure has four chief school officers (two elementary, one middle and one high), each with two to three school improvement officers reporting to them.

This shift resulted in a cost savings of approximately $300,000. It also reduced the supervisor to school ratio from approximately one supervisor to twenty-five schools (1:25) to one supervisor to fourteen schools (1:14).

Our ten school improvement officers and four chief school officers will collaborate to bring cohesion to our core mission of school improvement. They will function as a resource to our principals and ensure that central office departments are responding to our schools needs. They will be a regular presence in our schools and work with administrators to enhance the quality of school leadership throughout the district.

For information on the budget, please contact William Kowba at (619) 725-7561 or Sam Wong at (619) 725-7132. For more information on the central office reorganization or supervision of schools, please contact me at (619) 725-7076.

Terry B. Grier, Ed.D.

Our district’s API scores rose this year but not as much as other large districts in the state. The district is seeing a slow, continual improvement in student performance as measured by the API but the overall performance of our middle and high schools needs improvement. Overall, the district's API 2007 base API was 734, behind only Garden Grove (767) and San Francisco (764) among large districts in California. Full results are online at http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr08/yr08rel63.asp. A report will be made to the Board of Education at the June 10 meeting.

Linda Ridgeway, a Clerk Typist at Chesterton Elementary, and Art Marx, Classroom Assistant at Miller Elementary, have been selected the San Diego Unified School District’s Classified Man and Woman of the Year for 2008. The two represent all the best traits of district classified employees, those without teaching credentials. More than 100 classified employees, including custodians, office support staff, classroom assistants, and central office staff and managers, were honored at the district’s 25th Annual Classified Employee Recognition Ceremony held May 22. Read more.

Newsweek magazine’s annual list of America’s best public high schools includes 15 from the San Diego Unified School District— Preuss UCSD (6), San Diego High School for International Studies (71), University City (222), Serra (233), Mira Mesa (332), Point Loma (351), Scripps Ranch (358), Patrick Henry (361), Muir (430), San Diego School of Creative & Performing Arts (557), La Jolla (972), Madison (1036), San Diego High School of Business (1059), Mission Bay (1239), and Clairemont (1310). The schools are selected for doing the best job of preparing average students for college by offering rigorous curriculum. Scores are determined by dividing the number of Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) tests taken at a school by the number of graduating seniors. According to the magazine, there are approximately 27,000 public high schools in the United States. Read more.

The district has a long-standing tradition of recognizing students who in the top 1 percent of their graduating class, including valedictorians. This year, 90 students from the Class of 2008 were honored at the Salute to Excellence event held May 21 at SeaWorld. Each student received a medal of academic excellence and a commemorative pen provided by Mission Federal Credit Union. This year marked the first time that two $2000 Mission to Succeed scholarships, sponsored by Mission Federal Credit Union, were awarded. The scholarship recipients are Aana Myers from San Diego High School of Business and Brooke Hollyfield from University City High School. For more information, please contact Janet Delaney, director of community relations, at (619) 725-5593.

Join Principal Harlan Klein on Wednesday, May 28, from 5:30-8:30 p.m., at the future Innovation Middle School campus (currently CPMA), 5095 Arvinels Ave. (92117). The principal and staff from the new school will lead tours of the site and share their ideas and vision for the district’s newest Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) focus neighborhood school founded on technology-based instruction. Refreshments will be served, and students enrolled for 2008-09 will receive a complementary t-shirt. For more information, contact Harlan Klein, Principal, (858) 273-0294.

The Point Loma High School Navy JROTC Unit will be taking a field trip to the USS Midway on Friday, May 30. The students will explore the numerous educational opportunities aboard the famous United States Navy ship. They will eat with student parents who will be serving as chaperones along with Captain Tom Cunningham, Point Loma’s Senior Naval Science Instructor. For more information, contact Jan Kraklow, Point Loma High School, at (619) 223-3121 x1106.

Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) NOW program held a celebratory dinner on May 20 for nine Point Loma High 11th grade AVID students who completed the year-long college General Biology 101 course. In addition to earning four (4) units of Biology 101 credit, each student received a $200 scholarship. The students attended the PLNU class three days each week. Point Loma Nazarene University has partnered with various high schools to prepare students for higher education. Since its inception in 1998, 95 percent of the University NOW program students have entered college or a university. For more information, contact Jan Kraklow at (619) 223-3121.

As the culmination of their study of the Renaissance, seventh graders at Pacific Beach Middle School recently attended the first annual Renaissance Fair in Irwindale, Calif. In addition, Dr. E.N. Genovese, retired Chair of the Department of Classics, Humanities, and European Studies at San Diego State University, engaged seventh grade Seminar students in a reading from Apuleius' Metamorphosis in Latin. For more information, please contact Kirk Ankeney at 619-725-7335 or kankeney@sandi.net.

Toler has been serving students of the Clairemont area since 1958. To celebrate this milestone birthday, the community is invited to join in the festivities scheduled from 5-8 p.m. on Thursday, May 29. Activities include a science fair, silent auction, refreshments, music, and the burying of a time capsule. For more information contact Principal Harlan Klein at (858) 273-0294

Perkins Elementary will be hosting an international Spelling Bee on Friday, May 30, from 4-6 p.m., in the school auditorium. Thirty contestants in grades 1 through 6, representing Perkins Elementary, Instituto Juan Diego in Tijuana, and Instituto Defensores de Baja California, will participate. For more information, please call the Principal Fernando Hernandez at (619) 525-7482.

May 11-June 15, 2008, (Mother's Day through Father's Day) is Prepare Tomorrow's Parents month. Prepare Tomorrow's Parents is a national, non-profit organization formed in 1995 to promote and facilitate parenting education for children and teens. Parenting education for young people helps develop empathy, listening, problem-solving and coping skills and an understanding of child development and appropriate discipline. For information, resources and activities, visit www.preparetomorrowsparents.org.

A complete list of San Diego Unified School District Upcoming Events are posted on www.sandi.net.

• Honors Courses Give Way to AP Rigor
  The Washington Post, May 19
  WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Honors classes, once the pinnacle of pre-collegiate study, are gradually being eliminated at some of the region's top high schools, on the theory that the burgeoning Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs have rendered them obsolete. Read more.
  
  
• High schools require fundamental change
  When the modern high school was established in the early 20th century, only one-tenth of teens were expected to attend. Today's high schools educate many more students facing a variety of challenges, yet they remain unchanged in many ways, writes Bob Wise, who currently presides over the Alliance for Excellent Education. Educational Leadership
  
  
• Report: U.S. cities struggle with graduation rates
  On average, 51.8% of students in the 50 largest U.S. cities graduate from public high school, although 17 of those cities posted graduation rates below 50%, according to a America's Promise Alliance report. Suburban and rural-based public-high-school students were more likely to graduate than their peers in the city, according to researchers, who reported that from a nationwide perspective, 70% of all American students graduate on time. The Boston Globe/Associated Press (4/1), East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.) (4/1) , The Detroit News (4/1)
  
  
• Commentary: Tracking sets students up to fail
  Grouping students into high-, middle- or low-level courses depending on their perceived ability may make instruction easier for teachers, but may contribute to racial, ethnic and class-based achievement gaps, write Mary Hatwood Futrell and Joel Gomez of The George Washington University graduate school of education and human development. Educational Leadership
  
  
• Reshaping High Schools: High Schools at the Tipping Point
  Unfortunately, the education reforms of the past two decades in the United States have essentially ignored secondary schools, focusing instead on the elementary grades. The latest Educational Leadership examines the crisis in U.S. high schools, where barely 30% of rising freshmen can read at grade level, more than 1.2 million U.S. high school students drop out every year, and 42% of freshmen in community colleges and 20% of freshmen in public four-year institutions require remedial courses in reading, writing, or math to handle college-level work. Read more.
  
  
• Teacher Contract Would End Seniority
  The Washington Post, May 21
  WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Washington Teachers' Union is discussing a proposed three-year contract from the school system that would eliminate seniority, giving Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee more control in filling vacancies, a union member familiar with the talks said yesterday. Read more.
  
  
• Students Who Have Least Systematically Get the Least
  A study by the University of Washington's Center on Reinventing Public Education finds that policies to distribute education funds systematically give greater amounts to higher-income students and wealthier schools. "School Funding's Tragic Flaw" contends that "At every level of government-federal, state, and local-policymakers give more resources to students who have more resources, and less to those who have less. These funding disparities accumulate as they cascade through multiple layers of government, with the end result being massive disparities between otherwise similar schools." Read more.
  
  
• Minnesota's Black Students Suspended Six Times as Often as White Students
  Minnesota school districts suspend their black students at a rate six times as high as that for white students, reports James Walsh in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. While a racial disparity in suspension rates exists nationally, Minnesota's is twice the national average. This is particularly salient given that Minnesota has one of the nation's largest achievement gaps between black and white students as measured by test scores and graduation rates. "I am of a mind that if you separate a kid from the classroom, learning stops," said Philip Miner, director of community initiatives for the Minnesota Private College Council. "When we overlay that reality with the demographic data that suggest too few students of color graduate from high school, how do you reconcile the fact that we are bumping so many kids out of class and breaking their link with academic progress?" Read more.
  
  
• Rules or Not, Some Schools Don't Restructure
  

  A 2007 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found that many schools mandated for restructuring under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have avoided taking meaningful action, writes Robert Tomsho in the Wall Street Journal. NCLB requires that schools failing to make adequate yearly progress on state proficiency tests in English and mathematics must submit to mandatory measures that range from state takeover to replacement of teachers.

  However, what the GAO found was that 40 percent of schools required to restructure - 1,300 out of 99,000 U.S. public schools in 2006-07 - have taken no corrective action. Their principals reportedly felt that in their interpretation of NCLB, restructuring wasn't necessary, or that their school district had decided against it. Another 40 percent elected to make "other" changes in school governance, allowable but unspecified under NCLB. Critics have called the "other change" option a loophole that facilitates inaction. NCLB doesn't require states to report specific steps taken by schools once they have fallen into the restructuring category. Read more.
  
  
• EdSource Report
  EdSource released a new report “Raising African American Student Achievement: California Goals, Local Outcomes” this week. The report - which is well worth reading - can be found at http://edsource.org/pdf/AAachievement08.pdf .