Rowena or Rebecca

Clearly I have not yet watched the City Council meeting yet.  I generally save that for the day after when I turn it on in the background while doing some work that allows for multitasking of that sort.   So instead, first a few feel good type notices.

First up!  CASA Alameda will be hosting a Town Hall tomorrow, 6:30 p.m. at Independence Plaza with the purpose to:

CELEBRATE the progress Alameda has made in the last year

CHALLENGE Alamedans to build on those successes and engage more of the community, and

CHAMPION some great Alamedans who have shown leadership locally and globally

Also, at the meeting will be Caitlin Grey, a Senior at Alameda High School, who was selected as one of only 16 U.S. students to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference this December in Copenhagen, Denmark.   She will be attending as the youth delegate for the Sierra Student Coalition.    However, she needs some help to offset the cost to attend the event and need to raise $2500 by December.   If you would like to help Caitlin, you can send checks made out to “Caitlin Grey” and mail them to 1422 Gibbons Drive, Alameda, CA 94501.   But she will be speaking at the Town Hall, great time to send a few ducats to help out an awesome Alameda youth.

And at the exact same time Alternatives in Action will be hosting its fall open house, in case you are interested in seeing what the program is all about.  They are located at the former Woodstock Elementary site.

And speaking of school type stuff, if you have not been checking out Susan Davis’s contributions to In Alameda, you really should.  She is doing a phenomenal job.  Her latest post about inter-district students (aka kids that don’t live in Alameda) is not to be missed.    She points out that the latest offering from the crack news team over at Action Alameda —  which asserts that the East End parents should be allowing more  inter-district students of color into their schools in order to prove to people that they aren’t racists — failed to provide the tidbit that inter-district students generally only fill seats where there is capacity to add additional kids.     And in the fairly recent past, given the skirmishes over lottery vs first-come-first-serve systems, the East End has not really had the capacity to accept additional inter-district students in order to, in the words of Action Alameda, “put their children where their mouth is.”

Transference

The newest member to the In Alameda blogging team, Susan Davis, has a wonderful debut post with an appropriately Halloween themed flair.   It’s all about Halloween in Alameda, Alameda Unified School District Master Plan meetings, and out of district student transfers.

Excerpt:

In the ensuing decade, of course, I’ve learned that such xenophobia is not so rare on the island. Still, I was surprised to hear hints of it at the October 6th Master Plan community meeting held by AUSD. The topic had been potential cost-saving strategies for the district — including furloughs, changes in class-size reduction, and allowing off-island children to attend under-enrolled schools here. Following the presentation, Boardmember Trish Spencer explained that she thinks AUSD should stop accepting kids from the off the island, “because our parents don’t want their parcel taxes going to educate children who don’t live here.”

A Chipman off the old block

As reported by Michele Ellson, at Tuesday night’s School Board meeting a group of parents and teachers presented the School Board with an application to turn Chipman charter.

So, full disclosure, I am a member of the Founding Board for the new charter school which will be named the Academy of Alameda.    When I was asked to join the Academy board I wanted to be assure that  –  because,  let’s face it,   I tend to be skeptical about most charter schools  –  the critiques that I had of Nea/ACLC/NCLC would not be duplicated at the Chipman conversion charter.    The major ones I had were (1) diversity reflective of the school district and (2) the charter not being a financial drain on the school district.

You gotta have faith

Rin Kelly’s article in the East Bay Express and Michele Ellson interview with one of the Lesson 9 litigantsseems to have been timed almost perfectly.    Rin K. was only able to scratch the surface of the organization representing the parents suing the school district over Lesson 9, the Pacific Justice Institute and Michele E. presenting a very thought-provoking article with a Muslim parent who has done much to advocate for Alameda Muslims in the schools.

When I say, scratch the surface on PJI, I really mean scratch the surface because these folks are seemingly everywhere.   And now that they have opened a satellite office in Oakland, it appears that they are not going anywhere anytime soon.  As an aside, why is an article about a unicycle basketball team longer than an article about a conservative legal group who makes its business suing school districts and has placed a big fat target on the San Francisco Bay Area?  Priorities EBX.  Priorities.

Children will listen

After the brouhaha over President Obama’s benign speech to the children — one, I might add that School Board member Trish Spencer recommended that all parents and kids watch — I found an interesting parellel between the overreaction to the Obama speech as this whole Lesson 9 business.

Republicans went around accusing the President of trying to “indoctrinate students to his socalist agenda.”   Much like the proponents of recalling the three School Board members are going around accusing the Board Members of trying to “indoctrinate” students to the LGBT agenda.

To S.E.R.V.E. and protect

File this one under, what the…?   Lucinda Ryan over at the Alameda Journal wrote up a piece about the S.E.R.V.E. group and this caught my eye as a quote from the anointed leader of the group:

The Rev. Dion Evans said lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people deserve love and respect. But, he said, schools are “not for socializing and they’re certainly not for indoctrination.”

Really?   Schools aren’t for socializing?   So, I imagine that Dion Evans’s child sits in a corner at recess not socializing and busily practicing his/her studies.   And during lunch when all the kids are gabbing together and swapping food, Dion Evans expects his child to sit in solitude.  Not socializing.   If one really truly believes that one of the primary functions of school does not involve socializing (learning how to play well with others, making friends, etc…) then you might as well be home schooling your child because socialization is inevitable in school — public or private or even the vacation Bible variety.   The one memory I have from vacation Bible school was playing red rover, learning biblical stories is sort of a fuzzy distant afterthought.

Your S.E.R.V.E.

After reading Michele Ellson’s account of what went down at the S.E.R.V.E. Alameda town hall, I found the quote attributed to Dion Evans to be strange considering the comments he made during the School Board meeting.   As commenters to Michele’s post mentioned, taking Dion Evans’s statement at face value it would appear that he did not know that the school district is actively working toward creating new curriculum to do precisely what he wants — and what he claims his group wants — which is to develop curriculum to explicitly cover all the protected classes.

But here he is addressing the school board about the new curriculum and expressing a desire to all “work together” toward something everyone can be proud of.   (sorry about the skipping audio, he says something about how it’s not what Alamedans want in regards to the current curriculum)

Parental advisory explicit content

Over the weekend S.E.R.V.E. Alameda hosted a town hall meeting at the Library.   I didn’t go so I don’t know what happened.  

But to back up a bit, Michele Ellson gave a really good overview of what happened at last week’s School Board meeting, but I wanted to go back and highlight some of the stranger moments during the discussion around the Caring Schools Curriculum and Lesson 9.  

The agenda item that night was to discuss the Caring Schools Curriculum Support Guide and how the curriculum would be implemented as well as discussing the plan to move forward with creating a new curriculum to replace the Caring Schools Curriculum to better address issues of bullying.   Here is a clip of Superintendent Kristen Vital explaining just that.

Insert Facts of Life theme here

I finally have the last response from Ron Mooney:

Simply put, proponents of the recall have their facts wrong. Based on feedback I received, my vote represents the will of the majority of our families and residents – not the opinion of a small, vocal group. I voted to make sure our schools are inclusive and safe for all children and families. I voted to support our teachers and administration, and to provide the tools they need to educate our youth. Our action will strengthen the school’s existing anti-bullying curriculum, which includes race and ethnicity, gender, disability, nationality and religion. We approved this update to the curriculum with just one additional 45-minute lesson for the entire school year.  I will continue to support the best education possible and safe schools for all and hope you also will demonstrate your support by rejecting this petition.

Tam it

JKW posted Tracy Jensen’s response to the recall this morning and I just received Niel Tam’s:

As a member of the Alameda Unified School District School Board, it is my responsibility to think about the good of our children, teachers and parents.  Providing a safe inclusive school environment is a top priority.

There is a critical inaccuracy in this petition for recall.  The School District already had in place a program to address racial and ethnicity, gender, disability, nationality and religion.  After a number of community meetings to hear parent concerns for and against this curriculum, I voted to strengthen the current school district’s anti-bullying curriculum by adding an additional 45 minutes lesson at the recommendation of staff.  A majority of parents and the community were in favor of expanding anti-bullying messages.  Those who are opposed to the recommendation are spearheading this recall of myself and two others who also voted for the additional lesson.  I support teachers in providing tools to educate our children so that discrimination on any level is unacceptable.  I hope you will show support by rejecting this petition.

If you haven’t yet signed the petition opposing the recall…here it is…