California's Children

The Mission of California's Children

In California, 20% of the nation's foster children -- over 60,000 --   children are in foster care. A child is born into poverty every 5 minutes. Over 2 million kids -- 23.4% of the state's children -- live in poverty; over 1 million live in "deep poverty" -- the equivalent of a family of four living on $2   a day. In the last three years, 1 million children (7%) in the state have been affected by foreclosure; 1.2 million children have at least one parent who has lost his/her job.  and the Children's Defense Fund tells us a child is abused or neglected every 6 minutes. In California, a child dies before his or her first birthday every 3 hours. A child or teen is killed by gunfire every 20 hours. At some time during the year, over 200,000 children between the ages of 12-17 will be homeless. Our juvenile justice system is antiquated, and our public education system is faltering.

 The challenge is clear.  What's also clear is that, in the hundreds of local and state-wide public and private non-profit organizations, California -- with over 10 million children -- has a host of experienced and compassionate professionals, volunteers, and families -- you -- who are dedicated to meeting the challenge.

What's missing? Collaboration, cooperation, and communication.

In other words: talking together, working together, giving up territory and power to achieve our mission...which is, dare we forget: Creating a safe world of love and laughter, where each child, unique and respected, has hope and opportunity.

So, our mission: to promote your programs and events, give you an independent forum to voice your opinions, ideas, and concerns; raise new issues; report and reward.  Let's talk...and then, let's act.

SFUSD pulls trans-K off the fall '12 school schedule

San Francisco Unified School District announced Wednesday that it will not offer transitional kindergarten (trans-K) in fall 2012 because of the uncertainties over the state budget. SFUSD will be the first school district to pull the plug on new grade, making the decision just 2 days before the deadline for families to submit first-round applications for school placement, reports Jill Tucker of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Trans-K, established by the Kindergarten Readiness Act, is for children whose birthdays fall between September 2 and December 2; currently, these children can enroll in Kindergarten or wait a year before starting school. The bill, SB 1381 by state Senator Simitian (D-Palo Alto), was passed by the legislature in September 2010.

Governor Jerry Brown has now proposed pulling all funding for trans-K in his budget for 2012-13, putting school districts in the difficult position of being required to plan for a program that may not be funded. As the Brown budget is in the proposal stage, the legislature can still vote to fund transitional kindergarten -- but districts won't have the results until July 1 (if the budget is passed on time),  leaving very little time to prepare for a new program.

An interesting comment by "el" regarding Educated Guess's Kathyrn Baron's discussion of the SFUSD decision, made the point:

For the record...the idea of transitional kindergarten as a separate program for kids with fall birthdays only is already problematic for small schools. Our school is expecting 30 kindergarteners next year, only one of which is the TK age. As I’ve watched kids go through over the years, I don’t see that readiness or achievement is especially well correlated to birth month in our community. My feeling is that this legislation removed educational flexibility from schools and parents rather than creating much benefit. The option to have kids repeat a year of kindergarten already existed, as did the option for schools to group kindergarteners by academic readiness.

If trans-K is allocated funding, SFUSD says it will offer the program at two of its early education schools, McLaren and Havard, but for now, district officials say they want to give parents time to find alternate schooling options for their children.

 

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

 

It's official: $8 million in increased funding for CalWORKs Stage 3

Contractors, administrators and providers of CalWORKs Stage 3 (non-federally funded subsidized child care for the final stage of welfare-to-work) received the following notice yesterday from Camille Maben, at right, director of the Child Development Division (CDD) of the California Department of Education (CDE):

There have been reports in the field that a possible infusion of funding for Stage 3 could be imminent. We would like to confirm that $8 million in increased funding for Stage 3 is being identified as we speak, and the California Department of Education (CDE) will release details on this increase and the impact it will have on individual Stage 3 contractors as soon as possible. This funding will be a great assistance to those contractors experiencing disproportionate Stage 3 enrollment growth, and will hopefully allow advocacy for full funding of Stage 3 enrollment growth to continue.

 CDE staff are reviewing caseload and expenditure reports to quickly determine which Stage 3 agencies have the greatest need for additional funding. We are committed to providing information as soon as possible regarding the impact these additional funds could have to your contracts, and intend to inform agencies next week about what minimum amount they will be able to expect as an augmentation to their contracts. This augmentation should allow impacted agencies to adjust your disenrollment plans and keep more families in your programs.

 We are delighted to bring you this information, but are sure this also generates many questions. We will hold a conference call on Monday afternoon [January 30, 2012] at 3:00 p.m. to provide additional information and answer questions. If you have additional information to share about your agency’s Stage 3 shortfall, this issue will also be discussed Monday....

CA Supreme Court rules in favor of Los Altos' Bullis charter: district to blame

UPDATE, January 25, 2012: The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bullis Charter School on Wednesday; it agreed with the decision of the appellate court for the Sixth District that the charter was not allocated adequate space under Propostion 39 by Los Altos School District, reports Sharon Naguchi of the Mercury News.

The Supreme Court also denied a request to prevent other charter schools from citing the appellate ruling when requesting facilities from local school authorities.

UPDATE, November 21, 2011: Los Altos School District (LASD) announced its decision last Wednesday to petition the state Supreme Court for a rehearing in the 6th District Court of Appeal after a 4-0 vote by the school board in a closed session Monday, reported Nicole Baldocchi of Los Altos Patch:

District officials argue the legal expenses are worth it to maintain the board's discretion in what it can legally provide to the charter school. Fighting the appeal in a higher court is projected to cost about $50,000 to $60,000, trustee Doug Smith said in an interview Tuesday....If it doesn't appeal, the district might be forced to spend "millions of dollars in construction" for Bullis facilities, trustee Tamara Logan explained.

The district  contended, via a written statement bearing the names of all five trustees, that the state appeals court had decided that districts must follow a strict formula for measuring space to establish reasonable equivalence, contrary to previous decisions on Prop. 39 space allocation.

"As much as this court might wish to cast this process as strictly formulaic, in practice, the allocation of resources under the standard of "reasonably equivalent" does not neatly fit into a by-the-numbers approach," said Board president Bill Cooper in the written statement.

"The decision not only impairs school districts from exercising their judgment, balance interests, and make decisions in the best interests of all students, it provides a windfall to charter schools, affording them greater space than afforded students attending district schools," the district announcement read.

This is not just in the interest made of our 4,500 children," said school board member Tammy Logan. "... this ruling was very broad and would have impacted the 95% in the state that don’t attend charter schools."

 Previously reported on this subject:

PFCs work against vax immunities in kids, Harvard research shows

Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), commonly used in Teflon, stain-resistant carpeting, rain gear, fast food packaging, and microwave popcorn bags, may hinder children’s immune responses to vaccinations, finds a study, "Serum Vaccine Antibody Concentrations in Children Exposed to Perfluorinated Compounds," reports Alice Park of Time.

Researchers, led by Philippe Grandjean, at left, head of research for environmental medicine, University of Southern Denmark and adjunct professor, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, analyzed data on 578 children born at National Hospital in the Faroe Islands (Denmark) during 1999-2001. The location was chosen because PFC levels there were on the rise in drinking water and fish -- and those levels were similar to the ones seen in American children who are exposed through household dust.

Researchers measured maternal pregnancy serum and the childrens' serum at age 5 to determine prenatal and postnatal exposure to PFCs. Children were then tested for immune response to tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations at ages 5 and 7.

The study was published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) [emphases ours].

When the researchers compared the participants’ antibody levels to the levels of PFCs in their blood, they were surprised to find that higher levels of PFCs were linked with a lower immune response.

In fact, kids whose PFC levels were twice as high had half the amount of antibodies to diphtheria and tetanus, compared with children who tested lower for PFCs. At age 7, kids with a twofold increase in PFC levels were also two to four times more likely to show an immune response that was so low that it was no longer clinically protective.

“We were kind of shocked when we saw those numbers,” says Grandjean.  “This is the first study to say that by [exposing children to these chemicals], we are screwing up a major aspect of disease prevention in our society. I’ve been in the field for quite a while, and this is a very strong signal.”

Other studies have found similar effects on the immune system associated with environmental toxins such as PCBs and dioxin, but the PFC effect on immunity seems to be stronger, says Grandjean. That’s a particular concern since PFCs have a half-life in the body of at least four years, meaning that it takes four years to reduce by half the amount of PFCs absorbed at any given time.

The scientists also looked at how prenatal exposure to the chemicals might influence infants’ immunity, and found that a twofold increase of PFCs in an expectant mother’s blood was linked to a 39% lower concentration of antibodies in 5-year-olds (before their booster), compared with those whose moms had lower levels of PFCs.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

Pizza and fries are in; salt's out: new school lunch regs from USDA

January 26, 2011: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) rolled out the new changes to the National School Lunch Program yesterday, the first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in more than 15 years, reports Mary Clare Jalonick of the Associated Press.

Sec'y of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and First Lady Michelle Obama ( at left, eating lunch with students from Parklawn Elementary, Alexandria, VA), announced the changes that begin to take effect this September and will be phased in over a 3-year period. The changes to school lunches will eventually include regulations regarding in-school breakfast and snacks.

While pizza will be still be classified a vegetable and fries will not be limited, (thanks to the National Potato Council and frozen food companies who spent $5.6 million lobbying Congress to pass a bill in November 2011 prohibiting the disqualification), pizza will be made with healthier ingredients.

...Entire meals will have calorie caps for the first time and most trans fats will be banned. Sodium will gradually decrease over a 10 year period. Milk will have to be low in fat and flavored milks will have to be nonfat.

According to The Hill:

The cost... [6 cents a meal increase] will be partially offset by other provisions in the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, including "a la carte foods" revenue that should produce "over $1 billion a year in new food revenues beginning in school year 2011-2012."

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/24/4213112/school-lunches-to-have-more-veggies.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/24/4213112/school-lunches-to-have-more-veggies.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/24/4213112/school-lunches-to-have-more-veggies.html#storylink=cpy