California's Children

PTA/Munger tax initiative qualifies for the November ballot

May 8, 2012: The California State PTA's  annual convention begins tomorrow at the Anaheim Convention Center. To give momemtum to the gathering, PTA officials announced yesterday that the tax initiative it has sponsored, Our Children, Our Future, 2012, bank-rolled by Molly Munger, has collected enough signatures and will qualify for the ballot in November.

On the conference agenda:

• Keynote by Rosalind Wiseman, at left, anti-bullying expert and author of "Mean Girls"
  
  
• Keynote by University of California president Mark Yudof
  
  
• Guest appearance by Debbie Allen, actress, dancer and choreographer, who is an advocate for art and music in classrooms

• Discussion of Our Children, Our Future, 2012.

• Edsource symposium examining the impact of the state budget deficit on schools. 

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

LA MTA offers free rides for LAUSD field trips

February 17, 2012: Dwindling school resources have meant no more field trips for students in many districts. In partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) will now offer free rides for field trips under a new program, proposed by Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa and officially unveiled Wednesday, reports Ari Bloomekatz for the LA Times.

Metro will take groups of up to 40 students (including adult chaperones) for free during non-rush hours (Monday to Friday 10am--2pm) to 19 approved destinations around the city, including the California Science Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Villaraigosa, Los Angeles City Councilmember and Metro Board Member Jose Huizar, and Metro CEO Art Leahy were joined by Principal Jose Posada and 20 students from Eagle Rock Elementary School to celebrate the official start of the program who traveled there using the program. (above)

 “Because Metro buses and trains have unused capacity during school hours, making free transit available to students is a win-win policy.” said Villaraigosa.

Teachers must reserve their field trip online at least 3 weeks in advance; there are only 5 trips available per week. The class must complete an online curriculum on bus safety, rules and regulations beforehand and bus passes will be mailed to the school one week prior to travel. Students are limited to one field trip per year.

The disadvantage is the late start: 10am is pushing it for most school field trips, giving the students only 4 hours to travel to and from the destination; however, Metro has made it easy to get the bus passes without teachers making a separate trip to pick them up. There is no required number of adults to children, but Metro staff will not be responsible for chaperoning.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

Photo: Luis Inzunza/Metro

3 youth orgs tapped for $125K James Irvine awards

February 16, 2012: The James Irvine Foundation announced its recipients for its $125K 2012 Leadership Awards on February 13. The award honors innovators who have solved some of the state's most difficult problems. Three of this year's winners have had a direct impact on children, as John Fensterwald reported in Educated Guess:

Carolyn Laub, executive director of the Gay-Straight Alliance Network (San Francisco); Christa Gannon, the executive director of Fresh Lifelines for Youth in Milpitas (Santa Clara) and Olis Simmons, executive director of the Youth UpRising center in East Oakland....

Carolyn Laub: The Gay-Straight Alliance Network was founded in 1998 to fight homophobia in schools. The number of GSA clubs in middle and high schools in California has now grown from 40 to more than 850 with 13,000 to 15,000 members; there is a GSA club in 53% of all high schools, including 8 in the Central Valley.

 

 Olis Simmons: Youth UpRising, Oakland, was founded in 2004; it is a $7 million (annual budget) organization that provides mentoring, academic help, job training (200 youth graduate and find work each year), art and music classes, and an on-site health clinic for 3,000 young people aged 13 to 24, all free of charge. Is also runs four enterprises that employ 45 youth: a restaurant and catering service, a multimedia production team, a janitorial company, and a data processing group.

Christa Gannon: Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY), Milpitas, is a 13-year-old program that offers a 12-week program aimed at preventing at-risk youth from re-offending; 2,000 youth, 14-18, on probation or incarcerated, participate each year in the program which covers courses in self-motivation, life choices, and the legal system.

FLY’s law programs teach about the law and the consequences of crime, using role-plays, debates, and mock city council hearings to build skills in anger management, problem solving, empathy, and resisting negative peer pressure.  There is also an adult mentoring program and a leadership program. 

Each year, 70 youth are chosen for a more intense yearlong leadership program with 2,500 hours of community service. Its record of preventing recidivism through the Leadership program is impressive (an 85% success rate); the cost savings are impressive as well: $9,000 for the program versus $100,000 per year in Juvenile Hall. Gannon expects to introduce the program in other parts of the state in the next decade.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

8,197 teacher projects funded by 143K people thru donorschoose.org: LAUSD

February 15, 2012: The Wasserman Foundation, a family educational charity established in 1952 by Lew Wasserman, a movie studio mogul, and his wife Edie, in partnership with Los Angeles Unified School District, has donated $4 million to fund classroom projects in the district through donorschoose.org, an online charity where public school teachers can submit requests for supplies for classroom projects, and donors can choose which to support.

The Wasserman Foundation, currently run by grandson Casey Wasserman, at left, donated $5.3 million to LAUSD in 2009; the recent campaign brings the total donation to $9.3 million.

Wasserman's $4 million donation funded a total of 8,197 LAUSD classroom projects in less than 3 months.

Berkeley USD profits $250K from Doritos Super Bowl ad competition

From the Daily Californian in a blog post by Soumya Karlamangla, and reported by Craig Cheslog on caeducation daily, the on-line newspaper released from the state Department of Education:

Skyrocketed to fame by the song “I’m on a Boat,” the comedy troupe The Lonely Island (at left) is now making a splash in local waters with its promise of $250,000 to the Berkeley Unified School District.....

The Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl competition allowed consumers to submit 30-second commercials, one of which [aired] during the Super Bowl... The Lonely Island had originally planned to submit an ad that would also air, but decided to give up their 30-second slot to another consumer-created ad.

As a reward for The Lonely Island’s generosity, the Doritos brand vowed to give a quarter of a million dollars to the ... group’s charity of choice — which was the Berkeley Unified School District [which all three members of Lonely Island attended]....

Writing last week in Berkeleyside, Lance Knobel reported that his call was the first notification BUSD had about the donation:

“It sounds like they haven’t spoken to BUSD,” said Mark Coplan, the school district’s spokesperson. “Major gifts are typically in the $5,000 to $20,000 range." Coplan said the largest previous gift he could remember was around $76,000 from Berkeley Schools Now at the time of the Bush tax cut.

Coplan told Superintendant Bill Huyett about the donation after the Berkeleyside call. ”I am really pleased to hear that they have found a way to give back to the Berkeley schools, where I hear they actually began crafting their very original brand of humor,” Huyett said. “It is always wonderful when Berkeley High alumni are successful in reaching for their dreams, but it is even more significant when they reach out to give back to to the schools that obviously played an important role in their lives. I only hope that we will have the opportunity to thank them properly.”...

Coplan passed on an anecdote from late Berkeley High teacher Tim Moellering, who had recalled a parent-teacher conference with Samberg’s parents. At one point, when Andy’s father was concerned about his son’s study habits, Moellering remarked, “I have to say, Andy is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.” To which Andy’s father replied, “That’s great, but it’s not going to pay the bills!”