November 4th, 2008
Election Day
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Coming Too Soon |
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October 21st, 2008
6pm
School Board Meeting |
Coming Soon |
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October 7th, 2008
6pm
School Board Meeting |
Coming Soon |
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October 5th, 2008
1-3PM
TOHS PAC Conejo Council PTA: "Candidate Debate" |
Coming Soon |
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September 25th, 2008
My Interview 5:40PM
District Office
The California School Employees Association (CSEA), the union that represents non-teaching employees. Interview the Candidates |
Coming Soon |
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September 24th, 2008
7-10PM
http://www.politicalcentrists.com/?q=node/81 California Association of Political Centrists, the Political Science Department of CLU and the Ventura County Star are sponsoring a Candidate Forum |
Coming Soon |
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September 24th, 2008
4:30-7PM
Sunset Hills CC Conejo Valley Association of Realtors: "Meet the Candidates and Your Representatives" |
Coming Soon |
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September 23rd, 2008
CVUSD Candidate Information Meeting
4:00 pm at the district |
Coming Soon |
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September 16th, 2008
School Board Meeting |
This was a very interesting meeting. The two main issues that I saw were redrawing the boundaries and Performance Review of our schools.
The boundaries changes discussed were for "the currently closed" (I oppose this) Meadows Elementary School and for redrawing the boundaries necessary to accomodate the new magnet school going in at Manzanita Elementary School. It is interesting to note that the most favored plan to redraw Meadows boundaries to have the children go to other schools will involve either buying or leasing trailers to go in at these new schools. And don't forget the cost of bussing. So instead of redoing the boundaries so that more children could go to Meadows, the board voted to close meadows and buy some trailers because the selected transfer schools are too crowded to absorb the displaced kids. Their is also lobbying going on by certain board members to get certain groups to transfer in to Westlake Hills as opposed to sending them to Ladera. You may want to come to the next board meeting to lobby where your child may go. The Manzanita boundaries are also quite confusing and it is interesting that they are taking away this neighborhood school and only allowing 100 of the current Manzanita students to have priority to attend the new magnet at there own school site. The board is giving 50 priority spots each to Meadows and University children. The rest will be school choiced at after the priority lottery.
The performance review made it look like we are doing great, until you realize that the state is now going to severly raise its targets for proficiency requirements. These are where a certain percent of the students need to have met proficiency standards which are equivalent to a C grade. The states requirements, which have been more or less flat for the last 7 years are now set to steeply rise. Of course, our schools are currently all over the 30 some percent proficiency now required (that's 30% of the students have managed to make a C level of proficiency), and our district is on taget to meet the 45% proficiency levels next year. After that the projections do not look good. One board member asked if the state would start to relax these standards so that we could make our future targets. Hmm. I think it may be better to ask how are we going to start dramatically improving our schools so that we make the future targets. |
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September 11th, 2008
Ventura County
Office of Education: School Board Candidate Academy
Part II.
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This was another great discussion about Budgets, the Brown Act, and Academic Accountabilty in the form of the federal program, Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) and the state program, Academic Performance Index (API). Did you know that the performance increases demanded by these programs went from requiring only about 10% proficiency in English and Math to only roughly 45% proficiency in 7 years? And keep in mind proficiency is only about a grade level of C. We should have demanded better from our schools than to let 7 years go by to only achieve 45% proficiency. We are now required to go from these 45% levels to 100% proficienct in the next 5 years. |
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September 4th, 2008
Ventura County
Office of Education: School Board Candidate Academy
Part I
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Attended the teacher's School Board Academy and found it very insightful. Enjoyed meeting a few of the other candidates. We learned that the Board Members' job is to plan and provide oversight, whereas the Superintendent's, and his/her staff's job is to execute the plan.
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August 28, 2008
Teacher's Union Interview |
Interview with the Teacher's Union:
This is a 20 minute interview with 5 voting members of the Teacher's Union and a few others as well. The interview actually went quite well, but you never know what they are looking for exactly in a candidate who they will endorse. I imagine it is difficult. I only hope they had not made up their minds about any candidate before the interview. I wish they would post all the responses (see my response above) from all the candidates as well as post the video that they took of the interviews on the web for everyone to see. |
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August 13, 2008
Board Dream Begins |
Filed paperwork to become a candidate for School Board Member for the Conejo Valley Unifed School District |
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