Monday, August 29, 2005

About that Board Meeting ( And Other Concerns...)

None of us were able to make it to the VAPAC Board Meeting held last night. If anybody has any word, please let us know.

Additionally, parents who have children enrolled in public schools are entitled to notification when one of their children's teachers lack a proper credential. Additionally, the Williams Settlement ensures that schools have adequate instructional material to go around. Interestingly, charter schools are allowed to opt out or in depending on where their funding for instructional materials comes from. For more information look here:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/ce/wc/index.asp


To look up a teacher's credential, go here:

https://teachercred.ctc.ca.gov/teachers/index.jsp


Once again, The Bee is urging the district to stay the course in its development of small charter schools while simultaneously pointing out that 2 of the districts small charter schools have been nomadic (probably due to a lack of planning on the District's part; of course, the Bee would never say so). It's interesting how the Bee continuously weighs in on educational matters while disregarding any coherent or reasoned critical inquiry into these matters not to mention encouraging the district to ignore sound business practices in the process. ( Let's see, according to the Bee: Project Stabilization Agreement -- Bad Business Idea; Creating More small Charter Schools -- Good Business Idea. At least the district researched the Stabilization Agreement; After two years the Bee seems intent on proclaiming the small schools experiment a success worthy of more taxpayer money without similar research and evaluation.) Nevertheless, the Bee feels that these small schools "need to start telling their story to the public now." And who has a better story to tell then the parents and students of VAPAC.

Write to the editorial board here: opinion@sacbee.com

Send a letter to the editor here: jhughes@sacbee.com

The education writer, Lauren Rosenhall, can be reached here: lrosenhall@sacbee.com.


Get the word out.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just checked the SCUSD.EDU Website and saw that they need 7 new teachers a week before school starts. That's roughly 2/5 the entire staff. Who's coming back from last year?

30/8/05 08:41  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't know. Just saw that they posted two more today. Could be because of higher than expected enrollment (doubtful); most likely because teachers that they wanted to hire need to be rehired every year for either lack of a credential or lack of experience. Of course, they could have just planned poorly.

Some of the students from the open house said that Thomas was not returning. Anybody know about that?

31/8/05 12:31  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was at VAPAC the other day to get a copy of my daughters transcript. No luck. I saw no change in the chaos and the elevator still does not work! The place is a bigger joke than it was last year.

I saw a wanted poster at the grocery store yesterday. Wow, updated and in color!!! Rumor has it that the lapdag will have her own wanted poster soon.

31/8/05 18:52  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sounds like the District will be monitoring the Dysfunction at VAPAC very closely. There are a few returning staff that will keep the DO aware of the atmosphere there. Also a large number of parents that will be watching closely.

2/9/05 10:44  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is ridiculous!! The district has created this mess and allowed it to continue. What's more, they refuse to clean it up, sacrificing our children's educational futures. Now they and the lapdog are telling parents that teachers who left were let go because of incompetance. Bull!!! I'm P.O'd that the district has the allowed the DLC's to get away with this. Any parent who had to deal with Ms. Seigert or Ms. Spilman or Mr. Fox and then the DLC's knows the truth. They let the best they have leave and are asking parents to settle for much less. And the DLC's are the one's who are using and abusing student's trust in this matter with the lies that they spread. I've heard that Seigert and Melcher are at Rosemont and that's where I'm taking my kids on Tuesday...

2/9/05 16:34  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, I understand why all the quality staff left. After attending the open house or whatever it was I realize that my kids are not going to VAPAC. The schedules are wrong and classes are not going to meet my childs needs. I have GATE kids and they need teachers and curric that can meet their needs. There is no one left there that can address kids who are bright. There are no teachers there that have the credentials or have demonstrated in the past that they have any ability to teach the standards they are assigned to. Also, these teachers have no idea about classroom control. I'm not allowing my kids to go to VAPAC, but I will be watching everything that goes on there. The DLC's are a waste of the taxpayers money. I will help expose their dishonesty and lack of morals. I am very active in the community and am spreading the word that VAPAC is a bad place and needs to be shut down. The dlc's are criminal, dishonest, unethical, immoral and they do not have the intelligence to understand how stupid they are.

4/9/05 10:23  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is not true that all the teachers remaining at VAPAC lack credentials and are terrible teachers. Some of them are fully credentialed. A few are truly fabulous teachers. The teachers on Emergency Permits may not be very good teachers. They have the potential to be better teachers, but how can that potential be realized with the current administrator doing the staff evaluations?

Why did the administration of VAPAC wait until the last minute to hire more teachers? They have known for months that teachers were leaving. A good administrator would have started immediately to find replacements for those teachers. Also, why does Sac City Unified accept teachers with only Emergency Permits and why are they part of the pool sent to VAPAC? Have you checked into who will be teaching your student at the school you have chosen instead of VAPAC? Please don't kid yourself that Sac City doesn't allow other schools to use teaching staff with Emergency Permits or Long-Term Subs or college interns. Worst of all (for high school students) is that Sac City is allowed to hire teachers to teach outside their credential's subject area.

I don't blame anyone for not sending their student to VAPAC, especially if the student isn't totally dedicated to the performing arts. But if your student loves the arts where else in Sac City Unified can he/she go? My student was accepted at West Campus, but didn't want to go there because of the lack of performing arts classes. My student is a "GATE" student, too. Call Sac City Associate Superintendent Susan Miller and tell her your concerns about VAPAC. Her number is 643-9079. Sac City Unified has the power to relocate, reassign, or remove VAPAC's administrator.

Don't forget St. HOPE and Sacramento Charter High School when you think about taxpayer's money being wasted. VAPAC wouldn't be a charter, wouldn't be at the Army Depot if Sac City Unified hadn't closed Sac High and turned it into a charter.

4/9/05 20:44  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The media is a biased ass munch. If they ever said anything in whole and in truth, it would mean that Satan himself will have found his way back into the graces of God. I'm not very religious, but I don't think Satan wants that.

And about SCUSD... California has crappy enough education as it is, we don't need to be screwed over anymore than we are. California is ranked # 43 in education. We are a DUMB state. We don't need any more greedy politicians making Sacramento more ignorant by not providing enough money where it's needed. But it happens.

If you want to know more state rankings: http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/package.jsp?name=fte/smartstates/smartstates

See for yourself.

--JoEy

6/9/05 15:46  

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