Below are more details in a news release earlier this month.

Typically, families are supposed to send their child to their neighborhood school unless they ask for and are approved a transfer from their home district.

SB 680 would make it easier for them to get a transfer.

But would the bill particularly hurt struggling schools because they could lose students and consequently state funding based on enrollment? Keep in mind that these and other schools are already contending with statewide budget cuts.

Or perhaps this bill could continue to motivate struggling schools to find innovative ways to convince families to stay with them. 

Your thoughts?

SB 680, which allows parents to send their child to whatever public school district they choose that participates in the District of Choice (DOC) program, passed off the floor of the California State Assembly on a 46-15 bipartisan vote. The program was terminated July 1, 2009. SB 680 would reinstate the program for seven years and allow hundreds of new school districts to become districts of choice.

SB 680 next returns to the Senate floor for a final concurrence vote on the Assembly’s amendments before it goes to the governor for signature.

SB 680, jointly authored by Senator Gloria Romero (D-East Los Angeles) and co-authored by Senator Bob Huff (R-Glendora), would also allow more than 5,000 students to stay in public schools best suited for their academic needs.

“Parents and their families are a step closer today in regaining access to a quality public education for their children,” said Senator Gloria Romero, chair of the Senate Education Committee. “This solution allows parents - not bureaucrats - to decide which public school their children should attend.”

Because the DOC program expired July 1, a student who had transferred to a school in a district other than the school district of their residence could be forced to return to their district of residence. In many cases, students could be sent to an unfamiliar school or one that their parents do not feel meets their academic needs.

The DOC program is the only program in current law that provides parents an option to enroll their child in a public school of their choice without permission from their resident district.

“Parents know what is best for their children and they should be the ones charged with making the best choices for them,” Romero said. “Parents choose where their child worships, what TV programs they watch, the food they eat and where their family shops, and they must be allowed to choose where their child will receive the best public education to meet their academic needs.”

The DOC program, also referred to as a cross-district or open enrollment option, has operated successfully for 16 years through four program extensions. SB 680 would now allow any of the more than 1,000 California public school districts to elect to become a DOC.

The bill recognizes the negative effects of “educational redlining” and seeks to end a practice that holds children hostage by a zip code. This is often the case when students, especially poor and minority children, are assigned to a persistently low-performing school in their neighborhood.

Most students who participate in the DOC program transfer from a low-performing school to DOC schools with an Academic Performance Index of 100, 200 and even 300 points higher than their former school.

“Allowing parents to choose what public school is best for their children truly promotes excellence in education,” Huff said. “Our schools will be better than they would be otherwise by giving parents more choices.”

In short, while many schools and districts did well on the API, an increasing number of San Mateo County schools and districts are being tagged as needing to improve under the federal system and thus face sanctions such as undergoing a complete overhaul.

In all, 45 county schools this year are labeled “program improvement,” of which 15 are new to the list.

The results came out today from the state Department of Education.

You can read a regional story of the results here that’s running online, but our story should also be online shortly.

Below is a pretty good detailed summary from the San Mateo County Office of Education of those results locally.

Much of this I wasn’t able to include in the story, so I want to post the summary here:

-Twenty districts (83.3%) showed an increase in their API growth score.

-Four districts showed a decrease in their API growth score: Jefferson Elementary, Portola Valley Elementary, San Mateo County Office of Education, Woodside Elementary

-Eleven districts (45.8%) had an API growth score at or above 800, the target set by the (state) to which all districts and schools should aspire

-101 schools (65.2%) out of 155 schools with API targets met both their schoolwide and subgroup growth targets in 2009. In 2008, 87 schools (55.4%) out of 157 schools with API targets met both their schoolwide and subgroup growth targets.

-Eighty-six schools (52.4%) had an API growth score at or above 800 in 2009. In 2008, 77 schools (50%) had an API growth score at or above 800.

-Of the 24 districts in San Mateo County, seven districts (29.2%) made AYP in 2009. In 2008, nine districts (37.5%) made AYP.

-Of the 175 schools in San Mateo County, 101 schools (57.7%) made AYP in 2009. In 2008, 103 of the 177 schools (58.2%) made AYP.

-Eight of the 24 districts in San Mateo County are in program improvement (a federal list of school agencies in various years of needing to improve):
-Two in Year 1: San Mateo Union, San Mateo-Foster City Elementary
-Four in Year 2: Jefferson Union, Redwood City Elementary, Sequoia Union, South San Francisco Unified
-Two in Year 3: Cabrillo Unified, Ravenswood City Elementary

-Thirty schools remain in program improvement: two in Year 1, five in Year 2, eight in Year 3, three in Year 4 and 12 in Year 5

-Fifteen schools entered Year 1 of program improvement: Bayshore Elementary, Garnet J. Robertson Intermediate, California Virtual Academy, Susan B. Anthony Elementary, Westlake Elementary, Lomita Park Elementary, James Flood Magnet Elementary, Edison-Brentwood Elementary, John Gill Elementary, Selby Lane Elementary, Parkside Intermediate, Peninsula High, Sequoia High, Los Cerritos Elementary, Martin Elementary

That seems to be the case from going through a San Mateo-Foster City School District letter to Foster City that outlines the advantages and disadvantages of Boothbay and three other sites.

But stiff opposition to the Boothbay idea is also emerging from residents in that area.

Several people at a recent City Council meeting have expressed their concerns, and here’s what Art Kauffman told me in an e-mail:

“We, who have been enjoying our neighborhood and its park for many years, hope, for a variety of reasons, that it is determined that the current utilization of the land is the uniquely appropriate use for it.

“We think that the presence of a school on that site would significantly disrupt the neighborhood forever. It would have many negative impacts on the atmosphere of the entire neighborhood and our valued recreation area.

“It would inconvenience all who live around the park as it would overcrowd the streets with traffic and parking congestion. And the city would be losing its most popular open-space park forever.”

We’ll likely hear plenty more voices on this issue when the City Council is expected to open up the district letter to public comments during a meeting later this summer.

Soon after that, the city should be making a decision on whether it will make any public land available for the district.

The district hopes the city will and seeks to develop a plan for the new school by Sept. 17.

The three other possible sites for the school are about six acres of the undeveloped 15 acres adjacent to City Hall; Port Royal Park; and the vacant 3.9 acres along Beach Park Boulevard at Halibut Street.

But in its letter, the district listed Boothbay as having the most pros and the least cons as a site on which to build.

The advantages of building a school on about half of the 11-acre Boothbay Park include the fact that it is in the southwestern part of the community where the district is seeing the largest enrollment growth in the city, district Superintendent Pendery Clark said in the letter.

The location would encourage students in the proposed attendance area to walk to school, is served by a major street and features existing infrastructure, she added.

The only disadvantage listed in the letter about Boothbay would be the displacement of some existing park buildings.

But a final decision will involve the entire community and “has to take into account the people who live near the park and” the growing student population, said district board member Mark Hudak.

They are Katrin Reimer of Cañada College, Marcella Elmore and Vanessa Ramos of Skyline College in San Bruno, and Amy Rally and Jennifer Montgomery from College of San Mateo.

“It was difficult to choose our scholars this year since there were so many worthy applicants,” said Jim Triggas, chairman of the association’s scholarship committee. “However, the ones selected were exceptionally impressive in particular due to their previous experiences in dealing with children.”

The scholarship program awards deserving students who are graduating from a community college and aspire to become teachers.

(The picture above shows from left to right Vanessa Ramos, Amy Rally, Jennifer Montgomery, Marcella Elmore and Katrin Reimer. The two cut off at the ends are association President Judy Evans and scholarship committee Chairman Jim Triggas.)

I’ll be going on leave for a while, but please continue to check out Chalk Talk in the print version of the San Mateo County Times over the next few weeks.

We’ll tell you about students winning film awards in a CSM contest, a San Carlos teen earning a degree and a $20,000 scholarship all while finishing up high school, a South City school landing a technology grant, a college library specialist garnering a statewide honor, and many other goings-on in and around schools.

Till I get back, happy reading.

Starting in the fall, Cañada students will be able to earn a bachelor’s in human services from NDNU without leaving their Redwood City campus.

NDNU faculty will teach courses to the community-college students who have finished requirements for acceptance into the university’s Human Services program. Cañada, in turn, will provide the classrooms and other space in its new state-of-the-art University Center.

The joint program seeks to offer a seamless transition for Cañada students who wish to pursue a human-services degree.

“Human Services is one of the fastest-growing programs at NDNU because people with human-services training are in high demand in both corporate and nonprofit organizations,” said Barbara Caulley, director of NDNU’s Professional Studies Program. “It’s exciting to be able to offer this program to Cañada College students at a location that is convenient and familiar.”

Establishing such a project with NDNU is a natural progression for the college, Cañada President Tom Mohr said. The schools already have a transfer agreement for students.

“We currently have a large number of students transferring to Notre Dame de Namur,” Mohr said. “This partnership will make it more convenient for them to earn a bachelor’s degree, and that’s the primary concept behind the University Center.”

Positions in the human-services arena are diverse and have expanded in scope because of recent federal and state legislation.

Human-services employees often work in health organizations, fire safety, law enforcement, psychology, government and other areas.

Students interested in the joint program should attend one of two information sessions at Cañada — May 27 in Building 2 in Room 10 and June 2 in Building 3 in Room 142, both from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

For more information, contact Caulley at 650-508-3684 or bcaulley@ndnu.edu.

The Mountain View-based nonprofit Silicon Valley Community Foundation awarded $1,093,498 to 16 recipients, including school districts and universities.

The grants will allow more than 350 teachers to receive focused professional development in middle-school math instruction. These educators will then serve as mentors and advisors to other teachers.

This teacher development should help close the performance gap between underprivileged students and their peers, the foundation said.

“We know that disparities in the quality of education that students receive underlie the achievement gap,” foundation President Emmett Carson said. “Great teachers ensure that all students can succeed in middle-school math and beyond.”

The grants include $120,169 for an algebra project serving the Bayshore, Brisbane, San Carlos and Belmont-Redwood Shores districts; $75,000 to support teachers in the Jefferson and Pacifica districts; and another $75,000 for a math program in the Ravenswood district.

One of those or something else entirely could be the name for the new campus being built in Redwood Shores.

Ellison (his picture above from the Mercury News) is the CEO of the software company Oracle Corp. EA is the video-game company. And Keech is the developer of the residential project called The Preserve, which will include the new school. All three are based in Redwood Shores.

Tomorrow night, the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District board will talk about the issue of naming the new school and whether the superintendent should contact Ellison, EA and Keech to see if they are interested in having a campus named after them. Or trustees could go with a different naming process.

“I’d be proud to have my name on that school,” Keech said today. “I’m proud of The Preserve and the school as part of the larger project.”

As for his name being among those considered, he said, “that’s pretty good company.”

The three possible names came up a month ago when the New Shores School Advisory Committee discussed the naming of a school after a business or individual willing to provide a donation for that honor.

The new school is going up near Shearwater Parkway and Monaco Drive. It is being funded by the $25 million bond measure voters approved in 2005. It should open in August 2010.

The page includes an interesting chronology of the interaction between the city and school district going back to last year in regards to the enrollment surge among elementary-age children. It also has links to various documents.

You can even subscribe to an e-mailing list to get automatic updates.

In February, the San Mateo-Foster City School District formally asked the city to help in the search of a potential site for a new elementary campus.

The district board decided to pursue a new school as a long-term measure to help relieve crowding at Audubon, Brewer Island and Foster City schools.

According to district Superintendent Pendery Clark, Foster City’s elementary population will grow 25 percent over the next four years from about 2,000 to 2,500 children.

City officials have said they are willing to work with the district but want their school counterparts to answer some questions related to construction funding and other concerns as well as explore other alternatives that use existing space to address capacity.

District leaders hope to move quickly on a new school if the project is deemed feasible. District officials want to present a plan to the board by September.

Former NASA teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan (picture from NASA) will share her experience with graduates.

“We are absolutely honored that Barbara Morgan will be joining us,” university President Judith Greig said. “Her life is a testament to persistence and seizing opportunities — lessons that will prove valuable to our graduates.”

Morgan, the first educator to complete a mission to space, earned her teaching credential at NDNU, then the College of Notre Dame, in 1974.

She was a member of the space shuttle Endeavour crew that performed a two-week mission in 2007. The team made improvements to the International Space Station.

She carried out what fellow educator-astronaut Christa McAuliffe started more than two decades ago as part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Teacher in Space Program.

McAuliffe and six other astronauts died in the space shuttle Challenger tragedy in 1986.

Morgan, a Fresno native, received a bachelor’s degree in human biology at Stanford University in 1973 before enrolling at Notre Dame, where she graduated with a multiple-subject teaching credential.

Currently, she is at Boise State University in Idaho as a distinguished educator-in-residence, providing leadership on science, technology, engineering and math instruction.