Mind/Shift Teaching Strategies

– KQED Public Television – Northern California

Several years ago, Waltham High School educators were trying to think of some way to enliven summer reading. They had tried book lists and they had tried letting students just read what they wanted but they were missing a deeper level of student engagement.

Throughout the 20 years we have had our Students attending San Diego Unified School District schools there has been a wide variety of strategies to maintain a level of reading throughout the summer months.  The strategies employed by our Teachers ranged from NO assigned reading to a list of books required with accompanying book reports for each to be returned at the beginning of the new school year.

The appealing components of the “One School, One Story” strategy outlined in the article is five-fold:

• It is focused, consistent and bridges leaning from Spring to Fall
• It is personalized to the school site community
• It includes ALL school site stakeholders and educational departments
• It  promotes constructive open and engaging conversations on difficult subjects
• It is created through democratic participation of Students and enhances Student Voice

A program like this can be measured and ensures a degree of educational equity across different SDUSD Clusters.  We like it!!!

Six Lies Most People Believe About U.S. Schools

The Federalist

This is definitely a stimulating article no matter what side of the political spectrum you are on!

District Deeds reads ALL types of articles to better understand the wide variety of educational positions from the full political spectrum.  We do not agree with some of the items categorized as “lies” in this article but it is definitely puts a stake in the ground on some of the more controversial and widely discussed initiatives including Common Core, “Critical Thinking”, Poverty, Teachers and College Bound Curriculums.

In our opinion, the most interesting part of this article is the positioning of the arguments against well established educational legends and the opportunity to view many of them through a different perspective.

The school year is coming to an end at most kindergarten-12th grade schools, and many districts across the country are in the process of determining staffing plans for the coming year.

That means the time is right for teachers to find a job in a new area.

A recent analysis from GoodCall shows that many of the 2017 Best Cities for K-12 Teachers are those in suburbs surrounding some of the largest cities. Seven of the top 10 were suburbs of Chicago and Detroit, boosted largely by their impressive salaries – teachers in those areas earned at least 60% more than the median in the area – highly educated populace, and low crime rates.

District Deeds Synopsis:

For the nearly 1,000 teachers leaving the SDUSD by SERP or Layoff due to the gross financial mismanagement of Supt Cindy Marten, this list gives those teachers some good locations to begin their new job search.  There are a number of California schools districts that are ranked in the top 100 including Laguna Niguel (34), Irvine (38), Burbank (67), Santa Monica (89), Redondo Beach (93), and Pasadena (97).

Nearby Encinitas (144) and San Clemente (169) rank relatively high.

San Diego ranks 424.

Here is the Best Cities For Teachers 2017 full ranking list…Good Luck!!!

Fittingly the District Deeds quote of the week applies to both real estate and Teacher jobs:

“Location, Location, Location.“

– Lord Harold Samuel, William Safire, et. al.