Tags
San Diego Unified Board of Education, San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten
Here are some interesting articles we received and discovered this past week…
ENJOY!
ARE YOUR KIDS USING THESE APPS? CHILD PREDATORS ARE, TOO
Quote from Article:
Authorities this month arrested 24 men in New Jersey, charging them with using social media to lure unsuspecting underage boys and girls to meet them for sex.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal on Tuesday said that predators in the past would stalk kids at playgrounds, school yards and shopping malls.
“But now they also lurk at social media, where they utilize the anonymity of the internet to target the same vulnerable children.”
He said the deviants who look for young victims online will disguise themselves.
“We want child predators to know that we’re on social media, too, and that the next child that they may target may be an undercover officer with handcuffs,” Grewal said.
“We’re determined to stop this type of predatory behavior against our children, and to bring these offenders to justice.”
Grewal added that law enforcement needs the help of parents to make sure kids stay safe. He said it’s essential that parents familiarize themselves with social media apps that children are drawn to.
“Just as you are vigilant about a stranger approaching your child in a park, you need to be equally if not more vigilant about the danger lurking in these new cyber playgrounds.”
District Deeds Synopsis:
This article scared us. Thousands of San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Students are given a smart phone for safety and security reasons so the child can reach help quickly if they feel they are in danger and need help.
After reading this article we decided to investigate how SDUSD digitally protects our Students.
District Deeds recently spoke with a number of SDUSD Parents about the use of smart phones to access a wide variety of social media apps. The Parents we spoke to all had K-12 SDUSD Students.
None of the parents we spoke to were aware of any restrictions at their school sites for Students accessing social media sites wo we did a search of the SDUSD website. Many said they tried to monitor the social media use by their kids to varying degrees of success.
So then we decide to search the SDUSD website for district wide restrictions.
First we searched for “student social media restrictions” and got nothing:
Then we tried searching for “student “social media” guidelines” and got one hit to Wellness Resources:
Unfortunately, but as expected with the SDUSD, there was absolutely nothing about Student social media rules, guidelines or warnings for Parents, Students or any other SDUSD Stakeholders including Principals and Teachers..
After speaking to some Principals, Teachers and other school site personnel, there appears to be semi-official rules about Student access to Social Media at some SDUSD schools but no universal guideline being followed consistently across the district.
To that end we did some more investigation and found the following graphic from an article in Digital Parenting:
Please pass this graphic on to any Parents, Teachers, Principals or other SDUSD personnel and, if you have kids with a cell phone, please make sure they only access social media apps in their age range.
Maybe one of these decades Elementary School Superintendent Marten and her incompetent Board of Education cronies will advance to the digital age enough to provide a REAL digital security strategy for our vulnerable Students.
California Schools Face Bleak Financial Future
Quote from Article:
A team of researchers managed by Stanford University and Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) recently released a massive study of California schools’ successes and shortcomings.
It concluded that for California’s elementary and secondary schools to reach academic performance goals, the state should expand education into early childhood, prior to kindergarten, and raise overall school spending by 32 percent.
The report said that “while public schools in California spent about $69.7 billion on school operations in 2016-17, an additional $22.1 billion—32 percent above actual spending—would have been necessary for all students to have had the opportunity to meet the goals set by the state Board of Education.”
And…
Moody’s sees California schools facing “a confluence of financial complications over the next decade,” to wit:
- Schools have seen sharp increases in state and local revenue—averaging 13.8 percent a year for the last half-decade—thanks largely to a booming economy, rising taxable-property values and a state income-tax increase. Going forward, however, Moody’s sees school spending rising by less than 3 percent a year, just about the rate of inflation.
- Enrollment has dropped slightly over the past decade, even as the state’s population increased, thanks to declining birth and immigration rates. Over the next decade, state officials expect a steeper decline, which will impact district financing largely based on enrollment.
- School-district pension costs are escalating rapidly as both the California Public Employees Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System seek more money to attack their large “unfunded liabilities.” The rising pension bills will largely consume the lower level of state aid also being projected.
And…
Sacramento Unified, for example, just saw its budget rejected by the county superintendent of schools because it dipped into reserves meant to cover pension costs to finance a hefty raise for its teachers.
Los Angeles Unified faces immense deficits, in part because it is seeing a steep decline in enrollment due to both demographic factors and a strong shift of students into charter schools.
District Deeds Synopsis:
ALL SDUSD Stakeholders are aware of the complete financial management incompetence of Elementary School Superintendent Cindy Marten and her millions of dollars of budget deficits over the past few years.
Like the Sacramento Unified example above, community groups asked the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) to perform a forensic audit on the SDUSD after the $124 million budget deficit in 2017 but political cronyism prevailed and the SDUSD budget has been approved by the SDCOE every year despite double and triple digit million dollar deficits year after year.
This article indicates that it is just a matter of time until this SDUSD financial house of cards fall into a dusty pile of State of California receivership and oversight.
As horrible as the State receivership option typically is for a school district, the upside of receivership is that incompetent Marten would be fired and ALL her School Board Trustee cronies would be stripped of power.
Maybe the ongoing gross financial mismanagement and receivership aren’t so “horrible” after all!!!
Here’s How Teachers Can Help Students Overcome Stereotype Threat
Quote from Article:
Stereotype threat describes the concept that people are at a higher risk of conforming to negative stereotypes about their social group in situations where they are judged compared to others, rather than on personal merit. In standardized testing, this threat has been shown to decrease the performance of students from negatively stereotyped groups.
“Negatively stereotyped groups” are often people of color, or people of low socioeconomic status. When urban students are subjected to the generalizations that they are “ghetto,” or that they will never catch up to their affluent peers, the pressure of representing an entire social group is placed on their shoulders.
Students are bombarded by these stereotypes everyday—with their friends, in the news and in school. When students in urban schools are constantly compared to wealthier students in wealthier neighborhoods, the pressure may cause them to affirm the stereotypes placed upon them.
And…
So how can teachers prepare students to face these issues rather than accept them as fact?
- LEAVE BIAS AT THE DOOR
- HAVE HONEST CONVERSATIONS
- EMPOWER STUDENTS THROUGH UNDERSTANDING
- THE FIGHT FOR FUNDING
- CREATE A CULTURE OF ACTION
District Deeds Synopsis:
An enlightening article that addresses an issue that may be typically overlooked by many SDUSD Stakeholders.
We liked the five strategies offered to Teachers and, after reading though them, also understood how these attitudes and strategies could help all of us better understand the struggles of stereotyped groups and how we can all do everything within our power to avoid those assumptions and biases.
Well worth reading AND following!
Now for our Quote of the Week:
“Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.” – Margaret Mead
Have a great week!!!
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IF
- Your family has been injured by the San Diego Unified School District, go to the District Deeds Complaint Forms page to find instructions to fight for your Civil Rights!
- YOU ARE TIRED OF THE COVER UPS AND LIES BY SUPT. CINDY MARTEN…
Please Click the Link Below and sign the Petition Today and READ the COMMENTS to Support the REMOVAL of Marten by SDUSD Stakeholders!
District Deeds 