Tags
San Diego Unified Board of Education, San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten, SDUSD Trustee Richard Barrera
Here are some interesting articles we received and discovered this past week…
ENJOY!
7 Rules for Radical Parents Who Demand a Great Education
Quote from Article:
As we enter into another “Back to School” season, my heart is breaking for the thousands of families across my hometown of Chicago who do not have that same sense of certainty about when school is going to begin for them. And I wonder what might happen if more parents were to do what my wife and I did and act radically on behalf of their children’s education.
So as a trained community organizer and a radical parent myself, I thought I would take a page from Saul Alinsky’s book and lay out some Rules for Radical Parents who are ready to demand a great education for their children no matter the cost or the consequences.
And…
1. Your child is your child.
It has become some kind of unspoken rule that traditional public school districts have a right to facilitate the education of every child, especially children from low- and moderate-income families. But this is not at all true.
It has been said much more artfully than I can say it here, but parents must never abdicate their role as the primary caretaker and educator of their own children. If someone wants the privilege of participating in the education of my little miracles, they will have to earn it.
And…
2. It’s okay to have high expectations.
What do you dream for your child? Do you imagine that she can become something amazing? Do you hope that he can have an unforgettable impact on the world? There’s no reason not to. And there is no reason why each one of our children should not have access to the kind of education that enables them to reach their full potential.
In many ways (some subtle and some not so subtle) the system tells us that greatness is just not in the cards for children who grow up in poor neighborhoods and in families of color. But that is a lie. Every child (including yours) has incredible potential. Don’t ever let anyone tell you or your child anything different, neither through their words nor through their actions and decisions.
And…
4. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
OK…I didn’t make this one up. But it is a truism that rings loud and clear in the current educational climate in most big cities. In many cases, it seems like nothing is working, and the supply of quality public schools (traditional or charter) is far outpaced by the demand.
In times like these, children need radical parents who will take drastic steps to ensure that they receive the high-quality education that they deserve. Forget about “save our schools.” How about “save our children”?
And…
6. You don’t have to take it.
This rule becomes quite obvious when you read rule number 5 (at least as it applies to parents as a collective unit). But, I’m not talking about the fact that we don’t have take it because we are so powerful. I truly mean that you don’t have to take it.
District Deeds Synopsis:
One of the hardest lessons any parent in the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) has to learn is that the SDUSD is a business. Outside of Stakeholder volunteers, virtually every individual that comes in contact with your child is getting a paycheck to do so.
As parent consumers who fund those paychecks with our tax dollars, we MUST ignore the SDUSD marketing propaganda about “it’s all about the kids” and realize we are the ONLY ones who all about OUR kids.
And we must ALL be RADICAL Stakeholders for our kids.
We are not getting a huge raise and a contract extension to lie and continue to fail our kids like incompetent Elementary School Superintendent (ESS) Cindy Marten.
We are not financially benefitting from our business and political contacts while betraying our community electorate like Board of Education Trustee Richard “Tricky Dick” Barrera.
We are not a “non-profit” that gets a huge paycheck from various donors (like the California Endowment) who need to be “sanctioned” by the SDUSD to get the money.
We are investing our children in the SDUSD dysfunctional money machine and have have the moral and ethical obligation to RADICALLY defend the best interests of our children in every way possible.
The SDUSD gets thousands of dollars for each and every one of our Students.
The SDUSD dictatorship under corrupt ESS Marten and Tricky Dick Barrera use every penny of their $1.3 billion budget to keep their money train going.
They invest millions of dollars in both in-house and outsourced legal resources to defend the SDUSD physical, sexual and mental abuse of students and employees.
They stock “community” panels and committees with cronies who are also getting a paycheck from their SDUSD sanctioned special interest (contruction, non-profit, faux parent support companies).
If parents object, Marten uses the same legal resources to ban parents from the school sites their children attend.
What a disgrace!
We strongly urge all SDUSD Parents and Stakeholders to become “Radical” and follow the “7 Rules”.
Our most precious resource…the future of our children…depends on it!!!
More States Requiring Mental Health Education
Quote from Article:
“At each of our high schools, we had individuals who attempted suicide either at school or outside of school,” said Lucas Johnson, a graduate of Monticello High School in Charlottesville, Virginia, who worked with colleagues Alexander Moreno, a graduate of Western Albemarle High School, and Choetsow Tenzin, a graduate of Albemarle High School, to push for the bill.
And…
The Virginia law requires mental health education in the 9th and 10th grades. A proposal for implementing the new law extends the mandate to include kindergarten through the 10th grade and will be presented to the Virginia Board of Education next month, followed by a period for public comment and a final vote of approval slated for January 2020.
And…
They include age-appropriate instructional practices aimed at reducing stigma and teaching students how to obtain and maintain good mental health, understand mental health disorders, pick up on signs and symptoms of distress, and seek help.
At the 4th-grade level, for example, students will learn about healthy self-concepts, compassion and respecting differences, as well as verbal and nonverbal communication skills and how to understand and manage emotions related to loss, grief and stress.
“These are explicit health skills that the kids will have so they know it’s a good thing to seek help. We’re destigmatizing. We’re educating,” Wigand said.
And…
Several states have either approved or have legislation in the works related to mental health education. Some of them are aimed at addressing concerns about additional workloads and teacher training.
A Colorado bill, for example, created a grant program to help with professional development related to crisis and suicide prevention. A new Texas law requires teacher preparation institutions to include mental health instruction in their certification programs, and a Nevada bill created a grant program for districts to contract with social workers or other mental health professionals.
District Deeds Synopsis:
Based on reports from our sources in all the SDUSD clusters regarding mental health issues at school sites (including student suicides) we decided to search the SDUSD website Employee Portal for any student curriculum or staff professional develioment related to Mental Health training.
For Curriculum we found the following:
Nothing for Student Mental Health education.
So then we looked at Professional Development for Teachers and Administrators.
As expected, no Professonal Development in the dysfunctional SDUSD dictatorship under ESS Marten. Obviously much more important for Marten to pump millions of dollars into the SDUSD legal defense to protect the district from Student suicide lawsuits by grieving Parents for school site neglect.
After all, the cost to teach ALL Stuents and Staff about mental illness is much more expensive that a couple lawsuits from poor, grieving parents.
Just the unethical ESS Marten educational version of the Ford Pinto.
6 Free Resources for Teachers–Just in Time for Back-To-School
Quote from Article:
Although the school year starts at different times across the country, one thing is guaranteed: free resources for teachers are at the top of the must-have list.
Free resources for teachers are important no matter the monetary value of the resource. A federal survey released earlier this year and based on data from the 2015-2016 school year shows that 94 percent of public school teachers report spending their own money on classroom supplies.
And…
1. PBS offers a variety of online educational resources for Pre-K-12 grade educators.
Educators can access free resources online from the following PBS websites:
- PBS Media Literacy Educator Certification by KQED (Pre-K through 12th grade) – PBS and KQED offer a set of free media literacy micro-credentials that validate and help to build media literacy skills and classroom implementation practices. These competency-based micro-credentials provide the pathway to earning certification as a PBS Certified Media Literacy Educator.
- PBS LearningMedia (Pre-K through 12th grade) – PBS LearningMedia is the destination for direct access to thousands of classroom-ready, curriculum-targeted digital resources. Resources are aligned to state and national standards, and include videos, images, interactives, lesson plans, articles, primary sources and more. Teachers can browse by standards, grade level, subject area, and special collections, and favorite and share resources with their class and colleagues.
- PBS TeachersLounge – PBS TeachersLounge is a collection of online blogs on a variety of topics including trending news, PBS in the classroom, tech tools, virtual professional learning and voices in education.
And…
2. Through the AncestryK12 program, K-12 schools gain free one-year access to content from Fold3, a collection of US military records, photos and personal documents of the those who served; Newspapers.com, with 216 million+ pages of historical newspapers; and U.S. record collections available on Ancestry.
And…
6. Find Your Grind (FYG), a self-discovery platform changing how people approach career decision making, launched its free middle and high school curriculum (previously $399) on Thursday, August 1, to break the cost barrier of working within strict budgets and give teachers the necessary support and relevant, engaging resources they desperately need this upcoming school year. FYG also has formed a partnership with Microsoft’s Flipgrid to help students discover their passion and find their voice.
District Deeds Synopsis:
When we sat these resources we immediately thought of all the dedicated Principals, Teachers and Staff trying to provide the best resources for learning in their classrooms. We are sure that many SDUSD Teachers already know about most of the items listed but hope that this article provides some that they were not aware of.
We wish ALL of the school site personnel and central office support staff a successful 2019/2020 school year!
Now for our Quote of the Week:
“We wish ALL of the SDUSD school site personnel, central office support staff, Families and Volunteers a successful and safe 2019/2020 school year!” -District Deeds
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 