TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

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TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby blackturtle.us » Thu May 09, 2013 7:06 pm

There were lots of community members in attendance at the board meeting this evening. Here's a summary of the most important items dealt with and voted on:

1. Lots of awards and lots of recognition given to students for lots of different reasons. John Ciani snapped a lot of pictures. Also Superintendent Olney presented a certificate of appreciation to John Ciani. Ciani will be retiring in the near future.

2. Sixth Grade Presentation - Ms. Tsubota and several sixth grade students presented a summary of their environmental awareness project. They explained how it related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) criteria and displayed lots of pictures of the garden they developed as part of their project.

3. Superintendent's Report - Olney presented a check for $39k to the board which was donated by the now defunct VFW. The money will be used to fund annual scholarships to be awarded to graduating seniors.

4. IPAD Initiative / Tech Plan - Alan Tsubota gave a presentation of a plan to use iPads in the classroom. He talked about developing a wireless network and purchasing iPads (somewhere between 150-180 of them for staff and students at $450 each) as well as a subscription to a service called eSpark ($32k per year for three years). Alan also talked about the growing number of educational apps which are becoming available for the iPad. A half million such apps are expected to be available by June. The eSpark service curates apps so that teachers don't have to hunt down useful apps on their own and eSpark also provides a system to keep track of student progress and use of the iPads. Although eSpark will provide access to a large library of apps (covered by the subscription fee), it is possible that teachers may want to use some apps that are not part of the eSpark program and that this would become an additional cost.

5. Fall Coaching Assignments - The board voted 5-0 to approve Jeff Tuckness (7/8 volleyball), Jayana Ledbetter (HS Volleyball), and Curtis Boutte (football) as coaches for the 2013-2014 fall season.

6. Management Employees - The board voted to approve up to five additional work days for management employees (Alan Tsubota and Ruth Soto). The approximate cost to the district for these extra days will be up to $4,285.

7. Nursing Contract - The board voted to approve a nursing contract for 2013-2014 at a cost not to exceed $16,050.

8. Tier III Categorical Funds - The board voted to approve a plan which allows the district to use Tier III Categorical Funds as it sees fit instead of specifically for items the funds had been designated for in the past. Basically, these were restricted funds in the past which were designated to fund specific programs. Now the district can use the funds at its discretion. A couple board members asked if this meant that certain programs were being cut. Olney explained that the district may choose to keep any programs that it wishes to keep, but that by adopting the proposed resolution, the district is given the freedom to spend the funds as it sees fit.

Future Meetings: Thursday, June 13, 2013
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby wildrose » Fri May 10, 2013 6:55 am

Standardized exam canceled after widespread cheating
Too much emphasis on tests always leads to cheating. However, people have a tendency to cheat when they have the opportunity to do so anyways. Whether it's a term paper or a homework assignment, a lot of people would rather cheat than do the work.
:nono:
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby CoolChick » Sat May 11, 2013 8:29 am

Fed-Up Student Schools Teacher, Demands Better Education (Video)
Sounds like a lazy kid who would rather talk his way out of a problem than change his behavior and actually do real work. On the other hand, teachers who just pass out packets are kind of lazy although sometimes doing work is better than listening to a teacher talk for a whole period.
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby mrfish » Sat May 11, 2013 8:47 am

CoolChick wrote:Fed-Up Student Schools Teacher, Demands Better Education (Video)
Sounds like a lazy kid who would rather talk his way out of a problem than change his behavior and actually do real work. On the other hand, teachers who just pass out packets are kind of lazy although sometimes doing work is better than listening to a teacher talk for a whole period.

Yep! The kid seems like one of those bipolar types. He was probably complaining about her giving boring lectures last week and now he's complaining about her not lecturing enough. He's just trying to get out of work. I like the way the teacher calmly handles the situation. It's like she's dealt with him plenty of times before!

Here's my favorite comment left to this video:
I call BS. My grandfather rode a horse to a one room school house, my father was a teacher and principal, my mother was a teacher, I married a teacher and I am a adjunct professor of economics. In the past, students learned about everything from the atomic theory of chemistry, to the battle of Lexington and Concord, and the quadratic equation with nothing but chalk and a chalkboard. Why do teachers have to give an Academy Award (performance) for students to learn?

Kids like the one shown in the video are just lazy. They'll make excuses for themselves no matter what the teacher does. It's always someone else's fault.
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby panamint_patty » Sat May 11, 2013 10:06 am

Student Teaches The Teacher A Lesson At Duncanville
I'm impressed that the teacher didn't give that kid a taste of his own medicine and it's really annoying when people act all self-righteous and fail to take responsibility for their own problems. (He's 18 and in the 10th grade is what I read. He didn't get two years behind in school by working hard and getting his work done, now did he?) The kid's cheap theatrics are pretty easy to see through. He's just trying to get out of work. It's hard and it's work and not as fun as video games!
:cry2:

The original video has nearly 3 million views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ2VAV3HYdU
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby tronagirl » Sat May 11, 2013 10:48 am

Bus Brawl Caught on Tape, Driver Allegedly Set Up Fight :bubble:
Actually when I was growing up one of the bus drivers suggested that a couple boys needed to duke it out man-to-man the old fashioned way to settle some kind of dispute. But she didn't actually promote a fight like in this video.
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby tronagirl » Sat May 11, 2013 10:57 am

panamint_patty wrote:Student Teaches The Teacher A Lesson At Duncanville
I'm impressed that the teacher didn't give that kid a taste of his own medicine and it's really annoying when people act all self-righteous and fail to take responsibility for their own problems. (He's 18 and in the 10th grade is what I read. He didn't get two years behind in school by working hard and getting his work done, now did he?) The kid's cheap theatrics are pretty easy to see through. He's just trying to get out of work. It's hard and it's work and not as fun as video games!
:cry2:

The original video has nearly 3 million views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ2VAV3HYdU

Here's another one with almost 2 million views:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iflIOklflrg
There are several others that have a few thousand on top of that. Most of the comments seem to support the kid, but it's impossible to know if he's portraying the situation accurately or not. Probably a lot of people didn't like school and they side with the kid and other people just don't express an opinion because they don't know the whole story. He seems like a whiner to me and he's learned that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. He'll probably grow up and get on welfare and try to think of some way of getting rich by suing someone. That's the kind of person he seems like to me.
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby blackturtle.us » Sat May 11, 2013 4:44 pm

Kids’ Programming Tool Scratch Now Runs In The Browser :pac:
This is probably the most valuable and underutilized software in existence! And it's free and easy to use!
The platform is great for kids of all ages and it’s a far sight better than most early computer education which consists mostly of typing tutorials and Microsoft Office lessons. If you’re looking for a STEM star and not a cubicle drone, this is the platform for you.

LINK: http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/10/kids-programming-tool-scratch-now-runs-in-the-browser/
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby CrustyOldFart » Sat May 11, 2013 8:13 pm

High school student tells off his teacher — viral video
Sounds to me like the kid expects to be entertained and that he doesn't want to work. I bet lots of Asian teachers are "boring" but there's no way a kid would pull a stunt like this there. We hear all the time about how rigorous schools are in Asia. I bet they ain't any fun! I bet it's a real grind over there and about ten times as much work as the spoiled kids here in the USA would be able to handle.
LINK: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/11/high-school-student-tells-off-his-teacher-viral-video/
The following 90-second video was secretly recorded by a student at Duncanville High School in Texas as another student, Jeff Bliss, told off his world history teacher about the way she was teaching after she had kicked him out of the class.
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Re: TJUSD School Board Meeting - May 09, 2013

Postby CoolChick » Tue May 14, 2013 12:03 pm

School Does Nothing When Bullies Set Teen Girl's Hair on Fire
My guess is that this incident was not witnessed by anyone on the school staff and that's why it took a while for the school to react. There might not have been much evidence to corroborate the claims, but here's a good comment that was left in response to this video:
In America, if you're a kid in grade school and you draw a picture of a gun, pretend you're shooting a gun, or throwing a bomb, you get in trouble. But if you're in eighth grade and set a girl's hair on fire nothing happens to you.

As far as the "bullying" issue goes. This could just have been an ongoing feud between a bunch or peers. The media likes to make every incident that happens on a school campus all about "bullying" but the reality is that kids often do mean things to each other in retaliation for some other mean thing that was done. For it to be bullying it has to be a one-way type of transaction where one kid gets picked on without having done anything to provoke the attack. My experience tells me that this type of situation is extremely rare, but that kids are likely to use this bully hysteria to claim innocent victimhood even when they are far from being innocent victims!
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