About this site

I am currently a Governing Board Member of the San Carlos School District, elected November 2007 and again in November 2011. I created this site to keep in touch with folks who want to know more about what is happening in the District and what it's like to be a Trustee.

Please note that ANY OPINION EXPRESSED HERE IS PURELY PERSONAL AND DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT OFFICIAL POSITIONS OR POLICY OF THE SAN CARLOS SCHOOL DISTRICT NOR THE OPINION OF ANY OF MY COLLEAGUES ON THE BOARD.

I encourage everyone to visit the District web site as well as attend School Board meetings.

Note that I reserve the right to edit, reject, or delete posts based on spelling, grammar, readability, or my judgment of what is appropriate discourse.

 

February 2012
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Facilities Push Continues

At Thursday night’s Board Meeting, the Superintendent recommended — and the Board agreed — to proceed on multiple parallel paths with regard to master facility planning and overall relief of our capacity/traffic/safety issues at the school district. Although these are all interrelated without any individual path guaranteed success, it was generally agreed that we must pursue all of the following:

  • SCSD commission an enrollment study to both confirm the total capacity needs as well as have independent evidence in the likely case we would need to go to the voters to approve a bond measure;
  • We move forward on the concept of creating an elementary school on the current CMS site. It is still in its early stages, but more planning and details would need to be worked out before we consider asking the voters for funding;
  • SCSD staff continue to develop potential “Phase 2″ and “Phase 3″ plans for building additional facilities beyond the idea above, which could include additional sites at TL, Arundel, or Heather’s land, or potentially a land swap with the city of San Carlos. This could also include understanding the feasibility of creating a one-way street off of the Alameda de las Pulgas onto the TL campus (working with the city of Belmont) or even purchasing a home or two off of Dartmouth to allow better traffic circulation and prepare for potential building of another school site on the TL campus; and
  • Research and develop a pilot busing project to shuttle students to Arundel and TL.

Especially given the multi-year nature of some of the projects, I’m excited that we’re moving quickly on these ideas.

On a related note, the Board did vote to direct the Superintendent to allow all 4th grade out-of-district students to matriculate to our middle schools next year. As I’ve discussed in the past, this was the right decision for our community.

October 30th, 2011 | Category: Community, Facilities | Leave a comment

Money for Safe Routes

One of the joint projects between the San Carlos School District and the City of San Carlos is “Safe Routes to Schools,” a multi-pronged effort to make it easier and safer for kids to get to school. As we have discussed many times in the past, our general capacity problem along with the fact that most of our schools are tucked into residential areas with only modest access has exacerbated traffic problems and made safety a growing concern.

The city and the school district have been working together on a number of initiatives, including engineering better access and traffic flow, educating and encouraging families regarding parking and alternate ways to get to school, and better enforcement of traffic and parking regulations (with the help of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s office). We have made a number of improvements around various schools, but overall progress has been slow due to lack of funding.

Recently the city applied for a grant from Caltrans to support better access and traffic flow at Arundel School. This week we learned that the grant was indeed awarded in the amount of $340,000 — the funding will go toward constructing sidewalks, curb ramps, a roundabout, and crosswalks on the roads around the school.

Of course this is hardly a panacea and it only affects one school — but it is certainly progress. We still need to address the larger issue of creating new capacity at the school district, and I am also hopeful we will be able to trial bus service at one or two of the schools this year. These measures will go much further in alleviating traffic issues and improving safety.

October 21st, 2011 | Category: Community, Facilities | One comment

Creative Thinking on New School Site

Last night, the Superintendent presented to the school board some of the ideas that he and his staff have been working on with regard to options for a new school site (or two). As we have discussed multiple times, the district has a space problem. In many ways we are the victims of our own success — San Carlos continues to be a desirable place for young families to move, and our population of students continues to grow steadily. So, one of the goals this year has been to agree on a plan to increase capacity at the school district, most likely by building a new school, or even two.

There has been some amazing progress in the last few weeks. In particular, there has been a lot of thinking about how to use the existing Central Middle School site. Primarily because of its layout and the giant blacktop, this campus can actually be divided into two and have plenty of space to add a new elementary school. The south end of the campus would be the location for a new school. Take a look at the PDF that gives an overview of what the layout could be like. Although I won’t list all of the details here, it would include an elementary school, plenty of field space, and upgrades to Central, including replacing the old building and enhancing the current Mustang Hall to have a new performing arts area/theater.

Clearly more work needs to be done on this plan, but it’s a great start and represents some very creative thinking because it both (a) places a new school where the demand is, and (b) utilizing existing resources so as to minimize costs. You can check out all of the draft drawings on agenda online.

This is only one part of a potential multiple-pronged solution. Other ideas we discussed (but without the detail in the Central site design ideas) include potentially using the TL site for a new elementary school (assuming you can create a new entrance into the campus and otherwise deal with traffic issues), potentially build up at Heather School (which could be a perfect place for CLC), or working with the City of San Carlos on a land swap or other way to acquire land. It is the last piece where I’d like to see more engagement from the city to be proactive and creative on finding a solution, especially since the benefit to the city could be enormous — imagine a brand new park behind TL because the school district swapped that land with the city for a place build a new school.

So, a lot more work to do, but exciting progress!

On a semi-related note, the Board agreed to allow the small group of out-of-district students currently in 4th grade to matriculate to the middle schools. Although we recognize we have a capacity constraint problem at the schools, everyone understood that not allowing in these children will make no material impact at all. It’s great that we can continue to serve these families that have been in the district for years, volunteer, donate to SCEF, and have been a part of this community. We of course need to still address the much larger space issue, which is why I’m excited that we’re making real progress on the plans for a new school.

October 14th, 2011 | Category: Community, Facilities | Leave a comment

Rallying the Troops

It’s hard to attract a lot of folks to an event on a Monday night, in the rain, to discuss education finance. But this Monday night almost 200 people attended the Educate Me! event we held at Mustang Hall. Hosted by Educate Our State, a parent-led advocacy group, the night was about making change to fix California’s broken education finance system.

In April, I wrote about an SMCSBA event where Educate Our State and ChildrenNow presented some of the specific proposals being contemplated to address the broken system as well as a path for having the political ability to get an initiative passed.

This town hall Monday night was a natural outcome of that meeting, presenting to parents and other community leaders on how they can get involved. I was privileged to be able to speak on how we got into this situation (a very abbreviated version of my video), and we also covered the damage caused to our public schools over the last four years as well as some of the specific initiatives being contemplated for 2012. Ted Lempert, former Assemblyman and President of ChildrenNow, talked about the Children’s Movement of California, and then representatives from Educate our State outlined how all of us can get involved.

If you missed the event and you want to learn more, please contact me, join Educate our State, and join the Children’s Movement. Thanks to everyone who attended and to all of those who helped make the event happen!

October 5th, 2011 | Category: Communications, Community, Finances | Leave a comment

Candidate Forums Announced

For every school board election, the San Carlos Educational Foundation hosts a candidate forum for those running for school board. We colloquially refer to them as the “debates,” but they are really about giving an opportunity for the community to hear from each of the candidates, their background, their reasons for running for office, their assessment of the state of the school district, and their vision and plans for the future. There are three candidates — Adam Rak, Peter Tzifas, and myself. The forums will be held:

  • Thursday, October 6th – 7pm (Central Middle School Library)
  • Friday, October 7th – 9am (Heather School Auditorium)

So, I have a very busy calendar for the next month…please join me for any of these if you have the time:

  • Monday, September 26 – 7:00pm: Community Forum – Home of Julie & Mike Davies (420 Prospect Street)
  • Monday, October 3 – 6:45pm: Educate Me! Event on CA Education Finance (Mustang Hall)
  • Thursday, October 6 – 9:00am: Community Forum – Home of Jennifer & Randy Webb (940 Woodland Avenue)
  • Thursday, October 6 – 7:00pm: Candidate Forum (Central Middle School Library)
  • Friday, October 7 – 9:00am: Candidate Forum (Heather School Auditorium)
  • Monday, October 10 – 9:00am: Community Forum – Home of Janet Hall & Patrick Wong (21 Molton Avenue)
  • Monday, October 10 – 7:00pm: Community Forum – Home of Andrea & Mark Maxwell (2243 Howard Avenue)
  • Tuesday, October 11 – 6:00pm: Community Forum – Home of Martha Edwards and John Orcutt (106 Leslie Drive)
  • Wednesday, October 12 – 7:00pm: Community Forum – Home of Cathy von der Porten (121 Plymouth Avenue)
  • Tuesday, November 8 – Election Day!
September 24th, 2011 | Category: Community | Leave a comment

Educate Me! An Event to Fix California's Broken Education Finance System

I’m proud to be involved in organizing a fabulous event. I will be speaking there, but more importantly, you will hear from organizations such as Children Now and Educate Our State! who are building a growing movement and creating initiatives to fix our broken educational finance system. Many of you have seen my Education Finance Video that lays out the problem — let’s now talk about the solutions! Here are the details — please attend October 3rd! (no RSVP necessary)

DOWNLOAD THE FLYER FOR THE EVENT

A Town Hall Meeting about California’s Public Education System and HOW YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Monday, October 3, 2011, 6:45 – 8:30pm (meet and greet @ 6:45pm, program begins at 7:00pm)

Mustang Hall at Central Middle School
828 Chestnut Street, San Carlos

Hosted by the San Carlos School District
with Introductions by Dr. Craig Baker, San Carlos School District Superintendent

You are invited to a Town Hall meeting to learn about the current state of Public Education in California, how to take action, and join the parent-led, grass-roots movement that is looking to create real change for all of our children – Educate Our State!

Agenda includes:

  • Background on how we got into this current education crisis
  • The ramifications of the 2011-2012 education budget
  • The roadmap with real hope for reform to get California back on the path of education excellence
  • Immediate action steps, including signing up with Educate Our State! and The Children’s Movement of California and lending your name to The Kids Education Plan, a major revenue and reform proposal for the 2012 ballot.

The panel discussion with Educate Our State! and Children Now will provide attendees with a plan for education reform and the opportunity to ask questions.

Panelists include:

  • Crystal Brown, Co-Founder and President of Educate Our State!
  • Ted Lempert, President of Children Now and former State Assemblyman

Whether your kids are in public, private or charter schools – we all have a stake in the future of public education. Please join us and learn HOW YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

September 8th, 2011 | Category: Community, Finances | Leave a comment

Community Forums Announced

Today I sent an e-mail out announcing a series of community forums as part of my campaign for re-election to the San Carlos School Board. I did these four years ago, and found them to be extremely valuable for both myself and the people attending. In an informal setting, we can discuss both the issues and the opportunities surrounding the San Carlos school district. Please see the flyer below and e-mail me if you’d like to attend any of them. Thank you so much to my hosts!

Community Meetings

Community Meetings

September 7th, 2011 | Category: Community | Leave a comment

The Most Important Unimportant Number

California parents, prospective parents, education professionals, and other caring citizens often wait anxiously for the one day each year that they found out how their school performed in the annual API (Academic Performance Index) reports. Today was that day. Once again, San Carlos schools performed exceptionally well (although due to a computer glitch, the state hasn’t yet reported the API scores for Central, Tierra Linda, or Charter Learning Center). Above 800 is considered an exceptional score, and all SCSD schools have been above this level for as long as I’ve lived here, and they, on average, have continually climbed each year. This year our elementary schools all scored between 878-952.

OK, we can celebrate. But only for a few minutes. Because there are so many reasons why despite all of the hype, the API is most overused and over-weighted statistic in education. In fact, there is a significant “dark side” to the API — parents make decisions on what neighborhood they want to live in because of it, schools and teachers get punished for it, and most importantly, it detracts from the broader mission and responsibilities of public schools. Don’t get me wrong — I like having high API scores in our district, and it’s always a good sign that they generally creep upwards, but we all put way too much emphasis on it and misinterpret its meaning. I have written on this subject a few times (see Reaching for the STARs and We Knew It All Along), but there are a few points I want to emphasize:

  • API scores often say more about the population than they do about the quality of the school – for example, the District has, on occasion, re-located a number of the Special Day Classes from one school to another. This is obviously a population that on average will struggle more academically than its peers. Guess what? When such a move happens, the API scores of those schools adjust. Does that mean one school is suddenly doing a better job or worse job teaching children? Of course not.
  • Once you get higher and higher, the differences among scores become increasingly irrelevant – Many realtors have told me that new families moving to San Carlos have said they want to live in one neighborhood because one school had an API score of 910 and the other had an API score of 890. Even if API was the most important measure (which it’s not), that difference tells you nothing. It’s more likely due to a random variance in the population in any given grade.
  • API doesn’t tell you how your child is doing, or will do — API is a “summative assessment” which may give you aggregate data on a group of students and point out trends that warrant further investigation, but it does not, in and of itself, give you any specific information on how to affect the learning of any individual student.
  • APIs distract from the bigger picture — There’s an old saying, “you manage what you measure.” And unfortunately, API is one of the few things that every district in the state measures. Any educational expert will tell you that it should be only one of dozens of measures of student and school performance. However, we don’t measure all of those important things, so it’s hard to blame people for emphasizing the only major metric we have. Our state and federal public policy is based on a series of carrots and sticks related to that number (NCLB, etc.) and it’s not just a cliche that it encourages “teaching to the test” because of this singular pressure point.
  • It’s so 20th Century — well, more precisely, 19th century. Our testing regimens are based on a centuries old model of schools where a group of students is lectured to by an expert (the teacher) and then asked to regurgitate what they’ve learned. Although in San Carlos we believe we’ve departed very well from this model in terms of teaching and learning, we still (by law) test students based on this very old paradigm of learning.

Although this problem is almost universally recognized, there is no imminent solution. Ideally this needs to be implemented on a broad (state or federal level), but here in San Carlos we will spend a good portion of the year discussing the definition of a 21st Century Education, and a big part of that will be what we can, and should, measure to gauge both the advancement of our children and performance of our schools. How do we measure critical thinking, teamwork, analysis of information, communication skills, and the many other attributes that will be much better predictors of our children’s success in the current era?

Until we make further progress on areas of measurement, I encourage everyone in our community to de-emphasize these test scores. There really is no material difference among our schools, and anyone who asks me where in San Carlos they should live, I say: “live in the part of town you would like to live in; the school will be excellent regardless.” The “API score” touches our emotions more than it informs our intellect. It’s no coincidence that although they are readily accessible, I didn’t even bother to highlight our scores here.

August 31st, 2011 | Category: Community, Education, Reflections | One comment

Missing the Big Picture

Welcome back to school! This year started with a lot of excitement, promise and some ambitious goals — including kicking off a set of community conversations and learning on 21st Century Learning and Global Education as well developing plans to meet the growing facilities capacity needs of the district.

However, there was one lingering issue over last night’s board meeting. Apparently the San Carlos Educational Foundation and the San Carlos Charter Learning Center have started conversations about SCCLC no longer being part of the SCEF’s fundraising programs.

Although the school district is not a direct party to this agreement, it is affected in a number of ways.

  • First of all, in the Memorandum of Understanding between CLC and the school district, it states that all of the terms of the agreement are conditioned upon continued cooperation between CLC and SCEF. If this were to change, the MOU can be terminated and will have to be renegotiated. The premise here is that having a central fundraising body (which brings in 7-8% of our entire budget) is the very definition of our singular school community, and because we view it as one community, we ignore many of the myriad of subsidies that the District gives CLC, just as it would for any other school. In the absence of this agreement, CLC would truly become an “independent” charter school, and other than the fact that the District would be the chartering agency, it would in no other way be part of the district. Ergo, one would then have to look at all of these connections at more of an arms-length.
  • Secondly, the SCEF also signed a separate fundraising agreement with all seven schools limiting the site-based fundraising at each school (which I have always said was too high anyway — see my post on why I believe SCEF has been so successful). However, it was a compromise with CLC that caused the limit to be set as high as it was. In the absence of CLC’s participation, SCEF surely would have agreed to a lower per-site limit on individual fundraising. So, if CLC and SCEF were to no longer work together, we’d have to re-visit the agreement with the other sites.
  • As trustees of the school district, it is our responsibility to ensure we maximize resources for all students, and if such a decision is believed to reduce the overall resources available (which I believe it would), we have a duty to be a part of that conversation.

As you might imagine, I argued vehemently against this idea last night. History has proven, over and over, that the seven schools working together as single community works! Even if CLC believes it can raise more money on it’s own, it would be at best a short-term benefit. The Ed Foundation’s fundraising has grown almost 10 times since my oldest child started school, and that growth has accrued to everyone. So, I find it shocking that two parties will consider a deal that is in neither of their own interests. As I have said many times before, I want CLC to be closer to the rest of the district, not further away. I commented last night that through my experience working with many other school board members in the county, many of them note how special San Carlos is because we are able to pull together a single community — not a set of school-based communities. We are envied because of this extraordinary cultural asset that has, and will continue to, pay dividends.

SCEF and CLC may — against my advice — ultimately terminate their relationship. However, I will repeat a number of the things I said last night. Although it appeared universally understood that this lynchpin agreement defines whether CLC is “in” the district or whether it is “out” of the district, I have a very strong suspicion that neither side has really thought through the ramifications of being “out.” (Also note that it was generally understood that being “out” also meant not participating in the main community event of the year — Spring Fling). Putting aside the negative fundraising impact (competing for fundraising, less efficient fundraising, confusing local merchants, less economies of scale, etc.), there is a very effect on the day to day operations of the schools and on the students. Although some noted that CLC may be willing to pay the District for the “extra” space they get (above Prop 39 requirements), my point was that it’s a lot more complicated than that. If we truly looked at CLC as independent, do we all really appreciate what that means? All of these subsidies and other benefits of being “in” the district would have to be reconsidered, including:

  • Should CLC get that extra space at all, even if they can pay for it (particularly given our facilities constraints)? Would the district consider re-locating the school?
  • How would Parcel Tax monies be distributed? Would we need to go back to basing it on in-district students instead of total students?
  • Would CLC students no longer be able to participate in TL’s orchestra and band programs (noting the particular irony that these programs are funded by SCEF)?
  • Would CLC be able to participate on TL’s athletic teams?
  • Would CLC be able to participate in San Carlos Children’s Theater productions, particularly in the context of the District spending resources to give SCCT a permanent home on one of our campuses?
  • Would CLC students participate in ROPES?
  • Is it desirable or appropriate for the District to provide special education services to CLC?

And I’m sure there is more. Let me very clear — I do not want any of this to happen. My preference is for CLC and SCEF to continue with their agreement, and then all of these questions above will be moot. Last night the metaphor was used that if CLC were not to be part of SCEF, it would be equivalent to having a school like St. Charles in our district. We have nothing bad to say about St. Charles, but they don’t participate in our district activities and of course we don’t subsidize them in any way. Although it’s possible we could come to some agreement with CLC on some of these above items, it would be naive to believe that these won’t be on the table.

Given all that, I repeat my call from last night for both parties to REALLY, REALLY, REALLY think through all of the implications of making this change before you make it. I appreciate that there have been difficulties in the relationships and there have been tensions, but it is short sighted and overly expedient to break up this relationship because it may happen to make some people’s lives seemingly a little less difficult in the near term. This is a relationship worth fighting for.

August 26th, 2011 | Category: Community, Finances, Reflections | One comment

School Board Election is On

It's Official — there will be a contested election for San Carlos School Board this Fall. Three candidates have filed to run for school board: Adam Rak, Peter Tzifas, and myself.

Therefore, this is the official start of the campaign. Although most of you know me fairly well, I will still spend some time out in the community talking to parents and other folks interested in how our schools are doing, getting feedback from them, and having a dialog about where we are going. Please visit my campaign web site to see a summary of some of the accomplishments of the last four years, the challenges and issues still ahead, and my background, leadership, and endorsements. Of course, I'll still be keeping everyone up to date on my blog.

If you haven't already, please endorse me!

I also wanted to give you a preview of some of the activities that will be happening over the next few months:

  • COMMUNITY MEETINGS: As I did four years ago, I will be holding a series of "community coffee" get-togethers at people's homes in September and October.  This is a great way to have a solid dialog in a small setting and answer any questions that folks have.  If you are interested in hosting any of these, please e-mail me so we can coordinate dates and times.  I will send a subsequent e-mail when the calendar is finalized.
  • DEBATES: The San Carlos Education Foundation will once again be hosting "candidate forums" probably in early October.  This will be an opportunity to see all of the candidates discuss the issues and answer questions.  I will pass on the dates and details when they are finalized.
  • LAWN SIGNS: Lawn signs are back!  If you are willing to permit a lawn sign in front of your house, please e-mail me with your address.  There is no work on your part — we will deliver and place the signs (probably in late September or early October) as well as take them down a few days after the election.       

As always, if anyone would like to have a phone call or meet in person, I'm willing to do that any time.  Please just e-mail me.

Many of you vote by mail, and you will get those ballots in October.  Please complete and return them, or otherwise remember to vote on November 8th. Thanks once again for your support!.

Regards,

Seth

August 18th, 2011 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
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