|
California Continuation Education Association Council of District Representatives Minutes Meeting Location: Costa Mesa Hilton Meeting Date: April 26, 2002 Approval Date: October 18, 2002
California
Continuation Education
Association
Call to Order: President Jim Caswell 8:40 State Officers: President Jim Caswell: Past President Janet Knoeppel: Vice-President Jeanne Yttreness: Webmaster Gerry Catanzarite: Treasurer Ross Bauer: Secretary Nancy Christopher Seating of Representatives: District I Brian
Schoenfield Georgeanne
Fulstone-Pucillo, District XII
Dave Scott Bernie Vigallon Minutes were read and approved with a few changes in spelling of names. Treasurer’s Report:
Ross Bauer said membership has gone up thanks to Jeanne Yttreness and the district presidents. The proposed budget for next year was presented, as well as account balances, bank and CD activity. Membership forms have been updated. Each district treasurer was asked to turn in the district reports. These are required to be kept on file. The new membership forms have a space marked “new” or “renew”, professional or school membership. The treasurer asked for input on the new form. Also, make sure when someone joins, be sure to send in the full $35, not just the $21, and the treasurer will reimburse you. Projected Income: Awards $300/ Interest $1,200. Membership $41,000. /State Conference $55,000. Total: $97,500. Projected Expenses: Awards $3,000. / Bank Charges (Electronic Fees) $300. / Exemplary Program $1,500. / CDR $17,000. / Legislative $22,000. / Membership Expenses $18,500. / Model Schools $1,200. / Newsletter $4000. / Office Expenses $2,5000. / Officer Expenses $17,000. / Teacher of the Year $3,000. / Web Site $4500. / Special Projects (Position Papers) $3000. Total: $97,500 President’s Report: Jim Caswell explained at the last CDR meeting there was a need for a way to determine the number of graduates, the numbers of students…a reporting system easy to use for all or our continuation programs. So, a committee was developed to choose a chair to work on the new process. At the same time we discussed the need for a position paper, that this organization needed to state its purpose. Janet Knoeppel was asked to chair the committee and in the last three months there were three meetings, and about twelve different people from all over the state attended those meetings. We came up with three documents. That was one of the big issues last CDR meeting. This organization has never taken this effort on and Jim commended Janet and the committee for a wonderful job. Once these documents get out to the public, into the hands of superintendents and legislators it will be really worthwhile for our organization. Jim also commented on the $20 Billion shortfall in the state budget. The last trip to Sacramento met with the State Board of Education, the State Department of Education, the Governor’s office, the Assembly and the Senate. There were five major meetings. Our position was that we were not there to ask for money, but to educate everyone in Sacramento about continuation education. A big change is that the 1882 funding is gone. Staff development through those funds is a dead issue. Also there is some concern about Title I. One of the bills says if you don’t show improvement in your Title I students, you will lose your funding. But they are looking at the API, and one of things we want to look at as an organization is, if we’re being judged by the alternative method, why shouldn’t everything we do be tied to that same format…the ASAM, not the API. These are things we are going to discuss with our lobbyist Peter Birdsall. We know things are bad right now, but we are keeping the legislature informed. That has been our thrust since our last meeting. Doc Savarese told about the changing face of continuation schools. Gerry Catanzarite said that the more the regular schools try to emulate us, the better it is for us, because without the underlying core of concern for each individual student, they will just kick a kid out for behavior problems without trying to help him move along the continuum. If we hang our hat on the drop out prevention program we will be successful. We are the dropout prevention program. Dennis Fisher, CDE, said that there is a 50/50 split between calls coming in saying they have new superintendents who want to close the alternative programs, and calls saying they have new superintendents who want to open whole new programs. He has had many conference calls with superintendents, principals and planners at the local level saying they want to develop full alternative programs. Dan Plough asked how can we meet the academic needs of our students and not just behavior problems. Jim Caswell said the Kern district says there are 25 high schools and every site does it differently. The superintendent said next year we are going to have to look at a large number of seniors who are not graduating. And then he said we have to develop programs for those seniors who are not graduating to help them be better prepared in the world…and the first name that came out was continuation schools. Jim thought it was refreshing there we’re finally being recognized. Doc Saverese said that our ultimate goal is to bring these students into being productive members of society. It is important for these kids with poor academics to have social skills and go out in society and many of them do a fantastic job. Jim Caswell said that we are thinking about the asking the state to make the 16 page booklet developed by Janet Knoeppel and crew the new continuation school handout. Bob Meier said we will be the dumping ground of non CAHSEE passers. People will see our ratios of grads not the same. It doesn’t look like our students are doing poorly, if we look at who we accept into our schools. Traditional high schools need to take some responsibility for their failures. Jim Caswell said the West Covina district superintendent doesn’t send the students who are doing poorly to continuation schools. They are only using their continuation schools for the purpose they were designed for. Gerry Catanzarite commented on the exit exam. He said we are the vehicle to help kids pass. We need to make people understand that we didn’t cause the problem; we are trying to fix it. Bob Meier said we need to emphasize the “save rate”. Any of our students who pass the exit exam are kids who would not have passed any other way. Janet Knoeppel said our kids manage to pass the drivers test when they want to. We need to make them understand that they need to pass the exit exam to get a diploma. We need to make them understand that a high school diploma is very important for them. Dan Plough said his district is geared for the kids. They have the ability to deal with the individual needs of the students. There are two ways to run schools. One is to make the adults happy…the other way is make the kids happy. His school is run for the kids…the traditional school is run for the adults. Jim Ingram said some one gave up on every one of our kids…any success we have is success and we can’t forget that. We’re looking at all this other stuff, but we need to keep doing the job that we do and make sure that they get the education they deserve and the other will take care of itself. Doc Savarese said there is a philosophical battle going on between what a kid “can’t” do versus what a kid “can” do. It’s not just the end result, but how we get there. Janet Knoeppel said we probably won’t get the recognition we deserve, but we have to keep going. Dennis Fisher said the development of the voluntary report form is data driven, and the other is the resiliency model of assuming high expectations to finish. Dennis gets the “I’ll get back to you” from his administrators. On the other hand, they will call up and say, “What is this , what is that, I just heard about this or that…” It is important to keep our purpose known. He is optimistic about it. Jim Caswell attended a meeting about the California high school proficiency test. There was some concern in the Department of Education whether or not we still needed this document. They selected twelve people from around the state to come and give input to one of the staff people from the Department of Education. The vote was unanimous to keep because it gives our students another avenue to meet requirements and show proficiency. The big wigs want to do away with it. Our recommendation was to bring the questions in line with the California standards and with the exit exam. Nothing has changed in 11 years. California owns 400 questions that are tied to the proficiency standards, so we just have to throw out the ones that are no good. It is another way for kids to finish high school. Not every kids needs to be there…they need to be doing something else. Vice President’s
Report: Jeanne Yttreness Her district has been kind supportive by doing the mailings at no cost to ccea. She has been working with Dennis Fisher on a committee in Williams on the Model School reading. There were 18 applicants and 15 were awarded Model School statues. The visitations were great and the comment was, maybe next year we will do the readings in the south. For the Exemplary programs next year we will send out different reminders even though it is on the web page. We only had seven districts apply this year which is down from last year. Secretary’s Report: Send in articles if you want them in the newsletter. The dates will be approximately September 1st, November 15th, and March 1st. Deadlines for articles would be three weeks ahead of those dates at the latest. It takes a minimum of two weeks at the printers and at least a week in the mail. If it is important to get your article into a particular edition, be sure to send it well ahead of the deadline. Principals are invited to send postings for openings. Past President’s
Report: Janet Knoeppel visited Districts II, IV, V, and XI for conferences and meetings, and participated in District VII. She visited two schools for model school validation, one in Bellflower and one in Escondido, as well as a WASC accreditation. She is still participating to a limited extent in the ASAM committee. She has been going every 3rd or 4th meeting because they always talk about the same things. There is not a lot of progress at this time. The ASAM committee is more worried about small schools and K-1 schools than they are about designing a test or validating tests for us so that we can compete in the reading, writing, and math area. Basically we are at the same place we were a year ago. Lots of it is tied to the fact that there are many people who think we need to join the API. Janet worked on an accreditation team with Leslie Fawcett, who is the Chief Deputy Superintendent of the State of California. Leslie understands our situation but many legislators do not. The think “different” is “less”. They don’t view the ASAM as being comparable. Also a lot of our smaller schools are still in packets and we need to retool our programs. The next step is with CDR approval, for Janet and Dennis Fisher to make an appointment with Mary Weaver to make the position paper a joint CDE-CCEA project. She also announced The International Association for Learning Alternatives is having an international conference at the end of June in Duluth. A small discussion ensued regarding the scrapping of the SAT 9 for the CAT 6, and that will start next year. Next year will become the new baseline for the new test. Webmaster’s Report: Gerry Catanzarite said the website keeps growing. We now have over 1530 files on the website plus 442 graphics and 6500 hyperlinks. There is a growth of over 16 megabytes from last year. It is really 5 sites. He may have to break it into two separate sites, with one having the historical archives. The fact that we hit 41 megabytes means that there will be additional fees for the website of $25 a month. The website is over five years old and is continuing to grow. Some of the new things will be on-line forums for discussion of continuation issues. Gerry said it is important for us to notify him if we find a file is not working. There are 1530 files and he would not know if one wasn’t working unless he accidentally ran across it. He is going to update the e-directory of schools in the fall, so be sure to send him all the correct information and updates. He also needs your input for the calendar of events. He intends to improve the connections to other educational websites, so if you know of a good site, let him know about it. Also, in the curriculum area, if you have any electronic curriculum that can be posted on the site, email it to Gerry. He has also added a couple of ed. Codes and he is going to expand that particular area. Future items include and electronic journal of alternative ed. and the state wants to work with him on that. He is going to try to put a little picture scrapbook of conference, etc. Lastly, since he is the historian, if you have any historic documents, send them to Gerry. Jeanne Yttreness shared finding an excellent book for administrators called, Between a Rock and a Hard Place; Law for School Administrators. You can’t buy it at a bookstore but she has the information where to get it. She said she has never seen a book with so much pertinent information. Jim Ingram commented that the website is excellent. He applauds the site. Dennis Fisher concurred and said he gets 10 to 15 calls a week complementing the site. It’s a wonderful resource. He mentioned how CCEA provides in dollar assistance and technical assistance to the CDE for people in alternative education, and the website definitely contributes. Gerry also reminded all the reps that there are mini websites for each district. Send him new info and he’ll post it. Jim Caswell said he has been trying since January to get the official list of district officers, and some districts have not even elected them yet. He has the latest list and passed it around for the CDR reps to make the corrections. Gerry wants the names, addresses, email address, and fax numbers for the website. Members at Large
Reports: Jim Ingram felt disappointment that there was much duplication of emails from the board. He didn’t find he was doing anything new. Personally didn’t think the position added anything. He didn’t feel there was much communication with the board. Jim Caswell said the board only met once this year because with the situation in Sacramento there was no need to go. He also said duplication is not necessarily a bad thing…it’s reinforcement. Gerry likes it because he gets it from the board and then he gets it from Mark, so he knows it’s going out there. A discussion ensued on email messages. Jim reminded us to use the form which enables educators to get the occupancy tax removed from a hotel bill when they are on school business…with exception of the San Diego and one other area. Eric Spears felt he was not contacted to do certain stuff. He likes the idea but felt he wasn’t used as a potential resource. He needed more specific tasks. Jim said one of the important functions of the Members at Large is to go out and visit schools in each area. Was that done? Eric said it is a good idea, but the concept needs more specific structure. Jeanne said with the web page and the communication so much better than it has been in the last ten years, membership is up and we’re doing something right. Doc brought up the idea of incentives for membership. He feels the potential for increased membership is out there, but as a principal he has limited time to spend on membership. It takes a lot of energy to do that. Jim said one of the jobs for the Members at Large is to help with membership. Also, our intent was to take them to Sacramento, but with the situation in the state as it is, nobody went there. Gerry said we need a meeting to plan the purpose of the members at large. It is a good idea to have a contact person at each school. If we could have a directory of email addresses for every staff member at each school, that would be very good. Tina Tomaschke is working on a directory of everyone’s email address. She is developing a form to facilitate this. Break………10:40 Old Business: Janet Knoeppel explained the new name of the educator’s institute as the Alternative Educators Summit. Thirty-seven people attended the previous institute. Friday night the guest speaker was Dave Pelzer. Saturday were two all day sessions: Joe Stits on Aligning Your Curriculum with the State Standards, and Brad Green on Choice Theory and Quality Schools. Sunday morning Janet gave a two hour presentation on Finding the Resources to Help Students Pass the CAHSEE. As to the position paper and the data acquisition: The committee was comprised of Janet Knoeppel, Jim Caswell, Barbara Wenk, Joyce Bowcock, Kay Eatmon, Bob Meier, Ann Wagner from the L.A. Options Office, Dennis Fisher, Marion St. Amant, and Gerry Catanzarite. Fabulous team. They realized the first couple of pages should be a general history and summary of continuation education to dispel myths and present facts. This is a paper that would read by a superintendent or a principal; something quick to inform them what continuation education is all about. They came up with nine key areas that need to be addressed. The old continuation school manual is now out of date and not very user friendly. They tried to put down all the things they felt were pertinent such as: the philosophy of continuation education, Special Education students, CCEA, attendance accounting, etc. We need CDR input and comments because this will be an official document. Gerry said it would be good to put the whole document on the website. Dennis Fisher said one of the most valuable things is the supplemental question and answer form on the CCEA website. The other thing he asked for is a comprehensive bibliography. He asked everyone to cite any research documents so that we can put it at the end of the paper. Like it or not, that is what people will look at to see if it is legitimate or just someone’s opinion. Email any articles you have to Janet. The other thing is, the model of the three stages of getting a student ready to do academic performance has been adopted by the California School Board. It is recognized that moving a student along the path to get ready to learn is an important part of continuation education. The CDE is interested in seeing how contiuation education works together with opportunity programs, SB 65, independent study, community day schools, court schools, and adult education, etc. Janet and Dennis also talked about the possibility of creating a video for marketing purposes to change perceptions about continuation education. Discussion of page three on the booklet….many suggestions about wording of certain issues….such as staffing, auxiliary programs, how to actually collect data, who will be responsible for compiling it, etc.,etc. A long discussion ensued regarding attendance and ADA regulations. The questions asked in the form are voluntary information. Dennis said that information is extremely important information for legislation and lobbying for improved resources. It was suggested to create a survey asking people what do they want to know. What are the key issues and priorities – get the response from the multitude to find out. Lunch Break…….1:00Long discussion about a chairmanship position for conference so that each conference chair doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel every year. Also Gerry led a discussion regarding reviewing and updating the bylaws to reflect current conditions, to eliminate that is not correct or redundant remarks, or lack of internal consistency, etc. We’ll bring those revisions back to next CDR to be voted on at next CDR. Gerry made motion to revise and update the constitution, CDR by-laws, and district charter to more accurately reflect out current state of affairs to be voted on at next CDR. Karlene Dockery seconded the motion. Motion carries unanimously. Conference Committee
Report: Vic Whittaker and Hank Johnson said conference appeared to be going very well so far. 58 people toured Silverado High School and loved it. There were 10 at the county office doing CTAT and 50 attended the WASC program with Marilyn George. Hank gave great thanks and appreciation to his committee of Vic Whittaker, Karlene Dockery, Lee Newman, and Marion St. Amant. There were 500 registered conference attendees. The 2003 conference will be May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at the Hyatt San Francisco with Janet Knoeppel as the conference chair and District I helping out. The 2004 conference will be April 23rd, 24th, and 25th, at the Holiday Inn on the Bay with Karlene Dockery and Angela DeaMude as conference chairs. Gerry brought up a point, and Vic further the idea about changing the conference badges form one color for all, to one color for full registration, and one color for partial registration. Vic also said there needs to be a “drop-dead” cut-off for getting registration in.It happens that schools will sit on the registration forms and not send them in on time. Suggestions were made for late fees, and to bring copies of purchase orders so registration can have them. Ross Bauer said to be sure the conference flyers contain academic titles on the workshops, otherwise the funding gets refused, unless it can be shown to help increase student test scores. Janet said Learning by the Bay will be the theme for the 2003 Conference. Legislative Report: Dennis King brought up an issue that about backing a bill to create a 20:1 ratio in class. Also would be good idea to create a matrix of issues so that we can input our concerns. A survey was done years ago, but times have changed and we need to find out what our priorities are now. We need input from all the schools so we know what our driving force should be. We’re talking about legislation with no money attached to it saying that this is what continuation education should be. CTA will fight this because they have so many kids in the room. That’s the very reason we are trying to get this point across. Dennis King made a motion for CDR to approve $500 to cover printing, paper, and sending a survey regarding critical issues to be brought back to CDR in the Fall. Jim Ingram seconded. The motion carried unanimously. Ad Hoc Committees–
Awards Report: Lee Newman said there are 10 classified personnel, 9 administrators, and 9 teachers of the year to be recognized at the awards ceremony. The booklets will be on the tables tonight. Lee continued with the Jerry Dean awards. Jerry Dean was an administrator who passed away and the award in his name is for exemplary service to continuation. It could be teacher/parent/student/administrator/classified/etc. anybody who has made a huge contribution. There is also a Life Membership award usually for someone who has retired but is still contributing much time and effort. Lee recognized and welcomed Dan Plough as a new member of the awards committee and said this was a training year for him. Gerry said there is a listing on the website of all the awards. Membership Committee
Report: Marion St. Amant said there is a problem with the difference between school membership and professional membership. We need strong support from principals to encourage professional membership and we haven’t been getting the support we need from principals. We need more perks for membership. Suggested that nominations for state or district awards, everyone should be a professional member or they are not eligible for the awards. It’s part of the evaluation as an involved member. If you are not a professional member, how can you be involved? Marion asked for any ideas for perks for professional members. Dan Plough brought up a discussion saying in years past school membership was limited to a finite number of people on the campus…say “three” which might include the administrator, a classified and a teacher, which qualified the school as a member school. The rest of the staff could join as professional members. Eric Spears said it’s important to remember that it’s the numbers that count. So when we lobby, we’re 3000 not 300. Jim Caswell said we discuss this every year and the key is the administrator who says, “Join CCEA!” Now, many principals don’t care. We need to work more with the principals. With much discussion and some confusion, a motion was made that all future CCEA nominees for teacher, administrator, or classified of the year, for state awards must be a professional member. Bob Woodward seconded the motion. The motion carried 10-5. Nominations Committee: Karlene Dockery opened the floor for nominations: Jim Caswell for president, Jeanne Yttreness for vice-president, Nancy Christopher for secretary, and Ross Bauer for treasurer. Nominations were closed. Gerry Catanzarite said technically there is no nominee for treasurer because Ross has already served two years. We need a ¾ vote of the seated CDR members to extend his term for a third year. So we need someone to move to extend Ross’s term for a third year, and then we can vote on that. Bob Woodward so moved. Bill Pierce seconded. Vote carried unanimously. Ross has been elected for a third year. Barbara Wenk made the motion to elect the remaining officers, Mark Cusator seconded. Vote was unanimous for the new officers. Thank you very much! State Department
Reports: Dennis Fisher thanked Jeanne Yttreness and everyone who contributed their time and efforts to this year’s Model Continuation School Program applications. There were 18 applicants and 16 winners. Dennis explained the process on who and how it works. This is one of the best technical assistance programs that we do. There is a partnership between CDE and CCEA. Dennis is the one who makes the recommendations to Delaine Easton. Mary Weaver will be there Sunday morning to give the presentations. Dennis also goes to the alternative school accountability meetings and he agrees with Janet that the meetings are focusing on small schools and K-1 schools and actually some of those schools are not even alternative programs so it gets a little dry. One good things is, Section 28 has been approved which is a contract with West Ed. to develop a list of standardized local tests that schools can select as an additional indicator if they want to in the future. He went to a training session on the Healthy Kids Survey. He learned something about the resilience and youth development module, that it actually is researched based correlation with the API. The three perceived assets of meaningful participation, high expectations, and caring relationships in the school…if they have high levels of those, their API scores are very high. Dennis wants to test a hypothesis that students in a model continuation school programs (about 8000 to 10,000) would have perceived assets as high or higher than traditional schools and test to see if there is a correlation between their API scores. Dennis said thank you to CCEA; he couldn’t do anything without us. Dan Plough asked if charter schools are exempt from the CAHSEE. Janet said ONLY private schools. Peter Birdsall: Says the survey is good idea. There is a new state superintendent this year. On the issue of class size reduction, Jack O’Connell could be a good supporter. The executive committee met with Sacramento people. The new executive director is Rich Brandsman. They met with Jim Wilson who recognizes the problem of liking to the API. As the yearly progress involves a whole series of indicators, the state cannont comply by using the SAT 9. As a matter of fact, the feds require that the academic progress be based on a standards based exam, so norm a referenced test by definition does not meet that requirement. You also cannot base it on an end of course exam, which basically knocks out our secondary level standards based exams because they are by and large end of course. So it appears to be driving California toward an accountability based on the CAHSEE. “No Child Left Behind” requires that the AYP includes science. So we may to include science in the CAHSEE. There are clearly changes coming at the secondary level. My instincts lead to reliance on the CASHEE, not on SAT 9. There is no longer the SAT 9. Now it’s the California Achievement Test. We have until May of 2003 to work through these issues. The state budget is now in a shortfall of $20 billion . In the short term they will probably solve a lot of that problem by borrowing. A number of legislative leaders are saying this is a short term dip, not a long term recession. We shouldn’t be cutting programs to accommodate that; we should borrow money. It also avoids the political pain of raising taxes and cutting programs. It will probably be a late budget based on borrowing that gets passed to get past the November election. At that point based on the revenue numbers they may to do another round of cuts and maybe at that point they raise some taxes. We’re already hearing talk about a two stage budget. In terms of total amount of money for K-12 I’m guessing we will get roughly what the governor proposed in January. Prop 98 will most likely remain the same. The 1882 funds will most likely get suspended for a year or two.it’s an uphill fight…not a priority of the superintendents or business officials. The other one up for grabs is the governors proposed a 10% cut for independent study. It looks like a 50-50 fight on that one. The COLA is going down, but that is not a political act, it is a technical act. It is a function of the federal index. The governor’s estimate in January was 2.15%, and we’ll know in a couple of weeks what the real number is but the rumors are when the federal figures come out it will be 1.65% to 1.8%. A question was asked if we should combine CCEA and CIS, but the answer was it’s not a good idea politically because it screws up the funding. A question was asked about peer assistance funding. There is a proposal to include peer assistance review in a block grant. That discussion of block grant is getting some fairly active play in the legislature. Peer assistance review already took their hit with a 37% cut. The author that we picked for our bill is Jackie Goldberg. She is the incoming chair of the assembly education committee. She was instrumental in getting us in the high priority school grant. She has also been selected as one of 5 members of the budget subcommittee. She is also controversial because of a bill she is carrying regarding collective bargaining. So on one hand she is good, on the other she has alienated some of the groups we rely on for support. Peter also discussed SB 1731 which would require that students be placed in a course of study that makes them eligible for CSU or UC. The only way to opt out of that is for the parent, student, and school administrator or counselor to sign a document saying that this student is agreeing to a course of study that will not make him or her eligible for CSU or UC. That obviously has enormous ramifications. It’s an issue that will probably die this year because there are huge fiscal consequences. But this issue will keep coming back in terms of how do we address this in a way that helps craft a more thoughtful solution. Audit Report: Jim Ingram agreed with the report as written. He said it was very well done and clearly showed all the categories of expenditures. Very nicely written. Election of New Members
at Large: I, XII, III
Mark Tellas The Fall CDR will be October 18th at the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Jim Ingram is retiring but has offered to help with next year’s conference. Adjournment 3:40 p.m.
|
