I work in the Anaheim Union High School District, right next door to Los Al, and a few years ago, our teachers, district and unions decided to discuss a re-vamped school calendar. When the options were initially rolled out, I think everyone's initial gut reaction was to scream, "What's going to happen to the summer?" But after several surveys, multiple discussions in a variety of forums, and due diligence in reading supporting research, we all quickly determined that it was a great idea.  When we we took the final vote, the overwhelming majority agreed that a change was in order. So with the 2015/2016 school year, we will begin our new calendar adventure.

Here's what it looks like:

• Next year, school begins for us on August 12, 2015, and will end before Memorial Day on May 26, 2016. 

Crazy, huh!?

Actually, no so crazy after all. Here's why:

• No summer is lost - it just moves three weeks earlier
• The semester ends before Winter Break - a natural break for instructional purposes, as opposed to dragging finals into January after a long vacation
• School will end with a holiday weekend - providing vacation opportunities for families and staff that don't cost the district dollars in lost ADA for absent students or substitute costs for absent teachers when a three-day weekend is extended into four
• Three extra weeks to prepare students for AP (Advanced Placement) exams that occur the first 2 to 3 weeks in May - more in line with east coast schools
• Three extra weeks to prepare students for the SBAC (Common Core) standardized tests
• Less downtime after AP exams - students, rather than having six weeks after the culminating, high-stakes course exam, will take the AP exam, follow that up with the teacher's course final, and then call it a year - fully taking advantage of all instructional minutes

Once we decided as a school community to make the calendar change, we also just went for it in terms of implementation ... we are making the change to the calendar in one summer. This means we will end this school year in mid-June and begin the following school year in early August. Ouch! 

In the end, however, I see it simply as ripping off a Band-Aid quickly in just one strong yank - it only hurts for an instant and then its over. Ultimately, this is a much better solution than making the change gradually by phasing it in over several years, one week at a time. Personally, I'd rather have only one short summer than three.

Regardless the logistics of the implementation, as a teacher I'm excited about the instructional potential. 

Is this something we want in Los Al? 

I don't know, but I will argue it's worth a discussion - there's no harm in that!

When I was a kid, fundraising consisted of one big fundraiser for the year: magazines, candy, wrapping paper, or some type of product I tried to peddle to my parents, relatives, neighbors and friends’ parents. No one wanted anything I was selling, but everyone bought something. They didn’t mind participating in the fundraiser; it was once a year and enabled them to contribute to my personal goals of earning one of dozens of prizes for selling more items than my friends. I don’t know where this money went. In fact, when I think back, I’m not sure even my parents knew. Everyone just purchased a tin of chocolate covered peanuts, and we all moved on.  Until the carnival when we played Cake Walk, Put the Ball in the Milk Container, Goldfish Ping Pong Ball, and Dunk Tank. I can’t be sure, but I’d bet these were all PTA initiatives organized by parent volunteers at individual schools in order to pay for end-of-year barbeques, school-branded pencils, and teacher appreciation. But this was it – the extent of the monies requested of my parents.

Fundraising as it exists in education today doesn’t resemble this innocent memory of mine. Rather, fundraising of the 21st century feels like a mandate. I receive dozens of, what I’ll call opportunities, to “maximize financial resources.” I say mandate, because I am being asked in almost every communication that comes from the district, in extremely aggressive language, to send in money. These requests ask me to:

• pay for my child’s absence ($40/day)
• donate to the district’s educational foundation per-family an on-going amount every month ($25/month)
• purchase school supplies – that my children can’t put their names on, because they get pooled in the classroom ($100/year)
• buy tickets to my individual school’s foundation’s fundraising auction ($75/ticket)
• buy donated products and services, parking spaces, and “fund the need” initiatives at the auction ($1000/year)
• buy tickets to the annual high school booster clubs’ community event ($45/ticket)
• sell products for PTA at each of my child’s school ($50/year)
• offset the cost of buses for field trips ($20/year)
• eat at local restaurants so some percentage of proceeds go back to the school ($30/night per event)
• pay for entry in the school district’s annual Fun Run ($35/registrant)
• attend summer enrichment programs ($175/class)
• become a member of PTA – for which rewards are given when there is 100% parent participation in the classroom ($10/parent per school)
  

I know this looks like a long list, but I can guarantee you it’s not an exhaustive list. I’m sure I’ve left off multiple “opportunities.” I get more than a little frustrated, so I decided to take a look at what I could potentially have spent last year, using my own family of four as my model (2 adults and 2 children) - $3,390. And I don’t have kids in high school sports, activities or arts yet!

I’m going to project a little here and make some additional assumptions about number of students and families. In a district of 10,000 children, let’s assume 5,000 families (2 kids per family) participate in half of what is being requested. The potential total amount of money collected in one school year - $8.4 million.

Could that possibly be true? As a community we raise millions of dollars for our schools? That’s an astronomical amount of money! So here’s my question … Where does all the money go?

• Is all that additional money necessary for a high-quality public education in today’s society?
  
• Is all that money being divided equitably among all schools in the district?
  
• Can every penny be accounted for?
  
• Is empirical data readily available to the community, showing how my child’s educational experience has been enriched?
  

These questions need answers. That’s where I come in.

Let me help streamline our community efforts to build great Los Al schools with reasonable fundraising requests and equitable allocation of that money for all students … that doesn’t break the bank!

Couldn’t we all use a little raise?

Did you know:

• We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist,
• using technologies that haven’t yet been invented,
  
• in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
  

We are inundated with news and articles about the 21st century classroom. But what does that mean exactly? A 21st century classroom is as simple and as complex as using the classroom as a tool to ensure our students are and enable our students to be successful. However, our technology and data-driven society is evolving every day, so how do we do this? We need students are adept at:

• collaboration
• creativity
• critical thinking
• communication

Information is everywhere. In fact, teaching is very different today than it was when we were in school. When we all went through school, the teachers were the stewards of information. We looked to them for content, knowledge, facts and expertise. They knew their stuff, and we looked to them as the experts. This traditional role of the teacher no longer exists, because information, content, knowledge and facts are readily available. We can Google anything and get answers today. Teachers no longer “own” information; therefore, our "teacher experts" need to experts in their fields in new ways. They need to embrace the 21st century classroom and teach this next generation how to:

• manage content
• discern bias and credibility
• synthesize information being collected and published at a lightning-speed pace
• work in our global society

I want to see our Los Alamitos teachers learn to be the best the teaching profession has to offer, so that our students are ready for the 21st century world. I want our teachers to facilitate learning, use inquiry-based instruction, integrate technology, utilize evidence-based research as a teaching tool, teach using project-based learning and embed cross-curricular skills and strategies.

This means training, teacher coaches, administrative support and board leadership.

That’s where I come in.

Let me help lead our district into the 21st century.