I am curious how many other staff members have experienced a hostile work environment due to Mr. Nelson's abusive behavior. How much more will he cost the district before he loses his reelection bid next November?

I'm wondering when people will realize that having some critical thought is a valuable addition to a School Board. Its not a case of just going along with the superintendent. In this case, The resignations of the two superintendents and the departure of the special education director appear to have all 3 been in the best interest of the district. It only happened after Nelson was elected. So if you want to Donald Trump the whole thing, you could say that Nelson's impact has been good in a HUGE way.

You could say that, but you'd be wrong.

Bringing in Donald Trump into this discussion?

Really?

On average, low-income and English-learner students perform at a level approximately one standard deviation below their peers. As documented by Sailer et al, this gap is remarkably consistent across school districts and across the country. Rather than trying to turn them into something they're not (college material) we need our school systems to prepare them for jobs that are well suited to their capabilities.

I have to take issue with some of the things mentioned about the work of the BATF.

As a member of the committee, I'm certain that we did not "recommend" closing any schools (as part of our final recommendations). In fact, the Board was explicit in its position that it did not want to close any schools especially for the purpose of opening a new school. That made it pretty clear to the BATF that it would be very difficult to open a new school, given the information we had at the time. We also believed that closing any school for the sole purpose of opening a new school was not an action any of us wanted to be associated with on any level. We did believe that opening a new school under the current enrollment priorities would almost certainly cause the closing of at least one school at some point in the future because of shifting enrollment. However, with some minor adjustments to enrollment policies in the district these concerns could easily be addressed.

As for PACT, we did explore (in good faith) opportunities to move the Stevenson school family to a better facility, or share an existing site another school. The reason for this was mostly to avoid having to renovate yet another school site with limited funds. We ultimately decided that none of those scenarios worked because 1), the PACT school family loves their current site and does not want to move to another school...yet again 2), sharing a school site requires a kind of "separate but equal" arrangement where PACT students or students at the other school might be involved in programs or activities that wouldn't necessarily be available to students at both schools sharing the site. This can cause conflict. I note that the Board has asked if schools can share certain facilities at one site like Libraries and Multi Use Rooms, which I think is a good idea where it's feasible.

Thanks,

Cleave Frink

@SmarterThanYou

Your comment (Rather than trying to turn them into something they're not (college material)[...]) reminded me of this 2007 article: "Ironically, very few of the schools where I find the greatest progress in closing the racial achievement gap are in affluent suburbs [...]. In such places it is more common to find highly predictable racial patterns of achievement [...] Even more disturbing is the air of complacency surrounding perceptions of this phenomenon that characterizes so many of these schools.[...] there are even more who have come to believe that is just the way it is."

Anyone who would like to know what it takes for brown and black to perform as well as the rest and where such school can be found please read the whole article Web Link . All others please read the summary below.

"[...] there are typically several strategies in place, including: 1) a commitment to engage parents as partners in education with explicit roles and responsibilities for parents and educators laid out; 2) strong instructional leadership focused on a coherent program for curriculum and instruction that teachers support and follow; 3) a willingness to evaluate interventions and reforms to insure quality control; 4) a recognition that discipline practices must be linked to educational goals and must always aim at re-connecting troubled students to learning; 5) a commitment to finding ways to meet the non-academic needs of poor students."

I hope the Superintendent has a plan to address every one of these 5 action steps, I hope the district and schools implement such plan and if that happens in a few short years equitable outcomes will happen right here in Mountain View.
Something to look forward to in 2016!