Monterey Bay Charter move to CSUMB moves one step closer

After receiving an initial blessing from Cal State University, Monterey Bay Charter trustees expect to begin circulating soon the environmental impact report on their proposed campus on CSUMB.

After the report has been shown to the public, trustees will hold a town hall meeting to talk about the school, to be located on a 20-acre plot of land on the southeast part of the CSUMB campus between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, and between Colonel Durham Street and Butler Street.

 I first wrote about the story here.

Monterey Bay Charter trustees are cautioning that this is still in the preliminary stages, and that a final approval won't come down until May. The project must be approved by CSU trustees.

In the meantime, the school will host an open house from 10 am. to noon on Saturday, Feb. 6. The Lottery deadline is March 1. The school's K-8 grades are located at 1004 David Ave., Pacific Grove.
For more information, visit the school's website here. 

Oasis Charter hosts open house

Oasis Charter Public School in Salinas will hold an open house and orientation on Thursday, Feb 26, March 26 and April 23 at 6:30 p.m.

Staff will answer questions regarding available programs such as GATE, AVID and all the classes based on Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. Oasis Charter is a tuition-free public school, Kindergarten through sixth grade located behind Costco in Salinas. For more information, call the school at (831) 424-9003 or visit our their website here.

Oasis Chárter School celebra un evento de puertas abiertas y orientación el 26 de febrero, 26 de marzo y el 23 de abril a las 6:30 p.m.

 Esta es una oportunidad para hacer preguntas sobre los programas y cursos disponibles que ofrece la escuela en ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería, arte y matemáticas. Oasis charter es una escuela pública y gratuita, desde kínder hasta sexto de primaria. La escuela Oasis charter se encuentra detrás de Costco en Salinas. Para más informacion llame al 831-424-90-03 o pulse aquí.

Millennium Charter High School gets five year extension

Millennium Charter High School, one of the newest charters in Monterey County, was re-authorized for another five years by the Monterey County Board of Education.

Millennium opened in August 2013, and the following year was named by the California Department of Education a "model demonstration site" for Career Technical Education (CTE) in the Arts, Media and Entertainment pathway. Located in two sites -- the Monterey County Office of Education and Sherwood Hall -- the school offers traditional academic preparation with an emphasis on visual and performing arts, digital media technology. The school currently serves students in grades 9-11 and will add a 12 grade in 2015-2016.

Unlike most charters that have been denied in recent years, Millennium began as an effort by educators and performing arts professionals.

International School of Monterey to hold open house

International School of Monterey, a charter school, will host an open house from 9:30 to 11: 30 a.m. on Jan. 10. The public will get a close look on how the school operates.

School administrators are also accepting applications for the 2015-16 school year for grades K-8. Applications will be received until 5 p.m. Jan. 27, and a lottery will be held at 5 p.m. on Feb. 10 for the spots available. All events will take place at the school at 1720 Yosemite Ave. in Seaside.

For more information, call 583-2165 or click here.

Interested in attending Millennium Charter High School? Apply now

Millennium Charter High School is accepting applications for the 2015-16 school year. Deadline to apply is 5:00 pm on March 31st. Millennium officials anticipate that there will be more applicants than spaces available for next year’s ninth grade class, and under California Education Code, charter schools that have more applicants than spaces available must hold a public lottery.

The lottery will be held at 5:30 PM on Tuesday, April 7th, 2015 in the Black Box Theater at the Monterey County Office of Education, 901 Blanco Circle, Salinas.

Millennium will hold an open house from 6 to 8 p.m. on Jan. 21 at its facilities at the Sherwood Community Center, 940 N. Main St., Salinas.

For more information, call 758-7952 or click here.

Navigator supporters show up to MCOE meeting

Administrators for Navigator Schools, the charter operator based in Gilroy that wants to expand into Monterey County, say they had about 100 supporters attend their appeal hearing last week.

"We had over 100 Navigator supporters from both our schools and from Salinas," Sharon Waller, director of expansion, wrote in an email. "We chartered two buses that picked up folks from both places. It was so exciting to see so many supporters in the audience and to hear them (about 30 speakers) speak favorably about Navigator coming to town.

Navigator petitioned to open a charter school at the Alisal Union  and the Salinas City Elementary  school districts. They were both rejected by the trustees, and Navigator administrators opted to appeal the process with the Salinas City Elementary. Trustees with the Monterey County Office of Education are expected to vote on the appeal on Dec. 3.

It will be interesting to see how that goes. Navigator officials say they plan to have lots of supporters on the date of the vote as well. Stay tuned.

Navigator appeal coming to the Monterey County Office of Education

Perhaps you've noticed I've been doing quite a bit of coverage about a small charter operator that wants to come to Monterey County. It's called Navigator, and you can find an article about the national controversy on charters here and a description of one the Navigator schools,  Gilroy Prep, here.

Navigator asked to open two charters, one in the Salinas City Elementary School District, and one at the Alisal Union School District. After getting rejected from both districts, Navigator administrators appealed the Salinas City petition to the Monterey County Board of Education.

Trustees with the Monterey County Board of Education will hear the appeal at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the offices on Blanco Circle. I regret I won't be there, as I have an important issue to attend to on the other side of the country. So I'll be checking in to see what happened.

Scuttlebutt, I expect a full report!

Getting your teaching chops at a charter school

In case you've missed it, I've been writing about a small charter school operator, Navigator Schools, and its attempts to open two schools in Salinas.

My most recent story is here, and it addresses the charter controversy at a national level.

As you can probably imagine, it's often hard to include in a story all the information you request or come across as you research these issues. For instance, I had asked two Gilroy Prep teachers to give me their input on how's like to teach at a Navigator School. I didn't find a good place to include their views, so I'll post them here, edited.

Bri Gottlieb has been been teaching for three years, her last two at Gilroy Prep. This year, she trained new staff on classroom management styles and student culture. When I visited the school on Oct. 7, Gottlieb was teaching her students how to use cubes to measure length. She was using a very catchy song to teach units of measure, a method used frequently at the school. 

Other topics I asked her about: how does she keep up with the energy level (there's a lot of movement involved in the teaching at Navigator)? How much coaching they have? Here's more of her story, in her own words:

"We have many songs and chants so it is easier for the kids to remember steps and strategies. Some examples of math concepts we have songs and chants for are rounding, subtraction regrouping, word problems, money, fractions, time, multiplication, doubles facts, etc. The students get very into them and you can see them mouthing the songs to themselves during tests and independent practice.
"Some days are harder than others to keep up the energy because on Mondays the kids are sleepy so we ( the teachers) tend to do more of the talking. After working for this school for the second year, you get used to walking and using hand motions with instruction. I find I have more energy because I am used to moving around so much. I have joked around that I should wear a pedometer to see how many steps I walk around in a day. I find that the more I move around, the more the kids get excited and more engaged to learn.

"There is a lot of coaching involved. Every week a coach will observe the classroom (sometimes tape) and then meet with the teacher some time later in the week. During the coaching meetings, we go over strengths and two action steps to work on for the following week. I have found that I have become a better teacher from the feedback from my coaches. It is a very positive coaching model that helps improve my teaching skills all around. I am more conscious about constantly learning and more focused on certain actions that I want to improve on. Sometimes it helps to get another perspective on something I want to improve on as well. Before I came to this school, I didn't realize how collaborative a school could be. Most schools are very inclusive to the teachers and teachers work independently. It is very hard to grow as a teacher in that kind of environment. If I have a great idea that works for a better grade, I e-mail my fellow colleagues and they use the idea. It is a better environment to work in and to grow as a teacher. We are all working for the kids and to help them succeed in their education which is the way it should be." 

Alisal administrators say no to Navigator Charter

As you probably remember, Gilroy-based charter schools operator Navigator wants to open two schools in Salinas, one in the Alisal and another in the Salinas City school districts. You can read more about it here.

As could have easily been predicted, the unions that represent school employees showed up in force to express their concern with Navigator. Here's the story I wrote about it here.

So it wasn't very surprising to see that Alisal administrators are actually going to recommend trustees deny the school.  They're expected to vote on this on Wednesday at their regular school board meeting.

Navigator's scheduled to have its hearing at the Salinas City Elementary School District on Monday.

It won't surprise me if Navigator decides to appeal the decision to the Monterey County Board of Education.

What comes after that is anybody's guess, although I may want to venture an educated guess. Hit me up if you want to hear what it is.

Navigator Charters will have open hearings in Salinas next week

If you read the article I wrote for the paper last week, you probably already know Navigator Schools, a Gilroy-based system of charters looking to expand, has applied to open two charters in Salinas. You can find the story here. 

Next week, Navigator officials will have a chance to make their case. Their first hearing will take place Tuesday at a special meeting of the Salinas City Elementary School District board of education. The meeting will start at 5 p.m. in the district's main office, 840 S. Main St., Salinas.

The second meeting will take place on Wednesday during the regular meeting of  the Alisal Union School District board of trustees. Open sessions begin after closed session (which starts at 5:30 p.m.) Alisal trustees meet at Bardin Elementary, 425 Bardin Rd., Salinas.

See you there!

Millennium High Charter School to host orientation

Even if you're not enrolled at Millennium Charter, but are curious about the school, the student/parent orientation to take place at 6:30 p.m. Friday Aug. 8 should be a good opportunity to find out all about the school The orientation will take place at Sherwood Hall, the school's new digs. Sherwood Hall's at 940 N. Main St., Salinas.

The grand opening for the Sherwood Hall portion of the school will take place at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 15.

At the Monterey County Office of Education Campus, Millennium students will still have access to a digital media lab with laptop computers, editing software, a black box theater, a high-definition television studio with professional control rooms, and a radio station designed for broadcast as well as podcast production.

Millennium Charter High School earns WASC accreditation

Millennium Charter High School is on a roll. Weeks after being named a Model Demonstration Site for Career Technical Education in the Arts, Media, and Entertainment, school administrators have just learned the school has just earned accreditation for grades 9 and 10.

Accreditation for Grade 11 will be completed in the fall of 2014, followed by Grade 12 in the fall of 2015, Principal Peter Gray said. WASC Accreditation certifies that the school is a trustworthy institution of learning and validates the integrity of the school’s program and student transcripts.

"I feel very proud that WASC has validated the hard work of the students and staff and the support of our parents," Gray said in an email. "Because there won't be a 12th grade program to be accredited until the 2015-16 school year, WASC will send a team out for a site visit and then we will be fully accredited for grades 9-12."

The school will be moving some operations to Sherwood Park starting the 2014-15 school year. An opening ceremony's scheduled for Aug. 1. 

Of PK Diffenbaugh and the trick of charter schools

The happiness and positive atmosphere was palpable. Tuesday night, at the board meeting of the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, the exuberance was such I thought I'd been transported to the Happiest Place on Earth.

Why not? Daniel PK Diffenbaugh seems like a good guy. He has good answers for everything. Miracles appeared to have been performed at Sacramento High, the charter school where he worked for five years. Like Diffenbaugh likes to point out, the achievement gap was closed during his tenure, the school saw an increase in the Academic Performance Index (API) 582 to 778 and the state ranking increase from a 2 to a 7. Students meeting California college eligibility increased from 35 percent to over 80 percent. Over 75 percent of graduates were accepted to four-year universities including Stanford, CAL, and MIT.

I was ready to join in the celebration. Then I was reminded by an alert reader of a trick that charter schools are often accused of doing to mask their performance and make it appear better than it is. 

First of all, let me remind you of a complain I hear often regarding charter schools. The reason why students often seem to perform better than in regular public schools, it's because students who attend charters are those already better equipped for academic excellence: their parents are more aware of the education system, they're bound to be more involved, thus pushing their kids on a path to success.

But there's another complaint I've heard about, and in some cases, amply documented with reports and stories.

That charter schools inflate their academic success by pushing out poor performers  -- they skim from the top. They appear to have closed the achievement gap, increase college entrance, etc., by getting rid of students who don't perform up to par. Education historian Diane Ravitch often blogs in the issue. You can find one of her entries here.

So, what does this have to do with PK Diffenbaugh and Sacramento High? I don't know yet. But I did a little digging and I found something a bit alarming. In the 2004-05 school year -- the same year when he began working there -- the school had 1,692 students enrolled. When he left in 2010, there were 960 students.

For the sake of argument, let's pretend the class of 2006-07 -- when PK was already a principal -- had its student population equally distributed among all grades. By then, it was 1,147 students in the entire charter -- or about 287 students per cohort. By 2010, that would have been 240 students per cohort -- or a 16 percent, four year drop out rate, again, if the students were equally distributed among grades.

Again, I don't know if that was the issue here. But losing more than 732 students in five years, when charter schools are growing everywhere seems a bit concerning.

I'm going to have to do more digging. Stay tuned.

Monterey County Home Charter School hosts open house

The Monterey County Home Charter School, a k-12 public school for families who home school their children, will host their annual open house from 5:30 to 7 pm. Thursday. You can learn more about the program and view student work and projects.

The school will also host a meeting for parents and community members on Common Core and funding related to it from 4:30 – 5:30 pm on this same day.

The events will take place  at the Monterey County Office of Education, Rooms A & B, 901 Blanco Circle, Salinas.

Millenium Charter is expanding

Hamish Tyler, director of the Media Center for Arts Education and Technology at the Monterey County Office of Education says the Millennium Charter School is not moving out of MCOE. It's just expanding into Sherwood Hall near the Salinas Sports Complex.

"There will always be 58 students here," at MCOE, Tyler said.

But with an incoming class of another 58 students, the freshmen and sophomores already housed at the MCOE campus of Millennium were feeling the squeeze. That's already 100 some students at MCOE, and capacity was becoming an issue.

Millennium's much touted studios will remain where they are, and Millennium students will use them as needed. By expanding capacity, the studios will also be available to students of the home charter program and other programs managed by MCOE, Tyler said.

"It really is a win-win," Tyler said.

Oasis Charter to eliminate 7th and 8th grades

In spite of passionate opposition by some parents, officials with Oasis Charter Public School in Salinas decided to eliminate 7th and 8th grades from their school beginning the upcoming school year.

Perea wrote in an email the decision was arrived after "many" months of deliberations. The first meeting Perea refers to took place in November. The closure was originally scheduled to be voted on January, but board members requested more time to receive more information.

"Oasis has invited local middle school representatives and outgoing Oasis students to talk to Oasis 6th and 7th graders about the amenities their schools offer and to answer questions to help support transitioning students," Perea said.

Perea convinced officials the students would be better served if the school took a STEM approach in teaching -- that is, if it emphasized Science, Technology, Energy and Math. Administrators are "in the planning process of adding more K-6 grade multi-age classes and implementing pilot programs that emphasize science, technology, engineering, math and the arts," Perea said.

Oasis Charter officials to decide fate of middle grades Thursday

Families at Oasis Charter School are awaiting anxiously a decision by the trustees whether to continue with the middle grade programs.

In case you've missed the saga, here's a story I wrote about it last month. A quick summary: Principal Juanita Perea says she informed parents she wanted to eliminate 6, 7, and 8 grades starting next year to make room for a lab and transform the school into a Science, Technology, Math and Engineering program. Parent said they just learned of this plan in December, giving them no time to explore other options for the schooling of their children.

Trustees are expected to decide what to do with the higher grades at a meeting starting at 6 p.m. at the school.

Stay tuned.

Oasis Charter to hold a donation drive

Oasis Charter School will be holding a three day weekend donation drive in their parking lot this weekend February 22end-23erd. The focus of the drive is to collect clothing, shoes, small housewares ect. No furniture will be accepted.

Goodwill industries will park a trailer with a donation attendant from 10-4pm each day of the drive Friday, Saturday and Sunday. At the end of the drive Goodwill will pay the school based on the amount of donations received.

The fundraising idea was introduced a year ago, and many non-profit, charitable organization benefited, earning hundreds of dollars from the program last year.

The students and faculty of Oasis Charter School are asking everyone in our community to clean out closets, garages, and attics, and plan to bring the items to Oasis Charter School located at 1135 Westridge parkway on Friday Saturday and Sunday February 22end – 23erd. This will benefit Oasis Charter School.

National School Choice Week -- what does it really mean?

So, a local news station is going gaga over National School Choice week. Stories that would normally be about "schools" have become about "choice in education."

I've stayed away from that bruhaha because there's no story. The National School Choice Week is a publicity campaign designed to promote legislation intended to privatize public education. Such as charter school and vouchers.

Don't get me wrong, some charters are great. At the local level, we have some in the hands of community members who are really doing a good job. I give them plenty of ink when they have real news.

But the movement is general is aimed at sucking public dollars from public schools. Privatizers will tell you "public schools are failing," then will give little money to schools to accomplish their tasks, and when the goals set by these reformers are not met, they will deplore with a grin in their faces 'I told you the schools are failing. We should have choices, like vouchers and charters."

It doesn't help that there's districts in severe need of help, but that's another story.

California's spending per pupil just dropped to 49th in the country. It's now 28 percent below the national average. And I don't care what people say about "throwing money at a problem." I've never seen a problem that was not fixed -- or at least comforted -- by money.

Public education is not a problem in affluent districts. When was the last time you heard anybody complain about the public education in Pacific Grover or Carmel? 

Many of the "reformers" who want to see vouchers start pointing fingers to unions and say "they're the problem. They're getting a raise. Education should be about the kids, not the adults."  When the money goes to private institutions, there's no unions to give anybody trouble. Read this piece by Joseph Di Salvo of the Santa Clara County Board of Education and see what I mean. 

So what the choice movement is really about is privatizing public education. You get a charter, a private-like school where you can only get in by lottery, or a voucher  for a private school, what you're doing basically is taking money from the public system (from the unions) and take it into the private realm. It's that simple.

That's why there's so much private industry vested in this movement. That's why the Walton Family Foundation -- Walmart anybody? -- is such a huge supporter.

If you want to get a real education on whose behind the National School Choice Week is really about, I recommend this piece.

Monterey Bay Charter holds open house, open for enrollment

Monterey Bay Charter School will host an open house from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Feb. 8. on its campus on 1004 David Ave., Pacific Grove.

Enrollment applications for the placement lottery will be accepted through March 1st. Open slots will be filled based upon the random drawing held Wednesday, March 19 at 7pm. Wait list positions will also be established at the drawing.

For more information, call 655-4638 or visit www.mbayschool.org.