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. 

Students from Monterey Bay Charter school conquer MATHCOUNTS

Monterey Bay Charter School won first place at the MATHCOUNTS regional competition held Saturday at San Benancio Middle School. Monterey Bay Charter officials are delighted in the win, as it's the first time the school achieves this feat.

"We got the team award, and one of our team members got third place award," said Kristi Heath, the school's administrative coordinator. "It's pretty exciting. This was really a big win, specially as a small school."

In the past, the school has won individual trophies and a third place team award but it’s the first time the school will go on to the state competition, Heath said.

Members of the winning team -- coached by Sandra Boyd -- are: Pavel Hickman, Tomas Hickman, Eugene Pastor, and Andrew Simpson. The team will now advance to the state competition, to be held at Stanford University on March 21.

San Carlos School came in second place, followed by Santa Catalina School.

MATHCOUNTS is a national math enrichment, coaching and competition program designed to improve math skills among U.S. students. More than 6 million students across the U.S. have participated in MATHCOUNTS programs. Leadership at the local levels of the MATHCOUNTS Competition Series is provided by members of the California Society of Professional Engineers.

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.

Monterey Bay Charter School will host its 15th annual May Faire, a day full of spring, food and games from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 4th, at the school, 1004 David Ave., Pacific Grove. All proceeds used to further the school's mission to raise amazing kids.


There will be breakfast, a cake sale, silent auction, a procession, games, storytelling, a puppet show, and more.

For more information, call (831) 655-4638 or click here.

Monterey Bay Charter raising funds and helping the environment

Folks at the Monterey Bay Charter have raised $17,000 with the Plant-a-thon they held March 9. They have $12,200 to go to reach their goal, and they continue to collect pledges until the end of March.

"It’s the students that do most of the planting along with their parents," Monterey Bay Charter secretary Kristi Heath said. "A representative from Return of the Natives talks to each class ahead of time giving them information about the planting and the benefit to the land and environment."

The plant-a-thon is done in partnership with CSUMB’s Return of the Natives Restoration Education Project and the Bureau of Land Management. RON gets five percent of the school's fundraising proceeds and provides the plants and location set up. All of the Monterey Bay Charter families get pledges supporting the school and this program and then, on planting day, go out to the site and plant over 2,000 seedlings of native plants. Then they have some fun with a party, a picnic and music!

For more information about the school, click here.

For more information about Return of the Natives, click here.

So many schools in Monterey County, so little time

California officials handed score cards to all state schools last week, as you probably remember from this story. Many schools went up, some went down, and overall, academic performance at Monterey County public schools declined for the third year in a row.

This trend deserves further examination, something I hope to get around to in the upcoming weeks. Also, another trend that's been brought to my attention and deserves further scrutiny is the increased use of "alternative" testing for special education children -- something that data crunching guru Doug McRae believes is "inflating" test results statewide. Here's his story on EdSource, in case you're curious.

At the local level, there are several local districts that are using high proportion of alternative testings. I'll be looking into that sometime in the near future.

But I'd also love to look into high performing schools. Bay View Academy, for instance, hit its scores off the park by scoring 849 in its inaugural year -- three points ahead of Monte Vista Elementary, which, given Monterey demographics, is actually not very surprising.  I'm sure folks at both schools are very pleased, as they should.

Also noteworthy is the Monterey Bay Academy, which also went up by 21 points in the API scale. I'd love to explore what the school's doing, how they're tackling the challenges other schools have with low income, English learners, and other "subgroups." Stay tuned.

Finally, two schools of the Greenfield Union School District made impressive gains. Mary Chapa went up by 108 points. Its sister campus, El Camino Technology Academy, went up 73 points. And nearby Cesar Chavez went down by 33 points. Why the discrepancy?

So many stories...

Monterey Bay and CORAL charters back again at MCOE

Monterey County Office of Education administrators are recommending a hearty approval of the Monterey Bay Charter School in Pacific Grove, citing its "sound educational practice." The school had also earned rave reviews about its money management, so the commendation to renew its charter status by another five years hardly comes as a surprise.

Another charter that will have its day under the sun -- or rain, most likely on Wednesday -- is CORAL. As I previously reported, CORAL petitioners asked MPUSD to deny its charter in December rather than approve it with conditions. They didn't want to face the possibility of a denial with no time to open in the fall, so now they'll take their chances with MCOE administrators -- who they describe as friendly, cooperative, and open to their idea.

Monterey Bay Charter's scheduled for 1:30 p.m. CORAL's for 5:30 p.m. The MCOE board of trustees meets at 901 Blanco Circle, Salinas.

A peek into Monterey charters

Two local charters get good marks, one will get a chance to talk about it Saturday, and another wants to meet you

Representatives with the Bay View Academy charter gave an update on what the school has accomplished in its first year of operation. So far, so good, it appears. After an initial bump that pushed them to change principals early in the school year, veteran administrator John Favero took over and everything seems to be running smoothly now. MCOE trustees sounded pleased during their report Wednesday morning. Well, except for the fact that the charter is serving fewer English language learners than even Bay View Elementary had -- which were already fewer than the district as a whole, and trustees Francisco Estrada and David Serena had concerns about that.

There were also good news for Monterey Bay Charter in Pacific Grove, whose yearly audit was completed and raised no red flags. The school's well managed, it has a very healthy reserve -- much healthier than some school districts, Assistant Superintendent of Business Garry Bousum said.

Monterey Bay's Director Cassandra Gallup-Bridge said the reserve is accomplished by being thrifty. We meet our budget but we don't give our staff raises, she said. Ouch. Who would do something like that?

And speaking of Monterey Bay, they're having open houses in two sites. The kindergarten open house will take place from 10 to noon Saturday at the Seaside Children’s Center, 1450 Elm Street in Seaside. The school’s main campus will hold an open house for grades 1-8 from 10 to noon Saturday at 1004 David Avenue, Pacific Grove.

The school's taking applications for openings in the next school year. Openings will be filled beginning in April through random drawing. Enrollment forms are available here, and at the school office at 1004 David Avenue, Pacific Grove.

CORAL Academy, a group of parents organizing to form a charter school, will have a picnic to inform the public about their charter. They don't have charter status yet or a site, but they sure have energy and hopes to begin classes in the fall. The group will gather from 11 am to 2 pm. Saturday, February 11 at the Lakeside Area in Laguna Grande Park, on the corner of Canyon Del Rey Boulevard and Harcourt Avenue. Visit the group's website or call them at 831-272-2818 for more information.