Considering a Dual Language Immersion program for your child? They’re quietly gaining much popularity as an alternative learning approach.
Check out this in-depth report 
and see what these participants have to say about their experience, good and bad. View a map of all bilingual language schools in CA HERE.
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Or read my previous post about language immersion programs HERE.
Have you been hearing about the new Westside middle-high school pilot school, The Incubator School? Want to learn more?
Come to their introductory Town Hall!
Thurs, October 25th, 6:30-8p
826 LA/Sparc Building
685 Venice Blvd,
Venice, CA 90291
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-a new, tuition-free, public LAUSD pilot school supported by Future Is Now Schools led by Rock The Vote pioneer and Green Dot founder Steve Barr
-opening in August 2013 on the Westside with grades 6 & 7, and adding a grade per year until they reach 12th
-real wold project-based learning
-creative, entrepreneurial, design thinking-based instruction
-committed to nurturing children’s social drives and ethical inquisitiveness
-utilizing rich, vibrant technology to facilitate collaborative social learning
-partnerships with Silicon Beach companies
-college- and world-ready curriculum, with an interdisciplinary approach
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“Just as an incubator nurtures hatchlings, and a business incubator grows ideas into ventures, The Incubator School will provide kids with the skills, mentors, resources, social connectivity, and ethics to help their fledgling ideas fly. The school’s focus will be design thinking, a process-oriented way of looking at problems, generating ideas, and finding solutions.”
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Come with your questions to the Town Hall this Thursday. Read more about their vision here: TheIncubatorSchool Or, Join their FB Page.
Magnets, Lotteries, Points, Oh My!
by Tanya Anton | GoMamaGuide.com
It’s that time of year again. Only earlier.
The 2013-14 Magnet/eChoices Brochure is available, the echoices website is now LIVE and accepting applications, and the application deadline is ONE MONTH EARLIER than last year.
Beginning today, Monday, October 8, 2012 through the deadline Friday, November 16, 2012 at 5p, LAUSD residents may apply to the Magnet Program, Permits With Transportation (PWT) and/or the Public School Choice (NCLB-PSC) program.
Visit echoices.lausd.net. ONLINE. 24/7. It’s easy. It’s fast. It’s paperless.
Highlights for 2013 – There Are Several Notable Changes:
-The Big One: This year you will get to list up to THREE magnet choices. (Yup!!) Your points will only go towards your 1st choice, so your 2nd and 3rd choices will go to the bottom of the wait list, but still it’s a better chance than if you hadn’t applied at all.
-For what it’s worth, most competitive (ie. highly desirable) Magnet programs rarely exhaust their wait list, so being added to the bottom of the list with no points seems like a choiceless choice to me, but hey, it has the “appearance” of offering students more choice.
-Caution: Only select magnet programs you might actually WANT to get into, otherwise if you do get into a magnet program (even your 2nd or 3rd choice) and turn it down, you will lose your accumulated wait list points, so think carefully about your selections. Tread lightly, and smartly. As always, I’m here to help consult if need be.
– If your home school is Program Improvement (most middle and high schools are PI), you will now be able to apply to BOTH the NCLB-PSC program (the District will select ONE non-PI school assignment for you) AND up to 3 Magnet choices. Select Option B-the combo platter. Once you are accepted into a program, you will be removed from other programs and NO wait list points will be accrued. (In previous years you had to choose either the Magnet or the PSC program. Now you can select Option B and go for both.)
The Basic Highlights:
-Only open to LAUSD residents
-The application timeline is a month EARLIER than last year
-You can apply online 24/7 during the application window: Oct 8, 2012 – Nov 16, 2012 5p at echoices.lausd.net
-You can also pick up a paper booklet/application at most local schools and some libraries
-Minimum age: your child must turn 5 by Oct 1, 2013 to be eligible for Kindergarten in 2013
-Make sure you select a Magnet program your child is age-appropriate for, (some Magnet programs don’t start until 2nd or 3rd grade; you can’t apply to Kinder when your child is 3)
-Twins: each child needs a separate application and are treated as individuals. If only one gets in, the Sibling points will apply the following year.
-Magnet tours are happening now, October through mid-November, so get out there and tour some schools!
-There are virtually no more “overcrowded points” due to all the newly built schools and the entire district going on Early Start Calendar. (3 exceptions: Del Olmo EL, Cahuenga EL, Bell HS)
-Points are based on your zoned school determined by your residential address regardless of whether you attend or not
-Transportation is available if you live 2 miles or more from your elementary magnet school, and 5 miles or more from your secondary (middle/high school) magnet school
-The maximum riding time guideline for all students (K-12) one-way is 90 minutes
-The more points you have, the better your chance of getting into your 1st choice Magnet.
-It’s a random lottery so anything can happen.
-If you are currently attending a Magnet school, you don’t need to re-apply each year unless you are matriculating (from EL to MS, MS to HS, or wish to enter the lottery to switch to another magnet school
-You will be notified in writing of either acceptance or wait list status by March, 2013.
-Students may be contacted regarding an opening all the way up through the first MONTH of school. (Used to be the first 10 days of school)
-First day of school for LAUSD will be Tuesday, August 13, 2013. (Yeah, love that Early Start! Not.)
-Falsified applications will be disqualified and kicked from the program.
Again, if this seems overwhelming or you want to discuss strategy, please contact me for a consultation. I’m happy to help. Magnets are just one of many public school options.
If you are hunting for a middle school and live on the Westside, come to a free Westside Middle School Forum where 10 area middle schools will present under one roof next Thursday, October 18 at 6p at Coeur d’Alene Elementary School in Venice. details.
Tune in tonight on KCRW‘s “Which Way LA” as Tanya joins LA Times reporter Howard Blume and host Warren Olney as they discuss LAUSD Chief Deasy’s Annual Address as well as the Early Start Calendar. Airs tonight at 7p on 89.9 FM KCRW.
Missed the broadcast? No worries. You can listen to it here:
by Tanya Anton | GoMamaGuide.com
With 6 LAUSD neighborhood schools converting to affiliated charter status last year and 25 more schools converting this year, we ask, is it contagious? A sign of the times?
Why would your perfectly good neighborhood school convert to affiliated charter status anyway, you ask?
It all comes down to the 3 Fs. Flexibility, Freedom…and Funding.
An affiliated charter is a unique sort of “charter lite” or hybrid model that was created in LAUSD to pacify all parties. While this type of charter doesn’t have the full autonomy an independent charter school has, they do have increased autonomy from the traditional district model.
A typcial LAUSD neighborhood school that converts to an affiliated charter school can keep its existing campus and facilities -no fighting for space or co-locations via Prop 39. They also keep their attendance area -maintaining the feel of a neighborhood school with priority enrollment given to area residents. The UTLA teacher contract and District-paid union positions stay in tact -but with it so does tenure and seniority-based bumping rights. The school gains some limited freedoms from the district – and the feeling of semi-autonomy. Most importantly the school once converted can apply to the state for a block charter grant -direct funds based on enrollment numbers, which can make up some of the budget shortfalls the school sustained as a non-charter.
While still overseen by LAUSD, an affiliated charter creates its own site-based governance system typically made up of parents, staff, and administration, so the decision-making body of the school resides on campus, not downtown. The school also gains flexibility in curricular focus, textbook selection, selecting programs and materials, as well as freedom in deciding how to allocate, manage and spend the funds that come unrestricted from the state.
The district still oversees and controls many policies in an affiliated charter, and when lateral budget cuts are made – when a staff position or program is reduced or eliminate districtwide – affiliated charters are affected. When the district decides to change the calendar and implement “Early Start,” or makes changes to the bell schedule, or the number of instructional days, class size ratios, or changes to the graduation A-G requirements – affiliated charters are affected. So ultimately, it’s a compromise. The District maintains some control, the unions maintain their contracts, and the school site gains some autonomy without going full-out independent charter.
There is money involved, surely, particularly important for schools that have fallen just below the now higher Title 1 (poverty level) school threshold. In fact, the majority of the schools that have converted one by one (or seven by sixteen) to affiliated charter, are schools that have lost their Title 1 status, meaning they have lost their additional federal funding. The loss in federal funds, in additional to the continued onslaught of yearly state and district budget cuts, has been devastating.
For an elementary school in LAUSD, already 48th in the country in per-pupil spending, the Title 1 funding loss can amount to $80-150,000 annually from a school’s operating budget. For a secondary school such as the highly-lauded LACES, the loss from their budget this year was $460,000. For Millikan Middle School, the loss was about $600,000. You can see the kind of fiscal pressure a school is under, and why that charter block grant, not to mention the thought of gaining some autonomy, starts to look not only attractive, but necessary for survival.
Read some commentary on it from School Board member Tamar Galatzan HERE. And KPCC takes a look at the issues HERE.
But what does this mean in terms of trends where predominantly high-performing motivated middle class schools capable of self-governance are converting to charter 25 – 30 at a time? What does it mean for the rest of the district’s schools, where high staff turnover, low parent participation, and unmotivated communities do not, or can not, advocate for their schools?
In California we have more students enrolled in charter schools than anywhere else in the nation. Ten years from now, will the majority of our schools be charters? Will the District be bankrupt? Will we (the people, the policy-makers) make public education a priority, an undeniable human right, a necessary investment in our collective futures, or will it become an obsolete novelty gone the way of social security and pension plans?
In updating my color-coded Valley Elementary school map with all the recent charter conversions, there is a clear green line. The charter line. Schools south of the Ventura Freeway in the foothills, in North Hills, and Granada Hills, see the most conversions. Make no mistake, they’re also the areas with the highest property values.
GoMamaGuide’s Valley Elementary Schools Map.
In LAUSD, Mark Twain Middle School offers a continuation of the Dual Language program in Spanish, has a Spanish, French, Korean, Japanese World Languages Magnet program, and will be the future home for matriculating Broadway Mandarin Academy students. Venice High School offers a World Languages and Global Studies Magnet program, offering French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish, as well as International Relations and Global Studies.
Tour, ask questions, and investigate your options.
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by Tanya Anton | GoMamaGuide.com
Full disclosure: I struggled to write an article for this month’s newsletter because despite the difficulties inherent in public schools, I like to think anyway, that I inspire parents to be part of the solution.
But when I looked at the latest edu-news feeds, I’ve got to be honest with you, even I found it hard to stay upbeat. Or write anything. And deeply question what I’m doing going out there talking up the public school options. (Not one but three teachers fired this week for sexual misconduct, more ongoing budget woes, another shortened school year, more layoffs, class size increases, and more taxes on the horizon.) Please. Where’s the good news for chrissakes!
Regardless of what you believe about magnets or charters or neighborhood schools, they’re all facing difficulties in this financial-politico landscape. (Is that a word?) Our schools have sustained an onslaught of consecutive cuts for the past 5-6 years. Now we’re at risk for another round of cuts.
But just as I was sinking lower into despondency, it occurred to me, hey, it’s February. We’ve seen this cycle before:
The District presents the worst-case scenario, blames the State, urges us to write the Governor and our members of Congress.
Then the union blasts back with outrage, proposes a rally and/or walk-out, accuses the District of mishandling funds and urges parents to write/call/fax the Superintendent and our school board members.
The Congress is in a budgetary stalemate between the Democrats wanting to increase taxes and the Republicans wanting to cut spending.
We the parents, after writing the Governor, our Congress members, the Superintendent, and our School Board (or some electronic version thereof) and driving across town in rush hour traffic to attend some “very important” meeting about “school reform” only to find no meaningful answers whatsoever, watch our principal break down in front of us at the thought of more devastating cuts, so we scurry to make lemonade out of lemons and we do the best we can.
Didn’t we go through this last year? And the year before? And the year before that? Did any of those letters, or phone calls, or meetings, or lobbying trips up to Sacramento have any impact?
Excuse me if I sound less than outraged and more like meh. Tired of it.
Our kids are already in the system. This year. Not beginning next year, or the year after, or next decade when things could turn around. We have to make the most of it.
Strapping on our hard hats we pack their lunches and their backpacks, oversee homework, get them out the door every day and deposit them at school hoping for the best. Hoping the sky won’t fall in on them, at least not this year.
Journeying down this path is like living with an alcoholic who inevitably comes home from a bender, broke, raging at the top of his lungs, waking up the kids, slinging punches having spent all the rent and grocery money. It’s total dysfunction. Why do we continually put up with this?
When will we say, “enough!”
So for those who don’t know, the District scenario goes like this:
With one hand they present the worst-case scenario – no, not the magnets, not the arts, not 50 kids in a classroom! – get everybody all up in arms, then with the other hand slip in some slimy compromise that by comparison somehow seems more palatable, like some shady wheeler-dealer with a thick accent, “For you my friend, I give good price.”
Oh look, a parcel tax.
More furlough days.
Less instructional days.
Excuse me if I sound cynical, it’s just that I’ve been a few rounds on this carousel. I’m not a psychic but I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict the May outcome in advance:
Threatened: Class size increase 30:1 in K-3, +3 in 4th and 5th (currently 24:1 K-3, 32-36:1 4-5th)
Actual: 26:1 in K-3, +1 in 4th-5th
Threatened: 5400 Certificated/2600 Classified RIFs
Actual: 1800 total RIFs
Threatened: all transpo buses including magnets and special needs in 2013
Actual: bus routes consolidated, must live minimum 6 miles from school campus (currently 3 mi)
Threatened: 100% of Elementary Arts Funding
Actual: 50% of Elementary Arts Funding – resulting in shorter arts cycles
Threatened: LA parcel tax
Actual: Parcel tax will fail. More cuts will be inevitable.
The bigger question is how do we stop this insanity. Where does it end??!! These are OUR schools, OUR children, OUR future. They deserve better and we must demand it from all parties.
As I sit and write this on Superbowl Sunday, where millions are being spent on advertising moments, and millions are watching the game with their snacks and beer, it occurs to me that we – as a city, state, nation – are not broke. We just spend our dollars on other priorities. So when is the priority going to be our collective children? And more importantly, what are we going to do about it!
I know things have to fall apart before they can be rebuilt. I know you get what you focus on, so if all we focus on is the doom and gloom, then surprise, we get doom and gloom and feel powerless to come up with creative solutions. I also know that as long as we give our power away to those in charge, they will continue to take advantage and be self-serving.
I also know that within each one of us, no matter what our age or socio-economic status, lives a spark of something unique and powerful. We each come here with our little (or not so little) light, with our unique gifts to bear. And as we gather together, united, we are mighty, full of potential, and yes, unstoppable.
I can’t help but believe that in the big picture, the old byzantine structures are crumbling in order to make way for something new to rise up through the ashes. And although I can’t quite see it, and it’s challenging from this vantage point, I know in my bones that it’s coming.
Parents, keep your kids close. Gather ’round your classrooms, your schools, your communities and together we will weather this storm. This is the time for critical thinking and creative problem-solving. It’s the time for teamwork and collaboration…the very same attributes many schools aspire to cultivate in their mission statements.
Now is the time to put those attributes to use.
by Tanya Anton | GoMamaGuide.com
Between now and December 16th, getting in that Magnet application choice is on many of our minds…
Which Magnet should I choose, how many points do I have, how many points gets you in, what’s the best way to bank points, what are my odds, am I trying to get in, am I trying to NOT get in, what if I do get in, what if I don’t get in, what if… So. Much. Angst!!!
Take a deep breath and trust you’ll get through this. The Magnet lottery is the first in a series of public school options one can apply to with its application window opening November 1st for the following fall. (Charter and other applications typically become available after the new year.) The hard part is you only get to choose ONE magnet school to apply to, and after that, there’s nothing you can do but sit back and wait to see how you did.
New for 2012 – The Choices Highlight Reel
The Magnet/Choices applications are (finally) online! Some old-school paper applications were sent to local schools and some public libraries, however most parents are encouraged to apply online. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s paperless! And did I mention that it’s online?!
Deadline to get that application in is Friday, December 16, 5pm. After that, most LAUSD schools will close for a 3-week Winter Break.
Magnet tours are happening now folks, so get out there and tour!
Your child must be 5 by November 1, 2012 to enter Kindergarten in Fall 2012.
Remember, LAUSD’s Fall 2012 school calendar will now start on August 14, 2012.
Overcrowded points are becoming virtually extinct. Only 2 schools (Del Olmo EL and Cahuenga EL) will remain on a concept 6 (3 track) calendar by 2012, making those students the only ones eligible for the additional 4 Overcrowded points. For everyone else, it means the most points we could possibly accumulate is: 12 Waitlist or 12 Matriculation + 4 Phbao + 3 Sibling = 19 points max. A more even playing field.
According to the new brochure, “students may be contacted regarding an opening up through the first month of school.” (Used to be the first 10 days of school.)
Any LAUSD resident can apply to a regular Magnet program but for Gifted/High Ability or Highly Gifted Magnet programs one must meet eligibility requirements either through being tested or identified prior to application deadline. If applying from a charter or private or pre-K school, the verification process can be found here. (It’s different than if currently attending an LAUSD school.)
Some Basics
Must be a resident of LAUSD.
You only get to choose ONE program (Magnet or NCLB PSC or PWT if eligible).
You only get to choose ONE Magnet school.
No early applications – apply in the winter before the fall of age-appropriate enrollment.
It’s a weighted lottery so the more points you have the better your chances are.
If you are offered a spot and turn it down you lose all your accumulated wait list points.
If you are currently attending a Magnet school, you don’t need to re-apply each year unless you are matriculating or wish to enter the lottery for another magnet school (from EL to MS, MS to HS, or to switch to another magnet program.)
It’s a random lottery so anything can happen.
For NCLB-PSC or Public School Choice – you must be currently enrolled in a PI school to take advantage of that program.
Transportation is available if you live outside a 2 mile radius from the magnet school’s attendance boundary for K-5, or 3 mile radius for grades 6-12.
Stumped on all this Magnet talk? Come to my last-minute seminar, Navigating The School System: Know Your Public Options, Sunday, December 11th at 5p in WLA and we’ll go over all this and more.
GoMamaGuide 