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This board meeting was a week late. Originally it was scheduled for July 14th, but it had to be rescheduled since the superintendent had to attend an important school-related event last week. This meeting lasted about forty-five minutes and several community members were in attendance besides the usual staff and board members. The highlights are as follows:

1) Superintendent's Report: Summer school was characterized as a success. Summer projects were listed. At the elementary technology upgrades, painting, and parking lot repaving are in progress. At the high school repainting and preparation of one demo tech room are underway. The superintendent also spoke of interventions planned for next year to reduce the number of D's and F's on report cards and to improve test scores. He spoke of a NO ZERO policy which is basically the idea that a high F (50-59%) is better than a low F (0 points) and that simply insisting that every student complete all assignments and at least get some credit for every assignment could have a large impact on report card grades. Additionally, the superintendent mentioned enrichment activities during the intervention period for students caught up on all work.

2) Public Comments: A paraprofessional who is being transferred from the HS to the elementary addressed the board and explained that this transfer was involuntary and that there was no good reason for the transfer. In fact, she gave several reasons as to why the transfer would negatively impact students. Several individuals (including a teacher) addressed the board on this matter and all expressed support for this paraprofessional.

3) Several paraprofessionals, teachers, and other staff were officially hired. The board voted 5-0 in favor of the employment of all candidates.

4) Board Member Stipend: This is a somewhat interesting item. It seems that the superintendent is attempting to arrange to make health insurance available to board members paid for by the district. In order to do this, board members must receive a stipend of at least $400 due to some employment-related regulation. [Years ago health benefits to board members were eliminated. Now they apparently want to bring it back. It should be noted that paraprofessionals who work less than approximately 3.5 hours per day receive no health benefits from the district.]

5) iPads for board members. Another perk being discussed are iPads for board members.

6) Next Regular Meeting: August 11, 2016. There will also be special meetings on August 8th and 9th.

What is a MOOC?
Massive Open Online Course. I'm currently enrolled in two MOOCs. One is through Coursera and is on the topic of bioinformatics algorithms and the other is through Udemy on the topic of Python programming. There is an amazing assortment of courses available. The bioinformatics course I'm taking has been extremely demanding. It's hosted by two UCSD professors and most of the students in the course are either professionals working in fields relevant to computational biology or graduate students in related fields. The Python course is pretty easy, but still includes good information. It may be that in the near future high school students will be able to take MOOCs for course credit and it is definitely the case that life-long learners will be involved in such courses.
LINK: http://mooc.org/

blackturtle.us: I noticed that many MOOCs are free, but quite a few cost money. Also college credit can actually be earned through some. The number of courses available is staggering. As a quick estimate I'd guess that I scrolled through lists which contained thousands of courses. Since many are offered by universities and authors of technical books, I assume the quality of these courses must be quite high. With all that in mind, high school students should be allowed to take elective courses in which they try out some of these courses. It's crazy not to take advantage of this resource!

New School - 3 Ways Technology Will Transform the Classroom: Goldman Sachs' Victor Hu
Interesting quick presentation on these topics:
1) Personalized Learning
2) Data and Analytics
3) Competency-based Learning

Response to Intervention (RTI): The three tiers of RTI instruction
Same old thing, just renamed. In this explanation the woman in the video tries to suggest that there are "real" differences, but other than bureaucratic differences there are no real or essential differences between the three tiers of RTI and the way things have been done for decades. Same old pig with a little lipstick applied presented as an educational innovation. As a retired school teacher I like to follow educational trends and in a previous board meeting thread it was indicated that the local district is adopting PLCs. This RTI gimmick is part of the PLC program/scam which will be implemented this school year. It's nothing sinister. Just another company repackaging tried and true teaching techniques in an effort to make some money off of public education.

Boy Has Burns On Feet After Trip To Playground
Apparently these parents have never heard of SHOES! Blaming the parks or schools for burns on their children's feet as if they themselves have no responsibility to exercise a little commonsense and to properly supervise their own children.

tjusd.net
That's the school website. The calendar for the 2016-2017 school year can be found here:
TJUSD 2016-2017 Calendar
It looks like the first day of school is August 22nd.

"A-B-C, Easy as 1-2-3!" by ABCmouse.com
Speaking of the first day of school, here's a fun song performed at a school where apparently every child is a professional dancer!

Creative apps on Chromebooks
I wish we had tech tools like this when I was still teaching. It would make teaching so much fun and the kids would all have a blast!

Canberra Public Schools have gone Google
There's lots to like about Google and considering all the free tools that are available any school that failed to take advantage of Google educational offerings should be shut down for wasting public funds!