|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The San Ramon Valley school board is set to weigh approval of proposed changes to the district’s homework rules during its meeting Tuesday night in Danville.
The revised administrative regulation aims to reduce overall homework load, eliminate work over school breaks, align the policy more with the Common Core State Standards, and improve implementation and enforcement by stating clearly what is and is not allowed, according to district officials.
The school board discussed the initial proposal earlier this month, providing input and directing staff to return at a later date for final approval.
District officials made some adjustments to the proposed revision since the June 2 meeting, mainly correcting typos and clarifying certain verbiage, according to Jason Reimann, director of instructional services for secondary education.
As drafted, the revised administrative regulation would set nightly and weekly homework limits per course across all grade-levels, whereas the current regulation — established in June 2008 — sets guidelines for maximum overall homework time allowed each night.
The revision would also ban mandatory work during school breaks and outline homework “responsibilities” for students, teachers, principals, parents and guardians.
District staff also recommends updating the separate board policy on homework and makeup work to better align it with the revised administrative regulation, Reimann said.
The homework debate is among a handful of items on the school board’s open-session agenda, scheduled to start at 7 p.m. in the boardrooms at the district administrative complex, 699 Old Orchard Drive in Danville.
In other business
* The board will hold a required public hearing on the district’s proposed 2015-16 Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), which covers the upcoming fiscal year through 2017-18.
The LCAP, required for local districts statewide under California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), describes objectives, actions steps, expenditures and methods of assessing progress for a three-year period in top priority areas defined by the district.
The draft 2015-16 LCAP features self-defined goals for issues such as facility maintenance, employee development, parent involvement, school climate and student performance.
Specific objectives include enhancing employee recruitment and retention, providing standards-based instructional materials, increasing parent involvement, restoring maintenance support at all schools, expanding course offerings to increase opportunities for all students and narrowing achievement gaps among all student subgroups in areas of English language and math.
The LCAP is listed as a discussion-only item on Tuesday night’s school board agenda. A final vote is scheduled to take place June 30.
* Board members will hold a public hearing on the district’s proposed 2015-16 budget, which projects $313 million in revenues and recommends $281 million in expenditures.
The revenue projection represents a 14.5% increase compared to 2014-15, and the estimated expenditures are 1.9% above the current year.
The budget is also listed as a discussion-only item, with final consideration scheduled for June 30.
* The board will consider approving the district’s special education local plan area (SELPA) annual service plan and annual budget plan.
* Board members will honor San Ramon Valley High student Luca Ditano, who was one of five students in the state to receive CVS/Caremark’s Student Award of Excellence. Ditano works at a local CVS pharmacy store through the district’s WorkAbility program.
* They will also recognize members of the Measure A Campaign Committee, which advocated in favor of the ballot measure to extend the district’s $144 annual parcel tax for nine more years.
Measure A passed with 74.98% of participating San Ramon Valley voters casting ballots in favor of the tax renewal during a mail-only special election in May — more than 8% higher than the required two-thirds threshold.
* District staff will present an update about the child nutrition program.
* In closed-session scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m., the board will discuss appointing new principals at Monte Vista High and Twin Creeks Elementary and new assistant principals at Dougherty Valley High and Iron Horse Middle School.
First, the objective of homework needs to be defined.
Lengthen the school day to include a 50 minute mandatory study hall with qualified tutors. Then let the kids go home and enjoy a little unstructured time(or go to football, cheer, band, whatever).
High achieving districts dictate too many hours of the day. Low achieving districts don’t put the same demands on kids. As Socialism widens its sphere of influence, the high achieving students are being required to spend more and more time preparing to take care of those not putting in the same grueling hours.
I couldn’t agree more, Louie! Can you be on the school board?
And who will negotiate with the union to add 50 minutes to the work day? Where will the money come from to pay the teachers the additional salary?
No additional salary.
SuzieQ, you cannot just make teachers work an additional 50 minutes for no salary. In addition, I would speculate most parents in this district would be opposed to their child going an extra 50 minutes per day, it would cut into after school activities.
Pl-eeze. No one is going to “make” teachers work an extra hour without pay. Qualified tutors is not a synonym for “teachers.” Let’s expand our thinking. It could be volunteers, teacher aides, computer programs, etc.
Better to get the homework done before participating in after school activities. The thinking that kids should go to school, participate in after school activities for 2-4 hours, THEN go home and do homework late into the night, get up tired the next morning, repeat, is the definition of a homework problem.
Education should certainly trump after school activities.