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The San Ramon Valley Unified School District Board of Education is poised to discuss a new college and career readiness plan that has been in the works for several months as part of the district’s strategic directions at its meeting on Wednesday.
The plan consists of six components, which are academic skills and literacy, learner profile competencies, social-emotional competencies, post-secondary, professional and career skills, life and personal growth skills, and community engagement and service.
“In essence, the SRVUSD TK-12 College and Career Readiness Plan is a comprehensive, phased approach designed to equip our students with the skills, knowledge, and experiences they need for success in their academic, professional, and personal lives,” wrote Deb Petish, executive director of curriculum and instruction, in a staff report. “By implementing this plan with care and precision, we are setting our students on a path that leads to their ultimate journey to success in college, careers, and life itself.”
The plan was created with the goal of maximizing the opportunities and resources available to district students and preparing them for the widest number of paths following high school graduation, according to Petish’s staff report. It is also aimed at leveraging the existing SRVUSD learner profile that was developed this year, and at facilitating progress towards the skills and attributes targeted in the learner profiles.
Groups of grade levels in the district are the basis for the various learning levels visualized in the plan, which use mountain climbing metaphors for illustration. Grades TK-3 are classified as “Basecamp”, with grades four and five classified as “Foothills”, grades six through eight classified as “Crest”, and grades nine through 12 classified as “Summit”.
“Along these pathways, the throughlines guide students’ progression, marking key points where they interact with the plan’s various elements, acquiring skills and knowledge that will serve them well in their ascent toward academic and personal success,” Petish wrote.
The CCRP is being implemented in two phases. The first would see the formation of committees dedicated to specific aspects of the plan, with the second consisting of the design and implementation of activities aimed at the goals outlined in the SRVUSD learner profile that align with various developmental stages.
“Our goal is to prepare students to excel inside and outside the classroom,” SRVUSD Superintendent John Malloy said in an announcement Monday. “Academic opportunities must impact our students’ success beyond graduation to meet the demands of the evolving workforce and higher education experiences. The CCR provides even more opportunities for our students to thrive beyond their TK-12 education.”
The board is set for a presentation and public hearing at its regular meeting Wednesday night.
While the board generally meets on Tuesday evening, this week’s meeting was shifted to Wednesday at the request of a board member last December, when it was approved along with the rest of the meeting dates for the current year, according to district spokesperson Ilana Israel Samuels.
The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday (Dec. 13). The agenda is available here.
In other business
* The trustees will hold their annual organization meeting, in which they will select leadership positions and approve meeting dates for the upcoming year, as well as liaison and committee assignments.
* The board will presentation resolution recognizing Jan. 23-27 as Inclusive Schools Week.
* The board will receive an informational presentation on report card changes for kindergarten through third grades.
* Board members will hear a presentation and consider approving the first interim financial report of the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year.
* They will consider approving changes to internal policies and regulations regarding special education students and students with disabilities.
* The board will receive a presentation with an update on projects funded by bond Measure D and plans for future uses of remaining funds.
Correction: A previous story and announcement from the district incorrectly characterized the nature of the CCRP agenda item, which is informational only with no action set for the upcoming meeting. Embarcadero Media regrets the error.
It’s disappointing to see no actual discussion into these changes. Why should anyone pay money for this article when it’s just more or less copy-and-pasted from the publicly available agenda? What’s the point of this article? Why not just have it be one sentence “The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday (Dec. 13). The agenda is available here.”
This is low quality and low effort.
Wednesday evening’s SRVUSD discussion of “College and Career Readiness” included “Social-Emotional Well-Being” among conditions which support “Deep Learning” — itself an SRVUSD “Strategic Direction.”
An audience member, having listened carefully throughout that presentation and several others, commented afterward that the District should worry less about EdSpeak jargon and more about traditional learning.
I would add, as I’ve said before myself (e.g., https://www.danvillesanramon.com/square/2023/11/22/srvusd-officials-talk-caaspp-scores-student-success-strategies ), that SRVUSD should drop its overtly racist “anti-racism” and “Equity” propaganda, “queering the classroom” indoctrination, and depraved library/classroom pornography.
Then, the District should redirect its time, energy, and money to improving the teaching and learning of knowledge and skills. But the District is led by dedicated, radical activists. They appear now to be ignoring some key responses they received in their most recent “Thought Exchange.”
Among top responses there: “Teach math, reading, and writing without the liberal bias….”
Four other citizens and I took the speaker table on Wednesday for 3-minute public comments to condemn the systemic pornography found in SRVUSD’s high school libraries ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O0pvktyDFg , beginning at 1:32:35).
There are many dozens of examples of depraved filth in one or more of SRVUSD’s high school libraries — more than 90 discovered so far.
I chose to read from a relentlessly pornographic book added to the Dougherty Valley HS library collection during the 4-year tenure of a young librarian there. At February’s Board meeting, she declared herself and other SRVUSD librarians to be “expert” in judging appropriateness, allegedly doing so on the basis of “educational value… literary value, artistic value.”
Vile pornography doesn’t fit those values. And it’s highly toxic to the “Social-Emotional Well-Being” of high school kids.
Oh, and another thing: SRVUSD’s own Board Policy #4219.24 prohibits the display or transmission of sexual objects, pornography, pictures, or depictions to students.
Meanwhile, #6141.2 requires (wink) that “Staff members shall be highly sensitive to their obligation not to interfere with religious development.”
And #6144 says that the Board (wink, wink) “expects teachers to ensure that all sides of a controversial issue are impartially presented, with adequate and appropriate factual information.”
Paraphrasing Hamlet’s remark: would that these common-sense requirements were honored more in the observance than the breach. That’s evidently too much to expect of SRVUSD’s Board majority, District administrators, and many (most?) of the District’s librarians and teachers.
huh, the current parents with kids in SRVUSD should be rioting in the streets.
Unlike, say, Antifa and Black Lives Matter Marxists (accompanied by Baghdad Bob-like, visibly falsified CNN/MSNBC news reports of “mostly peaceful” protests), SRVUSD parents aren’t known for rioting.
Parents and other taxpayers certainly have many reasons to be angered by SRVUSD nonfeasance, misfeasance, and malfeasance, however. Among these:
(a) deceptive reports on very poor CAASPP test scores ( https://www.danvillesanramon.com/square/2023/11/14/a-slight-decrease—-srvusd-board-to-review-latest-student-assessment-results and https://www.srvexpositor.com/grading-for-equity );
(b) overtly racist “anti-racism” lessons ( https://www.srvexpositor.com/racist-anti-racism );
(c) “queering the classroom” TK-5 indoctrination, secretive 4th and 5th grade “PRISM” (LGBTQ) Clubs, and hidden-from-parents “Gender Support” plans ( https://www.srvexpositor.com/lgbtq-activism ); and
(d) depraved pornography in high school libraries ( https://www.srvexpositor.com/pornography ).
But even were parents in fact to riot over SRVUSD’s bad behavior, the District’s overcompensated educrats would likely continue to ignore their own official policies — and to plow ahead with harmful programs and practices, helped along by fatuous press personnel of their own.
One language that SRVUSD hucksters do understand is money. They’re cooking up a parcel-tax renewal and potential increase in an expensive vote-by-mail-only special election in May, two months after the Primary.
Predictably, they’ll once again be supported in a glitzy campaign funded primarily by their current and prospective vendors of goods and services — an arrangement which always smells like shakedowns and kickbacks.
Many parents have evidently voted already with their feet; SRVUSD is now down 7,400 students from the enrollment the District projected five years ago. Those who remain, and who want to communicate dissatisfaction, should mark calendars, and expect to get votes in before May 7 — making sure to vote “NO!”
one wonders if one is even a stakeholder or just an opinion run wild?
Also, check your facts. Most of Calif has declining enrollment.
Still, you are a lone voice with a few others. No mass complaints; one wonders why.
Scott Hale:
The answers are in the “ThoughtExchange” survey that the district refuses to acknowledge. Many of the responses discuss students being excluded from actives or awards based on the political beliefs of their parents. And grades being modified because activist teachers do t want to reward parents with different worldviews. Similarly, kids who are political allies are raised up at time regardless of merit. Anyone that stands up against SRVUSD that has kids still in the school, the children are targeted, harassed and ostracized until the parent falls in line. It’s disgusting.
Scott Hale:
Wait until the trial of SRVUSD teacher Moseby happens in May. SRVUSD suspended two boys for outing Moseby as a child molester. The district tried to cover it up by saying the boys were being racists. The reality was these boys were protecting their female friends that were sexually assaulted and ignored by people still currently holding SRVUSD management jobs. One of the main culprits Niki Chaplin (who conveniently “lost” all the reports of sexual assaults by Moseby) transferred to Lafayette after Mosbey was indicted. Once Lafayette found it, it did its own independent investigation which resulted in Chaplin being fired for her role in covering up sexual assaults. SRVUSD has done no such investigation and continues to protect all involved with the coverup.
This publication has all the details on this and seems uninterested in publishing any story to pressure the district or to inform the public outside the opinion piece by the publisher several months ago.
So what is the answer? People need to vote for a board that represents the voters and parents in the area more than they push activism from Sacramento. Shelley Clark has no business being a board member. She has no interest in representing her constituents and is only in it for herself. Recall how her first act as a board member was to go back on her promise not to close schools. She couldn’t shutdown schools fast enough when she was first elected and she now refuses to accept any responsibility for her actions that lead to extreme learning loss in the district. Also Lara Bratt doesn’t exactly fit the diverse demographics of the area she represents. A more equitable candidate would benefit the area and the district as a whole.
If these two are replaced by trustees that actually value parents and students, the SRVUSD board would be significantly improved.
so, go vote if you are of age or live in the district. Go to meetings; be heard.
Because I gotta say you seem to be on a island with a few others, maybe.
SRVUSD is a destination school district and that hasn’t changed. Like all districts they have issues, but certainly not at the level there is hue and cry. Sorry.
Scott Hale:
It’s objective fact that at least three SRVUSD employees have been arrested this year for sexual abuse of children and as you rightly point out, NOTHING has changed. How many more SRVUSD employees need to be arrested for sex abuse before it matters to you? How many more before it matters to the trustees? To me, one is too many. Clearly for you and others, 3+ is I guess acceptable … Hue and cry for the managers who covered up that Moseby was sending nude pictures of himself to 15 year-old girls by (check notes) transferring him to a middle school to be around younger more impressionable girls is absurd … right???? Management should be forgiven for such transgressions, right? Honest mistake brah!
Explain it to me in real simple language how many kids need to be abused before you think there should be “hue and cry.” I’m eager to know what your threshold is on the matter.
To correct, the Moseby trial is on March not May.
Remarkably, had Moseby been a student at San Ramon Valley High School instead of a teacher there, he could have gotten his kicks by “identifying” as female and entering the girls’ locker room while girls changed — no permission, excuse, or apology needed — and no penalty assessed.
Asserted female “identity” would be enough. And he could have worn sunglasses that hid precise lines of sight. That describes an actual 2022 SRVHS circumstance ( https://www.danvillesanramon.com/blogs/p/2022/09/17/comfort-communication—-and-the-lack-of-both ).
But the ADULT TEACHER Moseby was arrested on multiple counts of lewd conduct involving minors, as reported in this publication, also last year ( https://danvillesanramon.com/news/2022/09/16/san-ramon-valley-teacher-cheer-coach-charged-with-sexual-misconduct-against-minor ).
His comments made girls at SRV High uncomfortable, so SRVUSD packed him off to Diablo Vista MIDDLE School, where he apparently committed more serious offenses, involving YOUNGER girls there.
One count against Moseby is his alleged showing of pornography to a minor. His mistake was in not having gotten himself appointed by SRVUSD’s Board as a high school librarian (perhaps after “intensive training” and certification by the anything-goes, no-age-or-content-restrictions American Library Association). Thereby, he’d have been regarded as a Board-proclaimed “expert” in book selection.
Then he could have FEATURED pornographic material during “Banned Books Week,” and offered entire series of porno novels, claiming they demonstrated “educational, literary, and artistic value.”
He’d then have been celebrated by SRVUSD’s Board — and by the East Bay Times as a heroic defender of “diverse and inclusive literature in school libraries, with supporters arguing that “exposure to diverse books can promote empathy and understanding,” even as the Times refused hypocritically to show readers what was involved. See also: https://www.srvexpositor.com/pornography .
On an interesting note, East Bay Times parted ways with the author of several articles with blatantly false information presented about SRVUSD elections. It would seem the same reporter was then fired from a different reporting job for printing false stories. The East Bay Times has yet to print any apology or retraction for the “fake news” it spread.