News Briefs
July 15, 2019
FYI
Districts can apply for free PD opportunity with ACSA
ACSA has received a grant from the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence to offer an equity-focused Professional Learning Network. There is no cost to districts or school sites to participate in this opportunity, but there is a time commitment. The PLN will be offered to a geographic area that has the capacity to recruit school site teams. Per the grant, it must include three different LEAs. The ACSA iLead Equity Team Lab PLN is designed to create a strong network of school teams, trained and ready to lead their communities toward identifying the root causes of inequities experienced by their most vulnerable students. Administrators who wish to apply should fill out the application available at
www.acsa.org/equity
under the “PLN” tab. For more information, contact
professionallearning@acsa.org
.
Nomination period extended for Ray Curry HR award
The nomination period has been extended for the Ray Curry Award, which honors an outstanding human resources or personnel administrator. Each year, the ACSA Human Resources Council Personnel Institute Committee presents this award during the Personnel Institute, which will be held on Oct. 2, 2019 at the Hilton Long Beach. Nominees must be a member of ACSA and have contributed or displayed accomplishments in the role of human resources/personnel administrator at the district, region or state levels. To make a nomination, visit
www.acsa.org/raycurryaward
. The deadline for nominations is July 31. For questions, e-mail
marthofer@acsa.org
.
High school recognized for special education
The Trabuco Hills High School Unified Champion School Program in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District has won the 2019 Grazer Outstanding Achievement in Learning award. This award is given annually by the California Advisory Commission on Special Education, recognizing an outstanding program that serves students with disabilities.
Trabuco Hills High School became a Unified Champion School in 2016, and was the first school of its kind in Orange County. In 2017, it was the first school in Southern California to offer Unified Physical Education. The school’s goal has been to expand into one additional department per year.
The GOAL award was established in the 2005–06 school year and funded by Hollywood producer Brian Grazer’s family to recognize exemplary practices in special education and to celebrate programs that serve California youth with disabilities.
Two COEs receive $1 million Literacy Partnership Grant
The Tulare and Riverside county offices of education will partner with the California Department of Education to launch a new literacy campaign for the 2019-20 school year. The offices will receive $1 million in grant funding to provide more books to students, increase resources and support for teachers, and strengthen family and community engagement to reinforce the love of reading for all ages.
“We need to fix our literacy rates in California, and we need to start early and empower a whole village of support in order to get our students to the level of literacy that they should be at,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who announced the new campaign June 25.
More than half of California K-12 students do not meet standards for English language arts, based on 2017 scores on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.
The campaign has the potential to target underserved populations, such as English learners and foster youth, as well as address achievement gaps between white students and students of color. By the time children of color are 3 or 4, they are already behind their white peers.
