March 13, 2009

To the Bonsall Community,

Earlier this week President Obama delivered a speech concerning education and if you haven’t heard it, I urge you to Google it to get an idea where our Federal support for education will be focused.  Regardless of your personal political ideas, it is important to understand what direction our Federal government will be moving our schools.  Personally, it appears to validate our work on continuous improvement and to continue in the direction our District’s strategic Plan is taking us.  

Our Plan’s Success Indicators are composed of several assessments that will align perfectly with the President’s desire to create a “culture of accountability”, so we can determine what is working and stop doing what isn’t.  He also spoke of increasing the time students spend in the classroom.  At last night’s Board Meeting, when I mentioned in my report that we needed to increase the time for students to be in school, it got so quiet I thought everyone was holding their breath.  The President’s call for a greater amount of time spent on learning is not going to be popular; working harder usually isn’t.  However, as he pointed out, our students spend a month less in school than children in South Korea and they will not be able to compete in a global economy by not working as hard as their competitors.

Our Plan’s System Strategy for Response to Intervention (RTI) is focusing more of our resources toward our primary grades and developing a State Preschool along with our current preschool, so we can begin earlier with those students that can’t afford our current preschool program.  We will be early to line up for funds coming from the President’s Early Learning Challenge Grants.  California’s higher standards and cut points for proficiency relative to other states will also provide a better place to access other Federal funds.  We are very interested in those grants s related to technology, English Learners, Science, and innovative educational practices.   

One such interesting innovation would be related to the President’s referral of “Money tied to results”.  I have already begun to discuss the possibilities of good pay for good teachers.  With the very low probability of the economy generating enough tax revenues for increasing teacher salaries in the next couple years, we want to explore some of the possibilities of money tied to results to reward great work.  

It was true when the President said, “Government cannot turn off the TV or put away the video games” saying it is a parent’s responsibility.  However, our District plans to partner with the parents by providing a portal online where students can go to learn more.  At last night’s Board Meeting I was directed to work on a policy that will align choices for middle school elective classes for students who are proficient, and intervention and support classes for those who aren’t, especially in math.  It is only through such policy that we will be able to reach our mission of “Academic Excellence and Support for All Students”.

Yours,

Justin Cunningham, Ed. D

Superintendent