Student Report on the School Board Meeting of February 11, 2015 by Ami Felson

On the calm evening of February 11th, 2015, I set out to visit the Piedmont Unified School District (PUSD) Board of Education Meeting, which meets on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month in the Council Chambers located at City Hall (120 Vista Avenue, Piedmont, CA, 94611). The purpose of these meetings is to make sure that the Piedmont Unified Schools are successfully creating a safe, educational, and pleasant school experience for all students in the district.

The most time prominent agenda items discussed at this particular meeting included the presentation from the director of KNN Public Finance discussing the board’s options for the refunding of 2006 series A and B general obligation bonds along with the Common Core standards of mathematics pathways and the revised reading of Social Psychology curriculum.

For the bond refunding presentation, Blake Boehm, Director of KNN Public Finance, presented a PowerPoint presentation to the board as Board Member Doug Ireland explained the technical financial terms to the audience watching. Randall Booker presented the Common Core standards for mathematics from higher elementary school up until the brink of high school graduation.

Hillary Cooper stood up as a parent of an eighth and ninth grader to agree with the fact that all sixth graders should be in the same math course and should be tested on mathematic advancement later on in middle school or early in high school.

Lisa Joyce, a parent of a tenth grader, thought that in order to implement these Common Core classes we need statistical analysis from Middle Schoolers to see what they want and what will work best for them.

Jessica Burg, another parent, wondered how the mathematic prerequisites would alter what science classes students are able to take.

Kalla Krokowski, a sixth grader from Beach Elementary School, stated that she wanted to be challenged with the math classes that she took because she was bored a lot of the time in class with simple problems that her teachers have consistently assigned.

Julie Kasky, an alumni of the Math Task Force, noted that she would like she would the board members to publicly inform members in the Piedmont community regarding these Common Core considerations.

Lastly, Larry Haukens, a Piedmont student parent and Math Task Force member, recognized that this is a big decision and the entire School Board needs to critically think about this dramatic change to the school curriculum. Additionally, Piedmont Unified School District Board Members Rick Raushenbush, Doug Ireland, Amal Smith, Sarah Pearson, Andrea Swenson, Constance Hubbard, Michael Brady, and Randall Booker commented on copious issues throughout the evening.

One issue that caught my attention at the meeting was definitely the issue regarding having a Social Psychology class offered in the summer. Although Mrs. Pearson thought that if enough sophomores signed up for the class it would create that inclusive and special community that the class already creates during the school year, I believe that many students will miss out on a big part of what the class offers.

One aspect of the class consists of giving random classmates presents outside of class just to emanate kindness.  I don’t see how that can be done without having every student go to another student’s house, which can just lead to much chaos and disorder. Also, students learn the most from this class by talking to each other and reacting on what happened in class every day after class, and it is nearly impossible to do that if the students are home playing video games instead of passing by each other in the hallways during passing period, where conversation is far more casual.

I figured out that Mr. Doug Ireland chose to become a part of the PUSD Board of Education because he “wanted to make sure that this Common Core roll out worked well” and make sure that “we can honestly talk about ten year, evaluation, what [the teachers are] doing, and how well they’re doing it” and “[he] thinks they’re under-appreciated”, so he wants to make sure that they get acknowledgement for all the hard work they put into their jobs every day.

Ireland is “actively going to outside sources from other districts, people who [he] know[s] in the world of education to get [him] educated around teaching” and he’s “visited all the sites…to get first-hand views on what’s happening in the classrooms so that [he] can have an educated perspective which [he] can bring to the board”.

During the meeting, I decided to question what happened to the old PC computers that were replaced a little while ago with new Macintosh ones in the Piedmont High School library. Randall Booker responded by saying that they were all put to E-waste because they weren’t very robust.

Doug Ireland questioned why I’m asking that particular question and I explained that I am a member of Friends of the Oakland Public School Libraries, which refurbishes Oakland School Libraries that have been nothing more than empty rooms for a long while. Volunteers put barcodes on donated books, enter them into the system, shelve them, etc.

One crucial part I forgot to mention is that the reason why I was asking was because I thought that these schools could’ve used these computers if the old PCs were still in storage, but clearly since they’re not, that information has no use to getting them nicer computers.

Also, I mentioned that there are several issues with the male restrooms including the lack of locks on the stalls, irregularly refilled soap dispensers, and one broken hand dryer. Overall, speaking out to the board was a little difficult because I only had one opportunity to state everything that I wanted to say and there was so much going through my mind at the time that it was pretty hard to do so. Nevertheless, going to the meeting opened my eyes to how members of our Piedmont community collaboratively meet twice a month to bring up, discuss, and solve current hot- topic issues in our school district.

Ami Felson, Piedmont High School Student

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

In my opinion, I also support this project. In talking with the homeowner, I realized how much time and effort was put into remediating the neighbors’ complaints. It is important to note that there is an existing structure on the property, and the new structure would replace that. I feel that the neighbors’ concerns are unfounded based on the revised plans. Not only does the structure blend in with the property, but it is a logical upgrade for the homeowners.

Kevin Shum, Piedmont High School Student

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

– Piedmont Unified School District announces the Nomination Period for the 2015 Arthur Hecht Volunteer of the Year Award. –

This award is presented annually to individuals who have volunteered their efforts over a period of time and made a difference because of their involvement and commitment to Piedmont’s youth.

Following are the previous recipients: Hunter McCreary (1998); Ann Chandler (1999); Ruth Cuming (2000); Lisa Lomenzo (2001); jointly by Cathie Geddeis and Marion Souyoultzis (2002); jointly by Fritz and Mary Wooster (2003); Elizabeth (Betsy) Gentry (2004); Cynthia Gorman (2005); Grier Graff (2006); Julia Burke (2007); Maude Pervere (2008); jointly to Anne‐Marie Lamarche and Mark Menke (2009); Janiele Maffei Tovani (2010); Andrea Swenson (2011), June Monach (2012), Bill Drum (posthumously) and Mary Ireland  (2013), and Ray Perman (2014).

Art Hecht was a tireless community volunteer, and was dedicated to students in both Piedmont and Oakland. He served on Piedmont’s Board of Education from 1970 to 1982. Art also was very active with the Piedmont Continuation High School (now called Millennium High School). In 1998, the Art Hecht Volunteer of the Year Award was established in his memory.

Nominations for this award are now being sought and will be kept strictly confidential. The deadline for nominations is 4:30 p.m. on March 16, 2015. A selection committee will vote on the award recipient, who will be recognized at the May 13, 2015 Board of Education meeting, where the honoree’s good works can be acknowledged. They also will receive the gift of a work of student art. The student will receive a monetary award and commendation from the Board.

Nomination form. < Return the form to the Piedmont Unified School District office at 760 Magnolia Avenue, Piedmont, CA 94611 

Email questions to Sandy Spiker at sspiker@piedmont.k12.ca.us.

 

– Post Office Restores 5:00 PM Weekday Pickup at Highland Way Mailboxes – 

February 17, 2015 press release –

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has restored the 5:00 PM weekday pickup at the mailboxes at the corner of Highland Avenue and Highland Way. This restoration of services culminates almost a year’s worth of work by the City of Piedmont to have this evening pickup restored.

With only a few weeks’ notice, on April 8, 2014, the USPS eliminated the 5:00 PM pickup from these mailboxes, leaving only a single pickup per day and eliminating a service widely used by Piedmonters. Upon hearing of the change, Mayor Margaret Fujioka and City staff began working with the USPS to restore the service and determine their reasoning for the change.

This work began with the service manager of the Piedmont post office, located on 40th Street in Oakland. When efforts at working locally failed, City Administrator Paul Benoit met with the Manager of Customer Service operations for the Oakland area. After this meeting produced no results, staff contacted Congresswoman Barbara Lee to intervene on Piedmonters’ behalf with the USPS.

After months of work, the Congresswoman arranged a meeting on December 1, 2014 between the Oakland Postmaster, the Mayor, the City Administrator, and staff to discuss the situation. The Mayor stressed the importance of the additional late pick-up to Piedmonters and urged the Oakland Postmaster to work with the City to restore the service as soon as possible.

Postmaster Daryl Trujillo indicated that the USPS would study usage at these boxes and see if they met the criteria for a later pickup. The City was informed last week that the late pickup would be restored.

“First and foremost, I want to thank the many Piedmonters who wrote and called the USPS to request the restoration of the late pickup. Their input was critical to our success,” said Mayor Margaret Fujioka. “I also want to thank Congresswoman Lee, her staff, and Postmaster Trujillo for their efforts to address this issue. I could not be more pleased with the results of this truly collaborative process.”

Piedmont City Clerk, John Tulloch 

Piedmont’s new Information Technology Task Force  will propose initiatives and oversee the consultant.

On February 2nd, the Piedmont City Council appointed five knowledgeable citizens to the Information Technology Task Force to help develop a five year strategic plan, working with ClientFirst Technology Consulting, the City’s Information Technology Consultant.  Piedmont resident John Lambert is the representative for ClientFirst.

The City Council has approved an Agreement with ClientFirst Technology Consulting in the amount of $24,618 for the development of a five year Information Technology Strategic Plan. 

One simple technology, SeeClickFix, adopted by San Francisco and Oakland is a new smartphone application that allows citizens to photograph and instantly report minor problems –pot holes, graffiti, idling vehicles, trash — to a City Department.  It’s a quick and easy way to report non-emergency issues to the City wherever and whenever a citizen notices them.

See, Click, Fix reports examples from across the U.S.:

In Dallas, a thoughtful citizen reported a traffic light timing problem on SeeClickFix, and saw an immediate improvement in traffic flow after government officials watching the area took quick action.

In Philadelphia, an engaged citywide advocacy group used SeeClickFix to mobilize citizens to document instances of vehicle idling, leading to new initiatives to help clean the air.

Astute police officers in New Haven, receiving direct alerts on their BlackBerries from citizens reporting quality-of-life crime issues within their SeeClickFix “watch areas,” have spearheaded a number of major arrests.

The following letter was received by PCA on February 9, 2015.

As trustees of PUSD, we appreciate the role of the local press as an independent reporter on our work and that of the district. Checks and balances are necessary. But today we are frustrated that a great deal of information about our superintendent search process, printed in the local press, has been inaccurate.

Over the last few months, the search process for a new superintendent has been characterized as “rushed”, “busted”, signaling “a new breach in public trust” complete with “conflict of interest”, “failure of disclosure” and having “fallen short of promoting community engagement”. This vitriol is damaging to the process and misleading to the community.

Immediately following Superintendent Hubbard’s retirement announcement, the board identified key school and community leaders—Paul Benoit, Carol Cramer, Ray Gadbois, Katie Korotzer—to join school board members Doug Ireland and Sarah Pearson on a sub-committee to select an executive search firm. We learned there is a unique recruiting “season”. It was in the community’s best interests to start ahead of the annual rush of other competing districts also seeking new leadership.

Feedback from our community about the characteristics and abilities important in a new superintendent emerged when national search firm, HYA & Associates, spent four days in over 40 separate meetings with 146 stakeholders. The number of respondents to the online survey was 482. More at www.http://www.piedmont.k12.ca.us/blog/2015/01/27/superintendent-search-by-the-numbers/. 

At the February 11 board meeting, our consultants will present the Leadership Profile Report based on the input from community meetings and the online survey. We will hear, for the first time, the names of qualified candidates at the February 24 special board meeting.

Because we take our charge to find the best superintendent for our school district extremely seriously, we can no longer stand silent while the local newspaper maligns the process. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.  This inference and innuendo of impropriety is damaging and reflects poorly on our community.

Andrea Swenson, President

Sarah Pearson, Vice President

Doug Ireland, Board Member

Rick Raushenbush, Board Member

Amal Smith, Board Member

Piedmont Board of Education

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.  None of the objectionable descriptions were sourced from this site.

It is the directive of City Council that Piedmont achieves a 75% diversion rate of material from its solid waste stream.  As the staff report indicates, there has been some fluctuation in the estimate of Piedmont’s annual diversion rate by StopWaste. From my time on the Solid Waste Management Authority Board (SWMA), “outliers” were usually found in some years and corrected by StopWaste staff.  To my recollection, the 84% and 69% rates were attributed to a misreporting of tonnage at the landfill and are inaccurate.  When those numbers are excluded, the trend of Piedmont approaching the 75% goal is more evident and is paralleled by diversion rates calculated by Republic Sanitary Services (numbers from the RSS 2013 Annual Report).

 Diversion Rates:

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
StopWaste	60	63	64	66	73	84	75	69	71	80
RSS						68.5	67.6	68.4	71.3	72.7

Diversion Rates:

The performance audit of RSS should certainly look into this discrepancy but there are likely methodological differences beyond RSS’s control that explain the different estimates.  Both trends are currently capturing the diversion of recyclables and organics.

The adoption of 75% goal was a mandate of the SWMA authority of its members to continue to receive funding and it appears Piedmont is on the way to achieving that goal.  In my last year on the Board, there was an interest in moving away from these calculated diversion rates, which most cities had achieved or were close to, to actual measurement of “divertables” – recyclable and compostable materials – that are in the solid waste. This is the basis for the benchmarking study, which is based on a survey of waste containers and just came out last week. That report showed Piedmont to be an excellent recycler (less that 5% recyclables in the city’s trash) but a below average composter (39% compostable material in the city’s trash).  I think it would useful to evaluate RSS performance in the collection of green waste as part of the performance audit.

Garrett Keating, Former City Councilmember

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.

 Do not open your door to strangers!

Suspects enter homes on the pretense of a “water main break. ”

The Piedmont Police Department urges residents to be vigilant to a recent scam.

1/27/15 at 1330 hours, 200 block of Highland Avenue – 

The victim described the subject as a Hispanic male adult, 30’s-40’s wearing a white/grey “plumber” shirt that had “CP” on it and he was wearing a red baseball cap.  Introduced himself as “Anthony”.  He told the victim there was a “water main break” and he needed to check the bathrooms. Suspect was followed around the house to each bathroom, no loss, info report.

1/28/15 at 1053 hours, 400 block of Moraga Avenue – 

The victim described the suspect as a male pacific islander 6’3″ 250-275 lbs with a blue “work” shirt which read, “Mora” plumbing on the left side of the shirt, above the front pocket.  The suspect said he was there due to a “water main break”.  Male victim allowed entry to the house but when the female victim confronted the suspect, he left.  Loss was money, presidential coins and jewelry.  Suspect got into front passenger seat of a newer white pickup truck that fled eastbound on Moraga Ave.

As always, be vigilant about any individual that comes to solicit for services and do not let them inside your home.

If you see any similarly described individuals, please immediately contact the Piedmont Police Department.

       420-3000

Piedmont Resident Bernard Pech noticed the Piedmont Schools statement on the Piedmont Unified School District (PUSD) home page that Piedmont schools rank first in Northern California and fourth in the state, but to him the scores were not the highest if all public schools are considered. Pech explains in his opinion below:

I was pleasantly surprised to see the ranking of PUSD advertised on the District’s home page. It is true that the District is ranked number one in Northern California as a Unified School District among other Unified School Districts, and number four in the State, based on the Academic Performance Index (API) as advertised on the District’s home page. But there are in California twice as many non-unified Districts (Elementary districts and High School districts) as there are unified.

Three types of school districts:

Unified Districts cover grades K-12.

Elementary School Districts cover K-8 or K-6.

High School Districts cover grades 8-12.

There are 5998 elementary schools, 1441 middle schools, and 2493 high schools in the State.

On a school by school basis across all district types, the data shows that, for example, Beach Elementary ranks 37th among Northern California elementary schools and 73 among all elementary schools in the State. The Piedmont High School ranks 19th against all other high schools in Northern California, and 44 against all the high schools in the State, whether in Unified or non-Unified Districts.The fact is that Piedmont High is ranked 44 in the State among other high schools, and 19 in Northern California. Havens Elementary is ranked 203 in the State among elementary schools, and 97 in Northern California.

Given the maximum score is 1000, one could consider that the middle and the elementary schools are ranked number 1, rather than 11, 37, 70, and 97 in the Northern California. But the high school is 10% below the best high school and ranked 19 within Northern California behind: San Francisco Lowell High, Santa Clara Lynbrook High,  Oakland Charter High, Saratoga High, Miramonte High, Owens Gilroy, … and 13 other bay area schools.

The District focuses on marketing itself the best way possible, which is understandable.

	API	State Ranking	Northern Cal Ranking
Beach Elementary	966	73	37
Piedmont Middle	964	17	11
Wildwood Elementary	956	136	70
Havens Elementary	948	203	97
Piedmont High	908	44	19

 2013 Academic Performance Index (API).  A 2014 API report will not be prepared by the State.

PUSD Homepage

< Information from PUSD website

Bernard Pech, Piedmont Resident 

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association.