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CLEARLAKE – Oak Hill Middle School will receive more than $2 million over the next several years to help reduce class sizes and boost performance.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell recently submitted to the State Board of Education a list of 488 low-performing schools from throughout California that will receive dramatically increased new funding to invest in programs aimed at boosting student achievement. Oak Hill was on that list.
The funds, according to O'Connell's office, were allocated through the Quality Education Investment Act that was passed last summer.
The act was part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by O’Connell and the California Teachers Association against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Department of Finance for failing to properly fund Proposition 98 in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 budget years.
"The Quality Education Investment Act allows us to invest significant resources for some of our lowest-performing schools," O’Connell said. "We can change the direction of these schools by hiring new, motivated teachers, decreasing class size, improving the student-to-counselor ratio, and providing more assistance and training for existing teachers and principals.”
The Quality Education Investment Act provides $2.7 billion over seven years to the selected schools, O'Connell's office reported.
When the Act is fully implemented by fiscal year 2008-09, the funds will be distributed on a basis of $500 per pupil for grades kindergarten through third, $900 per pupil in grades fourth through eighth, and $1,000 per pupil for grades ninth through 12th. In the initial funding year (fiscal year 2007-08), the amount distributed to schools will be slightly lower.
Schools eligible for the new Quality Education Investment Act funding were elementary, secondary, and charter schools that ranked in the lower deciles of 1 or 2 as determined by the 2005 Academic Performance Index (API) base.
Oak Hill's 2006 Academic Performance Index score was 620, the second-lowest score in the district.
Oak Hill, which has grades sixth through eighth, will receive $332,971 for six years, with a smaller amount the first year, said Konocti Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Louise Nan.
Beginning in the 2007-08 academic year, Nan said the school will start receiving funds for startup and planning purposes.
“The main focus of the grant is to reduce class size to 25 or fewer students and provide professional development,” she said.
The professional development includes 40 hours of training per teacher, she said.
The school's contract limit is current 32 students per teacher, said Nan. “We staff at around 29 to 1.”
Class sizes vary depending on the subject area, said Nan, with physical education classes having the largest enrollments.
The school must undergo academic reviews of test scores, and meet specific goals over the first three years of the grant in order to remain eligible for the funds, Nan explained.
At the end of seven years, the district must be prepared to “ramp down,” said Nan, which would include going back to regular class sizes.
“That could result in a layoff of staff,” she said, although normal staff attrition – such as through retirement – could reduce staff without layoffs.
The Quality Education Investment Act, said nan, is “an experiment in adequate funding,” with the state interested in seeing if more money really works in solving the problems of certain schools.
“If there is a strong difference, perhaps the legislature will see its way clear to continue funding the program in the long run,” she said.
As to why Oak Hill has been a lower-performing school, Nan said the district has been exploring that question.
“We've just completed a complete review through a district school liaison team,” she said.
The school district's board recently approved the team's recommendations, and will begin implementing them in the 2008-09 school year.
One of the primary recommendations suggests breaking up Oak Hill into a group of smaller “learning communities,” a process Nan said would have taken place even without the Quality Education Investment Act funds. Those changes at Oak Hill will begin next fall.
The learning communities will be established within each grade level and will include the core academic areas of math, science, history, social science, and language arts, according to the recommendations.
Teams of teachers will share the same group of students throughout the day in order to create a “school within a school,” the plan says. Focus will be placed on creating a culture of success for all students, and teachers will be trained in strategies aimed at engaging students in particular grades and subjects, the plan says.
Staff culture will be encouraged to create a culture of “Our Kids” vs. “The Kids,” which will include adding student activities and celebrations, mentoring programs between grades, social skills classes, repairing the school's exterior in time for the new school year, increase a feeling of safety at the campus through a perimeter fence, and coordinating community volunteer activities at the school, according to the report.
Schools that submitted applications were then randomly selected using a process that accounted for statutory requirements for geographic and grade-level distribution.
Up to $2 million will be allocated to county offices of education across the state to annually monitor the implementation of this investment program in funded schools.
Upper Lake High School Principal/Superintendent Patrick Iaccino had reported earlier this year his intention of applying for the funds, however, that school wasn't listed among the recipient schools. Iaccino could not be reached for comment for this article.
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LAKEPORT – The Lakeport Fire District is asking the community to come and give them a hand in supporting a young family struggling with a serious health issue.
Lakeport Fire Chief Ken Wells said Chad Parlee – a fire district volunteer since 1990 – and his wife, Brandi, recently found out their 9-year-old daughter, Halee, has encephalitis.
Since her diagnosis, Halee has been receiving treatment at the Oakland Children's Hospital, Wells reported. “I don't think we could even imagine what the costs are,” Wells said.
Chad Parlee works as an airplane mechanic at Lampson Field, said Wells, and the young working-class family is struggling with Halee's medical costs.
But firefighters are used to helping those in need, and so Wells and his department are organizing a Saturday benefit to help the family.
Wells said the pancake breakfast fundraiser will be held on Sunday, May 20, at the Lakeport Fire main station, 445 N. Main St.
Firefighters will serve up a complete breakfast, including pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs and coffee, from 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.
“Hopefully it will go longer,” said Wells.
Many area businesses are donating to the effort, said Wells. “Everybody's kicking in.”
Those who have donated to the fundraiser, Wells reported, are Lakeport McDonald's, Longs Drugs, Park Place, Hi-Way Grocery, The Cottage Coffee Shop, Renee's Cafe, Perko's, Grocery Outlet, Shoreline Restaurant, Bruno's Shop Smart and Safeway.
The community is urged to come enjoy breakfast Sunday – come early and stay late – and help the Parlees as they get Halee the medical help she needs.
For more information or to make donations, call Lakeport Fire, 263-4396.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED.
NICE – A man who reportedly ran in front of a vehicle and was hit survived with relatively minor injuries.
The California Highway Patrol reported that they received a call at 3:48 p.m. Tuesday that a man had fallen from the back of a vehicle on Highway 20 in front of the Harbor Bar & Grill in Nice.
Thomas Rice, 27, was found to have a head injury but was conscious and alert, the CHP reported.
While investigating the incident, authorities discovered Rice hadn't fallen from a vehicle, but had actually run in front of a 2007 Saturn driven by Amy Zingone of Clearlake Oaks and been hit, according to CHP Officer Josh Dye.
Rice was taken to Sutter Lakeside Hospital, the CHP reported. Dye said Rice suffered lacerations to his face, abrasions to his head and right hand, and a pelvic fracture.
The cause of the collision was listed as public intoxication and failing to yield the right of way when not in a crosswalk, Dye reported.
Authorities said Rice would be arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct when released from the hospital.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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SAN FRANCISCO – California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. is accusing the Bush administration of siding with the auto industry by illegally adopting “dangerously misguided” gas mileage rules for SUVs, pickups and minivans.
Brown, in a lawsuit backed by 11 states and several environmental organizations, said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s new mileage standards violate federal law by ignoring both the environment and our country’s growing dependence on foreign oil.
The lawsuit, which was argued Monday in a San Francisco federal appeals court, accuses the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of ordering only a trivial increase in vehicle mileage standards – an increase from 22.2 mpg to 23.5 mpg by 2010. Such administrative action is contrary to federal rules mandating energy conservation, according to a statement from Brown's office.
The administration should have considered the effects of the vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions on global warming when formulating new mileage standards, the lawsuit alleges. Had the administration done so, the government would have demanded greater fuel efficiency, according to the lawsuit.
“After years of neglect, it is unconscionable to increase vehicle mileage standards by only one mile per gallon,” Brown said outside the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case was argued Monday. “We are asking the court to reject this dangerously misguided policy that exacerbates global warming and enriches foreign sponsors of terrorism.”
When approving the regulations last year, the Bush administration primarily emphasized the financial costs to the auto industry instead of seriously considering the cost to the environment and people's health, lawyers for Brown and the other plaintiffs argued Monday to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Suing along with Brown are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, the District of Columbia, New York City, the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club.
About 8 percent of the United States' greenhouse gas emissions come from the vehicles at issue.
Some say global warming does not exist, but even the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged it, according to Brown's statement.
On April 2, the Supreme Court demanded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency consider adopting regulations to combat climate change.
In that case, the high court wrote "the harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized." The Supreme Court noted environmental changes "have already inflicted significant harms" from retreating glaciers, to early spring snow melts to an "accelerated rate of rise of sea levels during the 20th century relative to the past few thousand years."
The lawsuit accuses the Bush administration of violating the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and says greater fuel efficiency is vital "to avert environmental disaster."
The National Environmental Policy Act and other regulations require the Bush administration, when formulating new mileage standards, to consider the effects of the vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions on global warming, which the Bush administration failed to do, Brown said.
Instead, the Bush administration adopted a standard oblivious to how manmade pollution is harming the environment and changing the climate, Brown claimed.
On Monday, at the same time as the lawsuit was being argued in San Francisco, President Bush gave an address in the White House Rose Garden in which he stated his desire “to cut America’s gasoline usage by 20 percent.”
Brown said that he applauded the president’s favorable comments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting back on gas-guzzling, but urged the president to take two immediate steps: tell the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to grant California and 12 other states permission to reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions and junk last year’s token 1-mile-per gallon increase in fuel efficiency standards and “propose something real.”
“The president doesn’t offer a single concrete proposal on how to combat global warming and instead directs his bureaucracy 'to work together’ to come up with a plan,” Brown said. “California already has a plan that can be adopted immediately.”
Arguing for California and the other states is California Deputy Attorney General Susan S. Fiering.
A decision by the three-judge appeals court panel is expected anytime.
The case is California v. National Highway Traffic Safety Agency, 06-72317.
Court records in the case can be found at: www.ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/.
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