Easy Ways to Green Your School

Andrea Falken, Director of the Green Ribbon Schools program, provides her thoughts on greening schools on the US Department of Education’s Blog. Some ideas include planting a community garden, encouraging students to bring reusable lunchware, and starting a recycling program.

What has your school done to go green?

Meghan Covert Russell

School-Friendly YouTube Channel

YouTube has launched a new network – YouTube for Schools – that allows educators to grant students access to educational content from YouTube EDU while excluding other content.  YouTube EDU includes content from the Smithsonian, TED, Steve Spangler Science, MIT and Numberphile, among many others. 

Meghan Covert Russell

Become a California Green Ribbon School

California is one of 33 states and the District of Columbia which plan to nominate schools for the US Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools award program. The program asks states to nominate schools that come closest to achieving the goals the Green Ribbon program has established: net zero environmental impact of facilities, net positive health impact on students and staff, and 100% environmentally literate graduates.

“We are excited about the potential impact the Green Ribbon Schools awards program can have in encouraging schools to improve their energy efficiency, create healthy environments for students and staff, and enhance their work to effectively prepare graduates for 21st century careers,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

States must submit nominations to the US Department of Education by May 22, 2012 and winners will be announced in April.

For more information on the Green Ribbon Schools program please visit the US Department of Education’s website.

Meghan Covert Russell

California School Boards Association & KMTG Update

Tomorrow, Dec. 1, is the kick-off of the 2011 Annual Education Conference of the California School Boards Association (CSBA). Kronick Moskovitz has been proud to partner with CSBA over the years to provide the very best in education and training for CSBA members. This year's conference is being held in San Diego and we're pleased to report that several KMTG attorneys were selected as speakers and panel participants. KMTG attorney Michelle Cannon is partnering with another speaker to conduct a workshop on the Brown Act, a comprehensive overview of everything you need to know about California's open meeting law. Roman Munoz, another KMTG attorney, is speaking on the panel entitled "Surviving Tough Negotiations As A Board" which will focus on the fact-finding process from the board perspective. And taking place in conjunction with the CSBA annual meeting is the California Council of School Attorneys and the County Counsel’s Association Joint Annual Workshop. There, KMTG attorney Diana Halpenny is presenting "Legal Issues and Updates Associated with Teacher Evaluations." If you are attending the CSBA meeting, you won't want to miss these insightful presentations by members of the KMTG Education group. If you can't make it in person, you can listen to live streaming of the General Sessions via the CSBA website. You can also follow CSBA tweets from the event on Twitter @csbaaec and can submit questions before the State of the State address by using the hash tag #csbaaec. We hope to see you there!

FCC Explores Broadband Deployment Issues

The Broadband Acceleration Initiative was announced in February with its goal to identify and reduce regulatory and other barriers to broadband deployment. The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) issued a Notice of Inquiry in April regarding the “Acceleration of Broadband Deployment: Expanding the Reach of Reducing the Cost of Broadband Deployment by Improving Policies Regarding Public Rights of Way and Wireless Facilities Siting WC Docket No. 11-59.”

The Notice states that increasing broadband deployment is one of the great infrastructure challenges of our time. It also notes that Congress has directed the FCC and each State commission to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of [broadband] to all Americans” by working to “remove barriers to infrastructure investment” in a manner consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity.

The policies regarding the management of rights of way and siting wireless facilities, including procedures and costs, affect how long it takes and how much it costs to deploy broadband. Last year the National Broadband Plan concluded that the rates, terms, and conditions for access to rights of way significantly impact broadband deployment. School districts and other public agencies sometimes house these wireless broadband facilities on their property and therefore any changes by the FCC to rates that can be charged for siting these facilities may have an impact on these public agencies.

The FCC seeks to address the following issues which may be of interest to school districts:

· Reasonableness of charges

· Presence/absence of uniformity due to inconsistent or varying practices and rates in different jurisdictions or areas

· Other rights of way concerns

The FCC initiative may have the potential to effect how and at what cost school districts can house these facilities. Some public agencies, including school districts, have responded to the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry with their own comments and concerns over their ability to charge reasonable rent for these broadband facilities.

How does your district feel about potential FCC regulation of broadband contracts?

Meghan Covert Russell

ACLU Resumes Student Fees Lawsuit

The American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) has resumed its lawsuit against the State after Governor Brown vetoed AB 165. The suit alleges that the State failed to enforce the constitutional ban on student fees. The suit had been placed on hold while AB 165, which would have codified the ban on charging fees and implemented strict enforcement mechanisms, was pending. With the Governor’s October 8 veto of the bill, the ACLU has refocused its efforts on resolving this issue in court.

Meghan Covert Russell

Suit Filed Against LAUSD Seeks to Enforce Requirements of the Stull Act for Teacher Evaluations

Parents of children in the Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD” or “District”), backed by the advocacy group EdVoice, filed suit in the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 31, 2011 seeking to compel the District to abide by Education Code section 44660 et seq., commonly known as the Stull Act.

The Stull Act was enacted in 1971 and requires teachers to be evaluated relative to students’ progress towards locally determined standards. In 1999 the Stull Act was expanded to require evaluation of teachers relative to students’ progress towards state adopted academic content standards as measured by state assessments.

The suit alleges that the District never obeyed the Stull Act’s mandate; it alleges that certificated employee unions, “in collusion with the District’s governing boards and superintendents . . . made it impossible for the District to lawfully evaluate certificated personnel and indentify and require specific corrective action to retain, transfer, suspend, or dismiss unsatisfactory personnel based, in part, on evidence which demonstrates whether or not students are learning.” The suit further states that “the adults’ collective employment and political interests are turning the childrens’ opportunity to learn and their fundamental right to basic educational equality in the public schools on its head.”

Hearing on the suit is scheduled for November 21.

The complaint can be accessed here.

Meghan Covert Russell