Monrovia School Link

Monrovia School Link ~ Number 178 ~ July 30, 2006

Well, at Wednesday's meeting the board has set up a committee to oversee how the district spends the bond money, and the English Learner program is apparently doing fairly well overall... except for four schools which didn't meet their targets. More below.
~ brad@sacklunch.net

By Maritza Diaz
The Monrovia School District building sure does have some good air conditioning! Not too cold, not too warm. There were quite a few people at this meeting. By the end, I wasn't the only one sitting in the audience. So that was a nice surprise. Maybe it was the air conditioning that kept everyone there. Enough about the heat, let's get down to board business. A committee needs applicants, adult students are doing well, and learning.

COMMITTEE ~ The board approved the resolution to create a seven member Citizen's Oversight Bond Committee whose purpose is basically to keep tabs on the bond money and keep the public in the loop. The duties of the committee will be:

- Inform the public of bond expenditures.
- Review expenditure reports and make sure the money is spent as the bond states.
- Present to the board an annual written report indicating if the bond spending is following the rules and a report on the committee's doings for the year.

The Committee will be made up of:
- One member active in the business community
- One member who is a parent or guardian of a child enrolled in the district
- One member, with a child enrolled in the district, and active in a parent-teacher organization
- One member active in a senior citizen's organization
- One member active in a "bona-fide taxpayers association"
- Two members of the community at large.

The lucky chosen will serve up to two years without pay. Interested? Applications should be available on the Web site (hopefully) and local groups will be solicited for applications. Did I mention that the job doesn't pay?

BLUEPRINT ~ WLC Architects are the ones who will be responsible making Monrovia High all pretty and modern. The board ratified the agreement with the firm. President Clare Chesley said that while driving back from lunch the other day, she saw the architects outside the school, which she found pretty exciting.

1ST STEP ~ We are going to be hearing about the bond measure for years to come, but for now, the board has decided that the first series of bonds, "A bonds," in the amount not to exceed $15 million is needed. Bond stuff is happening people, stay tuned..

LIAISON ~ Congratulations to board member Ed Gililland for being appointed as the Board's Designate Representative for the 2006-07 school year. He will meet with the Superintendent to negotiate terms and conditions of her contract. Gililland doesn't have the power to give raises or anything; he's just a sort of liaison to the other board members.

DOORS ~ Apparently the high school has many old doors and locks that need to be replaced. The board gave the go-ahead to find a low bidder and get started on those doors. The money for this repair is coming from the deferred maintenance fund included in the district five-year deferred maintenance plan. Totally separate from the bond.

ADULT ~ According to the Adult Education Annual Report, the students are doing well. The programs (computer programs, medical programs, administrative programs) are doing above average and preparing adult students to pursue careers. Take, for example, the Eagles honors pilot program, in which adult students were willingly enrolled in a program that asks them to set goals ahead of time and expected to accomplish them. Of the 30 students in the program, 28 met those goals. Good job.

Not to be outdone, the Regional Occupational Program (ROP) is also doing quite well. Students enrolled in the program have been able to go on field tips and get a lot of hands-on experience in possible careers. I was in ROP back in the day, and not only was it pretty fun, but I got an after-school job out of the program.

ENGLISH ~ Carol Kaylor, the Categorical Programs Director, gave the board a report on how the English Learner Program is performing, which is pretty good. The main goal of the program is to re-classify students (from "English Learner" to "Reclassified - Fluent English Proficient") and move them out of the program. Enrollment in the program is steady, there were good gains in language and math skills and there has been a six percent increase in the number of students who have been reclassified. Eighteen percent of the district's students are enrolled in the program and most of them come from the elementary schools.

Kaylor said that the six percent increase is important because those students now have the skills to do well in standardized tests and increase the district's Annual Yearly Progress numbers in compliance with the No Child Left Behind requirements.

Kaylor also reported some not-so-good news. Bradoaks, Wild Rose, Clifton and Santa Fe did not meet the language arts academic growth rates. The achievement gap widened for grades 9-12 in language arts and math.

After the report, Board Member Clare Chesley commented on the impact of immigration on the schools. She said she is frustrated with leaders claiming schools are fully funded for No Child Left Behind when that is not the case. She gave an example of a high school student who came into the high school mid-year with little education and how it was expected that the student be brought up to par with all other students. Her "soapbox" (her words) included concerns on how those students are affecting the test scores and the challenges teachers face.

Talk about a hot topic.

JOB ~ Some money has been set aside to hire another school psychologist and a site resource officer. This sound like a good thing for the kids, no?

NEXT MEETING ~ If on August 30, say around 7 p.m. it gets too hot and you need a cool down, stop by for a meeting. The air conditioning is great.

Also on the Web at www.monroviaschoollink.com

Monrovia School Link ~ Number 177 ~ July 23, 2006

Some steps forward for the high school renovation should be coming up at this Wednesday's meeting, July 26.

Which reminds me of how annoyed I am with the State. Last time I heard, California's Division of the State Architect (DSA) had STILL not approved plans for an itty-bitty snack bar and restroom facility at MHS. I think it's been at least a year or more. So, if construction costs keep rising and if the state takes the same amount of time to approve the construction of classroom buildings at MHS, how many more millions of dollars is the state going to cost Monrovia voters while we're sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting on the state?

Which raises another question. Why does the state need to approve these buildings at all? What skill does the state have that the city and county building departments don't have? If there are a few critical things the state absolutely needs to check, why not let the city check the rest? Is the state arguing that it is more concerned for the safety of Monrovia's kids than the people of Monrovia?

Maybe someone ought to chat with our representatives in Sacramento; not so we can get bumped up in line, but so the whole system can be fixed, because it sure seems to me that there is something really wrong with the way it works now.

~ brad@sacklunch.net


It looks like the High School renovation is going to take a big step forward this Wednesday. The board is going to decide on whether to authorize "the Issuance of Monrovia Unified School District General Obligation Bonds, Series A." I'm bettin' the board votes in favor of this.

The board will also vote (in favor, I'm betting) to establish a citizens' bond oversight committee and approve the committee's bylaws; and it will again consider whether to hire WLC Architects for the design work for the high school renovation. The board was going to do this at the last meeting, but if I recall correctly, all the i's hadn't been dotted on the contract at that time. If the matter is before the board now, I guess they got a new ballpoint pen that finished off those bothersome dots.

Also on the agenda of the main meeting:

- There will be the annual report on Adult Education.

- The board will accept (believe me, it will accept) a gift of $10,000 from Mayflower Elementary School PTA to be used to purchase computers for use at Mayflower Elementary School. Wow! That's a big chunk of cash!

- There will be an evaluation report on the District's English Learner programs.


Before the main meeting there will be:

- A study session to discuss the budget at 5 p.m.

- A closed session "Performance Evaluation Review for Superintendent / District Administrators" at 6:15 p.m. You can't go to that, so step out and have a cup of coffee until the main meeting starts.


Also on the Web at www.monroviaschoollink.com