Sad news. Don Phillips a truly fine man and an excellent administrator here in VUSD as well as other school districts has passed away. The staff and students of VUSD were better for having had an association with him.
Besides being extremely well organized and a genuinely nice person, he had a interest in pottery and ceramics. I imagined him throwing pots at some community college during his retirement years. What a shame that he had so little time to enjoy his retirement from Poway Unified School District where he ended his career.
It is hard to believe that someone as talented, personally nice as well as athletically trim and fit could pass away without ever making it to his 65 birthday.
Read more here:
http://www.pomeradonews.com/article/News/News/Former_PUSD_superintendent_Don_Phillips_dies/33666
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
District emails--Bales busy work vampires sucks all district planning time from elementary teachers
Did you ever wonder why you have to spend twenty to thirty minutes a day sorting through and answering district email every day? Or why your precious minutes of prep time should be spent on such uselessness instead of what it was meant for, preparing for teaching?
Why can't Bales get a spam filter for email? How are you expected to check your email several times a day when you are teaching class and preparing for class?
All good questions. Sadly no good answers except that Bales et. al. have no idea of how much time email takes, how inefficient it is at reaching everyone in a timely fashion and probably no concern for either as long as their backsides are covered by their multiple email missives.
Elementary teachers are supposed to have some planning time. It is good educational policy to give teachers time to get ready for their classes. Teaching is more effective when teachers have this time to prepare.
In the old days all this district and school office important notices 'crapola' came in our mail boxes. We had sheets of paper that could be gone through in two to five minutes at most. Look--throw away. Look--throw away. Look--save. Boom boom boom, it was done in at most a few minutes with only seconds needed for most notices as most of them have nothing to do with any particular teacher. It was a fast and efficient system.
The current snail slow email system only comes up one at a time. The same info that could be easily dealt with in seconds in paper form takes twenty to thirty minutes of processing when it arrives via district email. Why because we have waiting for the email message to open, dealing with it by answering or eliminating and then checking the next message, etc., etc ad nauseum. Each message taking the better part of a minute to deal with rather than a second or two like a piece of paper would. With twenty to forty email messages that is the better part of an hour lost to district email on most days. Does any one at the district office ask for what good teaching purpose are teachers being forced to waste all this time. Or questions like is this time wasting of benefit to our students? No, no one at the district office ever thinks to ask those questions.
Why does Joyce Bales keep adding more and more busy work like this "check email" requirement to district school teachers already frantically busy days?
Technology can be helpful and a boon to teaching for instance being able to project the information on a single computer screen unto a whole classroom projection screen or technology can damage teacher effectiveness. Bales several times a day "check email" time vampire is the latter.
Why can't Bales get a spam filter for email? How are you expected to check your email several times a day when you are teaching class and preparing for class?
All good questions. Sadly no good answers except that Bales et. al. have no idea of how much time email takes, how inefficient it is at reaching everyone in a timely fashion and probably no concern for either as long as their backsides are covered by their multiple email missives.
Elementary teachers are supposed to have some planning time. It is good educational policy to give teachers time to get ready for their classes. Teaching is more effective when teachers have this time to prepare.
In the old days all this district and school office important notices 'crapola' came in our mail boxes. We had sheets of paper that could be gone through in two to five minutes at most. Look--throw away. Look--throw away. Look--save. Boom boom boom, it was done in at most a few minutes with only seconds needed for most notices as most of them have nothing to do with any particular teacher. It was a fast and efficient system.
The current snail slow email system only comes up one at a time. The same info that could be easily dealt with in seconds in paper form takes twenty to thirty minutes of processing when it arrives via district email. Why because we have waiting for the email message to open, dealing with it by answering or eliminating and then checking the next message, etc., etc ad nauseum. Each message taking the better part of a minute to deal with rather than a second or two like a piece of paper would. With twenty to forty email messages that is the better part of an hour lost to district email on most days. Does any one at the district office ask for what good teaching purpose are teachers being forced to waste all this time. Or questions like is this time wasting of benefit to our students? No, no one at the district office ever thinks to ask those questions.
Why does Joyce Bales keep adding more and more busy work like this "check email" requirement to district school teachers already frantically busy days?
Technology can be helpful and a boon to teaching for instance being able to project the information on a single computer screen unto a whole classroom projection screen or technology can damage teacher effectiveness. Bales several times a day "check email" time vampire is the latter.
Martin Garrick, the man born without a heart given space to brag in the North County Times
Martin Garrick is the person most responsible for the terrible cuts in this year's California state budget for K-12 education, aid to the poor, the elderly and the infirm. He celebrated those cuts while championing massive increases in tuition at our California State colleges and universities. Millions of our most fragile fellow Californians and including neighbors on our street are in far worse financial shape today then they were two years ago largely due to his actions. Yet the editorial staff of the North County Times chose to give him space to brag about his 'accomplishments' in today's newspaper.
Read it here:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/article_3e4580c0-8893-5edb-9ca3-23deb5bb334a.html
Martin Garrick was able to make these massive and unfair cuts by using archaic rules in the California Constitution which required a two thirds vote to pass a state budget and tax increases. Garrick led the rogue gang of Republicans in the state assembly, under his leadership they voted to stop any reasonable fix for the state budget. See him brag about his heartlessness here:
https://www.calchannel.com/channel/viewVideo/1387
Read about the easy fixes, Garrick and his gang would not allow to be passed here:
http://caltaxreform.org/?p=211
Read other posts about the evil that is Garrick and his gang below:
May 23, 2010--http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/05/martin-garricks-gang-directly-caused.html
February 24, 2010--http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-is-responsible-for-california.html
Here is what I, under my nom de guerre--con no more, wrote in the comment section following the "bragfest" self congratulatory slime that the arrogant bully Garrick wrote about himself today in the North County Times:
Read it here:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/article_3e4580c0-8893-5edb-9ca3-23deb5bb334a.html
Martin Garrick was able to make these massive and unfair cuts by using archaic rules in the California Constitution which required a two thirds vote to pass a state budget and tax increases. Garrick led the rogue gang of Republicans in the state assembly, under his leadership they voted to stop any reasonable fix for the state budget. See him brag about his heartlessness here:
https://www.calchannel.com/channel/viewVideo/1387
Read about the easy fixes, Garrick and his gang would not allow to be passed here:
http://caltaxreform.org/?p=211
Read other posts about the evil that is Garrick and his gang below:
May 23, 2010--http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/05/martin-garricks-gang-directly-caused.html
February 24, 2010--http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-is-responsible-for-california.html
Here is what I, under my nom de guerre--con no more, wrote in the comment section following the "bragfest" self congratulatory slime that the arrogant bully Garrick wrote about himself today in the North County Times:
- con no more said on: December 3, 2010, 7:18 am
- Martin Garrick, and the Republican gang he led in Sacramento are directly and almost solely responsible for the fiscal mess in Sacramento.
This Republican gang of vandals in the State Assembly and State Senate caused the massive public school layoffs, cuts to aid to the poor, the infirm and the elderly by refusing any reasonable suggestions for a fix to the California budget funding crises.
If you have a strong stomach you can watch a you tube type video of Martin Garrick acting as an arrogant bully demanding across the board cuts while leading the California Republican Press Conference on May 12th. He is almost gleeful with joy at the thought of the poor getting poorer, the ill becoming sicker, the elderly losing caregivers and school children in larger classes for fewer school days. Those of you who ever supporter this heartless monster should watch the video to see who and what he is.
Here: https://www.calchannel.com/channel/viewVideo/1387
There were incredibly easy fixes to the California budget problem that would not affect a single person reading this, but Garrick and his gang would not let those fixes be considered. He used the archaic 2/3rds majority rule needed at the time for the passage of state budget time to force ever more cuts to the neediest of our neighbors--the poor, the elderly and school children.
See easy fixes to the state budget that the immoral monster, Martin Garrick would not allow to be voted on here:
See: http://caltaxreform.org/?p=211
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