The legislation, known as Assembly Bill 484, will fully replace the current STAR testing system in the 2014-15 school year with a new statewide computerized exam that will assess students’ knowledge on an individual basis and the success of the new curriculum that many states are in the process of adopting nationwide.

“This is one of the most important and revolutionary changes to education policy, and California is the right state to lead the way,” said Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, who drafted the bill, in a press release.

The testing system — Measurement of Academic Performance and Progress — differs from STAR in style and content, according to Frank Worrell, a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education. Unlike STAR, which predominantly uses pencil and paper, MAPP is completely computer-based, allowing the test to adapt to the ability of the test-taker.

Worrell posed a hypothetical in which two students are given 10 questions and both students answer the first four questions correctly to explain how MAPP works.

“Then one student answers question five wrong, and the other answers it right,” Worrell said. “The first student will then get an easier question designed to figure out what that student doesn’t understand. The one who answers it right will get a more complex, challenging problem.”

Worrell added that the benefit of the test is “a more precise understanding of what students are learning and where their weaknesses are.”

MAPP also tests what students are learning in the classroom — namely, the new Common Core standard, which will be rolled out on a practice basis for some subjects in some grades for the 2013-14 school year.

The curriculum aims to make students think critically and conceptually, making them competitive for a globalized college and career environment, said Karen Hemphill, president of the Berkeley Unified School District School Board.

Hemphill added that the curriculum seeks to change the way schools teach English and mathematics. For mathematics, changes will help students gain a better conceptual understanding of arithmetic and algebra.

Meanwhile, English reading curriculums will feature less fiction. Hemphill estimates that students in middle school will read approximately 50 percent nonfiction, while high school students will read about 70 percent nonfiction.

While Hemphill said she was excited for the changes, she acknowledged there would be a districtwide learning curve as the new curriculum is implemented. To ease the transition, the district plans to host workshops for teachers and parents. It also plans to give intermediary tests this year to make sure students are prepared for next year’s MAPP.

Contact Savannah Luschei at sluschei@dailycal.org.

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Anthony Bongco/Staff

Berkeley Unified School District’s truancy rate is significantly higher than the state’s average for the 2011-12 academic year.

In a 2013 report, state Attorney General Kamala Harris raised concerns that a trend of rising truancy rates across the state could lead to a rise in high school dropouts, with dropouts costing the state $46 billion a year.

Truancy is defined as a student’s missing at least half an hour of class without an excuse at least three times in one academic year, according to the California Department of Education. About six out of every 10 students in the Berkeley school district are truants.

The district’s truancy rate, which is 60.2 percent in the 2011-12 academic year, is far higher than the state average of 28.5 percent during the same time period, the department’s website states.

According to the report, 82 percent of prisoners in the United States are high school dropouts.

Despite these truancy statistics, Reaa Puri, a former Berkeley High student and current freshman at UC Berkeley, believes the situation is actually far less serious.

“I don’t think truancy is correlated with a rise in crime,” Puri said. “There are students who skip school due to already having gotten into colleges.”

Over the past few years, the school district has developed new approaches to resolve the problem. New measures include an automatic system that informs parents when their children are absent, as well as changes in the way students are punished for truancy, said Karen Hemphill, president of the school board.

Two years ago, students’ grades dropped by one letter if they had five unexcused absences, according to Hemphill. Now, truants are barred from attending events, such as prom or gamedays, and are given opportunities to make up for the hours they lost by attending Saturday school.

“It’s like ‘The Breakfast Club’ — but they actually do work,” said Hemphill.

Chronic truants are referred to the School Attendance Review Board, where school administrators engage with students and parents to discuss the underlying issues for the truancy and to work together to create a solution. The SARB can also report a student — or, in the case of elementary school truancy, a family — to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.

Currently, the school is partnering with Berkeley Police Department and implementing increased security at campus entrances to help staunch rising truancy rates. If the police sees a student under 16 outside of class during school hours, they will escort the student back to school, Hemphill said.

“There is a message now on campus about going to class,” she said.

Contact Giacomo Toginini at gtognini@dailycal.org.

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Just a month after the December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 20 schoolchildren and six staff members were killed by an armed intruder, the Berkeley district allocated about $50,000 to have school security consultant Edu-Safe Associates audit its safety policies. About $30,000 of that has been spent so far. After the district reviews the results of the audit, it will release a report and possible recommendations to the school board.

Mark Coplan, a district spokesperson, said the audit was not conducted to modernize outdated safety policies but rather to improve already sufficient plans at the district’s schools. Each of the 20 schools in the district has a comprehensive safety plan that is updated annually.

In March, an armed man was reported near Berkeley High School after a failed robbery. Shortly afterward, Berkeley Police Department advised administrators to implement a campus lockdown “to prevent potential harm from entering the campus and also to prevent kids and adults on campus from exiting into situations that could be extremely dangerous,” said Pasquale Scuderi, Berkeley High School’s principal, in a letter to families and staff.

Two years ago, the same school suffered a string of firearm-related incidents.

“All I was told to do was lock my doors, turn off the lights and draw my window shades down and nothing else,” said Daniel Plonsey, a teacher at Berkeley High School with two sons in the district, of the lockdown in March. “(But) even with an updated safety plan, I don’t think I would know what to do in such an unpredictable situation — how could anyone?”

The district’s hiring of consultants to audit safety policies in January was meant to foster a wider dialogue, Coplan said.

“(A) reason we decided to bring in consultants was that we thought it would be less effective to come up with just a local solution,” he said. “We will come up with better solutions this way.”

Two policies many safety experts have pushed are “run, hide, fight” and ALICE (“alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate”). Both are strategies for what to do in the event of a campus intrusion, and both advocate attacking the intruders.

Multiple school districts in the East Bay are considering adopting ALICE, including Pleasanton Unified School District.

Glen Sparks, a coordinator for the Pleasanton district, said that while his district is considering the program, it will more likely draw up its own intruder-safety protocols through cooperation with Pleasanton Police Department.

Berkeley Unified School District enjoys a similarly close relationship with the city police department, said Jennifer Coats, public information officer for BPD.

“BPD has a longstanding relationship with BUSD, and we will continue to work together towards campus safety,” she said.

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org.

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Assembly Bill 484, authored by Assemblymember Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, would end the STAR tests that California schools use to judge performance in math and English.

Unlike current testing methods, the new assessments will have public school students take statewide assessments on computers and explain their reasoning through essays in both English and math subjects.

California K-12 schools are transitioning from the current curriculum to the Common Core curriculum, which has been adopted by 45 states. Teachers will be trained to prepare their students for the Common Core standard, which will be adopted by all schools by the 2014-15 school year.

“If you’re in the middle of switching but using the old test, what’s the relevancy of the data you’re collecting?” said Karen Hemphill, president of the Berkeley Unified School District School Board.

The new curriculum is intended to teach students to think conceptually and write analytically in all subjects. The STAR tests do not reflect the curriculum of the Common Core, and this bill aims to make that adjustment sooner.

Frank Worrell, a campus professor in the Graduate School of Education, said the Common Core program will benefit students by preparing them to think conceptually, as is required at the college level.

“What we need to see is the conceptual understanding in students who didn’t necessarily have good conceptual understanding before,” Worrell said. “It will be interesting for us to look at our materials and see that we are actually in line with what they are doing at K-12.”

If the bill is passed, students will take field tests of the new Measurement of Academic Performance and Progress in place of math and English STAR tests this school year. MAPP is a set of assessments aligned to Common Core, and AB 484 includes plans to permanently replace STAR with MAPP in the 2014-15 school year.

The currently used Academic Performance Index, a collection of data from standardized tests, would not be recorded for the next two years, because the data collected from the new testing curriculum cannot be compared to the API data taken from the previous STAR tests.

The bill has been cleared by the Senate Appropriations Committee and is awaiting a vote on the state Senate floor.

“We will know so much more after the State Accountability meeting in October,” said Debbi D’Angelo, the Berkeley school district’s director of evaluation and assessment, in an email. “Through the hard work from the teachers and professional development department, we are preparing students for these exciting changes.”

Tara Hurley covers city news. Contact her at thurley@dailycal.org.

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Jan Flatley-Feldman/File

Berkeley public schools have seen an overall improvement in performance on state tests, according to a progress report released Aug. 29.

According to the California Department of Education’s report, the Berkeley Unified School District achieved an Academic Performance Index score of 821, surpassing state goals. That score represents an improvement of 10 points over last year’s score of 811.

The API score is based on standardized tests and assessments and is used as a measurement of student progress in California K-12 public schools. It is scored on a scale of 200 to 1,000, with a statewide target of 800. Only four schools in the district did not meet this goal.

“The more people understand the test scores and the impact they have on our students, the more they will be able to help them to improve,” said Mark Coplan, spokesperson for Berkeley Unified School District.

Eight schools in the district saw a decrease in API scores. John Muir Elementary had the greatest drop — 41 points — and received a score of 782. The school’s principal, Audrey Amos, said faculty and administrators are already using the data to re-examine the curriculum.

In the first weeks of school, the report is shared with teachers, Amos said. Students also receive their individual reports to take home.

In the district, socioeconomically disadvantaged students’ API scores improved 21 points over last year, and African American students improved by 16 points. Still, school board President Karen Hemphill said these groups were 150 to 200 points behind other student groups.

“(There were) gains overall, but there’s not an acceleration,” Hemphill said. “The achievement gap isn’t narrowing.”

Hemphill said there will be more focus on underachieving student groups in the next year. She added that she hopes the implementation of the Common Core — a program that seeks to improve student success by aligning state education standards — eventually will help to narrow the achievement gap.

“Common Core is really changing the way schools teach all subjects,” Hemphill said. “I think that’s going to be the basis for making those strides.”

Tara Hurley covers city news. Contact her at thurley@dailycal.org.

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Both parties came to this agreement last week, and it is now subject to approval by members of both organizations, ending negotiations that have stretched back to January. Negotiations also include a one-time 2.5 percent bonus to teachers that will come before the end of the current school year.

“This provides some badly needed relief for teachers,” said Cathy Campbell, president of BFT. “Some of these teachers are on five or six years without a raise in the face of increasing health care costs.”

Teacher contracts have remained the same from 2008 to 2012 because both parties agreed that it would be best for the city to keep teacher salaries stagnant during times of economic uncertainty. Due to this and other cuts, the school district now finds itself with an $8.7 million surplus, which it is now using to increase wages.

“I think that in this case, there is a foundational respect for what teachers do within our community and district,” Campbell said. “The biggest hurdle in these negotiations was the uncertainty of the 2013 state budget.”

Karen Hemphill, president of the district school board, said that the school district was unable to reach a long-term agreement with the BFT and will continue negotiations in October. This is largely due to the uncertainty concerning the specifics of Gov. Jerry Brown’s new education reform proposal.

Brown’s proposal looks to change from a demographic-based funding system to a need-based one. The proposal looks to give more funding to districts with higher percentages of students who are English learners, economically disadvantaged or foster youth.

Both Hemphill and Campbell said Berkeley schools have avoided problems that other cities faced under reduced funding, such as furloughs and shorter school years, due to the community’s commitment to funding education by voting for items like Prop. 30 and the parcel tax.

“Even though the district had created a carry-over fund, without Prop. 30, we would deplete that in a year,” Hemphill said. “You didn’t know what you would have that you would be able to offer as compensation, and the unions obviously understood that.”

The Berkeley Council of Classified Employees, a sister union of the BFT that represents noncertified employees, is also negotiating with the school district on wage increases. However, Paula Phillips, president of BCCE, says that negotiations are not going as well as the ones with the BFT.

“A lot of my members’ paychecks have gone down between $200 and $300,” Phillips said. “So the district balances their budget off of the backs of the lowest-paid employees in our district.”

Contact Jose Hernandez at jhernandez@dailycal.org.

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Sinai was voted in unanimously by the four sitting board members from a pool of 10 candidates. Sinai will fill the seat vacated by former board president Leah Wilson, who stepped down in March after being appointed court executive officer for the Alameda County Superior Court. Wilson resigned citing concerns about a conflict of interest.

Current board president Karen Hemphill said that despite a strong applicant pool, Sinai had qualities that showed the board she was the most suitable person for the job.

“I felt that the Board needed someone who was already familiar with the District and was involved in public education and Julie met all of these attributes,” Hemphill said in an email.  “She has been a long-time public school activist, used to work for the District and in her current work at the university, it’s all about partnerships and collaboration.”

Before working at UC Berkeley, Sinai was also chief of staff to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates. Sinai said she hopes to apply her previous community and university experience to the school district and help the board with its current challenges, which include a new superintendent, increased efforts to improve academic achievement and heated negotiations with teachers’ unions.

“My future plans are to become familiar with the issues that the board has to tackle and look how to move our equity work forward,” Sinai said. “I will also help with looking at the physical status of a student district and do whatever I can do to reach an agreement with the unions.”

Michelle Moskowitz, director of advocacy and institutional relations at UC Berkeley, works with Sinai and congratulated her appointment, saying she believes Sinai will exceed expectations on the board.

“I think Julie will be an amazing asset to the board, as she has many years of experience working for the city of Berkeley,” Moskowitz said. “They could not have made a better choice. All of her colleagues at the Government and Community Relations Office congratulate her.”

Hemphill said she is glad to be working with Sinai and believes that the board will benefit from working with her.

“I expect that Julie will be a great asset in building partnerships with our community, the County and of course the University,” Hemphill said in an email.  “She also will be great in furthering our work to advance overall academic achievement and Julie’s up close knowledge of what a governing body does and how an effective elected body works together through her work as the Mayor’s Chief of Staff will be very useful.”

Sinai will serve the remainder of Wilson’s term until the seat comes up for re-election in November 2014.

Contact Seif Abdelghaffar at sabdelghaffar@dailycal.org.

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Hayward Unified School District/Courtesy

Donald Evans, superintendent of Hayward Unified School District, has been named the sole finalist candidate for the Berkeley Unified School District superintendent position.

The selection process for a new superintendent, which began in December 2011, reopened in February this year when previous finalist Edmond Heatley dropped his candidacy following the rise of controversy surrounding his stance against gay marriage. Evans was chosen after the district evaluated more than 70 possible candidates, according to a district press release Friday.

Evans was a favored candidate due to his extensive experience in dealing with a diverse set of students from different income levels and ethnicities, according to Karen Hemphill, president of the school board.

“Dr. Evans really encompasses the experiences, skills, and values that our community has stressed as being important in our new superintendent,” Hemphill said in an email.

Evans began his career nearly 26 years ago, working as a teacher and administrator in school districts in San Diego, East Palo Alto, Oakland and Compton before becoming superintendent of Hayward Unified School District, according to the Hayward Education Foundation website.

“I’ve had a very positive experience working with Superintendent Evans,” said Principal Ariel Dolowich of Anthony Ochoa Middle School in Hayward. “He has brought a level of accountability and reorganization to the district.”

During Evans’ tenure, Dolowich and Anthony Ochoa staff, with support from the district, saw an increase in the school’s Academic Performance Index by 86 points — a record for the school, Dolowich said.

With an emphasis on rigor, responsibility and results, Evans is noted for his achievements in developing a community-based, data-driven academic achievement plan for African American students. The school board hopes that with his experience, Evans will be able to help Berkeley with similar achievement gap issues, Hemphill said. The 2020 Vision project is one of the most visible Berkeley efforts to address the issue.

Nevertheless, some members of the community are cautious about Evans’ candidacy but are eager to see what he might bring to the superintendent position.

“I am cautiously optimistic about his selection,” said Berkeley PTA Council President Tom Killilea in an email. “The important point will be how he approaches the Berkeley community, which can be a challenge on its own.”

Board members, teachers, union representatives, staff and community members will all attend a site visit Friday, according to Hemphill, to observe Evans in his current position in Hayward.
“It’s an opportunity for the board to bring in the various stakeholders in our district to do final vetting of the candidate,” Hemphill said.

After the site visit, the board will continue the finalization process. It will create an employment agreement and vote on a final contract for Evans. If all goes well, Evans will be hired and assume the superintendent position on July 1.

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

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Dean Ignacio/Staff

SCORE. The word can mean success. It can be the written copy of a musical composition. And starting April 12, the word will refer to the SCORE Berkeley program that is to engage students at Willard Middle School and — the program’s directors hope — enrich their lives.

The concept driving the program is straightforward: introductory music lessons for one hour every Friday after school, over the course of eight weeks. SCORE will pair middle school students with volunteer instructors in a combination of group and individual sessions that teach basic guitar, piano, bass and drums, with a focus on the former two. “We’re going to start off with very basic chords and move on to some scales,” said music director Danny McCarty, “and hopefully by the end of the project, they’ll all be able to play a song together in unison like a band might do.”

The curriculum is intentionally loose in order to allow each student to learn at his or her own pace. “We just want them to enjoy what they’re doing and not have any pressures of trying to fulfill a certain deadline or goal,” McCarty said. At the end of the eight weeks, students will hold a concert to showcase their new musical talents.

Although Berkeley Unified School District already has afterschool music programs, SCORE is unique in that its curriculum will be centered on rock ‘n’ roll music. The directors aim to actively and closely engage students. Although he finds all music education “very respectable,” SCORE Director Taylor Freeman seeks to fill a gap in the district’s current musical education by teaching the rock genre. “Most school music programs revolve around classical, jazz or contemporary music,” agreed Jill Coffey, BPEF school volunteers director. “So the opportunity to play in a band like group is unique in BUSD — especially for middle schoolers.”

The program also emphasizes that its instructors are to serve as role models for the children. For that reason, though there are no specific standards of musical ability required to volunteer with the program, SCORE is currently only accepting college students for its instructor positions, recruiting at universities like UC Berkeley. According to Freeman, the program hopes to bring in more tutors for individual instruction.

“We want to find people who can build face value with the students, — really come in and mentor them so they develop a relationship rather than have different people come in every time,” Freeman said. His hope is that students will engage in these mentorships and be inspired to achieve and excel in academics. Coffey also discussed how student mentors might act as a “support system (to) encourage attendance and participation” in a confusing early-adolescent environment.

In addition to teaching music in closer settings, SCORE seeks to provide music lessons to all students regardless of financial situation. “We don’t want any kid to be limited,” Freeman said. “The baseline goal is to give kids music instruction and mentorship totally free of charge, no matter their level of privilege.” He identified availability and accessibility as some of the program’s top priorities, with the hope that all students will have equal opportunity to learn music. To make this possible, the program is holding an ongoing instrument drive, collecting guitars, basses, keyboards and drums.

At the heart of SCORE is a desire to engage and inspire students. Freeman and McCarty, drawing from personal experience, consider music a vital tool in the transition through adolescence. “I grew up playing music … and it’s what really inspired me to go to school,” Freeman said. “I wasn’t a super strong student when I was young — it was music.” Similarly, McCarty hopes to share the knowledge he has acquired through eight years of experience as a guitarist.

Depending on the success of the eight-week program, SCORE may just be the first stepping stone to a greater number of programs at other schools. But for now, the directors are simply excited about the prospect of reaching out to the community and effecting positive change for middle school students. “I think the main focus is just being a force of good,” Freeman said. “The music is the thing that’s the vehicle for all this.”

Contact Josephine Yang at jyang@dailycal.org.

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Introduced by Assemblymember Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, Assembly Bill 182 attempts to reduce the future debt burden by limiting the length of capital appreciation bonds to 25 years and restricting money owed to a maximum of four times the borrowed amount. The bill would also let districts refinance these bonds at a lower interest rate and require increased disclosure to the school districts’ governing boards.

“They shove debt on the next generation of taxpayers who won’t benefit directly from the facilities the bonds finance, which means (the next generation will) have less ability to finance what their kids need,” said Tom Dresslar, spokesperson for California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who has been a strong advocate for the bill.

Capital appreciation bonds have been used by public schools throughout the nation to fund large-scale projects like school construction. Unlike traditional bonds, however, for which the funds are repaid in gradual, short-term increments, capital appreciation bonds are paid back in one total amount at a set date, often decades after the bond is issued.

However, during the period between the bond’s issue date and its maturity date, interest is continuously compounded, which often results in high levels of accumulated interest. In some cases, debt payments have accrued to even 10 times the original amount borrowed, according to Dresslar.

Several groups, such as the California Association of School Business Officials and the Association of California School Administrators, believe that capital appreciation bonds should be limited but that AB 182 should be revised.

“If passed in its current form,” said Molly McGee Hewitt, executive director of CASBO, “we are concerned that many school districts will have to delay their facilities’ construction programs, resulting in substandard facilities for students, teachers and staff that are in the greatest need of them — particularly in districts that serve a high percentage of economically disadvantaged families.”

The Berkeley Unified School District is not using any capital-appreciation bonds at the moment, though the use of such bonds is “likely to happen in the future,” according to Mark Coplan, BUSD public information officer.

Karen Hemphill, president of the BUSD Board of Education, mentioned that the board has weighed the pros and cons of capital-appreciation bonds and would consider them only in the context of saving taxpayers money.

“Fiscal responsibility has been the hallmark (of the district),” Hemphill said. “We have a lot of checks and balances and accountability.”

The state Senate will vote on AB 182 in the following months. If passed and signed by the governor, the bill will be implemented beginning Jan. 1 of next year.

Contact Alison Fu at afu@dailycal.org.

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