The Met Sacramento High School has bright energy future

July 14th, 2011

When students return to The Met Sacramento High School in January next year, they’ll have a completely redesigned campus, one with energy-efficient windows and lighting, new plumbing and heating, and countertops made with recycled glass.

The charter school near Southside Park will be the first in the city to meet national standards for energy efficiency. The new design exceeds criteria set by the U.S. Green Building Council and the Collaborative for High Performance Schools.

Administrators say remodeling will both save money for the district and help students learn.

“At a time when budgets are tight, we’re doing a project that’s win-win-win,” said Sacramento City Unified School District Superintendent Jonathan Raymond.

“It’s thinking, ‘How do we utilize our assets?’ It isn’t deficit thinking, which is ‘We don’t have, we can’t do,’ ” he said.

The $6.9 million renovation is financed by $390,000 in state grants and Measure I, a bond approved by voters in 2002.

The Met is a 300-student charter school, funded by the district but administered by Big Picture Learning, a national charter school network.

Students at The Met work with one teacher throughout their four high school years, taking specialized subjects, such as sciences and foreign languages, from other teachers.

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Tags: Energy, High School, Sacramento High, Sacramento High School

Esparto votes by mail on school parcel tax

July 10th, 2011

Esparto voters have until Tuesday to decide if the unincorporated area in rural Yolo County should follow the lead of affluent communities in the Bay Area and Davis that support their schools with parcel taxes.

Two-thirds of those voting in the all-mail election must approve Measure B, which calls for a $100 annual parcel tax on homes and rural properties in the Esparto Unified School District.

The measure would generate up to $300,000 a year for five years to help make up for big cuts in state education funding.

“I’m really doing a lot of praying this thing passes. It will be a small miracle if it does,” said Jane Stallings, a member of the Esparto Board of Education and a leading proponent of the school tax.

If voters approve the measure, it would set a statewide precedent for school districts like Esparto, where farmers, farmworkers and blue-collar laborers make up much of the population.

Traditionally only voters in affluent areas such as Berkeley and Marin have approved school parcel taxes.

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Tags: School, School Parcel

Sierra College athletic appointee faces claims of assault, verbal abuse

July 6th, 2011

The man selected to head Sierra College’s athletic department is fighting allegations of assault and verbal abuse at his current job at Mendocino College in Ukiah.

Thomas Gang, 44, is slated to replace John Volek as associate dean of athletics at the Rocklin campus. Gang’s appointment is pending approval from Sierra College’s Board of Trustees, which will vote Tuesday.

Mendocino College coaches, booster club members and even the chief of the Ukiah police and fire departments called The Bee in support of Gang.

“I did nothing wrong,” Gang said in a phone interview.

However, several employees claimed otherwise at a Mendocino Lake Community College District Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday night.

Christine Risch, a campus security monitor, alleged she was assaulted during a confrontation with Gang.

Risch said she was conducting surveillance to see who was leaving a gymnasium door unlocked. During her videotaping, Gang entered the gym, saw her, and asked her to leave, according to a private investigator’s report of the incident, which was obtained by The Bee.

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Tags: Abuse, Sierra College, Verbal Abuse

New UConn president donates $100,000

July 6th, 2011

The University of Connecticut’s new president and her husband are donating $100,000 of their own money to launch a scholarship program, saying they want to help needy UConn students and hope to highlight how important philanthropy is to the school’s future.

UConn officials announced Wednesday that Susan Herbst and her husband, marketing consultant Douglas Hughes, are giving the gift as part of UConn’s campaign to raise $600 million by 2014. It has raised about $277 million so far.

Herbst, 48, who started her new job three weeks ago, said Wednesday that she and her husband are pleased to join other donors to help students who need financial help.

They also hope the gift helps other potential donors recognize how important philanthropy is to the future of UConn and other public universities, many of which are struggling to keep tuition rates reasonable and avoid deep cuts despite tight state budgets.

“In these difficult times, UConn desperately needs increased private funding of student scholarships, faculty research, and building projects in order to become the top flagship university the state of Connecticut and its citizens deserve,” Herbst said.

Herbst came to Connecticut from her previous job as executive vice chancellor of the University System of Georgia.

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Tags: President, President Donates

Tax plan backers feel confident

July 6th, 2011

Supporters of a proposed ballot measure to temporarily raise state taxes to fund schools and colleges are confident they’ll make the November ballot, announcing Thursday that they’ve gathered about half their target number of signatures.

“We’re going to make this … we’re going to be on the ballot in November,” predicted Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, a driving force behind the Support Our Schools for a Bright Colorado campaign.

The campaign announced it’s gathered more than 65,000 petition signatures towards its goal of 125,000. Organizers need to gather 86,105 valid signatures of registered voters by Aug. 1 to get a spot on the November general election ballot. Ballot measure campaigns typically try to gather a large cushion of extra signatures to allow for signatures that may be disqualified by the secretary of state’s office.

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The proposal, currently known as Initiative 25, would raise state personal and corporate income tax rates to 5 percent from the current 4.63 percent. The state portion

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Tags: Confident

Group urges change in teacher layoffs

July 5th, 2011

Last-in, Last-out, it’s a policy that many young school teachers learn about when the layoff notices start coming out. It means the last teacher hired is the first one to get the pink slip. A group of parents called the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement now says it’s time for this to change because the policy is not what’s best for their kids. School systems across the state continue a funding crisis and for many it means teacher layoffs. This spring many school superintendents had to deliver layoff warnings to many un-tenured teachers and it’s likely to happen again next year.

“Derby may be unique this year in that one of those non-renewal letters went to our Teacher of the Year for 2011,” says Superintendent Stephen Tracy. School supers and parents came to the capitol today to urge lawmakers to change the last-in, first-out policy for teacher layoffs in many communities.

“This is a very destabilizing element that is impeding our reform at this point.

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Tags: Teacher, Teacher Layoffs