RVC Voice

There is some debate in the community about whether Ross Valley Charter School (RVC) is “taking” space from District students by being at White Hill. The reality is that the law does not give District public school students any greater right to publicly-funded school facilities than charter public school students. In fact, the law requires that all such facilities be made equally available by Districts to charter schools so they may have a place to operate. How much space should RVC receive? The math is simple. RVC’s projected enrollment of 144 in-district students for 2018-19, which is 45% or roughly half of the average  RVSD enrollment of 319 students per school (projected). Under Proposition 39, this means that RVC should receive nearly half the amount of space a typical K-5 RVSD elementary school provides to its students. All four elementary schools in the district have at least 22 classrooms each, so RVC should be provided 10 rooms at a minimum. The actual calculations are m...

Below, is a letter written by a 4th grader at Ross Valley Charter School. The 4th grader asked our school director, Luke, to send this to STAND. I publish here on behalf of the 4th grader and Luke, with the 4th grader's parents' consent. Transcription: To Stand, It is not very nice of you to arrange a protest against our school, right in front of our school. Your balloons and signs are very hurtful and we didn't like to pass hurtful things on our way to school. It ruins our day and it makes us want to ruin yours. But we don't because being impolite is wrong. It doesn't seem like you know that. We are asking you to stop. We want you to think about how you are hurting lots of kid's feelings. Including a lot of kindergartners, some of which [sic] are five years old. If you would at least think of changing your ways, it would mean very much to our school. - RVC 4th grader

Ross Valley Charter School (RVC) parents and supporters were out on SFD Thursday morning welcoming visitors from the California Department of Education (CDE) to Fairfax for a site visit. The CDE is the staff of the State Board of Education, which authorized RVC as a public charter school. This 2-day site visit is part of their responsibility to oversee the school and hold RVC accountable to the promises laid out in the school’s petition. Today, CDE representatives met with School Director Luke Duchene to review things like academic performance, goals and focus for the year (LCAP), professional development needed, teacher and staff evaluations, school safety plan (emergency preparedness, mandated reporting, emergency drill schedule). They also met with the front office staff to review enrollment processes, outreach activities, attendance procedures, and teacher credentialing records among other things. The CDE also discussed RVC’s process for identifying and assessing EL students, and E...

A worthy cause. Better salaries for teachers... Higher salaries for all school teachers would be a good thing, but West Virginia teachers are in a particularly bad spot. They are some of the lowest paid teachers in the country. Link to a Change.org petition to West Virginia's governor below. From Change.org petition: "Teachers in West Virginia have been on strike for more than a week, demanding the state pay their public employees more. West Virginia Congressional candidate Richard Ojeda started this petition because he wants to see teachers 'treated as professionals rather than inconveniences.' Sign now if you agree."

The Superintendent of Florida's Broward County is a friend of my wife's. He, along with other leaders of public schools, charter schools, school networks, education foundations, policy organizations, nonprofit ventures, curriculum publishers, and parent-engagement organizations has written a call to action to enact Connecticut-style gun laws following the school shooting in Parkland, FL. I thought it worth sharing with the Ross Valley community. From the Commentary piece that appeared in Education Week: The "response of the young people of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has shown us that they are ready to become our leaders." Their "actions have already won important changes from retail giants like Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods, who are changing the way they do business in response to these brave young people who have discovered their voices." REI also announced similar changes today. Give it a read and take action: call your federal a...