Category: Education

Students From 3 Campuses Converge at Federal Building

On Wednesday, Nov. 16th, upwards of 500 San Diego high school and college students staged walk-outs at their campuses in protests against the election of Donald Trump. They marched and blocked intersections, and then converged from their different schools in downtown San Diego.

Around 10 am, the first demonstration began near San Diego City College, and by 11:15 the crowd – mostly from San Diego High School and the College had swelled to 300 to 500 people, according to police and participant estimates ….

By Alexandra Rosenmann / AlterNet / November 14, 2016

Glenn Beck, Louis C.K., Meg Whitman and Cher were all adamantly anti-Trump this election and quickly became some of the most notable to compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.

But since Trump was elected, Mountain View High School history teacher Frank Navarro was placed on administrative leave for drawing the same parallels in the classroom. The California high school history teacher, also a Holocaust scholar, was asked to leave the school early, two days after election day.

Janis Joplin’s Old Band at OB’s THC to Raise Funds for Toy and Food Drive

By Mercy Baron

A pretty big fundraising event went down in hippie town on October 22nd. It was the arrival and concert of Janis Joplin’s old band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. With two original members, drummer, Dave Getz and bass player, Peter Albin, holding down a solid rhythm anchor, they rocked out to a sold out audience at the old Gallagher’s on Newport Ave, now called, by some strange coincidence, The Holding Company.

I got to have a meet and greet with the band after their soundcheck and then was invited to dinner with them at Bar 1502. The club and restaurant are both owned by local, Steve Yeng, who also owns OB Noodle House. When I arrived for soundcheck, Steve said, “We’ve sold a lot of tickets in advance and expect to be sold out tonight.”

He further told me –

“The name of the place was inspired by the band and I thought how awesome it would be to have them play here and now here they are!”

Rick Shea versus Walmart and Company

By Gregg Robinson, President, San Diego County Board of Education, and Jim Miller, Vice President, American Federation of Teachers Guild, Local 1931

Somebody is trying to buy control of San Diego’s education system and few in the local media seem to have noticed until Sunday’s San Diego Union-Tribune finally covered it.

The Voice of San Diego has been quiet on this front, perhaps because, as the SDUT article reports, its co-founder Buzz Woolley is part of the action. He and his fellow corporate education reformers have San Diego in their crosshairs and are spending big money to drive their agenda.

Editor: Yesterday, we posted an unequivocal statement by our regular columnist Jim Miller, who along with Nicole Capretz, and Nick Segura, advocate progressives should not vote for Measure A. Today, we publish South OB Girl’s report of a debate on A at last Sunday’s Point Loma – OB Democratic Club event.

Gretchen Newsom and Anthony Montalvo discuss Measure A … and the Democrats (and Republicans) aren’t so sure about it

By South OB Girl

Let’s take a look at Measure A. Measure A proposes a plan for transportation infrastructure changes in our city.

The Republican Party of San Diego County and the San Diego County Democratic Party both agree on one thing – vote No on Measure A this November. BOTH parties are opposed to Measure A. Labor is divided and City Councilmember endorsement is also divided.

A presentation of both sides — “Yes on A” and “No on A” — occurred on Sunday Aug 25th, at the Point Loma-OB Democratic Club’s monthly meeting.

The following are remarks by Frank Gormlie from the podium at the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Point Loma High School Class of 1966, held recently at an undisclosed location off of Point Loma.

By Frank Gormlie

Tonight we’re here to dispel all those myths and rumors that have circulated and existed for half a century – myths about our favorite class – Class of 66 – our school, our teachers and classmates.

First, we want to dispel the rumor that our class created a fake student by the name of “Mike Hall” in a science homeroom run by those team teachers – Mr. Millstone and Mr. Shank – this did not happen.

And it’s also not true, that our classmates filled out all the paperwork for this fictitious Mike Hall – you remember all those multi-colored forms at the beginning of each semester – filled them all out – not true – for an entire year.

At last Saturday night’s celebration of the OB Library’s centennial, the OB Friends of the Library handed out a little 6-page booklet entitled, “The Amazing Story of the Ocean Beach Library Centennial and How It Soon Will Become a 21st Century Facility”. We republish the pages below.

But first an update on some of the results of the Centennial – which was part party and good times and part fund-raiser, what with the silent auction et al.

Here’s a report from the Friends committee in charge of the event:…

By Jim Miller

Last year my Labor Day column, “Happy Labor Day?: The Jury is Out,” began by starkly pondering the potentially devastating effects a bad Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association ruling at the Supreme Court might have had not just on public sector unions but on the labor movement as a whole.

Later, in the same column, I looked more hopefully at the potential for organizing contingent workers, like those involved in the Fight for $15 movement.

The twelve months that followed that column brought good news for labor on multiple fronts. First, with the long, strange journey of the Friedrichs case that came to the Supreme Court with a good chance of passing before everything was turned upside down by Justice Scalia’s death, a 4-4 split decision that was a victory for unions, and finally the Court’s refusal to rehear the case.

By Anne Marie Tipton / SanDiego350.org

The San Diego Unified School District’s (SDUSD) Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution on July 26th calling on the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (STRS) and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) to divest their investment portfolios of stocks in fossil fuel companies.

Recognizing the threat of global warming, the resolution also supports last year’s state legislation, SB 185, which requires PERS and STRS to divest from coal stocks. Most of SDUSD’s employees belong to these huge retirement systems.

By Jim Miller

As many of us in education circles remember, before the passage of Proposition 30 in 2012, the funding situation for schools and colleges in California was dire.

The question was not IF there were going to be cuts, but rather, how large they would be and how much damage they would do to our students, our profession, and to the communities we serve.

But fortunately, in the wake of the Great Recession and the Occupy movement, the questions of economic inequality and social justice were in the air and we in the California Federation of Teachers, along with our community allies, were able to muster a successful campaign first for the Millionaire’s Tax and then for the passage of Proposition 30, the compromise measure that was forged with Governor Brown.

By Mimi Pollack / San Diego Free Press

Here in California, adjunct teachers are like the comedian, Rodney Dangerfield, in the community college world. They get some respect, but not a lot, despite being the backbone of the system.

More classes are taught by part-time teachers than full-time teachers. The ratio has been as high as 70% part-time teachers to 30% full-time teachers.

Part-time teachers are paid by the hour; whereas, full-time teachers receive a salary and if one calculates the hourly rate, it is higher. The various districts do this because it saves them money.

Some parents at Silver Gate Elementary School in Point Loma are leading an uphill battle against artificial turf that is supposed to be installed on the school’s playing field next Fall. And other beach area activists have been fighting the artificial turf wars for a few years now.

Writer Ashly McGlone, in a fairly exhaustive piece in Voice of San Diego published June 27th, captured the highlights of one of those battles in describing efforts of some parents at Silver Gate.

McGlone focused on Point Loma resident Erika Lundeen, who became concerned to hear that the school her kids attend, Silver Gate, was getting a new artificial turf field called “crumb rubber”.