Juneau Schools

Parents of Juneau elementary school students have the most confidence in the Juneau School District, according to a survey conducted in May of randomly selected parents.

The survey was presented last night (Thursday) at the second annual School Summit at Thunder Mountain High School. The purpose of the summit was to share student achievement reports and the annual survey.

District Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich said the survey showed elementary parents expressed the greatest confidence, followed by middle school parents, and then high school parents.

“When we asked parents about the confidence not of the district, but of their school, we see a similar pattern, ranging from 83 percent confidence at the high school level, to 91 percent confidence at the elementary level,” Gelbrich said. “When we drilled down even further, and we asked about parents’ level of confidence in their child’s teacher, or in secondary schools’ teachers, the parents surveyed indicated even stronger confidence, ranging from 85 percent at the high school level, up to 93 prcent at the elementary level.

The summit was step two of a three-tiered approach to reviewing Juneau student’s academic performance. Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, results under the federal No Child Left Behind Act were released earlier this month. Gelbrich told the 50 to 60 parents, teachers, and principals gathered in the TMHS auditorium that math scores are trending upward and science scores have reached a four-year best.

“Again, this is State standards. Overall when we look at ‘so how are we doing in relationship to the State of Alaska?’ Juneau School District students out-perform students statewide,” Gelbrich said. “And while we think this is good news, we know that Alaskan standards are, when compared to standards in other states nationwide, relatively low, so we want to set the bar higher.”

Following Gelbrich’s presentation at the School Summit, the audience broke into groups to review each school’s academic performance. Click here to open School Summit presentation (PDF).

Sean O’Brien will run for Juneau School Board as a write-in.

O’Brien filed a letter of intent with the city clerk’s office Thursday afternoon, making his candidacy official.

He previously served one term on the board from 2005 to 2008, but didn’t seek a second for personal and family reasons. He’d planned on running in 2012, but decided to move it up a year when only one candidate – School Board President Sally Saddler – filed to run for two open seats during the just concluded filing period.

“I’m kind of rejuvenated and ready to go, and my kids are a little bit older. So, I’m in a better position to volunteer and serve the community,” he says.

O’Brien grew up in Juneau and now works at the state Labor Department. He and wife Sue have three kids, including two boys still in the school system. One attends Thunder Mountain High School and the other goes to Floyd Dryden Middle School. O’Brien believes the biggest issues facing the Juneau School District right now are the budget and graduation rate.

“Prioritizing and operating as smartly as efficiently as you can and as effectively as you can obviously are critical,” he says. “I guess the other things I would say is the dropout continues to be a challenge and school performance and school engagement for our kids, they’re all kind of interrelated. I think they’re all critical.”

City Clerk Laurie Sica says O’Brien was the only write-in candidate to file a letter of intent as of Thursday afternoon. No one else has indicated a possible run. The deadline to file as a write-in is 4:30 p.m. on September 29th.

The city election is October 4th.

The Juneau School Board last night (Tuesday) delayed action on an update of the district’s search and seizure and student privacy policies.

District Spokeswoman Kristen Bartlett says the board wants to undertake a more thorough review of the proposed changes, which would clarify how school officials handle searches of student belongings, as well as details regarding consent and parental notification.

One notable change from current policy: Student vehicles parked on school grounds would be subject to the same search regulations as lockers, desks, backpacks and other student possessions.

Courts have given districts a lot of leeway to search student belongings on school grounds in order to protect the health, safety or welfare of the school community.

The update would make clear that any search more intrusive than a simple pat down is to be handled by law enforcement, which must obtain a search warrant.

Current policy says, if possible, parents or guardians should be notified before a search. The update adds that if it’s not possible, they should be notified as soon as possible after the search occurs. It also says parents should be informed of the district’s search and seizure and privacy policies annually, at the beginning of the school year.

Bartlett says the school board will revisit the proposed changes in September.

In other news, Bartlett says board members will wait until after this fall’s city election before deciding what to do about a possible vacancy on the board.

The vacancy would occur if no one steps forward to run a write-in campaign. That’s because only one candidate – Board President Sally Saddler – filed to run for two open seats during the just concluded candidate-filing period.

Official write-in candidates must file a letter of intent with the city clerk’s office at least five days before Election Day, or September 29th.

If no one steps forward to run a write-in campaign, the board will have 30 days after Election Day – October 4th – to fill the vacancy. The person selected will serve until next year’s regular election.

Five of Juneau’s 14 schools made Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act last year, down from six in 2009-2010.

Auke Bay and Glacier Valley elementary schools, Juneau Douglas High School, the Community Charter School and Johnson Youth Center achieved academic targets in each of 31 different categories to meet AYP. Three schools – Yaakoosge Daakahidi Alternative High School, Mendenhall River Community School, and Gastineau Elementary – missed in just one category. And three more schools missed only two. Thunder Mountain High School missed three categories in its third year in operation.

For the first time in three years academic and graduation standards increased under No Child Left Behind, but Juneau School District Superintendent Glen Gelbrich says test scores show more students meeting the law’s targets.

“District-wide we met 95 percent of those standards. That’s up from last year, which was 94, and up from the year before, which was 93. So, even with the higher bar, we’re meeting more of the individual requirements than we were before. When you aggregate it all into the AYP formula it doesn’t add up,” Gelbrich says.

The standards will go up again this year. The goal of No Child Left Behind is to have 100 percent of students proficient in language arts and math testing by the 2013-2014 school year.

The law breaks students into nine different subgroups, including ethnic and socioeconomic status as well as students with disabilities. Gelbrich says that aspect promotes targeted improvements.

“It encourages you and you really need to do the drilling down in order to address what some of that criteria is,” says Gelbrich. “I would argue that, I’m not sure we need the law in order to do that. We want to know about each student, where is he or she in relation to where we want them to be.”

The district will host its second annual “School Summit” on Thursday August 25th at Thunder Mountain to share the AYP results with the community.

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development released statewide results Friday. About 46 percent of Alaska schools met adequate yearly progress last year, a 14 percent decline from the previous year.

The Obama administration recently announced it would allow states to opt out of the Bush-era law’s requirements starting this fall. State officials say they’ll review the waiver requirements when they’re announced, and decide whether Alaska will opt out.

What makes dough rise? How do you preserve milk? Twenty-seven young chefs are learning the answers to those questions and more this week at a Juneau Economic Development Council summer camp designed to teach kids the science of cooking. Casey Kelly has more.

Its day three of the Kitchen Chemistry camp and students are making mozzarella cheese in the culinary classroom at Thunder Mountain High School. Working in groups of four or five, they start by warming a gallon of milk and just over a teaspoon of lime juice – a substitute for citric acid – in a large pot on the stove. But most of the kids are a little unsure about the next step.

“After I think we cook it, we just gotta wait awhile or bake it or something,” says Hunter Hill, a fifth grader at Gastineau Elementary School. He says he signed up for the camp because he really likes cooking at home – mostly desserts.

“I like making crepes for my family that I get from a library book. And yeah, other than that, I like making cookies, brownies and cake, stuff like that,” Hill says.

JEDC Education Specialist Bob Vieth says the purpose of the cheese making exercise is to teach kids one way to preserve milk. During the week they also learn how to preserve cucumbers by pickling them, about leavening agents by making pizza dough, and about sweeteners by making fudge.

“And along the way we’ve been trying to emphasize the science aspects and the chemistry aspects of the various cooking techniques that they’re using,” says Vieth.

Simon Smith learned what happens when you use baking soda instead of baking powder to make scones.

“The whole class tasted them and wasn’t so good,” Smith says.

Vieth admits there have been a fair number of failures. All the kids are going into either fourth or fifth grade, but he says some of them are pretty good chefs already, and they’re learning advanced science years before they would in school.

“They’re learning concepts and vocabulary terms here that they normally wouldn’t be exposed to until high school chemistry,” Vieth says. “So when they do get them in chemistry, they’ll say ‘Oh yeah, I remember that from the cooking class.'”

Sophia Harvey says there’s another benefit of going to a cooking summer camp.

“I like eating the stuff after,” Harvey says.

Kitchen Chemistry is the last of this year’s JEDC Summer Camps. Previous camps include building underwater gliders, rocketry, and LEGO robotics. All the camps are part of JEDC’s STEM education program, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. In Juneau, I’m Casey Kelly.

Like most Juneau tourists, shopping, the Mendenhall Glacier, and whales were the highlights of a recent visit for 18 middle-school students from northern Japan. Amanda Compton tagged along for part of their 3-day trip.