A letter to AALA members from LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King.
I would like to thank and congratulate our school leaders and local district administrators for helping us achieve a record-high graduation rate of 77 percent in 2015-16! This official figure, which the California Department of Education recently released, is 2 percentage points higher than the preliminary graduation rate we initially calculated and celebrated.
Moreover, our graduation rate of 77 percent represents an increase of 4.8 percentage points over the previous year—this is notably higher than the gains made by other urban school districts in California. Consistent with our focus on equity, the greatest gains were made by
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Members continue sharing story after story of the wrong drivers at play. Punitive accountability measures, individualistic strategies, technology, and ad hoc policies are rampant. Frontline managers are completely demoralized and fatigued from misguided initiatives. In this issue, we want to continue inspiring and imploring the District to more closely align the work to the right drivers. The following letter from yet another AP,EIS cogently sets the stage for
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AALA has been discussing the urgent need for a systematic and comprehensive way to empower and activate the District’s capacity to better serve students. This is especially necessary because AALA members find themselves in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (Shields, 2012) administrative world. Fullan and Quinn (2015) explore these challenges in Coherence, as well as Bryk, et al, in Learning to Improve (2016). Even as we learn more about what ails District administrators, the District seems perpetually trapped in a cycle that exacerbates the already untenable working conditions of our frontline managers. As one APEIS shares:
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Please accept our heartfelt gratitude to the many of you who have been responding to the call to action and planning to attend the fun-filled evening at the Discovery Cube Los Angeles on April 6, 2017. The Cube is nestled in the bucolic Sylmar hills adjacent to Hansen Dam Recreation Center and Park with complimentary ample parking.
Your very presence will help Friends of AALA raise $10,000 in one evening!
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AALA members are finding themselves in the crossfire of harsh disciplinary action with little to no progressive discipline. In case after case, the administrator has had few, if any, visits from central or local district senior leadership. These same administrators are supported by AALA middle managers who frequently have had little or no contextual information related to the major issues needing to be addressed at the site. This is by no means the site administrator’s fault, as we hear from them that almost every year, without exception
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Below are comments Juan A. Flecha, AALA President, made at the meeting of the Board of Education on Tuesday, March 14, 2017, regarding the March 15 letters that were sent to AALA members.
Board President Zimmer, Board Members, Superintendent King, senior staff, greetings, I am Juan Flecha, President of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles.
I want to thank Superintendent King on behalf of our principals for protecting and ensuring the carryover of school funds for the 2017-18 school year. This is especially important given the news of a possible 21% cut of ESSA funds. Principals are now left with the awesome responsibility of continuing to provide the same level of service and growth towards 100% graduation with less funding yet again.
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The District’s Financial Stabilization Plan to move resources closer to the classroom and “Staff for Student Success” is having a detrimental and chilling effect on AALA’s Supervisory Department. Moreover, “together, we will continue to be a District on the move” is ringing a bit hollow. It is becoming apparent it is more like the District is moving ahead “together” minus
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Tuesday, March 7, is Election Day and we urge all AALA members to exercise their right to vote. We anticipate that the voter turnout will again be low, even though there are critical positions that need to be filled. In the election for three seats on the LAUSD Board of Education, a record amount of money has been spent, heading it toward being the most expensive school board vote in the country. The three seats on the LAUSD Board of Education that are open are in Districts 2, 4, and 6 and several candidates are on the ballot with more than $4 million
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AALA must be relentless in calling the District to action to support principals. We work very long hours, and it is finally wearing us down. Most elementary schools only receive a mere day or so of an assistant principal. We work well after 4:30 p.m. and on weekends. We continue putting kids first to make sense of it all. However, this is becoming increasingly difficult because
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The Board of Education summarily approved the District’s recommendation to send hundreds of March 15th letters to AALA administrators. The letters are required to be sent per the Education Code if there is a probability an administrator will not return to the same position for the next school year. It is important to note administrators for the most part do return to their existing position or are returned to their former class if they have return rights (tenure) to the position. And therein lies one of the
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Megan Reilly, LAUSD Chief Financial Officer, is resigning to become the chief business officer of the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Ms. Reilly came to LAUSD nearly 10 years ago having previously worked at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey as the executive director of Business Services and comptroller. She quickly mastered the nuances of the District’s complex finances and funding streams. Ultimately, she adeptly learned the ropes of the public education sector, and successfully navigated the District through the Great Recession. Her departure shortly after the Governor’s State of the State speech offers
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At the AALA Representative Assembly meeting on Thursday, February 2, the PAC Steering Committee presented its recommendations for the candidates AALA should endorse in the LAUSD Board of Education elections on March 7 and on May 16 (if a run-off is required). Appreciation is extended to the following members of the committee for their hard work in developing their recommendations:
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The AALA – Unit J Bargaining Team reached a tentative agreement with LAUSD on the 2015-18 contract.
Accolades go to Dr. Judith Perez, Lead Negotiator, John Gilbert, Steve Johnson, Ken Devine, and Larry Turgeon.
Details and the ratification process
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Betsy DeVos, the nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education, said at her confirmation hearing that she would support President-elect Donald Trump if he decides to end the gun-free school zones. When asked if guns have any place in or around schools, she responded that it was best left to locales and states to decide. However, she did reference a school in rural Wyoming that might need a gun in the school to protect against grizzly bears. What?!?
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The start of any new year is generally welcomed with optimism, rejuvenation, and enthusiasm. Then meetings happen decisions take us back to the same individualistic approaches wrongly driving administrators down the road of lower morale and worsening working conditions.
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Happy 2017! There has been somewhat of a respite from this past November’s national elections. Next up are three seats on the LAUSD Board of Education, those in Districts 2, 4, and 6. Several candidates have qualified for the ballot and their names are listed below with the occupational designation indicated on their applications:
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During this season of giving, it is not uncommon for both children and adults to make lists of, or at least verbalize, the things they hope to receive. And, while we acknowledge that it is better to give than to receive, we, as middle managers, know that we have spent the bulk of our year giving our minds, talents, and time to our schools, teachers, students, colleagues, and staff members. Therefore, at this special time of the year, we thought we would let District leadership know what we have on our holiday wish list.
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Today we are taking the time to celebrate the journey of the emerging Cultural Proficiency Network of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) Equity Committee, and the LAUSD Professional Learning and Leadership Development Branch (PLLD) collaborated to address one of the most persistent and important challenges in American urban education: true access and equity for historically underserved populations. The collaborative began with some essential assumptions.
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