School Board handles several matters

The Board of Trustees of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District breezed through the agenda at its meeting on Tuesday evening. After several administrative items and reports, the board heard an oral presentation by the Woodland Star Charter School of its annual report. The school has an enrollment of about 170 elementary students at its campus on Arnold Drive, next to Altimira Middle School.
About a third of the board’s time was spent on results of the standardized testing last spring and on new “essential learning standards” for the district. The testing results showed that, for the Sonoma Valley public schools as a whole, “proficiency” levels at Grades 2-11 were 30–54% in English and 26–53% in Math. On average, just under half of the Valley’s students tested proficient in these subjects on grade level exams. Various scores are assigned to the schools, including Accounting Progress Reporting (APR), Academic Performance Index (API), and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Trustees expressed concern over the difficulty of tracking all this data, as well as the figures themselves, but they were generally upbeat in noting that such testing is just one measure of what students are learning.
The new standards for K-8 lessons were recommended by Director of Curriculum Louann Carlomagno following selection by teachers during the 2006-2007 school year. The board approved unanimously the curriculum recommendation, which followed these three criteria to identify what sections of the state standards would be used locally:
1. Are students expected to retain the skills and knowledge after the assessment is completed?
2. Is the skill and knowledge applicable to many academic disciplines?
3. Is the skill and knowledge preparing the student for success in the next grade or course?
The board also took action to request that El Verano Elementary School be licensed as a community care center by the California Department of Social Services, in order to utilize a $90,000 Pre-Kindergarten and Family Literacy Grant for 24 students at that site. The Board also approved the unaudited financial statements for 2006-2007, which showed total expenses for that year of about $41 million against revenues of about $43 million.