Dear CNMT community,

Friday marked the last day at Roosevelt for a number of our classified employees. Reading the Los Angeles Times this morning I saw an article by Steve Lopez about the budget cuts and how they’re impacting schools in LA Unified. These cuts, designed to protect classroom teachers, have hit incredibly hard in the areas of office staff, custodial support and library aides.

On Monday, we will have lost many important people. For example, our custodial staff will be reduced from 13 to 6, and this means that there will only be the plant manager and one custodian during the day, along with the two school facilities attendants who help keep the bathrooms clean.

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Dear CNMT Community,

This weekend marked the kickoff for the CNMT iRead program. The name and inspiration are taken from the Escondido Union School District near San Diego. I wrote about our visit there last Spring.

This Friday and Saturday, six dedicated CNMT teachers and one L&G teacher got together to learn more about integrating iPod touches in the classroom. We are all learning together, since I am leading the PD without any proper training myself. Continue reading →

Dear CNMT community,

Welcome back to school for another year! I especially want to welcome all our incoming ninth graders and students who are coming to us from other schools and districts. I want you all to feel welcome at Roosevelt and the School of Communications, New Media and Technology.

I hope that everyone had a relaxing and productive summer, and that you had time to spend with your family and friends. The teachers of CNMT spent a lot of time this summer learning about new and different approaches, and planning together. I got to go to several of these workshops, and it was just really great to see the teachers so excited about working together and helping our students succeed.

I am happy about the grade level teams that we have in place in the 9th, 10th and 11th grades. The projects they are planning are both academically rigorous and engaging for students. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of this work when the students show us what they can do.

I’m also really optimistic about the new bell schedule that we have started. Having eight classes instead of four might seem confusing, but the result is that we have longer periods of time for work and more classes during the year, so students can earn more credits and have more opportunities for electives and to get the help they need in different areas.

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