School board updates high school credit policy

It took two rewrites, but Sonoma Valley High School will soon have an updated policy for accepting alternative credits for students.

The current policy was written in 2006 and school officials decided it was time to update. First surfacing at the March school board meeting, brought back in April, it was a third first reading of the changes. Since it was a first reading, the board was just going to take public comment before voting on the policy next month.

The May revised policy included language on how students gain access to, and approval for, alternative credit; the options available to obtain alternative credit; when alternative credit does and does not count toward graduation and grade point average; and how alternative credit is recorded within the student transcript.

Loyal Carlon, the district’s director of human resources, said the policy reflects what the practice is at the high school. “Next year, we’ll see how it works and see if it need tweaking,” he said.

Carlon said the new policy allows for 20-off campus units. “It removes the extenuating circumstance clause, it allows juniors and seniors to take five classes instead of six,” he said. And he said it would go into effect this coming school year.

Board president Helen Marsh said that if the policy is working after a year, it’s not a foregone conclusion that it would come back for tweaking.

And high school Principal Kathleen Hawing said the policy would allow students, “to follow their passions.”

Boardmember Dan Gustafson said it is a balancing act looking at what’s good for one and good for all.

“Online is only going to grow and get more complex,” he said. “We have to pay attention to that, but follow the faculty.”

“We need to heed WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) when they said beware of competing demands for resources,” he continued. “We need to pay attention … it’s part of the new world.”

But parent Anne Ching said she thought there was too much ambiguity in the new policy.

“I found the language confusing,” she said. And she suggested the district needs a “full revision” on the policy.

“You’re going to create a headache at the high school,” she said. “You need very clear, unambiguous language.”

And she wanted to know how the number of outside units shrunk from 40 in the old policy, to 30 last month to 20 in the revised policy.

Hawing told the board that the revised policy doesn’t preclude classes taken elsewhere, it just limits what will go on the transcript. “There are so many required courses in the freshman and sophomore years, we want to make sure our students are successful and have enough classes to graduate,” she said. “The credits never go away.”

Marsh and board member Nicole Ducarroz sparred over what sort of revisions would be allowed on the latest revision without changing the policy. Ducarroz wanted to send some revisions to Carlon but Marsh said the policy wouldn’t be amended so much that there would have to be another first reading next month instead of having the board pass the policy. Marsh prevailed.

In other business, Kevin Kassebaum, director of the Sonoma Charter School, presented his yearly report. In the past, the board and the then-director, Paula Hunter, sparred on whether or not the school was reflective of the rest of the district when it came to Hispanic and English-language learner enrollment.

Kassebaum explained the outreach the school has been doing and he pointed out that this year’s kindergarten class was 52 percent Hispanic compared with 12 percent in the 2012-13 school year. And that the number of English-language learners in kindergarten was 48 percent this year compared with none the previous year.

The number of students participating in the free and reduced lunch program increased from 20 percent last year to 52 percent this year.

Kassebaum said the numbers for the coming school year won’t be quite as dramatic since about half of the incoming kindergarteners will be siblings of students already enrolled.

In other action, the board:

• Recognized Ishqa Rousseau-Fearonce, John “Jack” Murphy and Itzel Macedonio Santiago as Sonoma Valley High students of the year.

• Recognized Kaylene Barber and Yajaira Marin as Creekside High School’s students of the year.

• Eliminated the full-time equivalent of 3.45 classified employees.

• Called for elections in November for two terms expiring – Flowery attendance area trustee Dan Gustafson and El Verano attendance area trustee Sal Chavez. While the filing for school board seats doesn’t start until mid-July, both Gustafson and Chavez have said they will file for their respective seats.

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