dornbiker comment-52299 2011-06-17T16:23:59Z 2011-06-17T16:23:59Z Thanks to Cécile Mouette Downs for her great energy and intelligence bringing this festival to Sacramento. It's an annual favorite. However, I might offer one suggestion: Keep the Downs children off the stage. Once is cute; by the fourth or fifth time c'est ennuyeux. Cécile please keep your introductions short: welcome, thanks to sponsors, here's the raffle, enjoy the show (no plot summary, SVP.) Je vous en remercie! The festival is truly a joy, and ranks among best in Northern California. Another is German Gems in San Francisco, hosted by the incomparable Ingrid Eggers (former organizer of the SF Goethe Institute's Berlin & Beyond festival. dornbiker 2011-06-17T16:23:59Z M@ Urquhart comment-51171 2011-05-26T01:10:14Z 2011-05-26T01:10:14Z Fantastic Poster! This is always the greatest fun to be had in Sacramento in the Summer. You have to be able to understand French or be able to read (English) subtitles which scares off the riff-raff so only the very nicest people attend. (et moi?, Oui, je suis une de them - pardon my Franglais!). M@ Urquhart 2011-05-26T01:10:14Z Tony Sheppard comment-51166 2011-05-26T00:10:04Z 2011-05-26T00:10:04Z Always a highlight of Sacramento's arts calendar! Tony Sheppard 2011-05-26T00:10:04Z morag comment-43233 2011-01-07T02:49:13Z 2011-01-07T02:49:13Z The film may be old, but this show, teaming the film festival and Philharmonic, sounds incredibly innovative! And it sounds like great fun. morag 2011-01-07T02:49:13Z suepeg comment-17062 2009-11-02T20:44:50Z 2009-11-02T20:44:50Z This whole thing is a lose-lose situation. I am friends with a family that has a child at CMP, and this next campus will be the 3rd for their child. And she’s only in the 3rd grade. They moved to the Mid-town area because they work there and wanted to be able to bike/take public transport to work/school/home. They will no longer be able to do this because of the proposed new location. This will also limit the number of hours they can volunteer at the school (and CMP is largely based on parent volunteers), because the further distance means it will be harder to volunteer before work, or on their lunch hours. So far, the downtown CMP campus has offered little continuity in their child’s education. My kids in a public school lose too. Someone at SCUSD should have known that Marshall was unsafe BEFORE they allowed the move. Now, the very limited resources SCUSD has will be spent to make amends to CMP parents. My son’s school can’t afford buses for field trips and each year fewer students from other areas are allowed back because there are few buses available to get them to school and home every day. But SCUSD will be paying to transport CMP kids to school and back for the rest of the school year. They will reimburse CMP for money spent on remodeling Marshall. They will be paying to move all CMP belongings to make the transition as smooth as possible. It’s truly great they are stepping up and helping CMP because it appears this was all caused by a poor job done by SCUSD in the first place. But all the same, the school district is falling apart and needs every penny it has for the children it is already supposed to be serving. After this big snafu, it’s not hard to see why the district is in this state. suepeg 2009-11-02T20:44:50Z Stephanie Rodriguez comment-16837 2009-10-30T19:55:38Z 2009-10-30T19:55:38Z i used to work at the one on L street. so no one knows why it's "unsafe" i have an idea. but i dont necessarily think that would make it unsafe..hmm. Stephanie Rodriguez 2009-10-30T19:55:38Z William Burg comment-16829 2009-10-30T18:35:48Z 2009-10-30T18:35:48Z One difference here is that the Newton Booth school is not SCUSD property, it has been private property fo 25 years. If Marshall School wasn't in the district's hands, this would not be an issue. William Burg 2009-10-30T18:35:48Z M@ Urquhart comment-16823 2009-10-30T17:34:57Z 2009-10-30T17:34:57Z contrast this debacle with the lovely new home for the private country day school http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/5852/Sacramento_Country_Day_School_to_expand_into_the_grid http://my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/100/view/frontpage/schoolid/642/articleid/268581/newspaperid/618/Default.aspx an excerpt reads: "...Newton Booth started as a public elementary school in 1921 but was forced to close in 1976 because of restrictions imposed by the Field Act, which required schools to reinforce their buildings for earthquake protection. The school could not afford the renovations. In 1984 the building was acquired by Foundation Health, which invested $2.3 million to retrofit the building with steel beams. .... the Newton Booth interior, currently configured like an office building, will cost approximately $900,000 to remodel. In comparison, Repsher noted that it would cost $20-25 million dollars to develop the 80-acre White Rock campus, which, until the discovery of Newton Booth, was the school’s “future campus site.” sigh! M@ Urquhart 2009-10-30T17:34:57Z Susie Shields comment-16817 2009-10-30T17:23:53Z 2009-10-30T17:23:53Z Well, I don't think the district is trying to crush their competition. I think the situation at Sac Charter High School is proof of that. The district has bent over backwards to accomodate that school to the point of ridiculousness and provide it facilities far superior than neighboring high schools (West Campus). I have also researched this new superintendent and he is a charter school proponent. I don't blame you for your anger. I have been furious with this crazy district for years. I just think you should research prop 39 because that proposition is just saying that if regular public school students aren't allowed to use a facility, than charter school students must be treated the same regarding facilities. I don't know if charter school exemption from the Field act pre-dates prop 39 and now prop 39 sets the precident. Perhaps if you research it further you'll be able to find that out. Prop 39 was supported by charter schools. Prop 39 is supposed to provide charters with the best and most appropriate facilities for their schools. It sounds like the district is using prop 39 guidelines for facilities. This is just my guess from what I have learned about prop 39. I could certainly be off the mark so I encourage you to research it and let us know what you find. Thanks. Susie Shields 2009-10-30T17:23:53Z Bill Burgua comment-16805 2009-10-30T14:22:40Z 2009-10-30T14:22:40Z Susie, If prop 39 was designed to help charter schools in this situation it has been used very effectively to do maximum damage to a charter school. The catch 22 of the Field act is that Old Marshall School being built prior to the Field act with no known grandfather clause can never meet the Field act. And if it does not meet the Field act it can never house public school children. (a very unfortunate side to this is that no historic property no matter how safe will ever be a school) There is a clause that if a building meets California Building Code for seismic concerns than it is possible to house a charter school. In the current situation SCUSD claims that Old Marshall School does not meet California Building Code, yet no one has seen the proof of that. They also say it is prohibitively expensive ($3-12M) to meet code. Further, the new superintendent has stated that no charter school under SCUSD will be housed in a school that is not Field act compliant. (no matter how safe) Now this all may be just circumstances but if SCUSD had sat down and conspired to do maximum damage to their competition (in the name of doing what is best for the children) they could not have come up with a better scenario. Convince your competition that you have a great location for them. Put them through the work and expense of moving. A few months later inform them that actually they can not be at this location, possibly due to policy. Anger their customer base (the students and parents) with a very disruptive move in the middle of the school year. Move them far away from the customer base that they have been serving so well. So well that they have a waiting list that is over 2/3 of their enrollment. Now as I said this all may be circumstances, but what is SCUSD going to do to show all of us that this is not what is going on? Bill Burgua 2009-10-30T14:22:40Z Susie Shields comment-16792 2009-10-30T05:21:18Z 2009-10-30T05:21:18Z I'm no expert, but perhaps you should look up facilities use in prop 39. it states in there somewhere that students should have equal facilities whether they are public school students or charter students. For years, charter schools were housed in terrible facilities because the school districts could not be bothered with them and it was a big burden to find appropriate facilities. I'm not sure of the date but I believe it's post 2000, prop 39 was voted in and it was very pro-charter in that it mandated that the districts provide facilities equal to those it would provide its own public school students. Here's how I see it. The old Marshall School cannot be used by public school students, therefore, according to prop 39, it cannot be used by charter students. This is a tricky area but it all comes down to equality. If the facility is deemed inappropriate for public school students, it will be inappropriate for charter school students as well. Also, please remember that charter schools are considered choice schools, not neighborhood assigned schools. They do not have attendance boundaries. Because people choose the school for it's particular program, the district is not required to keep it in a particular area. It's unfortunate for those who chose this school for its location but it isn't a regular public assigned school and the district can move it anywhere it likes as long as the facilities are equal .The district cannot move a school unnecessarily, however, so the equality thing must come into play. That's what I think, anyway. Susie Shields 2009-10-30T05:21:18Z savemidtown comment-16778 2009-10-30T02:41:49Z 2009-10-30T02:41:49Z SCUSD probably got an offer from a developer to replace this City Landmark with condos. There is clearly something amiss about this whole thing. Quacks like a duck...And yes - where are our schools downtown? How can we have a liveable city without decent schools? savemidtown 2009-10-30T02:41:49Z Bill Albertson comment-16739 2009-10-30T00:02:21Z 2009-10-30T00:02:21Z Wow. Just... wow. After reading the other article, and this one, the only question I have is why haven't the parents contacted an attorney to represent their interests and have an injunction filed by the court (if possible)? Springing something like this in the middle of the year with no notice seems irresponsible at best, especially since there is no legal *requirement* forcing them to do this immediately. Bill Albertson 2009-10-30T00:02:21Z advocate comment-16733 2009-10-29T22:31:28Z 2009-10-29T22:31:28Z I hope you sent this powerful letter directly to her either via email or U.S. mail with appropriate cc's. She and others must be put on the hot seat to realize that their reputations, if not jobs, are at stake. advocate 2009-10-29T22:31:28Z advocate comment-16710 2009-10-29T22:27:50Z 2009-10-29T22:27:50Z To paraphrase an old quote: "Something is rotten in SCUSD's decision making process." Get your act together Miller and Superintendent Raymond and Board while you can bow out gracefully. Your incompetence is crashing down all around you. advocate 2009-10-29T22:27:50Z cecile downs comment-16711 2009-10-29T19:56:33Z 2009-10-29T19:56:33Z A follow-up to the story... Dear Mrs Miller, Following up on my letter this morning I would like you to clarify something. I was made aware of a Sacramento Press article dated October 27th and that you can find here: http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/16541/Parents_split_over_possible_Montessori_school_move In this article (last two paragraphs), when asked if the Old Marshall School building violates any code, Maria Lopez, SCUSD Public relation manager of SCUSD is quoted as saying that "The code is not the issue (...) Our superintendent said that no students should be in any structures not compliant with the Field Act," Lopez said. "There's a little bit of a grey area on whether independent charters (should) go into non-Field Act-compliant structures. Some think that they can, some think that they cannot." There is no "grey area": by law, charter schools don't have to comply to the field act. -A legal opinion by Attorney General Daniel Lungren in March 19, 1997 states that charter schools are subject to the building safety requirements of the Field Act only if the requirements are set forth in their charter petitions. Capitol -Campus Charter Petition Section VII-Health and Safety Procedures and states that the school will have a policy that states that CMP will be housed in facilities that have received Fire Marshall approval. So if the Field Act is not the issue and if the "code is not the issue" to quote Maria Lopez, then I must ask you: what is the issue? To my knowledge, CMP only received a summary of the report and not the report itself and the parents have not yet received anything at all. Where is the report? When are we going to get it? What is the rush in moving us out ot the Old Marshall School? Sincerely, Cecile Downs cecile downs 2009-10-29T19:56:33Z