321Vote

08/19/2023

🤔

06/16/2023

Our day will come, and I'm not talking about our [temporary] battles re:COVID policies. "In Chino, the former leader of a group of parents opposing mask mandates is now the Chino Valley Unified School District board president, facing angry protests of her own by parents opposed to the board’s conservative positions."

Once quiet and sparsely attended, they’re the sites of contentious debate. Two UC studies say the culture war is affecting students and education.

05/28/2023

31% drop! "Los Angeles County had 1.6 million students in 2012, and is expected to have 1.1 million in 2031...California has recovered from low birth rates in the past, most recently through higher birth rates among immigrants."

CA must fund more $/student to offset this decline, which in the end is a good thing...maybe even a lower student:teacher ratio.

Columnist Teri Sforza writes that beefing up educational offerings is always a good idea, but that won’t mean more babies.

05/16/2023

The states who ban/harass LGBTQ+ had better realize trends are happening regardless of policy: "the proportion of high school kids who identify as heteros*xual dropped to about 75%, down from about 89% in 2015, when the CDC began asking about s*xual orientation. Meanwhile, the share who identified as le***an, gay or bis*xual rose to 15%, up from 8% in 2015."

High school students are having less s*xual in*******se. That’s what the studies say. But that doesn’t mean they’re having less s*x.

04/02/2023

March election results, a bit of a post-mortem:
Raymur Flinn: 5,847 (35.0%)
Byung Cho: 5,773 (34.6%)
Jerome Chang: 5,088 (30.5%), or 685 votes (4%) short.

Nearly 5k voters (nearly 1/4) opted out of a 2nd RBUSD vote, or RBUSD altogether. Some likely voted for only 1 candidate intentionally, which would benefit me over the slate of 2. But given that nearly the same 1/4 undervoted in 2021, it's more likely that voters didn't bother to vote for an RBUSD candidate, just like many may not vote for a judge, out of ignorance, laziness, or both. (see more notes below the images).

03/29/2023

😭🤬

03/08/2023

Ballots: 7055 (each could vote for 2)
Votes: 10873 (3237 single voted, 2 overvoted)
Byung Cho: 3741, or 34.4%
Jerome Chang: 3293, 30.3%
Raymur Flinn: 3839, 35.3%

2871 ballots rcvd today and still need to be tabulated.
+
mail-in ballots postmarked today (and is allowed 7 days to arrive)

Final results around noon, Thur 3/16.
Certify on Tues 3/21 at the City Council meeting.

03/07/2023

Due Tues 3/7:
By mail, or
By ballot box by 8pm

03/06/2023

"The last fully normal school year Issac remembers is third grade. Now, he's in seventh, with multiple classes each day, a busier schedule and new classmates....Several school leaders also told NPR they worry their students have lost a sense of belonging in the classroom after so much time away."

"In a survey of 21 school districts in rural, suburban and urban areas, NPR found most districts – from New York City to Austin, Texas, to Lawrence, Kan. – still had heightened levels of chronic absenteeism.

Students who are chronically absent are at higher risk of falling behind, scoring lower on standardized tests and even dropping out. And as often happens in education, students who struggle with attendance are also more likely to live in poverty, be children of color or have disabilities."

By some estimates, chronic absenteeism doubled during the pandemic. Now, about halfway through the most "normal" school year since 2020, the situation hasn't improved in many places.

03/06/2023

An easy solution to increasing enrollment revenue via ADA (average daily attendance), is improving air quality in classrooms. This will reduce sick absences.
"Studies have linked dirty air inside of schools — particularly in communities with dirty air outside of schools — to a variety of health conditions and learning delays. It’s also known that a proven, cost-effective way to clean up school air is to improve a school’s ventilation system...California, as with other states, has substantial room for improvement when it comes to making school air safe, the study found."
..better ventilation in schools also leads to better academic performance."

"Most California schools now have access to a pool of money specifically designated for HVAC work. Through a program called CalSHAPE, created in 2020 by Assembly Bill 814, schools can apply for a share of $584 million in grants. To date, about $382 million has been doled out for ventilation projects, with applications for the latest round of funding open through March 31...One way California is working on that is by requiring schools that receive money through CalSHAPE to install carbon dioxide monitors in all classrooms."

As funding and concern about COVID-19 fades, school plans to fix indoor air quality problems are starting to fall by the wayside.

03/06/2023

20k steps today. Reward drinks

03/05/2023

Reminder to vote! Mail or drop off by Tues 3/7!