FAYE'S ISSUES
          ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

 

The primary objective of our School Board must be initiatives to recover our students’ academic skills devastated by school shut down. A Harvard Education and Research did an extensive study published in May 2022. On average students lost one quarter of a year of learning during school shutdown; and this was for schools that returned to in-person instruction relatively quickly in 2020-2021 school year. SRCS district puts itself in this category. *

 

The Question to the School District Administration and the School Board: How does the School District remedy this condition?

 

The next Question is how we set our sights at top performance levels, that is, in the 90% range. Schools are doing this; schools like Old Mill Elementary School in Mill Valley,  Mission San Jose High School, and Wildwood Elementary in Oakland.

 

Below grade level performance was reported in prior years; half our students in Trustee Area 4 had been performing below grade level in English Language and Math in State assessment programs in 2018. (One school in Trustee Area 4 did perform at higher levels in 2018).  The 2020 – 2021 School Accountability Report Cards show a 20 % or more drop in English Language Assessment scores in our grade schools. ** *

 

School closures and student ‘lost learning’ aggravated unsatisfactory results. Our Board must urgently focus on recovery of academic skills that our students need for graduating and succeeding in the future!

* Harvard Study  Schools Learning Loss

** Top Ranked Public Schools Public Schools ranked

** * School Accountability Score Cards SRCS SARC Score Cards

 

          SAFETY of KIDS on and around SCHOOL CAMPUSES

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The objective of assuring the safety of students in and around the school campuses is of urgent importance.

First:  Fentanyl use in Marin is a Crisis

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On March 29, 2022 a community of students facilitated by a number of Marin agencies met via Zoom to lead ‘A Call to Action – The Fentanyl Crisis in Marin County’. Especially poignant were the stories that our high school student journalists reported about their experiences with fellow students and their families. Their reports can be found in their student newspapers, the Redwood Bark and the Pitch High Schools News Articles . View the full presentation on this link.

“One pill can kill”.

 

The ‘tell’ indicating the seriousness of this crisis in 2022 is that in the spring 277 boxes of Narcan (an antidote to overdose) were delivered to our middle and high schools for emergency use on campuses.

RxSafeMarin has worked for years on awareness about drugs in Marin and use by our kids and adults. We have entered a new era. Fentanyl overdose is killing Americans. The recent number reported is over 107,000 fentanyl deaths last year in the U.S.

 

In Marin County the number is 33 in 2020 of which two-thirds were attributed to fentanyl.

Here is a quote from the May 2022 letter sent to each Graduating Seniors from the Marin County Office of Education and Marin HHS:

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“. . . We think it is important to flag one especially concerning trend. Accidental overdoses from fentanyl are on the rise in Marin and across the nation and are cutting too many young lives short. With a little bit of knowledge, you can protect yourself and your friends from this emerging threat.

. . .In Marin, we lose someone to a fentanyl overdose once every two weeks, on average, and this number is increasing. . .”

 

Second:  Human Trafficking and Child Sex Trafficking in Marin County

 

I became aware of this from attending public programs that grew out of the Marin County Civil Grand Jury Report on Human Trafficking (2016). The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the largest human trafficking markets in the nation. And Marin is a hub in the Bay Area.*

 

In 2021 I became interested in and am working with an organization that rescues American girls (and now boys) from child sex trafficking. It is the Bay Area based organization New Day For Children. Please ask me about it.

 

This is a critical situation that needs the attention of our schools, parents, and all Marin citizens.

It is happening in Marin as the Civil Grand Jury reports.

 

The District Attorney and the County have initiated the Marin County Coalition to End Human Trafficking (MCCEHT) . . . for a reason.

 

The MCCEHT Steering Committee meets monthly and convenes a quarterly general meeting to further educate the public and features local leaders, human trafficking experts, and educational presentations. https://www.mcceht.org/aboutus