I recently stumbled across great attendance area maps on the Fremont Unified School District web site. The Parent Resource Information - Attendance Area contains a list of which schools are in which attendance area along with easy to print maps.

Tags: FUSD, Schools, Info

It has been a busy two weeks since the last school board meeting. There's been a real focus on student housing (i.e. seats for students in classrooms). The school board and district have been working on this issue since last November when they received a demographic and facilities study. In April (agenda and packet) and June (agenda and packet) there were two study sessions to discuss the various options for dealing with our overcrowded schools.

In the last two weeks there has been significant progress in two ways.

1. The city council and school board had a joint meeting on October 1 completely devoted to the impacts developers have on student housing. The joint report presented by staff was particularly useful.
2. The district conducted two community meetings in the Mission attendance area (one for Chadborne Elementary and one for Mission Valley Elementary).

I attended the joint meeting and the Chadboarne meeting and both were extremely informative. While there were no decisions made, these events are critical as they have educated and opened the lines of communication between everyone. I will blog more about these student housing issues in the future.

On a personal note, I started a new job on Monday. I now work as an Engineering Director at Digital Fountain a Fremont start up company. A little blurb about the company:

After a decade of innovative technology development yielding over 100 patents, our software solutions are now being deployed around the world by the leading standards bodies and major content providers from Hollywood and the Internet. Early next year, we'll add the world's first instant-on TV-quality CDN to our offerings, fundamentally changing the way the world watches online video.

I'm working on the CDN project. We're also hiring, so if you're interested let me know!

Tags: Schools, Student Housing, Personal

I changed the blog page from the school chalkboard theme the rest of the site uses as that them didn't work very well for blocking. This theme works much better with my blogging software.

I'll be playing around with the look of the web site a lot over the next few months. Let me know what you think of it. Contact me here.

Tags: Info

Recently a friend pointed out this cool site to me. It provides a map interface to look at California school API scores. A picture is worth a thousand words, so...



Each pin corresponds to a different elementary or secondary school. The colors represent their average API base rank from 2004 to 2006. I clicked on the Mission SJ High School pin above.

Click here to see the map above.

CAUTIONARY NOTE: School API scores are but one measure of a school's performance and a volatile one at that. It doesn't take much for a school's score to change by 10-50 points. I encourage anyone interested in a measuring schools to visit the school. Talk to the principal and teachers. Look at how involved the parents and community are. Those are just as important measures.

Tags: Info, Schools

Board member Mike McMahon has an excellent web site that contains a host of information for those interested in school issues and especially how school boards and districts work. It is focused on Alameda Unified School District where he currently sits on the board, but is useful for all interested in school issues.

Click here: Mike McMahon AUSD

I first met Mike at the Alameda County School Board's Association. This group meets once a month to discuss issues that effect all boards and districts. It is an incredibly useful resource for school board members.

Tags: School Board, Schools

I am excited to announce that I am running for the Fremont Unified School District’s Board of Education in November 2008. I am also excited to announce my first blog.

Through this blog I hope to reach out to all people -- parents, students, teachers, community members, etc. I will share with you:

• Campaign news,

• Insights into Fremont schools and current school policies in California and the U.S., and
• More about my education philosophy.

My goal is to update this blog several times a month. Watch this blog for campaign and school board news!

-Bryan

Tags: Info, Campaign