April 29, 2019
EDCAL 1
Education California | The official newspaper of the Association of California School Administrators
Volume 49 | Number 26 | April 29, 2019
Students get hands-on experience
in Veterinary Science CTE program
Elizabeth Belaski doesn’t call herself an
innovator, but she knows how to change a
student experience from classroom learning
to hands-on learning and give her students
a deeper set of skills and knowledge.
“To create our next generation of leaders
you have to give students the tools to fur-
ther their passion,” she said. “If you create
an educational environment where students
are excited and challenged, we’re doing our
job.”
Three years ago, Belaski took over the
Veterinary Science program at Silicon
Valley Career Technical Education in San
Jose. Her goal was to create an experience
for students that was clinic focused. She
took it so far that when students walk into
the classroom, the first thing they see is a
reception desk similar to a veterinary clinic.
Through this CTE program, students
learn anatomy and physiology, as well as
animal health and disease, animal behavior,
and client communication. The class itself
focuses on academics, technical skills and
employability practices.
Some of the program’s graduates have
continued their education to become
registered veterinary technicians and others
plan to go to veterinary school. There are
also two current students who are actually
working in veterinary clinics now as a result
of attending this class.
“The general public has no idea how
involved veterinary medicine is,” said
Alyssa Lynch, Metropolitan Education
District superintendent. “It’s really exciting
to see these students have a real passion for
Preliminary credential. ACSA,
Students at Silicon Valley Career Technical Education perform an evaluation on a cat, using their training to
check the heart rate and for anything that could be abnormal.
animals and I see that they are making a
difference in the field.”
Right now there are more than 50 stu-
dents in two classes and those classes are so
popular that they fill up almost immediate-
ly when registration opens.
Belaski believes the veterinary industry
is not an industry that will be taken over by
innovation because of the animal-to-hu-
man contact, which is a sign that these
students are on a career path with longevity.
“It’s a sign that we’re doing things right,”
Belaski said. “These students receive the
knowledge they need to immediately walk
in and succeed as veterinary assistants.”
What may be most interesting to those
outside of the program is how the curricu-
See VET, page 2
Charter school challenges CTC decision
The April meeting of the California
Commission on Teacher Credentialing was at-
tended by ACSA CTC Liaison Doug Gephart,
who filed the following report.
Summit Preparatory Charter High
School will seek teacher accreditation as an
“experimental program” after the California
Commission on Teacher Credentialing
denied accreditation to the charter school,
saying it did not meet its responsibilities to
earn accreditation for its intern program.
Summit Prep, one of 11 public char-
ter schools operated by Summit Public
Schools, had appealed the CTC’s decision
earlier this year to not grant accredita-
tion to its intern program. According to
the CTC, the school changed its teacher
training from an intern program to a resi-
dency program without going through the
commission’s prescribed process.
Commission-approved intern programs
are a path to the preliminary teaching
credential that allows an individual the
ability to complete their teacher prepara-
tion coursework concurrent with their first
year or two in a paid teaching position. The
Summit Prep cohort of teachers are not
currently in a paid teaching position but are
taking approved coursework and receiving
professional mentorship
and guidance.
Formal approval
The CTC’s
occurs over several
new Chair is
phases, with each phase
elected, why
requiring commission
RICA needs
review and approval.
updates and
Summit Prep was
a look at
granted initial approval;
state grant
however, in the middle
programs.
of this process, CTC
staff discovered Summit
Prep was not offering an intern program
but a residency program for which Summit
was not approved. CTC Committee on
Accreditation staff verified their under-
standing through their own investigation
and notified Summit their accreditation
for an intern program was being denied.
Summit challenged the Committee on
Accreditation authority to deny accredita-
Inside
tion and threatened legal action that would
have been very expensive for both parties.
Summit operates on private funding while
the CTC is dependent upon fees collected
from credential renewals and accreditation.
The commission was clearly within its
right to deny accreditation based on the
fact Summit Prep was not providing an
intern program. Unfortunately, a cohort of
teacher candidates were caught in the mid-
dle of the procedural arguments and faced
possible elimination of their intern status.
ACSA argued that the commission needed
to hold Summit Prep accountable for
properly complying with either the intern
credential program or regroup and apply
for a residency program while simultane-
ously allowing for a provision that would
not adversely impact the current cohort of
teacher candidates.
The commission, in an attempt to devise
a solution that would maintain the integ-
rity of their authority for the credential
approval process, provided Summit Prep
in partnership with the Sacramento
County Office of Education’s Leader-
ship Institute, offers aspiring teacher
leaders the opportunity to earn a
Preliminary Administrative Services
Credential. Candidates will engage in
six courses over the 12-month program
which offers both face-to-face instruc-
tion as well as online learning, guided
fieldwork and an end-of-program
project. Courses are taught by local
and regional school administrators who
have expertise in both the content and
region. By completing four additional
classes, candidates may apply the
work from the Leadership Institute
courses to obtain a Master’s Degree.
The program begins in San Bernardino
County in August 2019. Visit www.
acsa.org/Credentialing to apply. The
deadline to enroll is May 15.
Math workshops. Calcurricu-
lum is partnering with the California
Department of Education to offer
two-day, grant-funded workshops to
help districts identify opportunities and
strategies to improve their math pro-
gram implementation. The workshops
will be held May 20-21 in Sacramento
and June 18-19 in Santa Ana. These
free workshops will be beneficial to
districts needing Tier 1 math curriculum
support. E-mail info@calcurriculum.
org for more information, or visit
https://www.calcurriculum.org/news-
events/math-implementation-work-
shops-w-cde.html to register.
Ray Curry nominations. Nom-
inations are currently open for the
Ray Curry Award, which honors an
outstanding human resources or
personnel administrator. This award
will be presented during the Personnel
Institute, Oct. 2, 2019 in Long Beach.
Nominees must be a member of ACSA
and have contributed or displayed
accomplishments in the role of human
resources/personnel administrator at
the district, region or state levels. To
make a nomination, visit www.acsa.
org/raycurryaward. The deadline for
nominations is June 28.
See CTC, page 5
Want to improve schools? Report
says to make a ‘principal pipeline’
Periodicals
Dated Material
Districts looking for an effective, afford-
able way to improve schools may want to
consider developing “principal pipelines,”
according to new research from the RAND
Corporation.
The study examined how six large urban
school districts implemented a concept
called “principal pipelines,” a strategic ap-
proach to the hiring, preparation, evaluation
and support of school leaders, and how it
improved an array of outcomes. The Wal-
lace Foundation funded the $85 million,
six-year initiative, the results of which were
detailed in the report, “Principal Pipelines:
A Feasible, Affordable, and Effective Way
to Improve Schools.”
RAND researchers found that schools in
these districts that received a newly placed
principal outperformed comparison schools
in both math and reading. After three years,
schools with new principals in these dis-
tricts outperformed comparison schools by
6.22 percentile points in reading and 2.87
percentile points in math. These results are
sizable: They suggest that a school whose
students would otherwise have been at the
median of the state reading achievement
See PIPELINE, page 3