Eye of the Tiger (Issue 3, Volume 16)

Page 1

TOP NEWS Features

Opinion

A&E

PLTW teacher Erin Granucci collects donations for norcal fire victims Page 3

Sports

Senior Sino Oulad Daoud evaluates RJUHSD teacher grading fidelity Page 5

The A&E staff prepares for Halloween by profiling their favorite festive TV, movies Page 7

Freshman Karly Garcia transcends athletic stereotypes Page 10

EYE OF THE TIGER Roseville High School’s student-produced publication

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1 Tiger Way, Roseville, CA

OCT. 23, 2017 ISSUE 3, VOLUME 16

COMPROMISING TIME Teachers lose in-class minutes to instructional training opportunities BY ALEXANDRIA SUBA a.suba@eyeofthetigernews.com

Some teachers miss several days of school each year to attend trainings and conferences. Of these professional development opportunities available, teachers must decide if their attendance is beneficial enough to outweigh the instructional time they will miss. Science teacher Jeff Underwood, who recently attended a three-day conference, takes advantage of the learning op-

portunities the school presents by attending conferences he believes will benefit his teaching. “The school reaches out to see if anybody is interested in attending conferences and I usually jump on them because I tend to learn a lot. Teaching is not a perfect science so any help that we can get we should be looking for,” Underwood said. Michael McDowell, author of Rigorous PBL by Design: Three Shifts for Developing Confident and Competent Learners, led a

conference Underwood attended two weeks ago. Underwood plans to incorporate the strategies he learned at this training into his classroom. But believes the content applies to his Biology class at a greater capacity than his AP Environmental Science class, due to the more flexible learning schedule he can exercise in CP classes. “As far as time is concerned, there is a lot more content that needs to be dished out in AP Environmental Science so I go for a more direct instruction in there,” Underwood said. “I’m going to use most of the conference material in my biology classes. We’re building a whole new curriculum

SINO OULAD DAOUD EYE OF THE TIGER

Substitute teacher Dan Benson subs a freshman english class. Teachers who attend conferences must request substitutes or ask a colleague to fill in while they are away.

and getting things rolling so I’m going to try to incorporate it in that.” Although the McDowell

conference took place during the week leading into midterms, Underwood feels confident that his

 ABSENCE | Page 2

CDE unveils Dashboard

UNDEFEATED

New system will track CA schools’ performance BY CAM MEDRANO

c.medrano@eyeofthetigernews.com

BRIAN NUEVO EYE OF THE TIGER

R

oseville High Scool’s varsity girls tennis team defeated the Oakmont vikings 8-1 last Wednesday, bringing their league record to a perfect 14-0 and making them CVC champions. Left, the team honors its seniors at their final match. Above, first-year-coach Dana Duncan and the team celebrate their final win.  FULL STORY | Page 10

BRIAN NUEVO EYE OF THE TIGER

New grading policy eliminates CC credit boost BY WAFEEQ RIDHUAN

w.ridhuan@eyeofthetigernews.com

In the latest revisions of a prospective district grading policy released by the RJUHSD Continuous Improvement Leadership Team last month, weighted credit for community college courses and other classes taken outside of the district was eliminated. The currently grading policy, last revised in 2015, grants weighted credit to college courses taken outside the district if it has “advanced college standards to meet college elective courses with prerequisites.” According to RJUHSD assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Jess Borjon, the

latest revision was done to address inconsistencies in the distribution of weighted grades versus the difficulty of a class. “Online learning has proliferated so greatly that it’s really hard to ascertain whether this really is an advanced course,” Borjon said. “The district really has no ability to really determine whether that’s an advanced course or not. So we think that it’s creating an inequitable playing field for students that are amassing grade point averages in their four years here.” Borjon hopes to continue revisions for the grading policy through December and present a final draft to the RJUHSD board  CREDIT | Page 2

SINO OULAD DAOUD EYE OF THE TIGER

Senior Sydney Richardson sits in her AP government class. Students may enroll in the same class at a community college and fulfill the graduation requirement but will not recieve weighted credit.

INSIDE: UPCOMING EVENTS 2 NEWS 2 FEATURES 3 - 4 OPINION 5 - 6

A&E 7 - 8 ESPAÑOL 9

SPORTS 10

The California Department of Education (CDE) unveiled a new accountability system this school year called the California School Dashboard in response to the Local Control Funding Formula law passed in 2013. The LCFF allows school districts to determine the spending of state education funds. According to the Assistant Director of Communications for the CDE Robert Oakes, the Dashboard is a necessary addition in order to fulfill the requirements of the LCFF. “California is changing,” Oakes said. “[The Dashboard] is going to be a much more comprehensive, real-time look at school performance and we promote that heavily.” The Dashboard analyzes school demographic equity and progress in order to provide information the CDE uses to assist local education agencies such as RJUHSD. According to the Dashboard website, school perLOCAL formance is INDICATORS measured by “10 indicators of  BASIC SERVICES school suc PARENT cess.” Six ENGAGEMENT state indicators allow  SCHOOL CLIMATE schools and  STATE STANDARDS districts to comIMPLEMENTATION pare their achievements statewide while four local indicators focus directly on the school itself. Information pertaining to facility is collected through the School Accountability Report Card, an annual report schools must publish in order to receive a stable source of funding. The SARC focuses on student demographics, resources and school performance as well. (Look for the full article online at eyeofthetigernews.com and in the next issue of Eye of the Tiger).

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