TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

News pertaining directly to Trona, Death Valley, the northern Mojave Desert, Inyo County, and adjacent areas.

Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby shadylady » Tue Aug 06, 2019 7:53 am

I'd demolish the old high school and build a new one. The new one could be smaller and simpler than the old one. The question is where to put the new high school. It doesn't make sense to put it down by the highway since that's too close to the dry lake and everyone knows that anything close to the lake sinks over time. The school has a large block of land and the area above the current elementary would be a stable location for a new school. Over in Ridgecrest they just got through putting up a new middle school. Do something like that. It looks nice and new and it doesn't look like it was expensive.
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Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby twister » Tue Aug 06, 2019 8:09 pm

Sierra Sands Unified School District announce school opening delays
Somehow Sierra Sands seems to be dealing with this situation in a more efficient manner than Trona. I won't speculate as to why that might be since I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
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Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby twister » Tue Aug 06, 2019 8:11 pm

ergot wrote:And what the hell is the school doing HIRING someone in this situation. I'd like to shake the hand of the one board member with enough brains to just say NO!

That does seem to be a pretty stupid move. Not sure what they're thinking!
:wtf:
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Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby BoraxBill » Wed Aug 07, 2019 6:23 am

twister wrote:Sierra Sands Unified School District announce school opening delays
Somehow Sierra Sands seems to be dealing with this situation in a more efficient manner than Trona. I won't speculate as to why that might be since I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

Sierra Sands probably does a better job staying ahead of maintenance issues. The facilities in Trona have been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair over the last few years and that combined with a couple strong earthquakes is what is being dealt with now. Had leadership stayed ahead of maintenance issues, they would have been able to deal with the damage caused by the earthquakes in a more timely manner as we see in Sierra Sands. I'm sure they have their excuses, but there is no excuse for the poor manner in which things have been handled here in Trona.
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Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby blackturtle.us » Fri Aug 09, 2019 12:27 pm

REGULAR BOARD MEETING - August 08, 2019
Only a few people were present for this meeting. It started a half hour late and didn't conclude until about ten minutes after eight. Highlights as follows:

1) Employee Dismissal - Apparently a district office employee was dismissed. Not sure what that person did or who exactly it was except that the person was referred to using a feminine pronoun.
2) Superintendent - Talked about ongoing issues with preparing for late start of the school year and various related issues. The good news is that it appears that the state will help out by reimbursing up to 75% of expenditures spent by the district in order to recover from the earthquakes. This will enable the district to pay for a few more temporary classrooms. There was a plan to utilize two such classrooms and now that number is being bumped up to five or so....
3) Food Service Options: 1) Offsite kitchen (possibly a church); 2) Own cafeteria (if repaired in time); 3) Sierra Sands (delivered or picked up daily); 4) Food Service Company (aka, frozen dinners). No decision yet made. Still weighing options.
4) Emergency Repairs - Working with architects and contractors to develop plan for beginning of school year and then a long-term plan after that. It also sounds like the waterline to the gym is almost ready to use. The bad news is that a fiber optics cable supplying internet to elementary was cut while trenching. Hopefully this will be fixed early next week.
5) High School Principal reported to the board that a committee of four teachers are reviewing curricular materials for science and social studies. They are inspecting materials and will make recommendations after trying out some of the materials in their classrooms.
6) High School Mentors - Long discussion about responsibilities, expectations, and how mentors will be supervised.
7) Two Resignations - One person working in the business office resigned and our main technology person resigned. Regarding the technology resignation a board member had a complaint. Basically, it sounded like she felt that the tech person resigned since he was not properly consulted regarding tech issues. He retired from a highly paid tech job (not just a computer repair person or tech support type of job, but one involving high level skills) and was not properly appreciated by local leaders. One of the local leaders took offense at what was said, but hesitated to get into a public discussion regarding an employee. [EDITORIAL NOTE: I know that serving in a tech position can be frustrating since often local leaders make poor decisions regarding tech without properly consulting with local tech person. I can list lots of examples going back to the 1990s. It seems that local leaders are too trusting of sales reps for some reason.... not that there is any reason to believe that kickbacks going back to the 1990s have been involved.... but considering the nature of some of the poor decisions, it's hard not to be suspicious.]
8) Installation of Surveillance Cameras - Plans have been altered slightly to adjust to where students will now be located throughout the day. Originally, cameras were going to be installed at the old high school campus and now they will be installed only where students will be found through the course of the day.
9) Several club advisors and class sponsors approved. Clubs on the list included mathletes, hiking, Spanish, dungeons and dragons, entrepreneurship, art/photography, auto shop, and shooting (basketball).
NEXT REGULAR MEETING: SEPT 12
Emergency Meeting already scheduled for Wed, AUG 14
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Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby CrustyOldFart » Fri Aug 09, 2019 2:47 pm

blackturtle.us wrote:9) Several club advisors and class sponsors approved. Clubs on the list included mathletes, hiking, Spanish, dungeons and dragons, entrepreneurship, art/photography, auto shop, and shooting (basketball).

Shooting basketballs? Seems like a waste of basketballs! And what do you do with all the basketballs after they've been shot!
:dizzy:
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Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby shotgunmary » Sun Aug 18, 2019 7:08 am

CrustyOldFart wrote:
blackturtle.us wrote:9) Several club advisors and class sponsors approved. Clubs on the list included mathletes, hiking, Spanish, dungeons and dragons, entrepreneurship, art/photography, auto shop, and shooting (basketball).

Shooting basketballs? Seems like a waste of basketballs! And what do you do with all the basketballs after they've been shot!
:dizzy:

How about we have them shoot goofballs instead? What does that do for ya?
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Re: SHOOTING BASKETBALLS

Postby CrustyOldFart » Mon Aug 19, 2019 7:11 am

ShotgunMary: As long as you're volunteering to be the goofball, then I have no problem with your proposition!
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Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby ergot » Tue Aug 20, 2019 7:45 pm

High school students under fire for Nazi salute
This falls into two categories:
1) None of your business
2) Not a big deal
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Re: TJUSD August Board Meetings 2019

Postby mrgreen » Wed Aug 21, 2019 8:06 pm

New videos prompt school to expand probe into alleged Nazi tributes
Ergot, I'm in agreement with you on this one. This is a free speech issue, plain and simple. If the kids want to joke around about this stuff that's fine and if they are seriously exploring these ideologies, then that's fine too. The school has no right to interfere and the claim that this is "hate speech" is idiotically stupid.
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