Six Candidates for the Board of Education - Joyce Singer Abrams, Barbara Carpenter, Debra Patterson, Elaine Springer and Francis O'Neill Zimmerman from District A, and Les Pierres Streater from District D - made the extra effort to attend this meeting and hear parent and community feeling on this issue.
Scott Vydra, an aide to Assemblyman Steve Baldwin (R-La Mesa), made a special trip to La Jolla to represent the Chairman of the Assembly Education Committee and to inform parents of the Assembly Hearing that will soon be held in Sacramento to assess the direction of math education in California.
Special note should also be taken of the five teachers from the La Jolla High School Math Department who attended and made many useful and informative comments regarding district procedures and the position of the La Jolla High Math department on curriculum matters. Several other teachers also attended.
Unfortunately, Vance Mills and Janet Trentacosta, who had been scheduled to present San Diego Unified's point of view on changes to the math curricula, canceled shortly before the meeting began, and the District was not represented as planned.
The meeting was opened by Maria Uhry, Vice Principal of Muirlands, who provided the introductions. Jay Tarvin, Principal of La Jolla High School, had agreed to moderate the meeting. Mr. Tarvin expressed his disappointment at the failure of Dr. Mills and Ms. Trentacosta to attend and announced that he would return for the next meeting at which, he felt, district representatives were sure to appear.
Mike McKeown of Mathematically Correct then gave a brief summary of the district adoptions process, of the kinds programs that the district plans to implement, and the nature of these programs.
The rest of the meeting was given over to parent comments or concerns about the new programs, as well as to questions as to how to proceed to restore traditional algebra and geometry courses to district students. Nearly all comments expressed concern about the adoption of various Whole Math programs, and many were directed at the exact procedures either to replace Whole Math courses or to restore the option of taking traditional courses at both the regular and honors levels.
Parent members of Mathematically Correct had learned that it is possible for individual schools to receive waivers from the district to use non-adopted texts, just as it is possible for districts to apply for waivers to use texts not approved by the state. At the meeting it was reported that schools with waivers from the district would be given district funds, matching the costs of district approved texts, to use toward the purchase of texts chosen by the schools. Whether or not this applies to all schools remains unclear.
Upon leaving, many parents added their signatures to A Letter to the Board of Education requesting a delay of the adoption process rather than approving any new, experimental math programs suggested by district officials.
District officials and the School Board have been notified of the need to hold a second forum. Meanwhile, parents are left wondering what can be done to help the children already assigned to the new program in middle school.