At the end of the Superintendent’s second elementary math forum on February 26, 2018, Superintendent Sinnette announced that she would form an Elementary Math Parent Committee to continue on with the work from the parent elementary math discussion forums, conduct research on proposed solutions, and advise her before her presentation to the Governing Board in May 2018. She invited all the parents who attended the Feb. 26, 2018 elementary math forum to apply for consideration to be selected on to her advisory committee. In addition, the elementary principals sent out an email to elementary parents in early March 2018 inviting parents who had not attended the elementary math discussion forums to also apply for consideration to be selected to the Elementary Math Parent Committee. A deadline of March 13, 2018 was given for prospective applications. A copy of the parent application is archived here:
Parent’s Math Committee Application
In keeping with prior practice, the district’s selection process left much to be desired:
- District administration retained sole authority to select parent committee members, leaving no input or autonomy to parents to select their own representatives.
- District administration did not announce what the selection criteria was.
- District administration did not disclose who applied to be on the committee, nor did they announce who the selected committee members were to the general parent population.
- To its credit, district administration did notify applicants who were not selected and let them know who was selected.
Committee Members
On April 4, 2018, Superintendent Sinnette announced the parent representatives selected to the committee:
- Tuan Do
- Joshua Gottheim
- William Schulze
- Alphan Altinok
- Ajay Perumbeti
- Jomjai Srisomburananont
- Stacey Boland
- Sunyoung Fahimi
- Anna Hasbun
In the same announcement, Sinnette changed the committee name from Elementary Math Parent Committee to the Elementary Math Committee and announced that “parents will be joined by teachers and administrators on the working committee.” District teachers and administrative staff on the committee included:
- Marie Morin (6th grade teacher – LCE)
- Mandy Redfern (KG teacher – LCE)
- Jane Chang-Hur (6th grade teacher – PCR)
- Debbie Bedell-Au (6th grade teacher – PCR)
- Debra Cradduck (Principal – PCY)
- Karen Hurley (Principal – PCR)
- Christine Matthews (6th grade teacher – PCY)
- Lori Arbucci (4th grade teacher – PCY)
- Ellen Multari (LCUSD Governing Board member)
- Brent Kuszyk (LCUSD Governing Board member)
- Jim Cartnal (LCUSD Executive Director, Student and Personnel Programs and Services)
- Anais Wenn (LCUSD Assistant Superintendent for Student Services)
- Wendy Sinnette (LCUSD Superintendent)
Note that not every committee member attended all three of the committee’s meetings. The committee met three times on April 12th, 26th, and May 10th, 2018. More detailed summaries of what transpired at each meeting are listed below:
- First Elementary Math Committee Meeting – April 12, 2018
- Second Elementary Math Committee Meeting – April 26, 2018
- Third Elementary Math Committee Meeting – May 10, 2018
In addition, certain parent members of the committee wrote summary reports about what happened at the three meetings below:
- Report on Elementary Math Committee by Josh Gottheim, Tuan Do, & Jomjai Srisomburananont
- Summary of Elementary Math Committee (Spring 2018) by Ajay Perumbeti
At the second Elementary Math Committee meeting on April 26th, committee members were divided into two groups and directed to conduct research offline on the topics of in-school acceleration (Group 1) and before/after-school acceleration (Group 2) and collate results in Google docs for shared collaboration. Those shared Google docs are below:
- Group 1 – Acceleration Within the School Day Research Findings
- Group 2 – Acceleration Outside the School Day Research Findings
Board Presentation on Superintendent’s Goal
Superintendent Sinnette presented her summary of the findings of the Elementary Math Advisory Committee to the LCUSD Governing Board at its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, June 26, 2018. Sinnette’s presentation is discussed on the following page: