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Regarding Noozhawk’s July 3 article, “Santa Barbara Latin American University Eligibility Rate, Black Students Call for ‘Urgent Action’,” what is missing is this. takes place before secondary education to prepare students for equitable success.
The importance of the acquisition of English in the third year to the results of secondary education is fundamental. Unfortunately, if emerging learners do not pass the English language proficiency assessment by fifth grade, they are unlikely to be reclassified and will not have access to upper-level classes in high school.
The key is teamwork between teachers, students and parents in elementary schools. More teacher engagement with parents, bilingual classroom helpers, and after-school homework help is how Franklin Elementary School enables Spanish speaking children to learn English. No secret: they give them more English with everyone held to the same standards.
Franklin School is a perfect model achieving well above state averages in her English scores, according to greatschools.org, with 57% English proficiency compared to the state average of 51.
Not all children want or intend to go to university; it is not necessarily bad. What is bad is if students are crippled by the lack of English early on in not achieving English and math skills that limit the choice options for success. There are a lot of famous and successful people who didn’t go to college.
Some students may want to enter the trades, become a mechanic or a medical assistant. Professional and well-paying jobs require fluency in the English language. Without English you cannot be trained to get these jobs because these training programs are in English.
Is the problem with who can go to university or who does not speak English and why? English learners need a solid foundation of English built in primary school.
A parody is the bilingual school conversion offered at McKinley School with 90% teaching in Spanish in the most formative years of language development, kindergarten and first grade, and 80% teaching in Spanish in second year. Only 10% to 20% English before grade three and 50% English before grade five is questionable preparation for high school.
Rosanne Crawford
Santa barbara
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I am a teacher and academic senator at Santa Barbara City College, but I am writing to express my views which are strictly my own.
Unprecedented coalition of the three largest groups of SBCC employees demands a COVID-19 vaccine mandate like those adopted by the University of California and California State University systems: all employees and students entering campus must be protected with a vaccine that has the Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization’s emergency use approval, with standard exemptions for religion and health.
We desperately want to resume face-to-face teaching and work as soon as possible, but we need to keep our students and the community safe. And we have a huge number of online courses for students who don’t want to get vaccinated.
This is not a contentious claim. The union of classified employees strongly supports him, and the faculty union and the Academic Senate unanimously support him. These are elected bodies that represent all employees of the CCSC. In my 15 years of teaching, I have never seen such broad support for a single topic.
It is a reasonable request. Millions of people have died and the Delta variant has now reached Santa Barbara County. More than 500 colleges across the country have already promulgated COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and a growing number of California community colleges are now doing so.
If a vaccination mandate is not promulgated, we will consider a vote of no confidence in our president, the four directors who voted to reject the mandate, or both. We want to avoid this divisive step, but it is a public health crisis once in a generation, and we unanimously believe that we have no other choice.
These four administrators, faced with a united campus pleading for this mandate, responded with concerns about the image of the CCSC and our chances of obtaining the adoption of a future bail measure. This is unacceptable.
CCSC employees want to get back to campus, but we need the tool that will keep our community safe. An immunization mandate is supported by an evidence-based health care policy, it has been adopted by the UC and CSU systems, and it would save lives.
Robbie fischer
Santa barbara
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Regarding the June 2 announcement, “Demonstration to Rebuke Banks for Role in Funding Oil Pipeline,” the protest of the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline by the Society of Fearless Grandmothers in Santa Barbara is puzzling.
Didn’t they see what happened when the Colonial Pipeline was hacked? Chaos ensued.
We need these pipelines to meet our growing needs for electricity and plastic products. Pipelines are the safest and cleanest way to transport fuel. One wonders how much these protesters have become so misled about the basic needs of this country. There is no other resource.
Renewable energy claims are misleading. Wind energy is only available when the wind is blowing, solar energy is only available when the sun is shining, and wave energy when there are waves. What do we do for power when these things are not there?
In the meantime, the power supply must be designed to handle all the power demanded at all times, day or night.
California uses the largest amount of electricity in the United States. Currently, the peak power used in California is 50 billion watt hours, and growing. The promise of around 400 million watt hours from wind or solar is a drop in the bucket in comparison.
The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant safely produces 2 billion watt hours of electricity every hour of the day, rain or shine, day or night, with or without wind. That’s enough power for 2 million homes, or 10% of California’s power. 25 nuclear power plants would provide all the power needed for 50 years, day and night.
The power grid must be designed to meet our peak demand of 50 billion watt hours. Even if an alternative diet could meet this demand, it would only be half the time. The other half of the time, we would still need fossil or nuclear sources for our energy.
Justin ruhge
Lompoc
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