Video: Farallone View not in Program Improvement

Story and video by Darin Boville, used with permission of Montara Fog

Concerned coastside parents may have read the articles in the Half Moon Bay Review and the San Francisco Chronicle. Surely all of them heard the news: Farallone View is in "program improvement."

Sounds like good news at first—some sort of award, perhaps?—but instead it is a state of disgrace in the eyes of the Federal Government, imposed by the failure of Farallone View to meet certain Federal standards. Further down that road wait the threats of staff replacement, government takeover….it sounds bad. Very bad.

But, shortly after the bad news was published for all the community to see, something happened that wasn’t reported: Farallone View was removed from the list of schools in program improvement. That little detail didn’t seem worth mentioning by the traditional press, I guess.

Catherine Werdel, the new principal at Farallone View, explains the story to us in this video, shot on October 2nd at out local PTA meeting. She goes over the data, shows the progress of each of the various subgroups, and outlines the testing goals that have been handed down by the higher powers for future years.

(A word to viewers with children in other Bay-area schools: Note Werdel’s clear-headed, professional presentation. Note her comfort with data and the fact that she clearly knows what she is talking about. Note her sincerity. You can’t have her. She’s ours.)

One of the most interesting aspects of the presentation are the scores of the various subgroups—and an explanation of what the statistical category "English Language Learner" really means.

Watch the video. Tell other parents.