#sjta

http://odishasamaya.com/news/jagannath-temple-repair-work-will-start-in-december-minister/58821

Bhubaneswar, Oct 6 : The much awaited repair work of the Jagamohan (hall facing sanctum sanctorum) of the 12th century Sri Jagannath Temple at Puri will commence from the first week of December, a minister said today.

“The repair work to commence from December first week and will be completed within six months,” Odisha Law Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo said after reviewing the temple repair works The meeting attended by chief administrator of Sri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA), senior officials of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Odisha’s Works department, resolved that the repair work would continue without displacing the deities from Ratna Singhasan (the sacred pandal).

During the work, the devotees cannot enter the Garva Gruha (sanctum sanctorum), but can have darshan of the deities from outside, the minister said adding that most of the major rituals of the day would be completed before 11 AM every day during the repair work.

The repair work was essential as cracks were spotted on the Jagamohan section of the main temple.

A team comprising Secretary of Works department, ASI officials and SJTA chief administrator will meet the Director General of ASI in the second week of October and discuss about the mending work, the minister said.

This has been the topic most frequently on my mind as a SJUSD trustee.  Some types of public engagement are mandated, such as outreach and solicitation of feedback from a variety of stakeholders in the district’s creation of its annual Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP).  Other forms of engagement are district driven, such as the Family University program, the Superintendent’s monthly Brown Bag lunches, public committees ranging from School Site to budget advisory to voluntary integration, and community presentations on topics of interest such as Common Core State Standards.  

Despite these avenues of accessibility, many parents and community members still feel that SJUSD is not meaningfully engaging the public.  In order to evaluate effectiveness, we need common language around what engagement should look like and common metrics to assess when engagement is successful.  I didn’t have to look far (thanks, Jen Thomas) to find an excellent model.  An organization called Code for America works at the intersection of civic engagement, government, and technology to promote civic engagement and, significantly, create metrics by which to measure the effectiveness of the attempted engagement. 

Code for America defines five key areas in which governmental or public institutions must achieve proficiency to properly define themselves as truly engaged with the public:

    1    Reach: Defining the constituency you are trying to reach, with an emphasis on identifying those whose voices aren’t already represented.

    2    Information: Providing relevant information that is easy to find and understand, and speaking with an authentic voice.

    3    Channels: Making use of a diversity of spaces, both online and offline, that meet people where they are.

    4    Productive Actions: Identifying clear, concrete and meaningful actions residents can take to reach desired outcomes.

    5    Feedback Loops: Making sure the public understands the productive impact of their participation, and that their actions have value.

Applying these principles to SJUSD, my perception is that we have defined and are executing with a fair measure of success on numbers 1,2 and 3.    The last two are somewhat more complicated as they aren’t within the control of the district: even if we have put out all relevant information, if constituents don’t believe that their feedback and participation at meetings or in conversation is meaningful and will have an impact on future actions of the school district, then people will not feel engaged and will view the district as “other”, resulting in an adversarial model or at least functionally separate entity.  

I found Code for America’s measures of success to be particularly informative and would serve as excellent guidelines for SJUSD to evaluate whether our efforts at public engagement are having their desired effects.  Those metrics are as follows (replacing government with school district):

    •    Measurable increases in the public’s satisfaction and trust in [the school district].

    •    Improvements in stakeholders’ sense of efficacy - when they see a problem, they feel there is a path to fixing it.

    •    Greater number and kinds of people who participate in public conversations.

    •    A stronger consensus of support from the public for [district] policies, processes, services, and plans.

    •    More engagement around public information.

    •    A more collaborative, less antagonistic relationship between the [school district] and the public.

    •    [Trustees and district staff members] who feel they have capacity to engage the public in their work.

Civic engagement is clearly a two way street - stakeholders have to meet the public institution, if not halfway, at least somewhere along the line by paying attention to information that is disseminated, taking the time to listen and to be heard, volunteering, and engaging directly on issues of interest or concern rather than remaining only in the social world in which we all (yep, me, too) vent our frustrations, looking for sympathy or validation rather than solutions.    

Tree for carving Subhadra idol identified in Odisha

Bhubaneswar, April 24 : The sacred neem tree (Daru) to carve out the idol of goddess Subhadra has been identified in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district, Suresh Mohapatra, chief of the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA), said on Friday.

Mohapatra said the tree was identified at the premises of Nilakantheswara temple in Odisha’s Adhanga village.

The district administration and police have…

Jennifer Thomas, president of the San Jose Teachers’ Association, spoke eloquently and passionately this afternoon at the Downtown Rotary meeting.  Her belief in the continued strength and viability of traditional public education was both inspiring and frustrating.  The two of us have scheduled a one on one conversation to sort through many of the important issues she raised, but I share my perspective here as well to encourage a broader range of perspectives, opinions and data.  Please join in!

  Inspiring:

Teachers are working very hard.

More students are being served today by public education than in past generations when children in poverty, English language learners, and children with special needs were excluded or ignored.

Teachers’ unions are coming together with school districts to engage in important conversations about longer probationary periods for new teachers, expedited dismissal procedures for ineffective teachers, fairer evaluation models, performance pay and the “last in, first out” seniority system.  

The conversation about Proposition 13 reform to alter the business property tax cap is coming to light.

  Frustrating:

A lot of the talk’s focus was on deficiencies in the system, which I heard as rationales (accurate though they may be) for the continued opportunity gap.

A lot of responsibility (again, well deserved as it may be) was placed on factors beyond the control of the public education system*, thus further solidifying the perception that there is not much the traditional public school system can do to improve student outcomes.   

The position that “everything else needs to change” (and much of it does) does not encourage meaningful partnership but rather finger pointing and accountability denial.  

I didn’t care for the repeated emphasis on the need to hold elected officials accountable; to report to “them” what “we” need suggests that citizens bear no responsibility for our education system.  There should be no “them”; WE are all accountable to one another for creating a productive, prosperous community.   The very best elected officials cannot accomplish the transformation of any system without being part of a similarly motivated and activated citizenry and network.  

  General Comments

Public education is still heralded as the pathway out of poverty but what I heard today suggested that children or families need to lift themselves or be lifted out of poverty before they can fully benefit from the public education system.

  Charter school advocates argue that those external factors enumerated by Ms Thomas are not barriers to success; that students from low socioeconomic, English language learning environments have the same capacity for achievement if properly supported.  They offer disciplined, rigorous curricula and focus intently on metrics of academic success, generally measured by proficiency on scored tests.  

  But charter schools are not the panacea to all of the ills of traditional public education.  Charter school suspensions still exceed the averages in comparable public schools, students opt in and may be encouraged to opt out if they are not performing to expectation and traditional public schools re-absorb the students who were not successful in the charter school environment.  Students with special needs continue to be underrepresented at charter schools, though the numbers are improving.  

  So which model contains more of the elements required for improving student outcome?  To answer this question, charter schools and traditional public schools must first align on the definition of success.  I wrote recently about the division between parents who support standardized testing and view it as a reliable indicator of academic success and those who view it as a harmful narrowing of the educational experience, focusing on standardized proficiency as opposed to transformative experiences in problem solving, critical thinking, social emotional development and clear communication.  The division falls along socio-economic and racial lines, which is not unexpected given the wide range of generalized life, education and career experiences of adults in our community.