May 2020
In This Issue
Sacramento Scene:
California Department of Education Update:
News & Views:
- Finding Balance: A reminder to fill your own cup
- Pressing The Reset Button On Our Expectations of Teaching
- Student Teaching Online: The Glows and The Grows
- “The Fair Will Go On” – Ideas for Adapted Fairs
- EdSource: Gov. Newsom now projects $18 billion less in required funding for K-12, community colleges
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Sacramento Scene: Back in Session
By: Matt Patton, CATA Executive Director
The California State Assembly reconvened at the capitol on May 4. The Senate came back on May 11. It is anything but business as usual at the capitol. The building is closed for public tours and there is limited seating in hearings and committee meetings, because of social distancing. It is encouraged that all public comment on legislation is done via web portal or by phone. Legislators have been asked to dramatically pare back the number of bills that they are pursuing this year. Although committees are conducting hearings and bills are being debated, what everyone is waiting for is the May revision of the budget which is scheduled to be released on May 14.
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California Department of Education Update, May 2020
By: Charles Parker, California Department of Education, State FFA Advisor
When I was fortunate to be in the classroom, I looked forward to the Spring where I could spend every weekend with students. Traveling the state in a van created some lasting memories. Unfortunately, this year the Spring experience was cut short. But, with some hard work by teachers and creative thinking, we are in a position to provide some semblance of a State Finals in many of our LDE’s and CDE’s.
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Finding Balance: A reminder to fill your own cup
By: Sarah Herdell, CATA Secondary Chair
“A tree that refuses water and sunlight for itself cannot bear fruit for others.” I bet we’ve all heard a line like this at some point, right?
Last summer, I was part of a group that facilitated a workshop geared towards the Women in CATA (Go SHEroes!). Our overlying theme was to have a candid conversation about finding balance among our own “three circles”: career, family and friends, and self. Hesitant and apprehensive going into it, we were positively overwhelmed with the interest and participation in the workshop and felt this conversation needs to continue and include not only the women in CATA but the men too.
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Pressing The Reset Button On Our Expectations of Teaching
By: Audrey Lent, Student Teacher, Santa Ynez Valley Union High School
Before I started student teaching in January, I met with my co-teacher, and we discussed what class I would take over first when I started my term at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School. When she told me that she had a Veterinary Science class, my heart nearly leaped out of my chest – I loved working with animals, and had taught animal science courses at summer camps, so I knew it was a subject I would be confident teaching. Everything about that class was amazing from day one. The students were highly engaged, the activities I developed for each day were creative and hands-on, and I walked out of that classroom every day feeling as if I was on top of the world.
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Student Teaching Online: The Glows and The Grows
By: Alice von Staden, Student Teacher, Nipomo High School
Student teaching, the most exciting, exhausting, fun, overwhelming, educational, scary, emotional, whirlwind time of a post undergraduate student’s life. We’ve all been there. You are beyond excited, but also beyond terrified as you start. As it goes on, you begin to feel like you know what you are doing, only to realize you have no idea what you are doing. You fake it till you make it. You learn, you fail, you succeed, you have fun, and you contemplate your career choices. But at the end of it all, you love nothing more than your students, your school, your teaching partners, and your job. We’ve all been there.
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“The Fair Will Go On” – Ideas for Adapted Fairs
By: Rosemary Cummings, CATA President-Elect
The recent circumstances facing the world has wiped out a variety of important experiences. In the FFA community, this means field days, conferences, and fairs are no longer occurring. The CATA and State FFA staff have taken a variety of steps to make virtual accommodations for many of these events, and counties statewide have done so as well. Many schools have been concerned with the cancellation of fairs and how to provide students with an enjoyable experience showing their animals. Nipomo FFA has decided to make its own accommodations and create a socially distanced, adapted fair experience for its members. This article will discuss some ideas on how to ensure a chapter’s fair will go on!
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Gov. Newsom now projects $18 billion less in required funding for K-12, community colleges
Courtesy of EdSource
The recent circumstances facing the world has wiped out a variety of important experiences. In the FFA community, this means field days, conferences, and fairs are no longer occurring. The CATA and State FFA staff have taken a variety of steps to make virtual accommodations for many of these events, and counties statewide have done so as well. Many schools have been concerned with the cancellation of fairs and how to provide students with an enjoyable experience showing their animals. Nipomo FFA has decided to make its own accommodations and create a socially distanced, adapted fair experience for its members. This article will discuss some ideas on how to ensure a chapter’s fair will go on!
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