By RIK ESPINOSA
In a different sort of “weed” eradication, members of a drug task force last week uprooted more than 10,000 marijuana plants worth about $15 million, a federal agent said.
The raid on Aug. 30 capped a month when the San Diego County Integrated Narcotics Task Force seized 64,754 marijuana plants in the North County worth close to $200 million, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Misha Piastro said.
“Each marijuana stalk will make about a half-pound of high grade marijuana bud,” Piastro said. A pound of marijuana sold on the streets of San Diego will cost about $3,000 and up, he said.
Officials would not disclose the exact location of the “marijuana plantation” but the Sheriff’s ASTREA helicopter, which hauled out multiple loads of marijuana in cargo nets, was flying from the Lake Henshaw area to a command post near the intersection of South Grade Road and Hwy 76.
While no arrests were made the day of the seizure, Piastro said, “We have made arrests in the past and we will make arrests in the future.
“With the size of these plantations, you are looking at a pretty serious federal offense,” the DEA spokesman said. Prison terms can range to ten or more years.
The area raided on Aug. 30 was several acres in size and the marijuana was planted among California oaks and other scrub brush to attempt hide it, he said.
The special agent would not say how this “plantation” was discovered.
“We don’t want to tip the bad guys off to our exact methods,” Piastro said. “(Generally) they are discovered by a variety of means primarily by spotting (marijuana plants) from the air.”
He said anyone who discovered someone growing marijuana or involved with any illegal drug should call the toll—free DEA’s hotline at (858) 616-4444.
Piastro cautions anyone hiking in remote areas to immediately leave if they stumble upon a large amount of marijuana growing and to call the DEA’s hotline.
Sometimes growers set up booby traps but running into a grower who is not going to be friendly to intruders is far more likely, he said.
About 20 officers and agents from the San Diego County Integrated Narcotics Task Force took part in the Aug. 30 raid, Piastro said.
The federally funded task force is a cooperative effort made up of law enforcement officers from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Dept., San Diego Police Department, many other local law enforcement agencies, the California Bureau of Narcotics, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement Administration
About 45 people who showed up at Wednesday’s Pala-Pauma Sponsor Group meeting to find out if California’s remaining Spanish land grant, Rancho Guejito, will get developed, left as uninformed as when they arrived.
“By the time they left, all of them were angry,” Pala-Pauma chairman Joe Chisholm told The Roadrunner.
The man who had been on the agenda to present the project, Jim Whalen of J. Whalen Associates, was told to cancel it by attorney Henry Rupp, who represents the owner.
Not that there wasn’t plenty of heated conversation about the possible development of what is probably the most pristine extensive private property in the County. But none of it bore any fruit.
Most of the frustration at the meeting, said Chisholm, was directed at Rupp, who repeatedly said that there is no project.
A representative of the Sierra Club, who, along with several other environmental activists, had attended to oppose the project, told Chisholm that he was “a pawn of the developers,” when he declined to take a vote opposing the project.
“I told them that no one had presented a project, so we couldn’t vote,” Chisholm said. “If we took a vote opposing the project without a presentation those people (the developers) would never show up here again.”
The 22,000 acre property is within the Pala-Pauma Sponsor Group’s jurisdiction, although it is near Lake Wohlford and runs nearly to the San Diego Wild Animal Park.
The land has been owned for decades by Benjamin Coates, a resident of Texas, through the Rodney Co. The 22,000 acre rancho is currently used as a cattle ranch and Coates occasionally lives there.
The land has come close several times to being purchased by the State for open space.
Previous to this meeting Whalen has done some work with the sponsor group and GP2020, attempted to oppose a designation of one unit /160 acres being applied to the property. The owner would prefer 1/40 acre zoning.
This may explain why a project has been discussed, said Chisholm.
“You need a rationale for having the density changed, so that may have led Whalen to approach the owners about a project,” said Chisholm.
The Roadrunner called Whalen to find out what’s going on and was referred to attorney Rupp. Rupp had not returned our calls at press time, so we remain as much in the dark about the project, or lack of a project, as anyone else.
Whalen, who did comment about the property to another newspaper, was quoted as saying that it would be “many, many years” before the property would ever be developed.
Previous to Wednesday’s meeting an email was sent by a member of the sponsor group to a mailing list that included the Sierra Club, appealing for help in opposing development of Rancho Gejuito:
“We feel this property has the highest ecological and archeological sensitivity and should be preserved for future generations. The State has wanted to acquire this property as parkland for a long time, and we think it is a tragedy that this might be destroyed by thoughtless urbanization. It is on the edge of Cleveland National Forest and the giant development would be a fist in the solar plexus of San Diego's backcountry environment,” said the plea.
CONTACTS FOR THIS STORY
JOE CHISHOLM
JIM WHALEN
Henry Rupp--attorney
800-519-4444.
909-698-1896
By DAVID ROSS
In VC schools English learners and children of poor families are still running to catch the No Child Left Behind bus.
The Accountability Progress Report issued by the State for VC’s schools last week shows that nowhere is this more true than at Pauma Elementary School. It is entering its fourth year of not meeting testing goals. This is called being in “Program Improvement.”
Yet, ironically, although it didn’t make its 2004 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals, test scores and other indicators of academic progress at Pauma have gone up dramatically for several years.
Even though the district’s schools are, as schools, meeting the academic goals set for them by this federal program, a school is still considered to fail AYP if any significant subgroup attending that school doesn’t make enough progress in API (Academic Progress Indicators).
The subgroups not making adequate progress in most schools are English learners, i.e. children whose first language is Spanish and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
They must meet the goals for both math and language. Succeeding at one, but failing at the other, will also fail to meet AYP.
Under those criteria most VC schools failed to meet the goals set for them.
And, each year, the bar rises a little so that it is still possible for a school to make progress but fail to meet state and national goals year after year.
It is also possible for a school’s scores to go down for several years and not fail to meet AYP goals, as long as the school started at a high enough level.
Example: The primary school, whose overall API dropped from 705 last year to 690 this year, met its AYP goals.
Example: District-wide math scores have declined for several years, but relative proficiency is still above the minimum level.
Every VC school, except the Independent Study School, achieved their minimum API, even though that was not true for all of their subgroups.
Supt. Karen Jobe commented that the AYP scores “are taken very seriously.”
Noting Pauma school’s “tremendous growth every year,” and the fact that it still failed to meet expectations,” she said, “I know it’s a handful of students who didn’t fall into the proficiency that keeps the school from being acknowledged for their progress. But those are the rules and we will follow the rules.”
The district has contacted the County Office of Education to find out what plan it must come up with to address the problem.
Sanctions against a school that doesn’t make the AYP goals for a fourth year include things like becoming a charter school, changing principals or changing staff.
Year 4 Program Improvement Options are that District Support and School Choice continue while the district must develop a plan for alternative governance of the school by selecting one of the following: Reopen the school as a charter; Replace all or most staff including the principal; contract with outside entity to manage the school; state takeover; any other major restructuring.
The ultimate threat is that the state will take over.
“Nobody knows what that means,” said Mrs. Jobe.
Why that particular school should have such a problem is puzzling, she says.
“We all use the same materials and the same adopted text. All students should be succeeding, but when I see negative score we are obviously concerned.”
Ken Clark, director of curriculum for the district explained that under AYP rules 12% of all subgroups must be at “proficient or above.”
Last year the district had problems with the number of students who participated in the tests. If not enough students take the test, the school can also be penalized.
Since students’ grades are not tied to AYP scores there is not much incentive for families to make their kids take the test.
“We’ve got that squared away this year,” said Clark.
Primary School
As noted above, the school’s API dropped from 705 to 690.
“This is a concern,” said Clark. One reason the school met its goal was that it’s a small school. In order for a subgroup to be considered large enough to negatively affect a school’s AYP goals, it must have more than 50 students.
Lilac Elementary
Being a new school, Lilac has nothing to compare from last year. Overall the school met its AYP goals.
Nevertheless, one of the school’s subgroups, English learners, made AYP in math, but only achieved an 8.4% proficient or above in English language arts.
It failed to meet AYP goals.
Pauma Elementary School
English learners at the school were 10.3% proficient or above (12.8% is needed). They met the goals in math.
Pauma’s scores have been going up consistently and their subgroup scores have been going up.
“They keep increasing their scores but each year they can’t quite catch up,” said Clark.
The district has implemented previous sanctions imposed because Pauma was a “program improvement” school.
“You need to implement new curriculum, which we’ve done,” said Clark. “You have to have more professional development for staff, which we’ve done. It’s a broad list, and we have done everything on the list, including bringing in County office support and providing Title I program funding to support intervention.”
Next year’s options get stronger. They can include changing principals and bringing in the State to run the school.
Palomar Mountain School
This school has too few students to be ranked. Nevertheless, its students are scoring well, said Clark.
Lower Elementary School
Overall the school made its goals. Both English learners and poor students achieved math goals, but failed to do so in English language arts. Next year if the school doesn’t do better in math, it is likely to be hit by the AYP moving up.
Upper Elementary School
The school has been notified that it is a potential year one program improvement school because its English learners were OK, but socioeconomic students did not make it in math for the second year in a row.
Middle School
English learners failed to meet goals in language arts, achieving 12.3% when they needed 12.8.
They scored well in math. If they simply maintain that score next year they will meet math goals.
Overall, said Clark, the school increased test scores in both math and language arts. But it wasn’t enough.
Just how close run such things can be is shown in the fact that Middle School principal Chris Sommer and Pauma principal Mary Gorsuch identified just a few students who, if their scores had been slightly higher, would have brought the schools into compliance.
In one school 12 students in each grade level were one point below proficient.
At Pauma school the low socioeconomically disadvantaged subgroup had three students who scored 349. If they had scored 351 they would have made the AYP, he said.
Valley Center High School
The school met its AYP goals, but with one caveat. Due to a problem with demographic data special education students were not identified. This data has to be corrected. Once it is it will create a subgroup that may be a concern, because special ed students in the past have not met AYP at VCHS.
Oak Glen
The school improved in both math and language and made a significant jump in API scores. But since the total student population is under 50, the school wasn’t ranked.
Independent Study School
The school’s total API is below the 560 and it dropped from last year. Part of that is because of increased enrollment.
“Before we didn’t have enough students to have valid scores,” said Clark.
Summing up the progress report, Clark commented, “The reality is overall in terms of the areas of AYP we have improved. What is occurring is we are beginning to clearly isolate the students that we need to focus on in terms of improving their performance. An obvious area of focus needs to be our English language arts with our English learners and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. In the broader picture, we are concerned about the API. I think that’s more reflective of our issues of math in the upper elementary grades.”
Clark added, “When we implemented our Standards-Based Report Card in Grades K-3 the common assessments helped us to establish more consistency in the taught curriculum, which allows us to identify and intervene with students who are not preforming.
“This year we are implementing the standards based report card in grades 4-6 and have identified common assessments and common curriculum that is directly tied to the California state standards. This will provide us with data on the areas students are struggling with and allow us to develop intervention strategies.”
Candidates comment
Two school board candidates, Mike Morasco and Dennis White, commented about the AYP scores:
Morasco told The Roadrunner, “It doesn’t make a lot of sense where we have other local schools who have not only met but exceeded their targets for the primary areas of math, science and language arts, yet we seem to be doing the opposite. We are backsliding. To me this demonstrates a inherent problem to the system that we are currently utilizing. I believe that looking outside of our district to those districts that have demonstrated success and attempting to implement those programs will help us.
“One of those is pre and post testing on those particular subject areas. If there’s not proficiency demonstrated in that subject area they don’t go forward until they demonstrate proficiency,” said Morasco.
White told The Roadrunner: “The recent 2004 AYP results show that approximately fifty percent of our high school seniors are not proficient in language arts and math. From personal experience many young adults graduating from VCHS write poorly, can read only simple material and can solve only basic math problems. We don’t need to wait until 2006 when the state mandates that graduating seniors pass the high school exit exam (CAHSEE) to receive a diploma to recognize that many of our students will not receive a diploma.”
The Valley Roadrunner
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