WNC Magazine Wine and Food Festival

This past weekend, the Folk School traveled to Asheville to represent our cooking program in a Wine and Food Festival.  The annual festival, sponsored by WNC Magazine, celebrates and promotes local food sources, from wineries to restaurants and specialty food producers.  Tasting glasses and plates in hand, participants strolled through the Agricultural Center, enjoying what vendors had to offer.  The Folk School stood out, and not just because we had the most attractive booth (which we certainly did), but also because we are a school.  Few of the other vendors offered cooking classes.  As the samples of chocolate chili zucchini bread, southern cheese pennies, and smoked trout dip lured people to our booth, we familiarized them with the variety of classes the Folk School has to offer.  Participants were delighted by our fresh, colorful display of flowers and produce, all harvested by our Folk School gardeners.  Nanette Davidson was first on schedule to present a short talk on the Folk School, after which she hurried back to our booth to demonstrate how easy it is to make white gazpacho and raspberry buttermilk sorbet in a food processor, with fresh, seasonal, healthy ingredients, of course.  (See Nanette for recipes.)

Want to sign up for a cooking class at the Folk School?  Our spacious, state of the art cooking studio hosts a variety of delectable classes such as chocolate, cheese making, artisan breads, canning, hearth cooking, and food of many nationalities.  Click here for a list of our cooking classes.

Colleges embrace online education

Alissa Dimock gazes into her laptop and studies a litigation lesson from a Los Angeles community college – all in the comfort of her South Pasadena bedroom.

Dimock has never met her professor. She’s also never sat in his class or set eyes on her fellow paralegal students at Los Angeles Mission College.

Instead, her studies rely on a virtual pedagogic exchange, tapped out every day on a keyboard 25 miles from the Sylmar campus.

“It’s terrific,” said Dimock, 44, seated next to a stack of law books. “I never have to go to school. It’s great.”

Her class, Law 11-Civil Litigation, is among the steadily growing number of online courses being taught at community colleges throughout Los Angeles and California. In fact, community colleges are leading the way in online education, with annual online enrollments growing about 20 percent nationally over the past few years.

The two-year colleges are following the successes of private universities like the University of Phoenix and National University that have conferred online degrees for years. They’re also setting an example for four-year universities that are now kicking their online studies programs into high gear.

The growth in online learning is a response to the demands of a busy public, desperate to acquire new skills in a fast-changing jobs market that will make most Americans take on multiple careers throughout their lifetimes. And in Los Angeles, it’s a reaction to traffic gridlock.

Ironically, the push for online learning comes as Los Angeles community colleges complete a $6 billion campus construction makeover. The expansion of brick-and-mortar classrooms is in full swing as the nine campuses position themselves to offer all transferable classes on the Internet.

In the past decade, students enrolled in online courses across the Los Angeles Community College District have risen from a handful to nearly

11 percent of the student body, according to the district.

“You can see the trend – steep,” said Gary Columbo, vice chancellor of institutional effectiveness for the nation’s largest community college district. “It’s all changed. Harvard and MIT (now) offer courses online. “It’s a whole new world.”

Across the state, a growing number of the 112 community colleges have notified accreditors that more than half their lower division courses could be taught online.

A report by community colleges Chancellor Jack Scott last year reported nearly 18 percent growth in distance education enrollment in 2008, to nearly 500,000 students.

Proponents of online instruction tout many benefits, including more overall class participation and singular attention by professors.

Distance learning also grants greater access to nontraditional students, they say, allowing more flexibility to hit the books instead of fighting heavy L.A. traffic en route to campus. It also presents a digital medium familiar to younger students, while adding a powerful multimedia tool to traditional face-to-face classes.

More common are hybrid courses of traditional and online learning, as well as a growing number of hybrid students who take both online and traditional classes.

“It’s service to students,” said then-Interim Chancellor Tyree Wieder. “Our students need the opportunity to be able to enroll in online classes, so it’s fulfilling our mission of providing those classes.”

While virtual instruction can potentially save the community college district in classroom costs, administrators say it costs upward of $500,000 a year in licenses to use online learning software.

Another downside, some say, is that computer classes require too much discipline from students, especially those prone to procrastinate or drop courses when they study online.

Then there is the general criticism that computer course work simply cannot recreate the unique dynamic of a traditional classroom or campus life. Some online students have complained they feel isolated and virtually on their own.

Online students, on average, also don’t do as well as their face-to-face classroom counterparts, according to the LACCD. An average 58 percent of purely online distance learners earned a C or better last year, compared with 68 percent of regular class students. The dually enrolled students did slightly worse. In addition, up to 10 percent more students who study online fail to complete their classes.

When Alisa Dimock first thought about online studies, she imagined it would be like the nighttime TV infomercials she had seen advertising some questionable school. Now she’s thrilled with the rigor – and flexibility – of the program.

“I couldn’t be happier,” said Dimock, a native of Minnesota. “Online, you do the research yourself. It’s sink or swim. You also have to work harder. … Taking these classes, you know every area of the law. If and when I go to law school, I can fast-track.”

The University of California has also jumped on the online bandwagon. Last month, its regents agreed to develop an Internet-based undergraduate degree program that will save money and expand access to tuition-paying students.

Also, students like Dimock no longer have to drive long distances to enroll in a specific program offered only at one school. Unconstrained by geography, the colleges could draw students from out of state – along with hefty out-of-state tuition.

The growth of online programs is seemingly endless, but Los Angeles administrators say each school has caps on the number of students funded by the state. So while online enrollments soared from nearly 2,700 in 2000 to 55,000 last year, administrators predict a plateau in online growth.

Nothing tells the story of how popular the courses have become better than the numbers. More than 4.6 million students across the U.S. studied online in the fall of 2008, a 17percent jump over the previous year, according to a Sloan Survey of Online Learning.

That means one college student in four now takes an online class, according to the survey of 2,500 colleges published earlier this year. And three out of four public universities see online growth as critical to their long-term strategy.

Dimock, however, acknowledges it’s not for anyone.

“Would I recommend my son take an online program? Absolutely not,” she said. “I want him to meet friends, play sports, live in the dorm, have the typical college experience. But as an older student, it’s perfect. I’m not going to meet friends.”

Parents welcome return of sales tax holiday

, and Laura Hampson

WELLINGTON — Clutching supply lists with specifications rivaling a military defense contract and clamoring for dress code-approved clothing, parents are using the statewide sales tax holiday to stretch their back-to-school dollar.

Today is the second day of tax-free shopping for office supplies that cost $10 or less. Clothes, books and shoes at $50 or less are also tax-free until midnight Sunday. The tax break was put on hold for two years because of budget constraints, but some retailers pushed hard to have it return this year.

Parents shopping for their children Friday said that while the break on the 6.5 percent tax is helpful, discounts offered by retailers are often better deals.

First offered in 1998, the holiday has lasted as many as 10 days. It was widely popular among consumers and retailers, who said it helped spur sales and save shoppers money.

“When a tax-free holiday happens, it can be like a weekend near Christmas. It can be that busy,” said Frank Wilison, JCPenney store manager at The Mall at Wellington Green. He said the store beefs up its uniform selection for tax holidays.

Michelle Machazek of West Palm Beach said she waited until this weekend to buy uniforms at JC­Penney for her son, 10-year-old Joseph Rex. She said that while the tax break helps, she also waited for the deep sales stores offer just before school starts.

Looking for dress code-approved shorts at the store, Christine Kelly of Lake Worth and her daughter, Hannah, 12, braved the crowd Friday. She said she waited until the tax break to buy clothes and shoes. “It’s a great deal to wait. Unfortunately you’re stuck in line, but patience is a virtue,” Kelly said.

Melisa Dowling of Lake Worth said her friends didn’t want to shop during the tax holiday because of crowds. She said she went to the mall anyway for the tax break and the sales. However, the holiday doesn’t entice her to buy more than usual for her son Logan, 4, and daughter Madison, 8, she said.

Prices are a little cheaper during the tax-free weekend, said Rhonda DeCastro of Boca Raton, who waited until Friday to buy clothes for her stepdaughter, Alexandra, 12. De­Castro said the savings don’t add up to much for supplies, but it does make a big difference on clothes.

Roxanna Rossi of Royal Palm Beach said she would spend a couple of hundred dollars on gear for her three children. While shopping at Office Depot in Royal Palm Beach on Friday, she said her biggest purchase would be graphing calculators for higher-level math. They cost about $100 but are not tax-free, since the holiday is for office supplies that are $10 or less.

Angela Christian of The Acreage said the tax holiday would be better if it were longer because often middle and high school students do not know what they need until classes start. She bought supplies she knew her three children would need at Target in Royal Palm Beach on Friday, but said she’d have to come back.

This Week at the Folk School August 1-7

Jewelry students of all skill levels learned to create wire-wrapped adornments: pendants, earrings, rings and bracelets. Many students chose to enfold precious stones in gold or sterling silver.

When drawing in only black and white, shades play a huge role in the definition of objects. So for the drawing class, this was definitely an area of focus. On a clear sunny morning, students had the opportunity to head outdoors and experience how light influences areas of brightness and shade in nature. The sun exuded its rays over trees and flowers, and also the surroundings behind them, to show how things can be made apparent even by the lightness of the background.

Raw focus and constant steadiness are vital for the beginning Glass Bead student.  Using a searing flame to shape and mold the beads, they make designs and patterns on the tiny, morphous canvases.

The woodworking studio was put into use this week for a class in Shaker Boxes, which are small lidded boxes. Though the work is tedious (here a student inserts several minuscule screws into the bent wood) the results are exponentially satisfying.

In the Mosaics class, students placed colorful pieces of tile onto panels, and arranged them into vibrant designs and images. The finished products were to be used for purposes varying from home display to tabletop usage to gifts.

In the Broom Making class, it’s all about technique. Students learn to weave a myriad of styles of brooms, such as the cobweb and turkey wing, in many different ways. To make the fruit of their effort even more worth it, those partaking in the class also go out and collect the gnarled wooden branches that they sand and finish for the broom handles.

The Surface Design class had a blast experimenting with their creative chi this week. The students took a bland piece of fabric and used different coloring techniques to generate patterns and designs. Some turned out looking expressive and earthy in tone, while others resembled closely a kaleidoscope. Many of the students are quilters and fiber artists and will incorporate these creative fabrics into their own works.

In the new and recently opened Clay Spencer Blacksmith Shop, 3 father and son pairs worked together and individually to acquire new smithing skills.

Bluegrass Banjo is as essential to Appalachian culture as hot dogs are to baseball games, so this class was filled to the brim. Even those who like to take songs slow and steady found themselves jamming out with others.

Written By: Taylor, Summer Intern from Murphy High School

El Camino trustee’s continued stipend while absent questioned

A trustee on the five-member board of directors at El Camino College near Torrance hasn’t attended a meeting in nearly a year, and yet has continued to receive his $400-a-month stipend in absentia.

The elderly Nathaniel Jackson, a former dean at the school and the board’s Inglewood representative, has been out ill since September 2009. Because he is sick, Jackson is not legally required to give up his seat. Nor does he appear to be violating any laws by accepting pay, although a state investigator is looking into the matter.

Still, the long absence has caught the eye of at least one board watcher, area political consultant Fred Huebscher.

“It’s outrageous an elected body would countenance somebody being absent for month after month,” he said. “If he’s ill, he can appear telephonically, and that hasn’t happened either. … To have 20 percent of the board absent month after month is a real disservice.”

School officials counter that it hasn’t been an issue, noting that the board hasn’t had a close vote during his entire absence.

“In the last year I can count on one hand the number of votes that are not 4-0,” El Camino College President Tom Fallo said. “We miss his advice and insight, but it has not had an adverse impact on operations.”

That’s not to say there haven’t been close votes in recent years.

Four years ago, Jackson was one of three trustees who voted in favor of a controversial plan to take over Compton Community College, which lost its accreditation in 2006 due to out-of-control financial instability. Two trustees voted no.

Officials at El Camino would not discuss the specific nature of Jackson’s illness, other than to say that he had some sort of surgery in the fall of 2009. Jackson, who is about 80, did not return a call from the Daily Breeze.

Jackson’s year of absence seems out of step with a prior record of stellar attendance: He has missed only 14 monthly meetings during his 15 years on the governing body, said Ann Garten, the school’s director of community relations. His term expires in December 2011.

It also appears that he voted in the last primary. According to the Los Angeles County Registar/Recorder’s Office, an 80-year-old Inglewood man of the same name – and the only registered voter in that city named Nathaniel Jackson – cast a vote on June 8.

Jackson’s history with the school spans three decades. The holder of a doctorate in human psychological behavior and education leadership from United States International University, he began working at El Camino as a psychology instructor in 1983. He served as the dean to the school’s vocational-education division from 1985-1989. He has also worked as a psychologist in the Air Force.

Board member Bill Beverly, whose 19-year tenure makes him the panel’s longest-serving member, said the board’s hands are tied.

“Unless we were being handicapped or crippled in our operations, we could no more punish a sick member than we could discriminate against anybody else on the basis of a disability or infirmity,” he said.

A reading of the state Education Code seems to indicate that the board is not out of compliance.

The law states that a member may be paid for any meeting missed so long as the board reflects in its meeting minutes that he or she is ill, as the El Camino College board has done.

However, David Demerjian, head of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s Public Integrity Division, has said the stipend could be an issue. Demerjian received a complaint on the matter this week.

“We haven’t made a determination one way or the other and will not make that determination until we conduct a full inquiry,” he wrote in an e-mail. “We do not reach conclusions until we have ascertained all of the relevant facts.”

Interestingly, a few years ago the law stated that sick board members could be paid for no more than two consecutive absences, but the law changed sometime in the late 1990s. Now it is up to each individual board to set the policy.

400 teaching recruits get pep talks

Marc Freeman

Stephen Cochran says he did his homework before deciding to teach in Palm Beach County this year: The 20-year veteran math teacher from the San Francisco Bay area scoured websites to read articles about the curriculum controversy that disrupted the school system.

“I feel like I’m coming in right after the hurricane has been cleared up,” said Cochran, who relocated to South Florida and was recently hired to teach at Spanish River High in Boca Raton. “I imagine if I started last year I would have been questioning myself the whole way. Now the storm has passed.”

For about 400 new county teachers, upbeat orientation activities on Monday included suggestions from recent award-winning teachers, and talk of “new beginnings” both for these educators and the district. Classes start on Aug. 17.

Yet the recruits arrive at a time when the county Classroom Teachers Association is at war with the school district over money for salaries – there have been no raises for two years. In additions, educators and parents remain bitter over last year’s botched academic initiatives that forced teachers to follow scripted lessons and testing schedules.

But in a cheery address in the auditorium of Santaluces High School, union President Robert Dow – appearing robust from his recent cancer recovery – declared, “teaching is the best job in the world.”

Schools Superintendent Art Johnson used a video graphic to show the new teachers that the district has received an A rating from the state for the past six years.

“You are joining a very successful team,” he said . He praised the system’s more than 12,000 teachers for the ranking that is the best for urban districts in Florida.