The Davis Enterprise Wednesday, February 19, 2020

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enterprise THE DAVIS

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2020

Public workshop looks at research campus

Malachi Taylor, 21, yellow shirt, leads a school tour for prospective students and their families at San Jose State in July. A new Davis High policy could make campus visits tougher for students.

BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer

ALISON YIN/HECHINGER REPORT PHOTO VIA CALMATTERS

Davis High cuts college visiting time BY ELAJE LOPEZ Enterprise correspondent When school started this year for Davis High School students, many were surprised to hear of the new attendance policy regarding college visits. In previous years, the policy had maintained that any Davis High student could have up to four excused absences dedicated to college visits, provided that the school received appropriate documentation before a student left for a trip. Now, the district has rewritten the rule, allowing no more than two days of excused absences, and only for seniors to make college visits. This comes on the heels of the Davis Joint Unified School District’s decision to focus in on increasing attendance through its We All Belong initiative. For the 2019-20 school year, the district stated that it is “committed to focusing on improving the following across the district and across all grade levels:

“1. Increase our messaging about the importance of attending school every day and on time. This will be at the site and district levels. “2. Increase contact with families struggling with attendance in the hopes of providing the needed support. “3. Increase our district-wide attendance average by 3%.” According to Maria Clayton, district public information officer, the California education code does not qualify college visits as excused absences, but that “this has been a practice of DJUSD for some time because we think it is an important use of discretion.” She also added that “DJUSD does not receive funds for students who are not attending school, so the expectation is that students plan to visit colleges or universities in summer, during holidays or other times when school is not in session.” Laura Juanitas, director of student services, also

emphasized the importance of attendance in the success of students. She added that the district’s approach for students seeking additional days for college visits is participation in short-term independent study, where a student can receive excused absences for five to 10 consecutive days if they sign an independent-study contract and inform their teachers in advance to allow teachers to give the students the assignments they will be missing while they are gone. The district receives state funding for students for the days they are excused by independent study. With regular excused absences, a student can make up any work missed while gone, but the school loses state funding. Hence, independent study is viewed as a win-win situation for both students and the school district. “Short-term independent study is a very well-used program. Teachers understand it

well and are used to working with it, and it allows the district to get paid while also allowing students to have protection for what they’ve missed (in school),” Juanitas explained. However, this new policy is worrisome for both students and parents faced with the prospect of either having only two days excused for college visits or having to take five or more days off from school to get excused absences for a trip. According to DHS parent Irene Joo, “Independent study will only work if you can successfully coordinate all your college visits consecutively. I think two days is not enough; it takes two days to fly there and back.” “It’s not very fair to students who are considering college outside of California,” said Tracey Soeth, who has a senior at Davis High and a sophomore in college. Recalling the family’s

SEE VISITING, PAGE A5

Analysts come out against green-loan proposal Lawmakers urged to reject Governor’s $1B plan BY RACHEL BECKER CalMatters Nonpartisan policy analysts took aim at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to use $1 billion in state funds to seed innovative climate change efforts, questioning the state’s ability to even identify the right projects. The Climate Catalyst Loan Fund, which Newsom included in his $222.2 budget proposal for next year, would offer lowinterest loans to public and private projects that would otherwise struggle to attract venture capital money or bank loans — particularly those intended to combat climate impacts of recycling, transportation, agriculture and forestry sectors. But experts at California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office,

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which assesses state policy and advises California’s Legislature, said the proposal was not “adequately justified,” according to a report published Feb. 13. Brian Weatherford, a senior fiscal-policy analyst who assessed the loan proposal, warned legislators that the administration may not be able to spot the best projects to fund. On the one hand, the proposal is inherently risky, the LAO found, as it focuses on projects that do not qualify for other loans or grants and that might fail. If they cannot repay the loan, that could drain the program. If, on the other hand, the state funds safer projects already eligible for conventional loans or grants, it wouldn’t help California cut greenhouse gases any more than it already is.

INDEX

Calendar . . . . . A6 Forum . . . . . . . .B4 Obituaries . . . . A4 Classifieds . . . .B5 Green Page . . . A3 Sports . . . . . . .B1 Comics . . . . . . .B7 Living . . . . . . . . A7 The Wary I . . . . A2

The Davis Planning Commission will hold a somewhat unusual workshop next week on a 200-acre innovation center and housing development proposed for a swath of land east of Mace Ranch. The workshop, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 26, will not result in a decision on whether to recommend the Aggie Research Campus for approval; rather, it will give commissioners and the public an opportunity to learn more about the proposal from city staff and the project applicants. The ARC proposal, if ultimately approved by Davis residents in a Measure R vote, would bring 2.64 million square feet of business and innovation space as well as 850 residential units to a site located east of Mace Boulevard and north of I-80. A supplemental environmental impact report is being prepared for the project and that supplemental report should evaluate any changes since the city in 2017 certified a final environmental impact report for what was then called the Mace Ranch Innovation Center. The MRIC proposal, which did not include a housing component, was put on hold by the applicants — Ramco Enterprises, Buzz Oates and Reynolds & Brown — after higherthan-expected costs and an economic analysis called the project’s financial feasibility into question. They

SEE WORKSHOP, PAGE A4

UCD programs could hinge on referendum turnout BY CALEB HAMPTON Enterprise staff writer

the Climate Catalyst Loan Fund to $1 billion over four years. But Weatherford and his team suggested starting smaller, with a pilot project. “We want them to

Student voting began Tuesday at UC Davis on a basic-needs-andservices fee referendum that would raise student fees to help fund student-run programs, including the Coffee House, Unitrans buses, the California Aggie newspaper, Picnic Day and other longstanding fixtures of the campus. The Associated Students of UC Davis (ASUCD), which runs the services, said the association will need to make significant cuts to the programs if students fail to approve a quarterly fee increase. Since 1979, UC Davis students have paid $8 per quarter in ASUCD

SEE ANALYST, PAGE A5

SEE REFERENDUM, PAGE A5

ANNE WERNIKOF/CALMATTERS PHOTO

Stacks of compressed aluminum await transport at greenwaste recovery facility. “They need to be able to repay the loan. So they can’t be too risky, and if they’re super safe, they can probably get funding from a conventional lender,” Weatherford said. The budget proposes to grow

WEATHER Thu Thursday: M Mostly cloudy. Hi High 65. Low 45.

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