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SB Elementary Schools Receive Large Grant
updated: Sep 29, 2011, 12:58 PM

Source: Lois Capps' Office

Today, Congresswoman Lois Capps (CA-23) announced that Santa Barbara Elementary School District has been awarded a three year, nearly $1.2 million grant from the Department of Education's Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Demonstration Program. The federal funding will allow the Santa Barbara Elementary School District to expand counseling programs in five high-need elementary schools to assist students with emotional and behavioral problems, reduce disciplinary referrals and allow students to focus on learning.

"We know that some of our students face extraordinary personal circumstances that can have tremendous impact on their performance and concentration in the classroom," said Capps. "That is why we must make sure students have access to the vital services of our school counselors and social workers. Getting these important services to our students will help all of them succeed." "School counselors benefit both students and teachers by helping to create a safe school environment, improve teacher effectiveness, increase academic achievement and promote student well-being," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "We believe that school-based counseling programs offer great promise for improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of students with mental-health issues."

Grantees also will use funds to help increase the number of available and qualified counselors based on a school's student population. Research shows that having adequate counseling services can help reduce the number of disciplinary referrals in schools, improve student attendance and academic performance and enhance development of social skills. Funds also may be used to support parental involvement, counselor and teacher professional development, and collaboration with community-based organizations that provide mental health and other services to students.

For more information about the program, log onto the website. ###

Comments in order of when they were received | (reverse order)

COMMENT 218374	2011-09-29 01:19 PM
Stop giving Lois Capps money to spend! How many years has she been in office and nothing has changed for the better in are local schools. Time for a change!!!
COMMENT 218375P	2011-09-29 01:19 PM
Close down the City's RDA and we would not need federal grants. We do not have enough money for our schools, yet we are wasting money on RDA projects, so we need federal grants that will just add to our deficit.
COMMENT 218384	2011-09-29 01:33 PM
More Federal heroin for the California junky.
COMMENT 218410	2011-09-29 02:51 PM
Only here would we find people who would be against federal funds being spent locally on education.
COMMENT 218414	2011-09-29 03:03 PM
@410 There's a certain honesty in these posters' statements, though. Their argument is that they already got a free, high quality education at taxpayer expense. If they can save a penny on taxes by withholding the same opportunity from our children, why not? Just like taking candy from a baby....
COMMENT 218418	2011-09-29 03:20 PM
I'm all for spending money on children. I'm all against spending for homeless library courtyard remodels, teachers union pensions, bulbouts, foreign wars, wall street bailouts, etc. Enough is enough.
COMMENT 218420P	2011-09-29 03:28 PM
The argument is more like -- Why are we wasting money on things like Redevelopment when the $20M a year the City spends on the RDA would be better spent on education and safety and we would not need to go into more debt. The city of SB acts like spoiled adolescents spending money on expensive clothing (read brick sidewalks and bulb outs) so their friends will think they are worth hanging out with. They can not be bothered with education.
COMMENT 218422	2011-09-29 03:49 PM
Department of Education money has nothing to do with the RDA or our city's financial woes. This is a grant that is going to be awarded by the Federal Department of Education some school district in the nation -- why would anyone complain that it's coming here? And Lois Capps is our representative in the Federal government. She has no control over funding for our local schools, except when she helps facilitate obtaining grant money, like this. In other words, she's not just doing her job, she's also making it easier for local government agencies to do theirs.
COMMENT 218426P	2011-09-29 04:20 PM
Maybe that is the whole problem -- We have people like Lois looking for funding to cover for a badly run city government. The dad spends all the money on booze so the mother applies for food stamps. Can we fix the real problem?
COMMENT 218433	2011-09-29 04:50 PM
No, 375P, that's not what it's like at all. It's like mom going to work in an office, while dad goes to work in a factory. Just like families need more than one income to survive, communities need more than one income source to fund essential programs and services. The "real problem" is that the wealthy are paying the lowest taxes in U.S. history, while wages for working Americans have stagnated for the last decade, which means less tax revenues for all levels of government.
COMMENT 218438P	2011-09-29 05:12 PM
422 -- according to your logic the guy that spends all his money on booze and has no money for food should be given more money -:)
COMMENT 218448	2011-09-29 05:51 PM
375P: No, that's according to your logic. My logic is that everyone works and everyone earns money and it takes a whole lot of hard-working people and lots of money to get anything done in this world, whether it's supporting a family, or funding schools. Lois Capps is working hard and doing exactly the job she was elected to do -- represent our district at the Federal level and bring Federal funding to the South Coast. The "drunk guy" in this scenario is the wealthy people who've been partying for the last decade -- earning more and paying less in taxes. And now that they've sobered up a bit and realized there's no money left, they expect the working people who've been paying all along to pay even more. No thanks!
COMMENT 218449	2011-09-29 05:51 PM
#8433 The problem is not taxing the wealthy more, the problem is all the spending like $535 million to Solyndra that is going bust in less than one year and that is only one of many examples.. It doesn't matter how much money the government gets they will spend that and it will never be enough. As far as the grant, the money never makes it to the kids, it is all spent on the people at the top and their pensions.
COMMENT 218490	2011-09-29 08:06 PM
What a waste of money! Federal grants for schools? Where does Washington get off on funding our schools? In this day and age these kinds of wasteful expenditures should be eliminated. Cut, cut, cut! Oh, by the way... our schools are broken. Total waste of money. Education is a prime candidate for major cuts and cost savings. That'll fix our broken schools. Maybe if people got a real-life education instead of useless book learning those egghead college-boy government-types will stop telling us how to live our lives!
SBJULES	2011-09-29 08:09 PM
You do know that the Solyndra loan Guarantee was approved by the Bush administration, #449. If not, shame on you. You may remember that Bush was very much for solor power.
RAYGOLD	2011-09-29 09:29 PM
The Solyndra loan process was NOT approved by President Bush's administration. The loan process was started in President Bush's administration but was held up. It was approved by Obama's administration after Obama's big money campaign bundlers lobbied the Obama administration. This is why there are multple investigations going on at this time.
COMMENT 218503	2011-09-29 10:31 PM
Can we, you know, not talk about Solyndra which is completely irrelevant to a discussion about schools, school funding and things related to our local Representative? As far as this spending is concerned, it sounds nice. Our education system definitely needs all the help it can get wherever it can get it.
COMMENT 218519	2011-09-30 06:41 AM
She sure has been showboating and announcing lots of photo ops around the county lately it must be elections time to have awakened her from the coma she is normally suffering here in her district.
RAYGOLD	2011-09-30 08:21 AM
This is known in political parlance as "bringing home the bacon". Unfortunately as a country we are borrowing about 40 cents on every dollar we spend.
COMMENT 218581	2011-09-30 09:06 AM
Again - she showed up and read from a piece of paper - I can bet she didn't do the grant paperwork for the SB airport - the SM airport or this education grant. Just so you know that peolsi's brother just got millions in green loans for a project in Ca. As far as education goes - the number one school in the NYC district is in Harlem - and it's a charter school - no unions - it receives less money on average per student - they just base everything on high performance. teachers & students - I think we need to move in the charter school direction and stop tenure and make it easier to fire bad teachers. It seem to work - it's not just throwing money at the situation which has never worked.
COMMENT 218665	2011-09-30 12:09 PM
Hey 422. Lois is in fact the partying rich you speak of. She is the one who is making the inflated self appointed salary complete with bullet proof benefits and cost of living increases to keep her free ride smooth. She represents those that feed at the public trough. Always easy to look generous when you are spending other people's money. Greed is selective isn't it??? As long as your cause is benefitting.....you'll look the other way as she grandstands with the public's checkbook in hand. If she voted for harsher budget matters and common sence accounting that all of us in the private sector live by, you would be up in arms if you were one of the public trough feeders! Not taking my stuff away! You're funny when you are exposed.

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