There probably aren't many of you who'll remember G.E. College Bowl, a television show from the 1960's.

The idea was pretty simple. Two four-member teams representing various colleges and universities from around the country answered questions tossed out by a moderator. Think Jeopardy, only by team, rather than an individual.

This Saturday, there's a similar event, only it's for high school kids, and it's right here in Palo Alto.

The Bay Area Regional Science Bowl will be held Saturday at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Panofsky Auditorium.

Last year's winner was Palo Alto High, beating out Homestead HS and Harker HS.

SLAC Media Manager Andy Freeberg tells us the Science Bowl is an event that has never really been pitched to spectators.

Says Freeberg, "It turns out that it actually is open to the public, and (it) sounds like the last few rounds can be pretty exciting but we’ve never really advertised it to the public in the past; mostly it’s the students and their parents."
 
Freeberg says each round lasts about 30 minutes, 20 minutes plus a 10 minute buffer. He says the real tournament starts at 1:00 p.m. and runs until it ends. The public can come any time between 1:00-3:00 p.m. to Panofsky Auditorium, which has plenty of seats and is right next to the visitor center. The final round will likely occur sometime around 3:00 p.m.

Freeberg says that when visitors arrive, they should notify security at the front gate that they’re at SLAC for the Science Bowl, show photo ID and park in any of the lots near the Visitor Center and Panofsky Auditorium.

About one in six Gunn or Palo Alto high school graduates goes directly to Foothill or De Anza community college, according to the college chancellor.

Linda Thor, chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, spoke at a reception Sunday at the Palo Alto home of Elaine Andersen, a member of a Foothill College "friends" group.

Sunday's reception drew several dozen PTA and other community leaders, including Palo Alto school board member Barbara Klausner, Palo Alto Mayor Sid Espinosa, City Council member Pat Burt and State Sen. Joe Simitian.

In the fall of 2009, about 18 percent of Paly and Gunn graduates entered Foothill or De Anza, and the rate over the past decade has ranged between 13 percent and 19 percent, Thor said.

According to Foothill statistics, about 80 percent of Palo Alto students meet their goals of completing preparation for transfer or successfully transferring to a four-year university.

Between 2004 and 2009, Palo Alto students attending Foothill or De Anza transferred to about 95 different four-year institutions, including every University of California campus, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Mount Holyoke, Northeastern, Occidental, the University of Michigan, the University of Southern California and Yale, Thor said.

Foothill-De Anza students ranked No. 1 among 72 community colleges in California for UC transfers in 2010, Thor said.

The colleges' Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) program guarantees Foothill or De Anza students admission as juniors to certain UC or other campuses if they meet agreed-upon grade and course requirements.

Foothill and De Anza have TAG agreements with UC campuses at Davis, Irvine, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, as well as with some private universities, including Cornell, Thor said.

UCLA and Berkeley do not have TAG agreements with any college. However, Foothill has a "special transfer relationship" with UCLA called the Transfer Alliance Program. It does not guarantee admission, but in 2010 more than 80 percent of the Foothill honors students who used the program were admitted to UCLA, Thor said.

Andersen, the hostess of Sunday's event, is a member of the Foothill Commission, a group dedicated to promoting and raising funds for the school in the community. She received an associate's degree from Foothill in 1969 before earning her bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees from Stanford University. She is a professor of linguistics and neuroscience at the University of Southern California.

With balloons, flowers, music and pure glee, students at Gunn and Palo Alto high schools as well as Castilleja School celebrated graduations this week. Below are reports from the festivities.

Palo Alto High School (Wednesday, June, 8):

Palo Alto High School's 403 graduating seniors added an honorary member to their ranks Wednesday.

Eugene Bradford, who would have graduated with Paly's class of 1953 but joined the U.S. Marines to fight in Korea instead, got a standing ovation as he was wheeled to the podium to receive his Paly diploma from Principal Phil Winston.

"I don't need my legs to say, 'Thank you, 2011,'" a tearful Bradford said.

The ovation for Bradford followed student speeches and musical performances in a typically festive and occasionally raucous celebration that packed the Paly quad with more than 1,000 people.

Senior Class President Jack Smale recited various feats of the class -- producing dozens of National Merit Scholarship finalists, a ranking debate team, two state athletic championships and award-winning scientists and journalists.

"But what impressed me most is ... we still managed to come together as geeks, jocks, thespians, musicians, artists and more to prove that we're one class," Smale said.

Osceola Ward, a student in the Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program, described his daily commute from "the cracked concrete and McDonald's ... that served the children of my neighborhood to the smooth sidewalks and palatial homes" of his elementary school classmates.

"I stand before you the humble child of the cities of both East Palo Alto and Palo Alto," Ward said.

"I implore you not to be content with titles and names ... but to understand that success and giving back to the community are truly one and the same".

Quinn Walker evoked the intellectual journeys made in Paly's classrooms -- to the Battle of Brandywine, the French Revolution, or the Romanian home country of math teacher Radu Toma -- as a foreshadowing of the class's world travels ahead.

"As we spread out ... we aren't really going anywhere we haven't been before," Walker said.

Holding up a scuffed home plate, Will Glazier, a member of this year's CCS Championship baseball team, likened high school to a run around the bases.

"Our journey around this diamond has taught us that being perfect has nothing to do with the end result ... but with knowing in our hearts that we held nothing back, that we did all we could for this school and community," Glazier said, urging classmates to pursue their passions even if they seem unconventional.

Wes Rapaport, winner of Paly's top honor, the Viking Award, told classmates: "If you follow your dreams and get involved in activities you have fun participating in, everything else in life will follow."

Asking all the student speakers to line up, the last one, Chirag Krishna, pointed to his classmates: "Every time I think I've done something well, a member of this class steps up and does it better.

"By the time the world realizes this, it will truly be our oyster. I speak with no shame when I say I have truly been outclassed."

Gunn High School (Wednesday, June, 8):

Amid the cheering and clouds of balloons, and the flowers either brought by relatives or dangling around their necks, the 356 graduating seniors of Gunn High School Wednesday were urged to proceed with the courage that has characterized them in their formative years and to embrace their dreams.

"Courage is falling off and climbing back on again," Principal Katya Villalobos told graduates.

"Courage is exploring heights and depths, holding on to the dream, and sometimes having to say goodbye," she said.

Quoting Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," Villalobos said: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what."

Max Lipscomb, one of two student speakers, said, "Roughly all graduation speeches say the same thing: that our school is the best, that our students go on to do many great things, that we will all be friends forever. I find it hard to believe that we will achieve all of those things simultaneously."

But referring to his two years at private school, Lipscomb emphasized the power of Gunn in providing new experiences and in enabling him to deal with hardship and personal tragedy in a positive way.

"The people there knew no hardship, and neither did I. Given what I know now, and given the opportunity to go back, I would not take it," he said.

"We have experienced personal tragedy meant for people four times our age, but still we stand," Lipscomb said. "It is my honor to stand for one final time with the Class of 2011 as we celebrate our separation."

The evening's second student speech came from Reade Levinson, who emphasized the strong and opportunity-rich community that Gunn's graduates are emerging from.

"We started in Silicon Valley, we started already half way there. Challenge yourself to find your own success," she urged.

"Don't spend all of college preparing for grad school," Levinson said.

"You won't look back, at 90 years old, and remember that French test you failed. But you will remember that time you stayed up until 3 a.m. watching 'Love Actually' and eating the best red velvet cupcakes of your life.

"Go somewhere. Do something fantastic. Making an impact can be as easy as giving a smile as you pass someone walking across the quad," she said.

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren D-San Jose, a member of Gunn's first graduating class of 1966, was on hand to deliver a speech in place of U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo D-Palo Alto, whose appearance was cancelled due to an appendectomy.

"Tonight, instead of telling you to find your passion, Anna and I tell you to find your calling, to find where you can make a difference," Lofgren said.

"Many of you have already begun," she said, referring to the counter-protests held last year against the Westboro Baptist Church's anti-gay picketing.

"On that day a problem found you, and you found a solution. And you let that solution change you."

Quoting New York Times columnist David Brooks, Lofgren added: "The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It's to lose yourself. Class of 2011, lose yourself."

In presenting the 2011 class gift, class president Ori Herschmann and vice-president Paula Jung announced that the $4,311 raised would go towards the athletics department and weight room.

"Thank you, on behalf of the Gunn community, for giving us all of these wonderful memories, and for reminding us every single day that teaching is best job in the world," Villalobos said.

Once again, a large crowd turned out for the regular meeting of the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Board of Education on Tuesday night. This time, however, the hot-button topic was not school calendars; rather, it was a passionate discussion over whether or not the district should increase graduation requirements for high school students, in an effort to ensure a higher percentage of students will graduate being “college ready.”

Specifically, the Board is suggesting that Gunn and Paly high schools should make “A-G” requirements mandatory for all students, beginning with the graduating class of 2016, which will start school in the fall of 2012.

“A-G” refers to the requirements held by both the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems to make a student eligible for admission. It sets forth a minimum number of years students must take in various subjects—known as the “A-G” subjects—such as English, world languages, mathematics, laboratory science, visual and performing arts, and history and social sciences.

Per the district’s proposal, students would have to complete every requirement in “A-G” with a grade of “C-minus” or higher.

The proposal also suggested that waivers would be available to some students—however, what the criteria would be for receiving such as waiver was an area of confusion and concern for many at the meeting.

PAUSD Superintendent Kevin Skelly prefaced the night’s discussion of the matter by talking about the motivation behind the proposal—preparing students for an increasingly competitive job market in today’s economy, and helping to close the gap in opportunities for minority students.

“The gap between students who are well-educated and well-trained, and those who are not, is growing,” he said, suggesting that the number of jobs available to students without a college degree is limited, particularly in the Bay Area. “We have a responsibility to our students.”

Skelly introduced Debbra Lindo, the district’s director of secondary education, who presented the board with an update on how the district is progressing toward its goals for the number of students who are college-ready, and to explain the proposal of officially adopting “A-G” as the district standard.

Lindo explained that a strategic initiative was adopted in the district in 2008 that included the goals of getting 85 percent of students to graduate being UC- and CSU-eligible, and of increasing the number of minority students that are college-ready upon graduation to 50 percent, by the year 2012.

Lindo’s presentation indicated that PAUSD has already made great strides toward these goals.

In 2009, 75 percent of Gunn graduates and 76 percent of Paly graduates finished high school being college-ready; in 2010, the totals were 87 percent of Gunn graduates and 83 percent of Paly graduates.

“So we haven’t completely met our goal, but we’re very close,” said Lindo.

As far as minority groups, the totals for various races such as Hispanics and African Americans ranged from approximately 38 to 50 percent.

However, overall, on average, 80 percent of students were graduating one or two classes short of the “A-G” requirements.

Lindo said, when the topic of making “A-G” the standard for graduation was discussed with district teachers, several concerns were brought up.

Some teachers said they worried that they may have to lower their standards in order to keep up with additional requirements, or to avoid having any students score lower than a “C-minus.” Others said they worried about hurting the self-esteem of students who will require a waiver from the “A-G” requirements in order to graduate.

Some said that they worried that some students would struggle too much with a requirement like Algebra 2. Others wondered how much the district’s summer school programs would have to be revised to accommodate a larger number of students needing to make up missed courses or re-take courses in which they got a “D” grade or lower.

Lindo remained optimistic that PAUSD could adopt the new requirements and be successful at them, and pressed upon the board how important she thought it was to ensure that local youth go on in life possessing the wealth of opportunities that being college-ready upon graduation would afford them.

“I am confident that Palo Alto will not overdo it, and will do it better than everyone else,” she said.

When it came time for board members to comment on their opinion of the proposal, many spoke of their concerns over what the higher requirements would mean for lower-achieving students—would those who felt “A-G” were out of their reach feel compelled to drop out? Would a student who didn’t fully complete the requirements be denied graduation?

Board member Barbara Klausner asked, what if a traditional college degree is not the path a student wants to take in their life?

“I love the idea [of adopting “A-G”], but is it the right bar to set for most students? Maybe not for that student who dreams of going to culinary school,” Klausner said. “But, I agree with Dr. Skelly in that [requiring “A-G”] does help set a standard and a foundation for any student who has goals of [going on and being successful in life].”

Klausner said, her two biggest areas of concern were, what the criteria for receiving a waiver would be, and what to do about students who can’t grasp one of the harder courses like Algebra 2 or Geometry, who keep getting grades below the minimum.

“No student can graduate with an ‘A-G’ grade lower than a ‘C-minus?’ That’s really setting the bar high,” she said.

Skelly responded by saying, “I don’t see us not approving a waiver for a student that at least meets the California state minimum requirements for graduation. I don’t see us saying to a student, ‘OK, you’ve taken this class twice and not passed, maybe it’s time for you to drop out.’”

Board President Melissa Baten-Caswell asked, where’s the rollout plan?

“I’m nervous to vote for something like this to start in a specific year, when I haven’t seen the rollout plan, and I’m not sure the rollout plan would be ready in time.”

Many members of the community addressed the board with their feelings on the issue.

Some felt it was yet another blow to student stress.

“This sends a message that our schools are tough, and now we’re going to make them even tougher,” one parent said. “We should make ‘A-G’ a student’s default path, but not a graduation requirement. When a student doesn’t meet the default requirements, it is discussed with parent, teacher and student together. That would satisfy your goal.”

Others remarked that the board should not vote on the issue until the criteria for receiving a waiver is spelled out, implicitly, and until a plan for the 15 percent of students who are not meeting the requirements currently is devised.

“I think we need to figure out who this 15 percent of students are, why they didn’t meet the ‘A-G’ requirements, why they dropped out or were transferred to alternative programs. What’s going on there?” said Diane Gleason, a math teacher in the district. “I think giving this only two weeks and then voting on it is really premature."

The board is expected to discuss again, and then vote on, the proposed new graduation requirements during its next meeting on June 14.

The Palo Alto school district has hired a new, high-level data cruncher to analyze student performance and other testing information.

Diana Wilmot, previously coordinator of assessment and accountability for the Santa Clara County Office of Education, will come to Palo Alto to replace William Garrison, who is retiring after eight years with the district.

Wilmot will track and report on student testing data and work with teachers and principals on instructional approaches.

The research director reports on trends and comparisons in Star, SAT and AP test scores as well as percentages of students who complete a four-year-college-prep course load.

For example, a 2010 graduate who ranked in the 25th percentile in SAT scores in Palo Alto -- with a score of 1750 -- would rank in the 75th percentile if compared with students across California or across the nation, Garrison reported to the board last fall.

The average SAT score among Palo Alto students in 2010 was 635 in critical reading, 672 in math and 640 in writing, adding up to 1947.

Gunn and Palo Alto high schools ranked fourth and sixth, respectively, among California high schools on SAT scores in 2009, Garrison reported.

Wilmot previously has worked for many research institutions, including Educational Testing Services.

She holds a PhD in quantitative methods and evaluation and a master's in education from the University of California at Berkeley.

Earlier in her career she taught math and statistics at Los Altos High School.

"I'm excited to join such a distinguished education community and look forward to working with the incredible professionals at PAUSD to help make a positive difference for our students," Wilmot said.

Superintendent Kevin Skelly said, "I am thrilled that Dr. Wilmot will be on our district team.

"Our community places a high importance on accountability and measurable success for its students. Dr. Wilmot will be a wonderful support to our schools and staff in this regard," Skelly said.

With a renewed blizzard of data, Palo Alto school officials this week again are asking the Board of Education to reform the academic calendar to end the first semester before winter break, beginning in 2012-13.

The board is set to vote Tuesday on the proposal, which has upset some parents who view the earlier August school start embedded in the new calendar as an intrusion on family vacation traditions.

Polling suggests that a solid majority of parents, teachers and high school students favor pre-break final exams, often cited as a measure to ease academic stress by giving students a clean break over the December holidays.

But opinion is mixed on whether the tradeoff is worth it if it means the earlier school start date which, in 2012, would be Aug. 16 instead of Aug. 28. The earlier date is necessary to maintain two semesters that are roughly even in length.

A contingent of Gunn High School teachers testified in favor of the calendar change at the last board meeting April 26, saying the current late-January finals schedule and one-day semester break render students exhausted as they begin second semester, leading to a well-documented "third-quarter slump."

School district staff members submitted some 80 pages of polls, proposed calendars and backup data in support of their recommendation for the calendar change or -- as a secondary recommendation -- a "rollover calendar" keeping first-semester finals in January.

In sample pre-break-finals calendars through 2017-18, officials penciled in a school start date as early as Aug. 13 in 2015 and as late as Aug. 18 in 2016.

Past calendars, going back 15 years, had start dates that fluctuated between Aug. 21 in 2006 and Sept. 8 in 1998 -- and first-semester finals in January.

Assistant Superintendent Scott Bowers suggested that a "calendar advisory committee" consisting of staff, students and parents could be convened to hash out details of future calendars.

This week, board members will vote only on calendars for 2012-13 and 2013-14, with a proposed school start date of Aug. 15 in 2013.

The packet of data assembled by Bowers also includes a table of start dates for other area high schools, nearly all of which have made the switch to pre-break finals.

The table includes 2011 start dates ranging from Aug. 15 in Mountain View-Los Altos, San Jose Unified and Santa Clara Unified to Aug. 25 in the Sequoia Union High School District.

Palo Alto High School's school newspaper, The Campanile, took home the general excellence award at the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club’s high school journalism awards ceremony Monday evening. 

The Paly Voice, the school's daily online paper, was recognized for its website content (first place) and website design (third). Gunn High School's The Oracle came in second for general excellence and won first for layout and design.

The awards ceremony, held at the Ralston Hall Mansion in Belmont, honored 10 Peninsula high schools and 50 students. In all, 15 Peninsula high schools participated in the competition, which drew 459 entries in 12 categories from 221 students, a 40 percent increase in entries since last year.

“It is very exciting for me to see the students recognized for the excellent work that they do,” said Esther Wojcicki, Palo Alto High School journalism program founder.

When Wojcicki started at Paly in 1984, there were only 19 students in the journalism program. Since then, she has founded five publications: The Campanile (monthly newspaper), Paly Voice (online daily), Verde (magazine), In Focus (broadcast) and The Viking (sports magazine).

Today, 72 students run The Campanile, with six editors-in-chief, and there are more than 200 advanced journalism students in all at Paly, said Paul Kandell, Paly Voice adviser. Kandell won the national “Journalism Teacher of the Year” award from the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund in 2009.

“We have a lot of things going in our favor—tremendously supportive administration, committed core of advisers, outstanding students," said Kandell. "... California press law as relates to scholastic journalism is the strongest in the country, and Paly makes it easy for students to take electives."

Junior Lauren Wong, 16, a staff writer for The Campanile, said, “We put a lot of hard work into this.” She won an honorable mention in the feature writing category.

From Gunn High School, The Oracle adviser Kristy Blackburn is proud of her students' achievement, which also included a second place for website content and an honorable mention for reporter Jessie Klein.

“We have a fabulous staff of graphic students and photographers, which is part of the reason why our design and layout is so strong,” said Blackburn of her 60-students-strong staff and their first-place layout and design award.

“The issue that the Press Club chose to feature was one of our most unique front pages this year, because it included a variety of very detailed, hand-drawn graphics illustrating the various science projects our Intel semi-finalists have been working on,” said Blackburn.

Oracle Editor-in-Chief Linda Yu organizes the layout and design of the student paper. "With layout, there is always the challenge of coming up with creative designs during the cycle, and having a quick turnaround in coming up with solutions during production," said Yu.

"Working with The Oracle has definitely helped me become more well-rounded, so I’ll be looking to take what I’ve learned this past year into whatever I do in the future," said Yu.

Hannah Kim of The Paly Voice took home the Best News Story award after besting 87 other entries in the night's second most-competitive category.

As a result of winning the general excellence award, members of The Campanile will attend the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club professional awards ceremony on May 21.

Old arguments were once again brought to the table Tuesday night when the Palo Alto Unified School District Board of Education revisited the issue of changing future school calendars to move first-semester finals to December, before winter break. Though board members previously voted to keep next year’s calendar the same as this year’s, a vote has been scheduled for May 10 on whether to approve pre-break finals for school years 2012-13 and beyond.

The board appeared to enter the night’s discussion of the issue knowing it was up for a fight, from both sides—those who support pre-break finals, and those who don’t.

“We’re always going to get both—there’s no school calendar that’s going to satisfy everybody,” said Scott Bowers, a PAUSD associate superintendent who leads the calendar committee, at the beginning of the night.

“There’s a saying in Palo Alto that we can do anything, and anything is possible—but in this issue, I don’t think we can [make everyone happy],” said Kevin Skelly, PAUSD superintendent.

The idea of pre-break finals was originally brought to the school board in September, and was tensely debated by board members, parents, students and administrators alike for months after, eventually leading the school board to approve a rollover calendar—meaning, the same type of calendar as in the current year—on Dec. 7. Board members said the reason for the decision to approve the rollover calendar was so they could spend a few months gathering data in the district and community before revisiting the idea for school years 2012-13 and 2013-14 at the end of the year.

That time is now—school calendars with pre-break finals for years 2012-13 and beyond will be voted on by the board on May 10. Debates over the issue began at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, as a record number of community members showed up, and a whopping 45 comment cards were filled out by those who wished to address the board.

Since Dec. 7, Bowers and the calendar committee have been working to gauge opinions on changing the calendar across the district and community. On Tuesday night, Bowers presented a report of that data to the board, along with the recommendation that the board approve a calendar with pre-break finals for school years 2012-13 and 2013-14.

The data included the results of an online survey written by the calendar committee. Invitations to take the survey were sent to all district families and the staff members of all elementary, middle and high schools in the district who had e-mail addresses on file with the district. Approximately 2,700 parents, 430 high school students, 165 high school staff members and 310 elementary and middle school staff members accepted the invitation and took the survey.

In the survey, the key question was, if the survey-taker was in control of the school calendar, would he or she schedule finals before winter break or after, or if he or she had no opinion on the matter.

Interestingly, 70 percent of high school students and 66 percent of parents who answered the question on the survey indicated they would schedule first-semester finals before winter break, if they were in control.

As college acceptances and rejections roll in, some students at Gunn High School are sharing their rejections for all to see on a makeshift "Wall of Rejection."

By the weekend, the wall facing a well-trod Gunn hallway held a growing number of "no" letters from UCLA, Cal Poly, New York University and other institutions.

With high tension over college applications, the rejection wall has become a cathartic -- though sometimes controversial -- rite of spring on many high school campuses across the country.

Described as feeling like a consoling "group hug" by one recent Gunn graduate, the rejection wall was absent from its traditional quad-facing location at Palo Alto High School last year.

It will return this year, but in a more regulated format, student leaders said.

The term "rejection wall" had some "negative connotations that weren't really appropriate," Senior Class Vice-President John Brunett said.

"This year it's not called a 'rejection wall' but a 'colleges-missing-out wall,'" Brunett said.

"We want to focus on the positive aspects -- that people in a very stressful environment in a very stressful school can see that it's OK to fail and sort of take some pride in that, have a community-life feeling."

Rather than taping up their own rejections, as in the past, Paly students are asked to drop off their rejections, with names blacked out, at the Student Activities Office, and others will handle the posting.

Brunett said the new plan -- as well as the absence of a rejection wall last spring -- represents a "group decision" on the part of student leaders and administrators.

"A common description by students for colleges rejecting them is because they're not good enough, and that's not the case. It's because it didn't work out; they don't have room for that many qualified people.

"So I and the rest of (student government) and the administration wanted this phrasing because it's really supposed to be a positive experience, and we want kids realizing that rejection isn't the end of the world."

Brunett said he hoped students would begin submitting rejections by the end of last week, and that the wall would be launched this week, after fliers from the school's career fair are taken down.

"Outraged" by the mysterious absence of Paly's rejection wall last spring, editors of the student newspaper The Campanile mounted their own smaller version, taping rejections facing out on the windows of the journalism classroom, Brunett said.

The Board of Education Tuesday night discussed solicitation of construction bids for two-story classroom buildings at both schools, as well as a new "media arts building" at Paly and a new gymnasium and air-conditioning retrofits to existing classrooms at Gunn.

The $50 million-plus tab for the projects comprises a significant piece of the $368 million facilities bond measure approved by voters in 2008.

The bond program, which will touch all 17 of Palo Alto's public school campuses, is intended to upgrade and expand the schools to accommodate projected enrollment growth.

The projects discussed Tuesday have received extensive prior scrutiny by the school board, as well as by landscape consultants and facilities committees including parents, teachers, principals and others at both schools.

Also Tuesday, school board members reacted favorably to a proposal for a trial, full-day kindergarten at Barron Park School beginning this fall.

Under the plan, all Barron Park kindergarten students would have the option of attending school from 8:10 a.m. to 2:40 p.m. Currently, Barron Park kindergartners stay for an "extended day" -- until 1:45 p.m. -- just twice a week.

Officials said they expect children would show increased academic and social learning from the "full-day kindergarten." Additional costs would be minimal, they said, since kindergarten teachers already are paid for a full day of teaching regardless of the hours of student attendance.

Board members indicated they were supportive of the proposal, which will come up for a final vote at a later meeting.

In other business Tuesday, board members critiqued a proposal by Superintendent Kevin Skelly to convene an "elementary math task force" of parents and teachers to help spread "best practices" in math instruction.

Skelly said he will tweak the proposal and bring it back to the board for final approval.

The role of the group would be to consider what is currently being done in Palo Alto and elsewhere "to promote intellectual curiosity and excitement around mathematics."

After meeting monthly beginning this spring through March 2012, the group would "make recommendations for the superintendent, considering a whole range of potential resources and the way the recommendations would affect each elementary campus."

Under Skelly's proposal, the panel would consist of one parent and teacher representative from each elementary school, one middle school math teacher and one or two principals. It would be co-chaired by one principal and one parent, with support from district staff.