School Innovations and Advocacy
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>csba </b></font></div><div><b>California School Boards Association</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div>Let your school pride show!</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">School Accountability Report Cards</span></div><div>SI&A creates a SARC you can be proud of! The SARC is your chance to connect with your school community. SI&A will make sure your filings are not only compliant, but also attractive and able to clearly communicate your unique message.</div><div>
</div><div>About the service</div><div><b>A SARC from SI&A is your opportunity to shine.</b></div><div>As a savvy administrator, you know the value of positive public relations. Highlight the year’s triumphs—such as charitable donations and attendance successes—or build support for upcoming bond legislation.</div><div>View a sample SARC</div><div>Your community and your school board will be impressed with the quality of your report and the unique positioning of each of your schools. You’ve worked hard to make your schools special. Let your SARC to tell your success story.</div><div>SI&A’s custom-tailored service:</div><div>Saves time and district resources</div><div>Ensures compliance with state and federal law, including Prop. 98, No Child Left Behind and Williams Settlement</div><div>Is accurately offered in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Hmong and others</div><div>Provides custom designs to uniquely represent your schools</div><div>Offers an attractive, readable format</div><div>The result is a compliant, unique and simply beautiful report</div><div>Steps to success</div><div>Introduction call </div><div>We introduce ourselves, explain the process, discuss and set timelines, review your format choice and answer any questions you may have.</div><div>Questionnaire</div><div>We send your designated staff the questionnaire that guides your sites through providing unique information about their schools.</div><div>Data Collection and Review</div><div>Our automated process pulls all of the required statistical information from multiple state databases, which our team reviews for compliance and accuracy.</div><div>Client Review</div><div>Armed with all of the necessary information, we build your SARCs – and provide three separate opportunities for your staff to review our work and make any changes.</div><div>Publication</div><div>Once we receive your final approval, we send you a color copy and electronic copies for posting to your website. We also walk you through the process of linking your SARC to the CDE website.</div><div>Contact</div><div>Visit us online today! </div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>SI&A Headquarters (El Dorado County)</b></span></div><div>5200 Golden Foothill Parkway </div><div>El Dorado Hills, CA, 95762-9635</div><div>Main: 800.487.9234</div><div>Fax: 888.487.6441</div><div>
</div><div>SI&A Northern California (Shasta County)</div><div>2151 Larkspur Lane, Unit B</div><div>Redding, CA 96002-0600</div><div>Main: 800.487.9234</div><div>Fax: 866.752.7767</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">SI&A Southern California (Los Angeles County)</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">790 East Colorado Blvd, Suite 700</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pasadena,</span> CA 91101-2187</div><div>Main: 800.487.9234</div><div>Fax: 866.573.8570</div><div> </div><div>2010 <b>California School Boards Association</b> | All corp personhood Rights Reserved </div><div>3251 Beacon Blvd. West Sacramento, CA 95691www.csba.org </div><div>Tel. (800) 266-3382</div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><div></div>http://www.perdaily.com/2013/02/privatization-of-public-education-strategies-for-maximizing-profits-conflicts-and-the-unions-part-2.html</span></font><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><b style="line-height: 18px;">
</b></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Another supporter of privatization in Sacramento is </span><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">David W. Gordon who is the Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools. Gordon is also on the<b> WestEd Board </b>of Directors</span><span style="line-height: 18px;">, which pushes Core Standards and further growth of charter schools nationally and is controlled by the billionaire non-profit operations like the Lumina Foundation while WestEd receives funding from public school districts, public community colleges and public universities.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">It should be noted that </span><b><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Steinberg was involved in supporting charters and gave $5,000 for privatization shill Gloria Romero</span><span style="line-height: 18px;"> from his political fund for Romero to run for State Superintendent of Instruction.</span></b><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">Romero who is now the head of<b> California Democrats for Education Reform (DFER)</b> and also was a spokesperson for</span><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> anti-labor California Proposition 32 </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">which sought to prevent unions from collecting dues by onerous procedures on their rights. She also was the author while in the legislature of the Parent Trigger Laws in California, which have been used by privatizers to manipulate parents into shutting their public schools and turning them over to charter operations run by privateers.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">The funders of the Parent Trigger Laws include the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton (WalMart) Foundation</span>. Romero's DFER is funded by Wall Street<b>Hedge fund managers</b> who are making investments into charter schools for use of public funds, while eliminating professional teachers and bringing in</span><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Teach For America (TFA) young teachers, who have been used to help destroy public education by undermining the quality of public education in mostly low income minority schools and by de-professionalizing the teaching profession </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">by the elimination of long term skilled teachers. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This displacement of senior teachers is a conscious policy of the supporters of privatization, since a profession teacher corp cost approximately 87% of the public education budget. School administrators harass and discriminate against long term skilled fully credentialed teachers who are now being demonized, bullied and retaliated against. This includes even being placed in euphemistic <b>"rubber rooms" in Los Angeles and New York.</b></span></span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">In fact, while potential criminal negligence and fraud along with potential misappropriation of public funds has taken place at the CTC Commission, the Brown administration, which is directly in charge of the commission, has not only covered it up, but actually appointed more officials that have financial conflicts of interests with public education including Brown's former </span><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Education Secretary Sue Burr. </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">Brown appointed Burr as his education secretary despite the fact that she was executive director for the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association CCSESA. Burr, along with Gary Hart were intimately involved in drafting of the first charter school laws in California. CCSESA has been pushing for more charters and is funded by companies profiting from getting school contracts for online education and pushing more testing and charters. In January of this year, Burr resigned as Brown's Education Secretary and was appointed by him to the State Board of Education. She is also on<b>Edsource </b>board of directors. </span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><font color="#ff0000" style="line-height: 18px;">Governor Brown is now demanding that the CSU and UC system implement a massive growth of online education </font><span style="line-height: 18px;">benefiting these same tech profiteers or he will cutback and withhold state funding for these public institutions. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">B</span></span><span style="line-height: 18px; vertical-align: baseline; border: 0px; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">rown's wife, Anne Gust was the former Chief Administrative Officer/general counsel and Executive Vice President of the Gap Corporation. </span><font color="#ff0000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gap through the Fisher's runs Rocketship</span> schools and a chain of 70 <b>Kipp charter schools</b> throughout the country</font>. On the board are owners of Viacom, Netflix and other billionaires like <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mark Nunnelly, who is managing director of Bain Capital</span> Board as well as Carrie <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Walton</span> Penner who is a trustee for the Walton Family Foundation that owns Walmart. Carrie<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Walton Penner is also on the board of the California Charter School Association CCSA, EdVoice, and the Alliance For School Choice. </span>The CEO of <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Netflix, Reed Hastings, formerly of the State Board of Education is also on the board of <b>Edvoice.</b></span></span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">Edvoice is a very powerful political action committee and advocacy group in education policy and was one of the top five campaign contributors in the 2010 general election according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission, which at the time was investigating Edvoice for their potential improper use of independent expenditures. Eli<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Broad is also on the board of Directors of Edvoice.</span></span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">Rocketship Learning had contracted with the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> lobbing firm, School Innovations and Advocacy </span>(SI&A), whose clients include school districts, K-12 inc- largest online education company in U.S.,<b> Orange County </b>Department of Education, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and Santa Clara office of Education. Santa Clara County Office of Education has been approving the expansion of Rocketship Charter Schools in Santa Clara County<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Rocket Learning is doing business in California, incorporated in Delaware but physically located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.</span></span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">A parent of one of the students of one of the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Kipp Schools -Kipp Hartwood Academy Elementary in Santa Clara- discovered that in order to go to the school board he had to make an appointment to go to the Gap headquarters in San Francisco where the school board met</span>. He was complaining about the clinical abuse his child faced at the school due to the "training" procedures at the Gap funded chain of schools.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><b><br style="line-height: 18px;" /></b><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>California State Attorney Kamala Harris has also refused to respond to a request to investigate numerous potential conflicts of interest with government officials</b>and public education funding that appears to exist throughout the state. The request to Harris was made back in December of 2011. No one from the Attorney General's Office has responded to date. The request was sent certified with return receipt. The request has been confirmed as received.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">Of course any investigation would immediately implicate the Governor and other Democratic Party officials in the state who are supporting charters and privatization.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">California Democratic party chair John Burton is also on the board of Phoenix University, which has been engaged in defrauding the government and creating a diploma mill with the federal government on the hook for billions in loans to students.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">There are too many organizations in the unregulated world of non-profits that are literally taking over our public education system to mention. But, a few other notable organizations involved in the restructuring and de-funding of public education include the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lumina Foundation and ALEC,</span> the American Legislative Exchange Commission. ALEC develops legislation such as the trigger laws which further privatization. </span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">Also<font color="#ff0000"> WestEd</font>, a government agency through a joint powers agreement receives money both from many public entities such as school districts, CSU, UC and community colleges and private money through foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumina. WestEd also received funding from NCS Pearson. WestEd pushes "core standards" and more testing in the schools. It should be noted that Lumina was a funder of ALEC.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> UC President Mark Yudof is also on the board of directors of Lumina</span>and has pushed privatization at the UC system including online education with tech companies and UC private partnerships using public UC resources for new drugs that will benefit the privateers.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">The counsel of WestEd, Leah Williams based in San Francisco refused to provide financial conflict of interest statements saying that the California Fair Practices Commission told them they did not have to provide such material. While the FPPC may not have jurisdiction over WestEd, as WestEd appears not be a quasi government. It does however receive state public education tax dollars and public funds from school and college districts throughout the country. This raises fundamental questions of transparency and where are our public education tax dollars are going? The public has a right to know.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">In fact, our public education tax dollars are going to many non-profits, many organizations that produce reports about how bad our public education system is and how things need to be "reformed". These same entities have the most to gain by claiming doom. Doom means things need to change and these greedy tax grabbers are all too willing to be the first in line with their wallets wide open with false promises of the best way to improve education. But we must ask: The best way for whom? Certainly not the best way for students, especially students of low income, special needs students or English language learners. </span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">It should also be noted that Williams of WestEd has also been appointed to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges WASC, which is the regional accrediting commission for senior high schools, colleges, and universities. The ACCJC which is under WASC, accredits community colleges. ACCJC's director Barbara Beno is demanding the San Francisco City College and other public community colleges either sell off parts of their colleges, fire teachers, cut wages and healthcare for the staff or they will lose their accreditation. This use of WASC and ACCJC, which are private groups, to push for the liquidation of public education is now becoming apparent to tens of thousands of educators and students as the organization goes on a wrecking operation in our public higher education system. Beno is also on the advisory board of Campaign for College Opportunity (another non-profit) with Lumina Board member Frank Alvarez. The privatizers and their influence over public education is a frontal attack on the public education system and any equality in this education system.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">B. Teri Burns has been a long time publicly elected school board member of Sacramento County. Until recently, Burns was a lobbyist with School Innovations and Advocacy</span> whose clients include public entities such as Santa Clara County Office of Education and San Juan Unified school district. These school districts or county offices are funding lobbying firms that are engaged in pushing for privatization of education. School Innovations and Advocacy also is a lobbyist for private entities that are stripping tax dollars away from school districts. School Innovations and Advocacy lobbies on behalf of K-12 inc. and Rocketship Learning.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">B. Teri Burns is an elected school board member of Natomas Unified in Sacramento County. Natomas Unified is where Ting Sun of CTC fame has her charter academies. Does anyone see a potential conflict yet? Keep looking- it is right in front of you. K-12 Inc; Rocketship Learning; school districts spending money on lobbyists. WestEd also gets public education tax dollars. The question of how much public money is going to lobbyists and these so-called non-profits is yet unanswered but it is extensive? It also raises the question do we really have an education budget crisis or was there money being funneled into the profiteers? It should be noted that all charter schools are non-profit corporations. The real question is whether these corporateers and their media are crying wolf in order to push for the destruction of more public schools.</span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">The incestuous connections and illegal siphoning off of public funds for profit by pubic officials who have interests in these same enterprises appears to be clear criminal conflict of interest and has developed and expanded over decades in California and throughout the country<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. In the People v. Honig case, former Superintendent of Public Instruction, Bill Honig was convicted of felony conflicts of interest for having an educational non-profit out of his home with his wife. The judge stated what he and his wife were doing was essentially money laundering. Where is Bill Honig today? Jerry Brown rewarded him by trying to have Honig appointed to the State Board of Education. He withdrew his appointment and Honig now works for the California Department of Education. </span></span><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><br style="line-height: 18px;" /><span style="line-height: 18px;">If ex-CTC attorney Kathleen Carroll's suit is successful in going forward despite the expected stiff opposition by the powerful corporate interests and politicians who represent them, it has the potential of exposing very corrupt and nefarious connections and actions.</span></font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">5200 Golden Foothill Parkway</span><br style="line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">El Dorado Hills, CA 95762</span></font></div><div><span style="color: rgb(154, 155, 159); font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18.2px; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
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</font></div><div><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-weight: normal; z-index: 5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About Us</font></h1><div class="about-us" style="line-height: 20px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Welcome to our website.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meet our dedicated team of innovators, educators, managers, consultants, designers, and school site specialists. We invite you to learn more about our products and services, our history and mission, and our proudest accomplishment of all: our people. Most of the dreamers, architects and builders of this success story have been with SI&A since inception.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We are a collaborative corps of hard-working, straight talking, and service-driven individuals. We believe in education. We can help you, your students and their families achieve great things. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We were founded in 2003, and have grown from our origins as the back-office facilitator for most of California’s school districts and county offices of education, into the creator of unparalleled products, most notably <a href="http://www.sia-us.com/software-solutions/attendance/a2a-software" style="text-decoration: none;">Attention2Attendance</a><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">®</span> (A2A<span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">SM</span>), a software solution that decreases school absenteeism by as much as 25 percent – and <strong>works 100 percent of the time</strong>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We began as a California Compliance company dealing with the complex and constantly changing climate of state regulations, economic recession, school funding priorities and politically shifting paradigms. While this country’s strongest companies believe in their brands and core values, they also recognize the absolute necessity of occasionally reconfiguring and re-navigating their courses. At SI&A, we learned how to anticipate and move, almost always ahead of change, with agility and energy, ever focused on results.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today our signature product – <a href="http://www.sia-us.com/software-solutions/attendance/a2a-software" style="text-decoration: none;">Attention2Attendance</a><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">®</span> has created a new standard. A2A<span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">SM</span> will improve your attendance numbers, bottom line and, most important, your students’ lives. </font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jeff founded SI&A in February 2003, bringing a career’s worth of business and accounting acumen, strategic thinking and background in education to the enterprise. His management style is a combination of meticulous industry standards leavened by good-natured humor. “We take our work seriously here,” he says, “but not ourselves.” As a business accountant, Jeff specialized in rapidly growing small businesses, working with some of the profession’s most prestigious firms, including Ernst & Young and Shultze, Wallace & O’Neil.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He holds a master’s degree in finance from San Diego State University, where he also served on the faculty, as well as a master’s degree in taxation from Golden Gate University. His undergraduate degree is from Santa Clara University, and he earned his CPA certification in 1987.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to supporting a number of philanthropic causes and his patronage of the Boys & Girls Club of El Dorado County Western Slope, Jeff is also an active board member of the Sacramento Theatre Company, focusing his fundraising efforts on their educational outreach programs for art and theater, introducing thousands of schoolchildren from all backgrounds to high-quality theatrical experiences.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-weight: normal; z-index: 5; line-height: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Susan Cook</font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chief Operating Officer</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Susan is a respected industry expert in line management operations, individual and team coaching, and organizational alignment to meet critical goals. She served as the general manager for AT&T Business Systems, and as vice president and general manager at ARC, Inc.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Immediately prior to joining SI&A, Susan owned a successful consulting business that provided CEO coaching, executive and management training, organizational and managerial effectiveness, and organizational design. Her clients included high-growth companies and companies in transition.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Susan holds a B.A. in psychology from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and has written a number of articles on management leadership for trade publications.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-weight: normal; z-index: 5; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our Executives</font></h1><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The View from the Top:</strong>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SI&A’S CEO and COO Take A Breath To Talk About the Company and Its Passion</span>
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<a href="http://www.sia-us.com/about-us/our-executives/susan-cook" style="text-decoration: none;">Susan Cook</a>, SI&A’s chief operating officer,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is saying that when children learn the importance of good attendance in kindergarten, “It introduces them to an important concept: that showing up—for school, work and life itself—makes a difference. Studies have shown us that chronic absenteeism, even as early as kindergarten through third grade, is an accurate predictor that those kids will someday be school dropouts.”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“That’s why we created </span><a href="http://www.sia-us.com/software-solutions/attendance" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Attention2Attendance</a><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">®</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,” says </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="http://www.sia-us.com/about-us/our-executives/jeff-williams" style="text-decoration: none;">Jeff Williams</a>, the company’s founder, president and chief executive officer. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“It’s a foolproof tool for early and definitive intervention.”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cook and Williams are sitting at a conference table in Cook’s office. While the two spend most of their workdays in offices located at opposite corners of SI&A’s expansive El Dorado Hills headquarters, each walks unannounced into the other’s office for frequent brainstorming sessions, updates, wisecracks and, as Williams says with a smile, “reality checks. This is a fast-moving company. We truly feel that nothing less than the future of education is at stake.”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This afternoon, the two are talking about recent enhancements to </span><a href="http://www.sia-us.com/software-solutions/attendance/a2a-software" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Attention2Attendance</a><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">®</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (A2A</span><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SM</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">), the company’s signature software-and-service product.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We’re pretty proud of A2A’s </span><a href="http://www.sia-us.com/software-solutions/attendance/saverate" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SaveRate</a><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SM</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,” Williams says. “We’ve developed an approach that shows some amazingly positive outcomes. A2A</span><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SM</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> gets kids off the path of chronic absenteeism.”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We tested and re-tested the product long enough, and at our own expense, to gather the kind of numbers—by age, geography and ethnicity—that proves its value,” says Cook. “Nearly a million kids, as well as their parents and their principals, have been supported by A2A</span><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SM</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. And we’re only just beginning.”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both Williams and Cook are quick to point out A2A<span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">SM</span> and the company’s other product-and-service products and partnerships are the link between studies and action. “We analyze the latest research,” Williams says. “We don’t conduct the studies. Our goal is to take the information, apply our principles and get results for our clients.”
Cook says that her job with SI&A coincides with her professional background as a results-driven operations person and organizational consultant. “I’m basically a line manager,” she says. “That’s someone whose role in a company is to improve its performance, year over year. When you think about it, it’s very similar to being a school principal, whose job is to improve the success rate and learning climate of his or her school every year.”
Williams says what he most enjoys about his company’s employees are “their absolute dedication to customizing solutions. They see themselves as a school district’s partners—and they know that our products and approach to service will never be characterized as one-size-fits-all.”
SI&A’s other promising products include <a href="http://www.sia-us.com/software-solutions/partnering4studentsuccess" style="text-decoration: none;">Partnering4StudentSuccess</a><span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">SM</span>, a software solution currently to help teachers become more effective, bringing new thinking to the complex challenges of Common Core and student diversity.
“We never presume to know more about a school, students or community than its education professionals do,” adds Cook. “What we do know is that in A2A<span style="position: relative; line-height: 0; vertical-align: baseline; top: -0.5em;">SM</span>, we have a product that works 100 percent of the time—one we’d like to get into every school in the United States.”
“We’d be very proud to be this country’s back office of education,” Williams says. Then he jumps out of his chair and leaves Cook’s office, heading across the building to his own office to handle his own portion of SI&A’s creative, nonstop activity.</font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>Affiliations</div><div>Partners</div><div>
</div><div> Attendance Institute </div><div>
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</div><div>California Association Of School Business Officials</div><div>
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</div><div>California Association of School Child Welfare</div><div> and Attendance</div><div>
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</div><div>California School Board Association</div><div>
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</div><div>TerraVerde Renewable Partners</div><div>
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</div><div>Affiliations</div><div>
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</div><div>American Association of School Administrators </div><div>
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</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Association of California School Administrators </div><div>
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</div><div>California Association of Administrators of State</div><div>and Federal Education Programs</div><div>
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</div><div>Colorado Association of School Executives</div><div>
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</div><div>Council of Administrators of Special Education</div><div>
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</div><div> California Association of Latino</div><div> Superintendents and Administrators </div><div>
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</div><div>California County Superintendents</div><div>Educational Services Association</div><div>
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</div><div>Council for Exceptional Children</div><div>
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</div><div>International Association Truancy</div><div>Dropout Prevention</div><div>
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</div><div>National Association of School Superintendents</div><div>
</div><div>Pennsylvania School Boards Association</div><div>
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