Listed below are several of my favorite "Website Bookmarks".  I use these bookmarks on a regular basis.  The links contain access to a tremendous amount of information. Next to each website is a brief descriptor of the site. Communication is essential and I hope that you will find this site useful, especially to the families in the Orange Unified School District. If you have any comments, please contact me at mikep@orangeusd.org  and I will get back to you.

California Association of Supervisors Child Welfare and Attendance (CASCWA):
Past CASCWA State President, Joe Brucia, set the standard for CWA Director.  His great work on the CASCWA Website continues today.  This "Portal" is important to CWA Offices throughout California.  Tom Mangione is now maintaining this site, which is awesome!.
http://www.cascwa.org/

Departments of Education
United States Department of Education:
This is the federal website for the United States Department of Education. It includes a significant amount of national information.  Please keep in mind that this site is national.  For specific California Educational information, please refer to the following two websites. 
http://www.ed.gov/

California Department of Education:
This is the website for the California Department of Education. It includes a significant amount of information about state, county, district and school site data in several key areas.  There is up-to-date information on key topics and numerous publications. 
http://www.cde.ca.gov/index.asp

Orange County Department of Education:
This is the website for the Orange County Department of Education. It includes a significant amount of county information and department contacts.
http://www.ocde.k12.ca.us/
 

Cell Phones:
Cell phones are permitted on campus for emergency purposes only.  Just like any technology, a percentage of students have abused this privilege and our schools are facing challenges of disruption to daily lessons, inappropriate text messaging and inappropriate picture taking.  CWA recently met with RADAR - Parental Controls for Cell Phones.  They offer a program that parents may wish to consider.
http://www.mymobilewatchdog.com

 California Laws and Government:
Find California Code:
This one website contains the laws of the State of California. 
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes.xhtml

Office of Administrative Law:
This website will link you to the Office of Administrative Law.  You will need this site to pull up the "Education Section" of the California Code of Regulations. 
http://www.oal.ca.gov/

McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act
The following links contain information pertaining to this component of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

National Center for Homeless Education

California's Attorney General
California Attorney General, Bill Lockyer, has an incredible website with important information for educators, parents, students and community members.  His homepage will link you with one one of the greatest resources for school administrators, the 6th edition of the Attorney General’s publication, "Law in the School". The homepage is also a direct link to the "Megan Law" website.
http://caag.state.ca.us/
 
California Legislative Information:
This website links you to the California State Senate. From this site, you can connect with the legislature, track bills, and contact state assembly and senate members.
 
Disaster
Daily Earthquake Activity!
This website contains earthquake information and a daily record of activity. There are earthquakes occurring daily. The only questions are the magnitudes and the locations.

California and Nevada:
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm

USA:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/

Earthquake/Disaster Information
KNX 1070 Earthquake Preparedness Information
American Red Cross
Center for Disease Control (Links to bio-terrorism)
Orange County Red Cross
All Health Net.Com
University of Iowa-Virtual Hospital

Internet

There isn't a week that goes by that CWA is not contacted to review a student's statement in a chat room to determine if the student has made a threat, if there is an issue of school related substance abuse or if there is a conflict created by students writing something mean to a student who may eventually retaliate.  This is a new world of "Cyberbullying" on the information highway.  Needless to say this highway has predators waiting to contact children. The following sites will help you set standards in your home and permit students to be safe on the internet:

Web Wise Kids - Equipping Kids to Make Wise Choices Online
http://www.wiredwithwisdom.org/

Federal Bureau of Investigation - Parents Guide to Internet Safety
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm

Safeteens.com - Teen Safety on the Information Highway
http://www.safeteens.com/safeteens.htm

Netsmartz Workshop - Keeping Kids and Teens Safer on the Internet
www.netsmartz.org

Safe Kids
http://www.safekids.com/

Safe Kids Rules for Online Safety
http://www.safekids.com/kidsrules.htm

FBI Safety Tips for Kids on Computers
http://www.fbi.gov/kids/k5th/safety2.htm

Police Notebook - Kid Safety on the Internet
http://www.ou.edu/oupd/kidsafe/start.htm

Wired Safety
http://www.wiredsafety.org/

It is OK to spy on your kids
http://www.spyonyourkids.net


Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA): The mission of the Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO) is to meet the needs of the Department's primary customers--learners of all ages--by effectively implementing two laws that seek to ensure student and parental rights in education: the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA): http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/index.html

Local City Information:
Below you will find websites for each of the Cities, served by the Orange Unified School District.  There is an individual website for (1) City Government, (2) Police, and (3) Fire Department. The websites are as follows:

Anaheim
City of Anaheim 
Anaheim Police Department 
Anaheim Fire Department

County of Orange
County of Orange 
Sheriff's Department 
Marshal’s Office
Orange County Fire Authority 
District Attorney's Office
Superior Court 

Garden Grove
 City of Garden Grove

City of Orange
City of Orange 
Orange Police Department 
Orange Fire Department

Santa Ana
City of Santa Ana

Other Related Links:

Air Quality
The "South Coast Air Quality Management District's Website" contains up-to-date information on the air quality data throughout Southern California.  Our district is in the "North-Orange" Section of Orange County.  This site is important during hot weather with poor air quality. http://www.aqmd.gov/

Animal Care Services
The "Orange County Animal Care Services" are available to address instances of animals on campus and other related animal issues.  They are available to answer questions pertaining to Orange County Animal Codes.
http://www.ocpetinfo.com/

Safe Schools and Violence Prevention
There is no greater priority for an educator or a parent than school safety.  These website will connect you with the California Department of Education Division on "School Safety":

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss/vp/safeschlplanning.asp

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss/cp/

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss/se/

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss/vp/ssresources.asp

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ai/cw/documents/schattnd.pdf

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss/se/usco.asp

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/fa/hs/

Raising Successful Teenagers:
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/parenting/teens.shtml

Anti-Drug Websites:
The D.A.T.E. website contains information on the District’s “Drug, Alcohol and Tobacco Education Office. http://www.orangeusd.org/date/ 

In addition, there are several links to Substance Abuse Information Websites. CWA has just added a new English/Spanish/Portuguese Substance Abuse Information Website!

The following link will connect you to anti-drug websites. My thanks to Mr. Mike Darnold of Chapman Medical Center for helping me with the connections.  We hope in the near future to link several local agencies for parents to consider should a need arise.

"Parents. The Anti-Drug" website:
http://www.theantidrug.com

Other: CWA "Often used websites":

Civil Liberties:
The topic of "Civil Right" is important to all students, parents, and employees. One of the best sites to put issue into perspective is the A.C.L.U.’s "Ask Sybil Liberty".  The Office of CWA focuses on "rights" and  "responsibilities" (this may be filtered out at your workplace).
http://www.aclu.org/students/sybil.html

This Day in History: 
Many of our school sites like to begin the morning with a thought for the day.  Our nations history is too be preserved and passed on to future generations.  This website links you to the "History Channels - This Day in History" Website.
http://www.historychannel.com/thisday/

News/Information/Radio/Map/Weather Links

The following links will connect you to local and national news.  Included are the two main Southern California News Radio Channels.
Radio Channel KFWB 980
Radio Channel KNX 1070
Los Angeles Times
Orange County Register
USA Today
Fox News

Weather Information:
The following links will connect you to national and local weather information and maps:
  National Weather Service - NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard
Weather.com
USA Today Weather
California Regional Weather Server

Traffic & Maps
The following links will connect you to local traffic information and map-it programs:
Cox.Net link to Orange County Traffic
Channel Four Traffic
CHP Traffic Incident Information Page
Traffic Pulse Orange County Area
Map Quest
Yahoo Maps