SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah State Board of Education asked the U.S. Department of Education to consider a number of provisions to grant more local control over schools in proposed regulations attached to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed into law in late 2015 and scheduled to take effect in 2017.
Submitted comments pertain to proposed regulations on accountability and state plans. The comment period ended Monday, August 1.
“Each state has the right to set its own rules, policy, and state statute and should be allowed the opportunity to establish its own indicators for reporting purposes. We hope the Department of Education considers the issues we have described and recognizes that states are best equipped to evaluate school performance,” said State Board of Education Chair David Crandall.
The Board called for a number of significant provisions to be revised before the regulations are finalized. Those recommendations include the following:
· Allow more flexibility in determining specific performance level indicators.
· Omit language regarding testing participation penalties and allow states to determine how to reconcile the 95 percent participation requirement.
· Grant states the right to decide whether to use a single “score” when publishing accountability results.
· Allow states the discretion to use multiple public reporting methods for accountability.
· Allow states to use data from prior years to identify schools in need of improvement.
· Use both the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and an extended-year adjusted cohort graduation rate in identifying schools that need comprehensive support and improvement.
· Remove provisions related to minimum dollar amounts for school improvement awards and allow states to determine the financial needs of identified schools to implement interventions and appropriate distribution of funds.
· Allow states to submit streamlined plans that capture essential elements of a consolidated plan, without adding planning requirements that go beyond what is called for in statute.
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Westgate Park City Resort & Spa’s Edge Steakhouse receives Wine Spectator magazine’s 2016 “Award of Excellence”
Park City, Utah – August 3, 2016 – For the third consecutive year, Edge Steakhouse at Westgate Park City Resort & Spa has been awarded the “Award of Excellence” by Wine Spectator magazine in its 2016 Restaurant Wine List Awards.
The Restaurant Wine List Awards annually recognize restaurants around the world whose wine lists offer eclectic selections, are appropriate to their cuisine and appeal to a wide range of wine aficionados.
Led by General Manager and Wine Director Nicole Waltrip, Edge Steakhouse recently revamped its wine program, significantly expanding its offerings to provide a wide range of options to appeal to everyone from casual wine drinkers to connoisseurs. Waltrip, who is based in Park City, also oversees the wine program at Edge Steakhouse at Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, which earned the magazine’s “Best of Award of Excellence” in its first year open.
“Our team is truly honored to be recognized by such a well-regarded organization,” said Waltrip. “We aim to deliver our guests a selection of wines that appeal to a variety of different palates and pair perfectly with the award-winning cuisine offered by our culinary team.”
Edge Steakhouse elevates the traditional American Steakhouse experience to a new level of elegance and innovation. A unique fine dining concept, Edge offers an exciting departure from classic steakhouse dining, with favorites like American Wagyu beef sashimi and lobster and black truffle risotto. The restaurant is noted for one of its signature dishes, the Ribeye Cap, made with 8 ounces of the highest-quality Wagyu beef and prepared using innovative processes and techniques.
In addition to Wine Spectator’s “Award of Excellence,” Edge Steakhouse Park City was named a Forbes Recommended restaurant in 2016. Additionally, the restaurant has been honored in the Best of State Awards for Best Wine List, Best Chef and Best Steakhouse and twice was named Overall Best Restaurant in the State. In 2015, Edge Steakhouse was named among the top 12 steakhouses in the United States and has also been recognized in USA Today’s 10Best lists.
About Westgate Park City Resort & Spa
One of Utah's premier mountain resorts, Westgate Park City Resort & Spa features a prime location at the base of Canyons Village at Park City Mountain, spacious and attractive accommodations, and a variety of on-site amenities, including ski-in/ski-out access to Park City’s 7,300+ skiable acres, a free ski valet service, the signature Serenity Spa by Westgate, an indoor/outdoor pool, Drafts Sports Bar & Grill and Edge Steakhouse, the two-time award winner for Best Restaurant in Utah in the Best of State awards. For more information about Westgate Park City Resort & Spa, visit www.westgateparkcity.com.
About Westgate Resorts
Founded in 1982 by David A. Siegel, Westgate Resorts is one of the largest resort developers in the United States. Westgate features 26 themed destination resorts, with over 13,000 luxury villas in premier locations throughout the United States. Most Westgate Resorts locations feature a variety of unique restaurant, retail and spa concepts, including Drafts Sports Bar & Grill, Westgate Smokehouse Grill, Edge Steakhouse, Westgate Marketplace & Deli and Serenity Spa by Westgate. For more information about Westgate Resorts, visit www.westgateresorts.com
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Pinnacle Acting Company presents August Strindberg's Miss Julie as part of the 2016 Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival.
DATES AND TIMES:
Wed, Aug. 3 7:30 PM
Fri, Aug. 5 7:30 PM
Sat, Aug. 6 2:30 PM
Sun, Aug. 7 1:00 PM
Ticket Price: $10
Required Fringe Festival Admission: $5
We encourage you to catch as many shows you can at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival including Jared Larkin's Innovation. The more tickets purchased the better the deal! More information at www.greatsaltlakefringe.org.
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Recount for House District 53 Conducted
Lt. Gov. Cox wants postmarking concerns addressed for future elections
SALT LAKE CITY (August 3, 2016) – At the request of Melvin Brown, the Utah Elections Office conducted an official recount of ballots for the primary election in Utah House District 53. After a careful review of ballots, candidate Logan Wilde received a total of 2492 votes and candidate Melvin Brown received a total of 2483 votes. The recount resulted in a total of one additional vote for Melvin Brown and two additional votes for Logan Wilde.
During the official recount, each disqualified ballot was reviewed to ensure it was appropriately disqualified. Of particular concern were 64 Republican ballots in House District 53 from Morgan, Summit, Rich and Duchesne counties that were postmarked on election day and were, therefore, disqualified. According to Utah Code 20A-3-306(2)(b)(i) a ballot is not valid unless the ballot is “clearly postmarked before the election day, or otherwise clearly marked by the post office as received by the post office before election day.”
This provision is of particular concern in rural Utah where mail frequently has a postmark deadline earlier in the day. Ballots submitted in the mail after the postmark deadline received a postmark of the following day. Although ballot instructions in this race clearly stated that the ballot “must be postmarked prior to election day,” it is possible that some voters thought they had met the deadline by submitting their ballot to the mail the day before the election, but after the rural postmarking deadline for that day.
The Lt. Governor believes it is his obligation to do everything possible within the framework of the law to count all votes cast. However, after reviewing the statute, meeting with county clerks and discussions with the Postmaster General, it has become clear that there is no way to determine if these ballots were mailed on the day before the election, as required by law, or on the day of the election. As such, and with no other markings but the election day postmark, election officials were not able to count these ballots. It should be noted that these ballots remain unopened and, therefore, it is unknown whether they would change the outcome of the election.
“As election officials we work tirelessly year-round to ensure Utahns can vote in a convenient and easy to understand process” said Lt. Gov. Cox. “Over the past several years, we have informed the legislature and the U.S. Postal Service of the potential impact this issue could have on elections. As we move forward to future elections, I encourage the legislature, the U.S. Postal Service and election officials to work together to find a solution to this matter.”
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Living Organisms Take Up Uranium from their Environment
To gain insights into the risks associated with uranium mining and processing, U.S. Geological Survey scientists are investigating how uranium moves into and up food chains.
USGS scientists found that living organisms can take up uranium into their tissues under a broad variety of water quality conditions. This knowledge may help regulators better safeguard the environment for conservation and resource extraction purposes.
“In order to understand the risk of uranium toxicity to living organisms, scientists need to understand how or if uranium compounds are taken up by aquatic organisms whether through diet, or directly from the waters they live in, and which uranium compounds are most available to living organisms under different environmental conditions,” said USGS biologist and lead author of the study, Marie-Noële Croteau.
In a laboratory study using snails, USGS scientists investigated the pathways for how uranium could end up in the tissues of living organisms, and learned that the bioavailability of dissolved uranium is less with increasing alkalinity, increasing water hardness, or when dissolved organic matter is present. Once accumulated in an organism, the loss of uranium from tissues is slow, which typically causes the accumulation of metals to rise to high levels over the life span of the organism.
Uranium compounds dissolved in stream water are bioavailable, meaning they can accumulate in living organisms, under a broad range of natural conditions. USGS scientists investigated how biogeochemical environment factors control uranium bioavailability.
Key results in this laboratory study showed that dissolved uranium was bioavailable in all cases but to varying extent depending on the geochemical conditions tested. In contrast to previous published studies that relate particular uranium species (or compounds) to bioavailability, scientists found that reduced bioavailability of uranium in hard freshwaters may be explained by the abundance of selected forms of uranium, such as uranium bound to both calcium and carbonate.
Relationships between bioavailability and bioaccumulation can be studied in the laboratory with test organisms chosen to be surrogates for a broader group of species. The recent research describes a series of laboratory studies conducted with the pond snailLymnaea stagnalis, which is related to the endangered Kanab amber snail (a species native to Grand Canyon National Park). In laboratory studies, scientists used a range of exposure conditions that mimic conditions expected to be seen in nature. One of the tested waters was specifically designed to simulate the geochemical conditions relevant to Kanab Creek, a stream located in the watershed that drains a portion of the withdrawal area near Grand Canyon National Park.
Although uranium has long been recognized as a danger for living organisms, very little was known about the physical and chemical pathways uranium takes to enter the food web. When then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar declared a 20-year moratorium for new mining claims on federal lands adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park in 2012, he turned to the USGS to address uncertainties in the ecological impact of uranium mining. This study continues to investigate those uncertainties.
The full report by Marie-Noele Croteau, and others, “Biogeochemical controls of uranium bioavailability from the dissolved phase in natural freshwaters,” was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, and is online.
