It looks like the Santa Ana Unified School District administrators have bungled big time once again. My readers are reporting that hundreds of students have been turned away from summer school, which started last week.
Here is a typical comment about this stunning fiasco:
The district did not hire most of the teachers that applied for summer school. Only certain students who are far below grade level were allowed to attend. Even those who scored “basic” rather than proficient on standardized tests were turned down after initially being invited. Students in middle school who scored “below basic” or “far below basic” on reading and math tests were the only ones admitted. In the past my school had it’s own summer school, now it is combined with two other schools. I’m not sure how high school is working this year but I’m sure that a student would have to be repeating a failed class to qualify. There is no opportunity to get ahead this year. We literally could have had summer school for hundreds more students but apparently the budget only allowed those significantly below grade level (or credits) to attend.
Will the SAUSD administrators EVER get it right? It sure doesn’t look like it. And will these administrators ever admit to any of this? Not likely. No wonder over 60% of our kids drop out.
The repercussions are grave. Hundreds of Santa Ana kids will now have nothing to do over the Summer. And they won’t be able to work on their studies. Think about what this means. Next year the local schools will be absent hundreds of teachers and instructional aides. And now hundreds of kids will start school in the Fall having lost ground over the Summer.
Remember how the SAUSD administrators crowed about how awesome they are during this year’s fraudulent Measure G tax increase campaign? Well, Summer has barely started and already we have been reminded about how lame these administrators and their boss, overpaid Superintendent Jane Russo, are. What a joke!
I understand about the children not getting in the extra work during the summer. It is indeed a sad situation when a child who wants to go to summer school can’t because of funding. Cut the funds somewhere else. I have one daughter going to summer school and one staying at home. I bought a work book for the one at home to do but as a single mom who works full time its difficult to monitor.
I saw Roman Reyna at the softball park last night and us parents gave him an ear full about our district. He was very open to listening to what we had to say. He seems like a nice guy.
For those girls 6-17yrs old needing something to do during the summer, Santa Ana Girls Softball League is holding registration for Fall Ball. We will be practicing week days during July and August. Games are Sept-Nov on weekends only. For more info see our website http://www.sagsl.net
At the high school level, students were only allowed summer school for the classes they had failed. There are also classes being offered through the Santa Ana College Bridge program, which pays teachers less than contract. It will take a while for it to take effect, but many students will have trouble meeting the graduation credit requirement if they don’t take summer school, especially if they have sports during the year, which take up a class period every day. I have mixed feelings about the availability of summer school, as I have personally had students tell me that they didn’t care about passing their classes during the year because they could pass them easily if they took summer school. I believe it is a good opportunity for students to excel and prepare, but too many students misuse the system. The district actually loses money when it runs summer school… what if the students who take summer school because of failures had to help subsidize it ?
#2
What to go, blame the students.
While I understand that most people would like to blame SAUSD for every problem, this issue goes a little deeper. I believe that a decision was made this year by the SAUSD administration that summer school would not take money from the regular school year budget. Teachers and administrators were told that each class must have at least 35 students or the class would be dropped. This must be the point at which summer school begins to cost the district money rather than funding itself. This has definitely been the case because two teachers were dropped at my site and every teacher now has at least one class in the mid 50’s. This is outrageous and I believe that it would have been better just to cancel summer school altogether than to have over 50 low performing students in one classroom for over 2 hours. I am now teaching in a room of wall to wall desks with no room to move. At the same time, I know a student in Huntington Beach who is attending summer school to get ahead and in a class of about 30 students. The problem is the funding from the state. If the stated purpose of summer school is to help struggling students then it would make more sense to fund it so that the districts with the highest percentage of struggling students receive more funding. SAUSD made a purely financial decision on this one and the best financial decisions are generally not the best for the students.