This is the latest in our SAUSD threads. Unlike the other threads, this one will be devoted to keeping track of the interesting stories that appear in the local media and other sources, regarding the SAUSD.
I don’t think any of the 3100 homes proposed to be built are required to be affordable. Irvine co. Is…
Oh, damn. He was a good egg in most respects. I hope that he rests in peace (save for some…
This post had some funny comments.
I expect more available time around the beginning of June. Until then, I'm squeezing things in as and where I…
Came across this classic story... and noticed that the linked documents weren't loading. It's because they were word documents which…
I've long noticed something about people who repeatedly talk about how "smart" they are. Something ironic. See Trump, Amezcua.
Given the fatal bombing of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs today, will Santa Ana Mayor Amezcua call for cooling…
Good stuff, Greg, you should write a piece on post-HB Gates. Sadly, one of his longtime antagonists in HB, the…
The Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights is a familiar name for those watching California politics: former Republican Party Chair…
Folks, I have some bad news for you. She will have a cushier landing spot than the HB City Council…
February 5th, 2009 at 8:07 pm edit
From Board of Education member, John Palacio’s email blast ( jpalacio@pacbell.net )
In stimulus bill, US funds for schools double
About a quarter of the new money is aimed at low-income pupils, to help with the achievement gap.
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the February 5, 2009 edition
The economic stimulus bills before Congress contain a $140 billion boost for education – and most of it would be used to more than double federal spending on America’s public schools over the next two years.
The legislation is part short-term stimulus, intended to create jobs via school renovation projects and to prevent massive teacher layoffs in the face of state and local budget deficits. But it is also part social policy, channeling federal dollars to programs designed to improve the academic achievement of low-income and other struggling pupils. Indeed, funding for the major program serving students from poor families would get an extra $13 billion through 2010, an amount nearly as high as the current annual budget.
President Obama has indicated he sees such spending as an investment in students that will pay an economic benefit in the long term. But whether the infusion of cash will narrow stubborn achievement gaps – a top goal of US education law – is a matter of opinion.
At the very least, supporters argue, the stimulus dollars will prevent a backward slide.
“Poor and minority kids get hit first and hardest in state budget cuts,” says Amy Wilkins, vice president for government affairs at The Education Trust, a Washington nonprofit. “This federal money could help a lot and could allow schools to continue the momentum they are just now beginning to build up on gap-closing.”
Skeptics argue that the US government should not pour so much money into public schools but that, if it does, it should attach some strings to ensure that states and localities change their education systems. They should be forced, in particular, to wean themselves from ineffective practices and unsustainable labor contracts, critics say.
“It is giving them a free pass on all these unaffordable behaviors,” says Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Both the House legislation, which passed last week, and the Senate bill being considered this week include the following:
•$79 billion in state stabilization funds, designed to offset education cutbacks.
•$13 billion in additional Title I funds, distributed based on a district’s share of low-income students.
•About $13.5 billion for additional special-education grants under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Other provisions aimed at at-risk students range from child care and preschool for low-income families to extra support for homeless students.
“Poverty is a factor that most affects achievement levels in the schools, and to drive dollars into the schools that need it the most … will be a major boost and will allow the achievement levels to grow,” says Daniel Domenech of the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va. He warns, however, that districts will still have to make tough budget choices. “Layoffs will still happen; this is going to help, but it’s not 100 percent making up the district shortfalls.”
Some of the money gives new leverage to the US Department of Education. Both the House and the Senate bills, for instance, would use $15 billion of the state stabilization funds for grants to states and districts that have made progress in improving testing, creating data systems to track students’ achievement, and ensuring that excellent teachers are placed in high-needs districts (as opposed to the current trend of staffing those schools with the least-experienced teachers). The House version also includes nearly $500 million in additional funds for such goals and for linking teacher bonus pay to their students’ achievement.
Education-reform advocates such as Ms. Wilkins support these incentives.
“Restoring the status quo isn’t good enough for poor kids, because they weren’t being educated adequately prior to the financial crunch,” she says.
The impulse to attach strings to the new money loses sight of the primary purpose of the stimulus bill, says Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a public-school advocacy group in Washington. “The more people want to put conditions on this money, the slower the money is going to be spent,” he says. “If we go into a depression, you’re not going to close the achievement gap…. You [won’t] have the teachers there to teach.”
The extra special-education funding would help ease what states and localities have long seen as an unfair burden. When the original special-education law passed in 1975, the US government promised to pay 40 percent of the costs, but it never has. The feds spent nearly $11 billion on special education in fiscal year 2008, about 17 percent of the total cost. In past years, the federal share has run even lower.
“The federal government has essentially reneged,” says Doug Fuchs, an education professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Studies of special-ed achievement levels haven’t shown strong improvement over the past few decades, he adds.
The stimulus bills would bring the federal share to about 27 percent, according to a staff member of the House Committee on Education and Labor.
While needed, the special-education funding alone is not the key to improved student performance, says Lou Danielson, managing director at the American Institutes of Research and a former special-education staffer in the US Department of Education. “The fact that kids with disabilities were included as a subgroup [for school accountability] in No Child Left Behind has really focused, probably more than anything, attention on [their] academic performance,” he says. So how the bill is reauthorized by Congress, and whether those requirements continue, will be “critically important.”
How temporary some of this boosted education spending will be is another question. Some supporters and critics alike suggest it will be hard for the government to pull back once the economy recovers, because it would be seen as removing programs for students in need.
“We are entering a new era for federal funding of many things, but education in particular,” says Edward Kealy of the Committee for Education Funding, an education coalition in Washington. “Once you’ve made this rationale that education [is] an essential component in response to an economic crisis … you’ve given a rationale that it never had before.”
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Sacramento Bee
White House lists benefits of stimulus package for California
ShareThis
By Rob Hotakainen
rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com
Published: Wednesday, Feb. 04, 2009
WASHINGTON — Seeking to build public support for an economic stimulus plan, the White House today released details of what President Obama is proposing to do for every state in the union.
The Obama White House weighed in as the Senate continues to debate its own version of the stimulus package. The House has passed its version, and a conference committee is likely to reconcile differences by next week.
The White House did not say how much money each state would receive under Obama’s plan, but here’s what the president is envisioning for California, according to the White House release:
• — Creating or saving 421,000 jobs over the next two years. Jobs created will be in a range of industries from clean energy to health care, with over 90% in the private sector.
• — Providing a “making work pay” tax cut of up to $1,000 for 12,420,000 workers and their families. The plan will make a down payment on the President’s Making Work Pay tax cut for 95% of workers and their families, designed to pay out immediately into workers’ paychecks.
• — Making 522,000 families eligible for a new American Opportunity Tax Credit to make college affordable. By creating a new $2,500 partially refundable tax credit for four years of college, this plan will give 3.8 million families nationwide – and 522,000 families in California – new assistance to put college within their reach.
• — Offering an additional $100 per month in unemployment insurance benefits to 2,395,000 workers in California who have lost their jobs in this recession, and providing extended unemployment benefits to an additional 506,000 laid-off workers.
• — Providing funding sufficient to modernize at least 1,208 schools in California so our children have the labs, classrooms and libraries they need to compete in the 21st century economy.
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So many urgent projects await a budget solution
George Skelton, Capitol Journal
February 5, 2009
From Sacramento — Stuff’s piling up in California’s Capitol: “To-Do” lists crammed with issues labeled “Attention Required” and “Decision Needed.”
But the principal decision-makers — the governor and legislative leaders, or “Big Five” — have been immersed in a gigantic deficit hole, agonizing over how to get the state out. They need a solution that can be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, a Herculean hurdle.
Meantime, everything else waits: water system upgrades, overcrowded prisons, other public works, healthcare, education. . . .
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told reporters:
“I think that the legislators and the governor’s office can work on more important things than just spend three months every year . . . like we did this last summer . . . on the budget, where we should have really negotiated about water to protect California . . . or to build more infrastructure, or fix our education system and so on. We get stuck every year with the same thing.”
That complaint came from the governor more than a year ago.
Since then, the budget deficit has grown much deeper and the Capitol’s preoccupation with it all-consuming.
“The reality is that our state is incapacitated until we solve the budget crisis,” Schwarzenegger observed in his State of the State address three weeks ago. “The $42-billion deficit is a rock upon our chest.”
When a balanced budget finally is negotiated and “some of the raw emotions have passed,” the governor continued, he will send the Legislature his policy agenda. “These proposals are sitting on my desk right now. And let me tell you, I have big plans for this state. They include action on the economy, on water, the environment, education and healthcare reform, government efficiency. . . .”
For now, however, it’s all moot.
New Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) had ambitious plans when he took over his legislative house in December. “Let’s shake it up here. Let’s turn it around,” he exhorted his colleagues. “Let’s demonstrate some early, big successes.”
So far no successes, big or little.
Steinberg had hoped — and still does — to pass legislation guaranteeing medical insurance for all California children. An estimated 600,000 are uncovered. He and Schwarzenegger were probably going to team up on that effort. They still might.
“There are many reasons why we need to get this [budget agreement] done and done now,” Steinberg says. “There’s the fiscal crisis. But there’s also another reason. We want to start focusing on a positive agenda for California and not just be mired week after week in crisis.”
More than two years ago, voters approved $42 billion in bonds to build infrastructure for transportation, housing, schools, flood control, water and parks. Ordinarily, that would be an economic stimulus. But little has been built; only $4 billion spent. Projects have been halted because of the cash crunch. And the state can’t find bond-buyers until it becomes more fiscally sound.
The Legislature, for years, has procrastinated pathetically on water.
Nature seems to be producing the third straight year of drought. The Sierra snowpack is only 61% of normal. And the Legislature hasn’t prepared us for it.
“It’s shaping up to be one of the worst droughts ever,” says Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources. “We won’t be able to tell until we get to the end of March. That’s when there’s no hope of a big storm coming in and saving us.”
Rationing would be a certainty. So would increased water marketing — one entity selling its water to another. Snow says the administration may ask for emergency legislation to “restructure” water rights and alter pricing to discourage consumption.
“The reason the drought impact would be so severe is we keep putting off these investments in our water system,” Snow says. “Our demand keeps getting greater and environmental restrictions have increased. That means very dire economic consequences.”
Schwarzenegger for two years has been trying to create a $10-billion water bond proposal. It could include money for storage — underground and in reservoirs — wastewater recycling, desalination, conservation and new plumbing for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But Democrats and environmentalists have balked at new dams, and Republicans and farmers have blocked anything that doesn’t include a reservoir or two. And there’s still no consensus on a delta fix.
Meanwhile, the administration wants the Legislature to pass a bill requiring a 20% cut in urban water use by 2020.
Prisons need urgent attention.
The state — led by Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and Schwarzenegger — is in a nasty fight with a prison healthcare overseer appointed by a federal judge. The overseer, law professor J. Clark Kelso, essentially wants to back a federal truck up to the state vault and haul off $8 billion to build what Brown calls “gold-plated utopian” hospital facilities for prisoners.
He’ll “never get that money,” Schwarzenegger vowed last week.
The governor and Brown are asking U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson to return control of prison healthcare to the state. But the state needs to convince the judge that it’s capable.
Schwarzenegger is asking the Legislature for parole reform that would reduce recidivism and free up prison beds, including for sick inmates.
It also would help greatly, says state prisons director Matt Cate, if the Legislature retooled an unsold $7.4-billion prison bond it passed in 2007. That measure, which didn’t require voter approval, was designed to build 53,000 more prison and local jail beds. It could resolve many of the judge’s problems, but needs some rewording, Cate asserts.
“If we could get the Legislature to make a couple of quick fixes. . . .”
But the Legislature won’t be doing anything until it finally passes an honestly balanced budget.
You can’t fault the Legislature and governor for letting stuff stack up while they focus on the deficit. You can fault them for bringing the state to this downhill slope toward insolvency.
george.skelton@latimes.com
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California legislators’ inaction hits state workers in the pocketbook
Controller John Chiang delays reimbursement of travel costs until a budget deal is reached. He also withholds lawmakers’ $173 daily allowance.
By Patrick McGreevy and Eric Bailey
8:45 PM PST, February 4, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento — Thousands of state employees learned Wednesday that they will not be reimbursed for travel expenses until a budget deal is reached, as lawmakers’ failure to strike such an agreement with the governor came back to bite them in their own wallets.
“We are delaying per diem and travel expenses to all state employees, including legislators,” said Hallye Jordan, a spokeswoman for state Controller John Chiang.
Inspectors of the state’s nursing homes, hospitals, bridges and dams, for example, will have to temporarily absorb the cost of getting to those places. The state doesn’t have the cash, Jordan said, and is not required by law to make the payments.
Chiang already is deferring state tax refunds, college grants and aid to the poor. Now, he also is withholding the $173 a day that legislators get to help defray the expense of having a second home in the capital.
Lawmakers did little complaining about their own predicament but called on the controller to exempt employees doing inspections and other public safety work.
“How do you have consumer protection” if workers can’t travel, said Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). “There is a reason when the government sends out inspectors.”
For rank-and-file employees, the controller’s move could prove costly. Some workers — notably those who handle regulatory oversight of various departments or industries — travel as many as three weeks each month and pay for it on personal credit cards. If the state doesn’t repay them quickly, they could get hit with steep finance charges.
“Essentially, you’re loaning money to the state of California to conduct its business,” said S. E. Smith, a steward for Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents thousands of state workers.
Don Killmer, an Education Department consultant, was traveling on state business to a conference in Florida when he got the bad news.
“It’s getting old giving my money to the state instead of the other way around,” Killmer said. “The bank of Don is closed. This is ridiculous.”
Kristen Haynie, a spokeswoman for the California Assn. of Professional Scientists, said inspectors of facilities such as food-processing plants and hospitals have already been hit hard financially by the governor’s recent executive order that forces them to take two days off per month without pay.
“This is going to interfere with their ability to do their job,” she said of the controller’s order.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, will continue to receive their six-figure salaries while they wait for reimbursements of as much as $4,800 a month.
Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) called the per diem suspension “appropriate.” But he said Chiang could have generated a lot more cash for the state by using his vote on the State Lands Commission to allow new drilling for oil off the California coast, which Chiang recently voted against for environmental reasons.
Runner called the deferral of travel expenses “political grandstanding.”
Romero seemed resigned.
“I’m brushing off my American Express card,” she said, “and I guess I’m going to have to max out on it until we get through everything.”
Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello) said he was not surprised.
“Obviously, we have two lives and two households to pay for when we are up here, and it’s not cheap,” he said. “But we are asking everybody else to make sacrifices, so we should too.”
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com
eric.bailey@latimes.com
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3 California schools recognized for role in boosting Latino performance on AP tests
Students at campuses in Long Beach, Fontana and San Ysidro outperform their U.S. counterparts on exams in Spanish language, Spanish literature and world history, report says.
By Carla Rivera
February 5, 2009
Three public schools in California led the nation in helping Latino students outperform their counterparts in other states on Advanced Placement exams in Spanish language, Spanish literature and world history, according to a report released Wednesday by the College Board.
Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach was cited as the public school with the largest number of Latino students from the class of 2008 earning a 3 or better in AP world history. Exams are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, and many colleges and universities give students course credit for scores of 3 or higher. Advanced Placement courses offer college-level material in a variety of subjects.
Latino students at Fontana High School outpaced their peers on the AP Spanish-language exam, and San Ysidro High School in San Diego had the most Latino students who succeeded on the AP Spanish literature exam.
Overall, 30.8% of California students in the class of 2008 took at least one AP exam during high school, compared with 25% nationwide. More than 20% of California students received a 3, 4 or 5 on at least one exam, ranking California sixth in the nation. Maryland ranked first, with 23.4% of its students achieving a 3 or better.
Miguel Solorio, a 2008 graduate of Wilson High who earned a 5 on the AP world history exam, said the courses were a good steppingstone to his studies at Cal State Long Beach. Solorio took nine AP courses and earned enough credits to place him as a junior in only his second semester in college.
“It’s a very good foundation of information if you take them seriously,” said Solorio, a history major. “I’m taking all upper-division classes, and in my Latin American nation class, for example, I already know about decolonization because of the AP world history class I took.”
The success at Wilson, Fontana and San Ysidro reflect a positive trend of increasing participation and success on AP exams by all ethnic groups and students who are low- income, College Board officials said. Latinos accounted for 38.7% of California’s public high school class of 2008 and made up 30.8% of students who scored 3 or better, a slight increase from a year ago.
But Latino and African American students still underperform their white and Asian peers. Black students, for example, were 7.4% of California’s public school student population but only 3.5% of those taking AP courses in 2008. Fewer than 2% of black students scored a 3 or better on at least one AP exam.
Success in AP Spanish exams accounts for some of the disparity in progress between Latino and African American students, said Sue Landers, executive director for AP policy and publications.
“For Latino students in California, there are a large number participating in Spanish-language courses, and their success has allowed them to feel more open to other AP courses and to build that college-level confidence,” she said.
One of the key criticisms of the AP program is that school districts in poor, urban areas have far fewer offerings than more affluent districts. Some private schools have dropped AP classes, creating similar courses instead that officials say are more challenging and less dependent on rote learning. Many colleges also have tightened requirements for giving credit for AP exams.
But the College Board cites research that AP participants have better college grades and are much more likely to earn a college degree in four years.
carla.rivera@latimes.com
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Thursday, February 5, 2009
State offices closed Friday as furloughs begin
By BRIAN JOSEPH
The Orange County Register
SACRAMENTO Don’t bother trying to renew your driver’s license Friday – the DMV is closed, along with most state offices across California.
Starting Friday, state offices will be closed on the first and third Fridays of every month, thanks to the state’s projected $42 billion deficit. While Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature continue arguing about what to do about the state’s fiscal problems, the governor has ordered all state workers to take two, unpaid days off of work each month, to save money.
The furloughs will save the state $1.3 billion. But they’ll also temporarily shut down most of state government.
That means agencies like the Department of Consumer Affairs, the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Child Support Services will all be closed.
For most Californians, however, the closures will only be felt if you were planning to visit the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Unemployment offices and parks will not close as part of the furlough program.
Those offices and facilities, along with other vital state services like prisons and hospitals, are being kept open while their employees are furloughed on a rotating basis. Public safety services, like the California Highway Patrol and CalFire, will also stay open.
The furloughs and closures only affect the executive branch of government – the courts and the Legislature are not under the governor’s authority.
Democrats and state employee unions opposed the furlough program as too burdensome for state workers, but a last month a Sacramento judge ruled they were legal.
The furloughs amount to roughly a 10 percent cut to state employee’s monthly pay, but all state workers are eligible for a “defined-benefit” retirement plan, a lucrative pension that’s no longer available in the private sector.
Unless the eventual budget deal specifies otherwise, the twice-monthly furloughs will continue through June 2010. The Legislature and the governor have been debating a solution to the state’s budget deficit since late October.
Contact the writer: 916-449-6046 or bjoseph@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Saddleback trustees discuss possible cuts — from athletics to academics
Board members field questions, hear ideas from packed house.
By ALEJANDRA MOLINA
The Orange County Register
MISSION VIEJO – The Saddleback Valley Unified School District board members met before a packed audience Tuesday night to discuss possible ways to trim millions of dollars from their budget.
From athletic and academic programs to subsidizing school transportation and school closures – all issues were discussed. Board members answered questions from the public. No action was taken.
Saddleback officials have begun planning for about $15 million in cuts in the 2009-10 school year, but are waiting to tackle mid-year cuts totaling nearly $10 million until after California legislators take action to close the state budget deficit.
The two-hour special workshop was requested by Trustee Suzie Swartz not to discuss specific cuts but rather figure out what their guiding philosophies would be once they know more information, she said.
“When we do get the information … we’re going to have to put wheels in motion,” Swartz said. “Based on what information we do have, we are going to have to be making some very difficult decisions this month that are going to affect a lot of people.”
Trustee Dore Gilbert said that when it comes down to it, they can’t make rational assumptions until they know how many millions they will have to cut.
“I think our philosophies are all the same. We don’t want to cut those things that are important – classrooms, athletics, music, IB.,” Gilbert said. “We don’t want to cut anything because we know that all of our kids benefit from every one of those courses.”
At the meeting, community members offered ideas like marketing the pre-school program and expanding it to make more revenue. One speaker suggested that the board keep cuts as far away from classrooms as possible and to cut things instead of people.
There were mixed feelings after the meeting.
“I think it was nice that they bothered to invite people to hear about what they go through and the philosophical process and the thought process behind it,” said Janice Copple, a Rancho Santa Margarita resident and teacher at Olivewood Elementary in Lake Forest.
Others disagreed.
“I don’t think we made any progress,” said Dolores Winchell, a Lake Forest resident who has kids at Laguna Hills High and Rancho Canada Elementary. “We’re in the exact same position when we came into this room.”
The district could face an estimated $24 million shortfall over the next 18 months because of a dismal state budget, including the nearly $10 million deficit before the end of the school year.
Last year, Saddleback officials cut $13.5 million from the district’s 2008-09 budget, eliminating more than 100 positions and modifying the popular class-size reduction program in the third grade as a cost-savings measure.
The 34,000-student district been forced to cut more than $33 million from its budget over the past six years.
Contact the writer: amolina@ocregister.com or 949-454-7360
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Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Silverado Elementary parents work to save school
The small campus could shutter because of a projected $30.2 million deficit in Orange Unified.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
SILVERADO — A group of about 60 parents and residents gathered tonight to strategize ways to prevent Orange Unified from closing Silverado Elementary this fall.
The group, which met at the Silverado Community Center, discussed everything from converting the small school into a magnet focused on environmental sciences and technology to raising money through grants so the school could remain open for at least one more year.
The group agreed that increasing the school’s enrollment to 180 students from the current total of 73 would generate enough state funding to persuade Orange Unified trustees to keep Silverado open.
“Increasing the school’s enrollment is critical for the school’s survival,” said Laura Bennett, a parent of a fourth-grader. “Anywhere we can find them, we need to get the kids in here.”
Silverado is among four small campuses Orange Unified is considering closing starting next school year to help erase a projected $30.2 million deficit over the next three years. The other schools are Imperial Elementary, Riverdale Elementary and Panorama Elementary. The school board will vote on the proposed closures later this month or in early March.
Consolidating the small campuses could save the district about $1.2 million annually. Other budget cuts the district is considering include teacher layoffs, pay freezes or reductions and restructuring medical benefit plans.
Silverado Elementary, at 7531 Santiago Canyon Road, is tucked into the hills of Silverado.
The school site is a point of community pride and considered a safe, rural learning environment by many parents.
If Silverado were to close, students would be bused up to 8.5 miles into Orange to attend Chapman Hills Elementary School. That’s unacceptable to many local parents. They particularly don’t like the idea of students being bused along busy Santiago Canyon Road.
Parents at the meeting said converting the campus into an environmental science and technology magnet would attract dozens of students from the area who are homeschooled or attend private schools.
“We as a community need to do something with this school to make it pay,” said Sue McIntire, a Silverado resident and manager of Inside the Outdoors, an outdoor science study facility located in Santiago Canyon.
The Orange Unified school board would still need to approve converting Silverado Elementary into a magnet, but parents said the more who people support the idea, the better change is has of happening.
Many of the parents said they plan to attend Thursday night’s budget study session by Orange Unified administrators and the school board where officials plan to further discuss the proposed school closures. That public meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. at district offices, 1401 N. Handy St., Orange.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
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Tuesday, February 3, 2009
CSUF looks for new South County campus
Lease is up on Irvine campus at former El Toro air base.
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
IRVINE — Cal State Fullerton is hunting for a new satellite campus to serve thousands of students in South County, after negotiations to renew the lease on its Irvine campus appear stalled or dead.
For more than a decade, campus officials hoped to create a permanent South County campus at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which closed in 1993.
Now, however, the university’s lease with Lennar Corp., which bought the base in 2005, expires on June 30, and officials are telling students that they’ll be moving elsewhere.
“Cal State Fullerton is still dedicated to having a South County presence,” Irvine Campus Dean Susan Cooper said Tuesday. “All the buildings we have looked at (to move into) have been in Irvine.”
Cooper said she has looked at five possible locations in Irvine, and other CSUF officials have viewed additional properties.
At one time, after the Marine base closed in 1993, CSUF officials hoped that the Navy might simply give them land to build a satellite campus. Then, in 2005, Lennar Corp. purchased 3,713 acres at the former air station to develop with housing, a Great Park and educational uses.
Lennar officials did not return phone calls Tuesday. They have said they planned to create a “lifelong learning district” on the former base, among other uses.
On Tuesday, CSUF President Milton Gordon said campus officials are “still in negotiation and conversations with Lennar” over the possibility of remaining there.
Kim Apel, CSUF’s manager for capital and physical planning, said the university has made offers to buy the property over the years but never even got a response from Lennar.
“We have not wanted to let go of the idea that there’s a great future there,” Apel said.
Now, however, five months until the lease expires at the end of June “isn’t really enough time to do an orderly move” into a new campus, Apel said.
“As of today, we don’t have a place to go,” he said. “We have been thinking something like this was going to happen and we have been mentally prepared for some months, but now we need a place to land.”
Cooper said Lennar appears to be going on with plans to develop the Great Park, based on construction under way all around the campus.
Before CSUF moved to its current site, it was at Saddleback College from 1989 to 2002. Cooper said the university has made a 20-year-long commitment to keeping a campus in South County and would keep its goals.
Recently, students began driving up from north San Diego County, she said, because upper-division classes down there are full.
The Irvine campus has 24 classrooms in 49,000 square feet that are full on weekday evenings.
“I’m hoping if we move, we will still be very close to Irvine,” Cooper said. “We need a very convenient location before many of our students come here after work.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
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OC budget tightens further and suing Sacramento is on tap
February 4th, 2009, 7:04 pm · 49 Comments · posted by NORBERTO SANTANA JR.
As Orange County officials ready for their next round of budget cuts, all eyes are beginning to focus on Sacramento with a mix of frustration…and anger.
And soon, there may be action.
County Budget Office Director Frank Kim sounded dire warnings about the potential impacts of Sacramento cutting off funds at a private budget briefing today for reporters.
“If I look at the short term, to June 30th, there’s a potential shortfall of $119 million,” Kim grimly predicted.
County supervisors are expected to receive their second quarter budget update next Tuesday. Kim is expected to unveil the next round of cuts, which include the deletion of more than 300 vacant positions across the county and the elimination of $2.5 million in technology projects.
Also on Tuesday, supervisors will be briefed in closed session on legal options regarding indications that Sacramento may start holding back county money. While other counties are talking about suing or revolting against the state, one Orange County supervisor doesn’t see much of an upside to litigation.
“I guess we could,” said Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby, acknowledging that county lawsuits are beginning to swirl toward Sacramento. “Suing the state is futile,” he said. “Even if we win, what’s a judge going to do, seize money that doesn’t exist?”
“They don’t have it. They’re overcommitted,” Norby said, noting that at best such an option “might be good political theater.”
The best option, Norby, said is to just stop delivering the services that Sacramento won’t fund.
So far, that’s the option county supervisors have opted for. In recent months, they adopted $32 million in cuts to agencies most directly affected by the state budget hole. That meant nearly 200 layoffs in the Social Services Agency, nearly 60 in probation and a host of service reductions in the Health Care Agency.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/08/local/me-graduation8
or
http://blogs.csun.edu/news/clips/2009/02/09/santa-ana-seeks-to-ease-high-school-graduation-requirements/
Santa Ana seeks to ease high school graduation requirements
(February 9, 2009)
By Tony Barboza
February 8, 2009
While high schools across the state are toughening their graduation requirements to prepare students for college, one of the state’s largest school districts is planning to make it easier for students to graduate.
In a proposal that would cut out health, college and career planning, world geography and earth science as required courses, the Santa Ana Unified School District is seeking to reduce the number of credits necessary to graduate.
Santa Ana’s graduation requirement — 240 credits — is among the state’s highest benchmarks. And like several other school districts, Santa Ana’s move to lower the credit requirement to 220 may be an admission that it had pushed too hard, especially in a district where administrators struggle with keeping students in school.
“It will have a positive effect on dropout rates,” Deputy Supt. Cathie Olsky said of the proposal. “It puts graduation in reach.”
State education officials, however, traditionally encourage efforts to increase graduation requirements rather than weaken them. Over the last decade, high schools throughout California, including those in Santa Ana, San Jose and San Francisco, have imposed stiffer requirements meant to challenge more students and propel them toward college and successful careers. Many have moved to require all students to complete the minimum courses for admission to the UC and Cal State systems, a trend the state has applauded.
“Through this culture of high standards and high expectations we have seen improvement,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell. “But we need to continue to expect more of students, not less.”
In Santa Ana, a city of mostly Latino immigrants where 60% of the students are learning English as a second language and nearly 4 in 10 at some schools do not make it through their senior year, officials say they are contemplating a more pragmatic approach.
Students’ schedules are so packed with required courses that if they fail a class or two, they can lose hope of graduating, officials said.
Last year, administrators began crafting a proposal that would turn four courses typically taken during students’ first two years into electives, but would still require students to take all the courses required for admission to the UC and Cal State systems — something other big-city school districts such as Los Angeles and San Francisco have not done.
“If we give the students hope, we raise our attendance, we raise our graduation rates,” said Michael Moss, a counselor and activities director at Valley High School in Santa Ana.
District officials were quick to point out that cutting the number of required credits will not diminish academic standards. “There will be no change in rigor,” said Jose Alfredo Hernandez, president of the Santa Ana school board, which is expected to vote on the changes as early as Tuesday.
School counselors support the plan, saying it will free up time in students’ schedules, giving them more opportunities to retake classes they have failed. It will also give more latitude to students taking remedial and technical classes, English language learners who require specialized courses, and honors students taking advanced classes.
But critics fear there may be other motivations.
School board member John Palacio, who plans to vote against the proposal, said cutting requirements could save the district money, because fewer required courses could mean fewer teachers. It could also be a way for the district to manipulate its graduation statistics, which are required to improve under the federal No Child Left Behind act.
“We’re trying to game the graduation requirements by diluting them so that we can increase our graduation rates,” he said. “And I think we need to be honest about it.”
Following the lead of other districts such as San Jose Unified, Santa Ana raised its requirements in 2000, saying the higher standard would challenge more students to aim for college.
The state requires a minimum number of courses in various subjects (three years of English and two of math, for example) and a passing score on an exit exam to graduate high school.
Santa Ana is not alone in rethinking its earlier ambitions.
San Francisco Unified, for example, upped its graduation requirements in the late 1990s only to relax the math component in 2000, over concerns that it was too demanding.
“I have nothing against high standards, but I also believe that you have to be realistic,” said Nadine Rodriguez, president of the Santa Ana High School parent-teacher association, whose daughter is expected to graduate this summer. “For the longest time we’ve been scratching our heads” over the high number of credits and the limitations it places on students, she said.
But Jonathan Espinoza, a freshman honors student at , said the requirements are not too demanding and that easing them would send the wrong message.
“By lowering them it’s just like saying we don’t want to put our students to their full potential,” he said.
Some teachers are ambivalent about the proposal, said Ken Swift of Valley High School, who teaches earth science, one of the freshman courses that would be made an elective under the district’s plan.
Enrollment in the course, meant to bridge middle-schoolers into high school-level science, would plummet, he said. But without loosening the credits, “there isn’t a lot of room for missteps.”
Linda Murray, who was superintendent of San Jose public schools when they boosted their requirements to 240 credits in 1999, said Santa Ana’s plan could give students more latitude without backpedaling.
“Dropping back to 220 should not keep them from pushing this envelope of getting kids to college,” said Murray, now superintendent in residence at the Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based advocacy group focused on closing the achievement gap.
“Having worked so hard to increase rigor in their district, they should hold to that,” she said. “But sometimes it’s hard to balance the needs of kids that are under extreme hardships with high standards for all.”
tony.barboza@latimes.com
Publication: Los Angeles Times
Latest email blast from John Palacio, SAUSD board member. To subscribe, contact him directly:
jpalacio@pacbell.net
OC WATCHDOG
Urban renewal angers displaced residents, landowners in Santa Ana.
Dottie Brown didn’t want to sell her Santa Ana property. The city, she says, didn’t give her much of a choice. Santa Ana has spent tens of millions of dollars to buy up and tear down homes just east of downtown for a redevelopment plan that has never gotten off the ground. Several landowners in the area, including Brown, sold after the city warned that it could condemn their land and force them out if they didn’t cooperate.
City officials say they hope to hire a private developer in the coming months to build homes on the land the city now owns.
“They said they were going to tear it down and build this beautiful place,” said Brown, who sold in 2001. “What did they do? They didn’t do anything with it. That’s what disgusts me.”
STORY BY DOUG IRVING ON NEWS 4
60 – Parcels of land the city owns in the Santa Ana Boulevard area
$23,408,735 – Total amount the city has spent to acquire the 60 parcels
$22,559,375 – Of the $23,408,735, the amount the city has spent in the past 1 0 years
ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Dottie Brown stands in front of some boarded-up units at an apartment complex that she and her husband, Bill, owned in Santa Ana. She says the city threatened them with the power of eminent domain before they sold the complex in 200 1.
Uprooted and upset
For some former residents and landowners who sold property in Santa Ana, the dream of urban renewal became a nightmare.
By DOUG IRVING
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SANTA ANA Carol Blair remembers when there was more to her old neighborhood than boarded-up houses and dirt lots. She remembers when children played ball in the street and parents leaned from their windows to chat.
It wasn’t economic hardship that emptied this neighborhood, just east of downtown. It wasn’t a crime wave or bad schools that chased away the families. No, this patchwork of vacant land littered with empty bottles and crumpled food wrappers was the work of the city.
Santa Ana has bulldozed dozens of homes and uprooted scores of mostly low-income people here, pursuing a vision of urban renewal that has instead gutted entire blocks. The city has spent more than $22 million in the past decade to create nothing out of the something that Carol Blair remembers.
A review of hundreds of pages of city documents by The Orange County Register found that some landowners made huge profits in their dealings with the city. Others signed away their homes only after the city warned that it could condemn their properties and force them out if they didn’t cooperate.
City officials hope to recruit a private developer in the next several months to begin building on the vacant lots it now owns. But City Manager David Ream acknowledged: “We probably could have done it faster, and should have done it faster. … We’re trying real hard to move forward now.”
Carol Blair cried when the city announced its intention to buy her house – the same house her grandmother lived in. She held out for years, even as her neighborhood vanished around her, but sold in 2005 after the city put up most of the money for a new house.
She left a note in the mailbox before she drove away: “Goodbye, my little house.”
“It was like a piece of the puzzle,” said Blair, 64. “And the puzzle wasn’t going to go together with that little house sitting there. So they got it.”
Drive along Santa Ana Boulevard and you’ll see what’s become of the city’s ambitions: Abandoned houses where city officials envisioned new apartments. Chain-link fences where they thought for sure there’d be townhomes.
This was going to be one of Santa Ana’s showcase neighborhoods. Instead, it has become a grim guidepost for the thousands of commuters who pass through it every day. In the words of Councilwoman Michele Martinez: “Welcome to Santa Ana. Welcome to a slum.”
The city’s plans were straightforward: Buy up the crowded apartments and rundown homes that pocked the neighborhood, and replace them with something newer, something better. Those plans haven’t changed, and city leaders say they want to begin building new homes there by this summer.
The city has owned some of those lots since the 1980s, but its effort to buy up land in the area began in earnest about 10 years ago. Inside City Hall, the project came to be known as Civic Center Walk.
But no such plan was ever sent to the City Council for an official vote. “There was never a plan that was adopted,” said Cynthia Nelson, the deputy city manager in charge of redevelopment. “There was a strategy. I’d call it a strategy.”
That strategy was used to justify tens of millions of dollars in spending and an aggressive land-acquisition program. To pay for it, the city tapped a redevelopment fund that could have been used to build new homes for low-income residents.
Instead, the city used the money to buy up and tear down low-income homes. It’s hard to say how many people were displaced, but a city record of where they went offers a clue. It lists 46 addresses to which they relocated.
What that list doesn’t show: that “probably 30, 40 people” were living in five small rental homes the city bought in 2005, according to the former land- lord, Arthur De Groot. Or that another landlord, David Mirrafati, had two dozen people evicted before he sold his property to the city.
Those who sold their land to the city did so willingly – that has always been the official line from City Hall. A question-and-answer still posted on the city’s Web site repeats that claim: “Will the city be buying any properties using ‘eminent domain’? No … all sales would be purely voluntary.”
That’s not how Dottie Brown remembers it.
Brown is 86 years old, gracious and polite, but nononsense stubborn, too. She’s a licensed real estate broker, and she read the letter from the city as a threat.
The 2001 letter informed her that the city wanted to buy an apartment complex that she and her husband owned. Two words stopped her cold: “eminent domain” – the power of the city to force private property owners to sell.
“If a voluntary agreement cannot be reached,” the letter warned, “the (city’s Redevelopment) Agency will either institute formal condemnation proceedings against the property through its power of eminent domain or abandon its intention to acquire the property.”
City files reviewed by the Register show that at least 14 households received similarly worded letters before agreeing to sell to the city. That represents nearly one-third of the sales in the past 10 years.
City officials said they could not remember or could not explain those letters, especially because the City Council never authorized the use of eminent domain in that area. Some suggested there may have been a tax benefit for those who sold under the threat of eminent domain, but the letters make no mention of that.
Ream, the city’s top executive, said he did not remember those letters, most of which were signed by a housing manager who no longer works for the city. “We absolutely decided that we weren’t going to use condemnation,” Ream said.
Nelson, who now oversees redevelopment in the city, also said she did not remember the letters. “We never really threatened to condemn anyone’s property,” she said. “It was never that we were going to condemn if somebody didn’t sell to us.”
But in interviews, several people who sold property to the city said they took the threat of eminent domain seriously. Carol Blair cried when she read the letter from the city with its eminent domain warning. Members of the Reyes family next door feared they would end up in court if they refused to sell, said Fred Reyes, 40.
Dottie Brown called a lawyer, who warned her that fighting City Hall would cost more than she was willing to spend. She and her husband sold their apartments in 2001.
“They kept threatening us with eminent domain. … That’s the only reason we went ahead with it,” she said.
Arthur De Groot needed no such prodding. When he put his five rental homes up for sale, city officials came calling – and he made them pay.
Records show that the city gave De Groot nearly $56,000 more for his rentals than its own appraisals said they were worth. “Ended up with a pretty good pile of dough,” he said.
De Groot wasn’t the only one who saw dollars in the city’s hunger for land east of downtown.
Mirrafati, the apartment landlord, bought another piece of land in late 2004 and flipped it to the city three months later – for $225,000 more than he had paid for it, county tax records show. He did not respond to several phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment.
Another group of investors headed by real estate agent Carlos Velazquez did even better. The group bought three parcels of land on the open market and then sold them to the city less than two months later – for nearly $440,000 more, records show.
For the most part, the city relied on professional appraisers to set the price it paid for the land, records show. Those prices reflected the “current fair market value” of the properties, according to staff reports.
Ream and his staff could not be reached last week to comment more directly on how they arrived at some of the prices the city paid.
The city now has 60 parcels of land in the area. The price of acquiring those parcels, for the past decade alone, now stands at more than $22 million – not including costs to clear the land and relocate the people who lived there.
A nonprofit group is building houses on three of the lots. The rest have sat, mostly deserted, while city officials wrote and rewrote their plans and worked to buy even more land.
Meanwhile, one of the biggest housing booms in recent history has fizzled into one of the most grinding construction slowdowns on record.
“It’s too bad we missed these last couple of years,” Nelson said.
Angie Giles has been waiting.
The city’s plans went right through the little yellow house where she grew up. Her parents agreed to sell in 2005 as their neighborhood disappeared – and, she said, after the city raised the threat of eminent domain.
The city bulldozed the house in 2007.
“That house was the very fabric of my whole family,” said Giles, 43.
“I just still don’t understand what the hell the city is doing with all that property. They kicked out all these people who had a neighborhood.”
H. LORREN AU JR., THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER Fred Reyes stands at the site of his family’s Santa Ana home. The house was leveled and the property sold, but the land has yet to be developed.
ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
America and Gilberto Torres greet Bill Brown, right, who used to own the Santa Ana property where the Torreses lived. Bill and Dottie Brown sold their apartment complex in 200 1.
jpalacio@pacbell.net
Thursday, February 26, 2009
College students take on school’s financial shortcomings
They’re going to try to raise enough money to pay for summer classes.
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA — At Santa Ana College, a handful of students aren’t just complaining about classes being eliminated because of the state’s budget problems. They’re doing something about it.
Student leaders launched a drive this week to raise money to replace at least some of the courses that have been cut from this year’s summer session, due to lack of funds. College officials have said they will eliminate one-quarter of the classes normally offered.
“We didn’t want to just sit around and beg for money, and ask the administration not to cut,” said student body President Alex Flores, who’s helping spearhead the movement. “We wanted to say, “Look, we’re fundraising ourselves, that’s how much we care about our education.”
Flores said a fellow student brought the idea to him some time ago, and a group of students has been meeting every week to figure out how to accomplish the task. They will work in partnership with the Santa Ana College Foundation, so the contributions can be tax-deductible.
“If we can replace even one class, that will help 30 students,” Flores said. The students have created MySpace and Facebook pages for the “Summer Session Rescue Fund” and hope to solicit money from companies such as textbook publishers.
College officials eliminated this year’s winter intersession classes that have traditionally been held in January, due to uncertainty about the state budget cutbacks.
That hurt students like Patricia Zamora, 20, who had to scramble to try to find other colleges to take the courses she had hoped to complete during the intersession.
“I don’t have a car and I have to work, so it was hard for me to get from one place to another,” Zamora said.
Another student, Jorge Maya, 20, said he had hoped to take a statistics class he needed during the intersession, and also plans to go to summer school.
Maya said he’d be willing to participate in a fundraiser for the summer session, but won’t donate money unless he’s sure of where it’s going.
“How do I know the money would be going to the school?” Maya said.
Flores said every $4,500 students are able to raise will restore one class for the summer.
Sara Lundquist, the college’s vice president of student services, said that it won’t be clear until next month exactly how much the summer session will cost, because it will depend on whether courses are taught by tenured faculty members or part-time faculty.
She said the student fundraisers told her they wanted any money they raise to go for core classes required for graduation, such as English composition or political science.
She said she admires the students for taking action on their own, considering that most of them have jobs and other life challenges in addition to school.
“From my point of view, if they raise enough money for even one class, that’s an incredible victory for our students,” Lundquist said. “I just think it’s very inspiring.”
Check out the rescue fund.
Here is the college Web site.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Capistrano district prepares to cut $25 million, 356-plus jobs
Deep cuts would wipe out class-size reduction, about 254 teachers.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – About 254 classroom teachers in the Capistrano Unified School District could be pink-slipped next month as officials prepare to slash $25 million from the district’s budget in response to state budget cuts.
At a school board meeting Wednesday, district officials said they would be recommending an aggressive cost-cutting plan that would hit core classroom jobs and programs, including class-size reduction in the primary grades. The cuts are necessary following the state budget plan signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week that calls for $8.4 billion in cuts to K-12 public schools.
“The picture has changed (from a week ago), but it’s still very dire,” Deputy Superintendent Ron Lebs told trustees.
Officials have identified 356 positions so far they’ll recommend be pink-slipped next month, including classroom teachers, elementary school music teachers, counselors, elementary school assistant principals and high school activity directors.
All of these employees legally must be notified by March 15 they could be out of a job at the end of a year.
As a result, the 20:1 student-teacher ratio in the primary grades would be eliminated completely, and class sizes in the fourth through 12th grades would be increased by an average of one student each.
Still to be determined are dozens of other job cuts, from district administrators and middle school assistant principals to adult education and special education employees.
A more complete layoff picture will be presented at a March 9 board meeting, when trustees are expected to vote to authorize sending out the layoff notices.
Capistrano officials also must begin the arduous task of identifying and prioritizing other 2009-10 school year cuts. The hundreds of anticipated teacher and administrator layoffs likely will not get the district to its $25 million cost-savings target; officials also will need to cut scores of programs and services. Those cuts have yet to be identified.
“The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time,” Lebs said. “We will keep doing that all the way through June.”
Capistrano officials, who were predicting up to $38 million in cuts earlier this month, warned that the $25 million figure is most likely a best-case scenario, not a worst-case scenario.
“There are no sacred cows in that process, and everyone is going to have to accept being reviewed,” Trustee Anna Bryson said.
The cuts will be made to next year’s budget, even though the state slashed Capistrano’s funding for the current school year as well. Because the state loosened restrictions on how school districts can spend their money, officials expect to end this year about $100,000 in the black.
The federal economic stimulus package signed by President Obama earlier this month also is not likely to help Capistrano soften the blow of cuts, an independent school finance expert told the school board Wednesday.
“It will help support cash flow at the state level rather than coming to the school districts,” said Joel Montero, CEO of the Bakersfield-based Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team. “If you were expecting the federal stimulus money would come down to all the school districts, that’s not likely the case.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
Recommended layoffs
Capistrano Unified officials have identified about 356 positions, including about 254 classroom teachers, they will recommend be pink-slipped next month as the district prepares to cut $25 million from its 2009-10 budget.
The following positions are proposed to be eliminated, saving the district $14.6 million. If approved by the school board March 9, the layoff notices would be issued by March 15.
$2.36 million: 217 teachers in grades K-3 (Eliminate class-size reduction program)
$2.69 million: 36.8 teachers in grades 4-12* (Increase average class size by 1 student)
$1.93 million: All 24 music teachers in grades 4-5*
$3.18 million: 35.4 counselors
$2.47 million: 26 teachers on special assignment, including GATE, literacy and math
$1.31 million: All 10.5 elementary school assistant principals
$0.64 million: All 6 high school activity directors
District officials also are working to identify dozens of other jobs they will recommend be eliminated, including district administrators, middle school assistant principals, and positions in adult education and special education.
*Cannot be cut without concessions from employee unions
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Disciplining Students with Disabilities
The legal implications of managing these pupils
By Allison Fetter-Harrott, Amy M. Steketee, Mary Dare
March 2009
Behavior management can be a key to student, teacher, and district success. When students with disabilities are served, effective behavior management is even more critical. Failure to implement proper discipline with students with disabilities can have financial consequences. For example, a federal judge recently ordered the Waukee Community School District in Iowa to pay $50,000 in attorney fees to the family of a young girl with autism who was inappropriately placed in a time-out room for hours. For students, the emotional toll can be greater, albeit intangible. Given what’s at stake, district administrators must be aware of both the educational and legal issues involved in managing the behavior of students with disabilities by implementing effective districtwide policies and implementing appropriate interventions on a case-bycase basis.
Strategies for All Students
It is well-known that student learning is impacted negatively by poorly managed classrooms and buildings and impacted positively by well-managed classrooms and buildings. Administrators can take several steps to promote a districtwide climate that cultivates well-managed classrooms and buildings. For instance, administrators may do the following:
1. Have all teachers establish and define reasonable classroom norms or rules and communicate them in the appropriate manner to each student. Each norm or rule should be stated in positive terms. And students should understand each rule’s purpose.
2. Obtain a commitment from all staff to teach students appropriate school behavior in the same manner that academic skills are taught and reinforced. Administrators may even encourage teachers and counselors to provide formal lessons on social skills, interpersonal problem solving, and conflict resolution. Various programs are designed to assist schools with this training.
3. Have staff define expectations for various areas of each building. For example, have staff describe to students what respect “looks like” in the classroom, library, lunchroom, and restrooms. At the same time, ensure that norms or rules are consistent throughout the building. A common understanding of expectations will eliminate disagreements among students and staff and reduce anxiety for students.
4. Communicate these behavior expectations and consequences to parents and families. This will encourage support from home and will likely reduce conflicts.
Preventative Strategies
In spite of administrators’ best efforts, some students will not respond to districtwide strategies. For these students, many of whom will have disabilities, other and more individualized strategies will need to be implemented.
To begin with, when students exhibit chronic behavior problems, it is important for administrators to consider the root cause as well as the purpose for the misbehavior before attempting to identify an appropriate replacement behavior, such as deep breathing or exercising.
Administrators should seek training in drafting policies and carrying out disciplinary strategies.
Depending on the age of the student, it may help to include the student in this discussion. It will also be helpful to include the family members in identifying strategies that are tailored to the child’s individual needs.
Where a student has an individualized education program (IEP) or a behavior intervention plan (BIP), these strategies need to be considered by the case conference committee (which consists of the child’s parent[s], general education teacher, special education teacher, and other school officials with specialized knowledge of the child’s needs) and integrated into the IEP and/or BIP. Some of these strategies may include:
• Designating a support person, such as a counselor, social worker or aide, who will check in regularly with the student or will be available if the student needs a “cool down” period.
• Adjusting either the timing or content of the student’s academic schedule to reduce stress and anxiety. For instance, it may be helpful to schedule physical education between demanding academic classes.
• Teaching the student various relaxation techniques, such as visualization or deep breathing.
• Allowing the student to take “timeouts” when needed to settle down, become calm or regroup.
• Developing a crisis plan that outlines procedures for responding to the student’s misbehavior and providing training in nonaversive behavior management, including positive reinforcement and communicative strategies, to all responders.
• Counseling, mentoring, or intense social skills training.
• Providing “wraparound” services, in which services and supports are “wrapped around” the student and his family. These may include interagency services provided at school, home, and in the community. There are often multiple agencies involved, and it is important to have a care coordinator to oversee the supports.
These strategies are typically developed after an administrator evaluates the student and conducts a behavior assessment. Because some of these individualized strategies are intensive and may need to be in place over an extended period of time, it is crucial to involve the family in all stages of developing and implementing them.
Post-Misconduct Interventions
While districtwide and individualized preventative strategies can prevent misbehavior and encourage desired behavior, some students will still break rules. When students with disabilities engage in misconduct, administrators should be aware that federal laws, including Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (or commonly known as Section 504) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA), provide those students with specific procedural safeguards.
Equal Treatment.
Section 504 prohibits schools receiving federal funds from discriminating against a student with a disability because of that disability.
“Ten-Day Rule.”
For each student who receives special education services via an IEP under IDEA, federal law permits a school to “remove” (i.e., suspend) the student for up to 10 consecutive days for violating the school’s code of conduct (so long as such discipline is consistent with the school’s treatment of students without disabilities who have committed the same violation under analogous conditions). Beyond that, a school must provide the student additional procedures, most notably a manifestation determination. For example, when a bus driver suspends a child for more than 10 consecutive days whose IEP calls for bus transportation, such action could amount to a “change in placement,” triggering the child’s right to a manifestation determination, whether or not the violation was a “manifestation” of the child’s disability, and other procedural rights. If the bus driver is unaware of those rights, and those who are aware of them, such as district administrators and/or officials in the special education department, are unaware of the suspensions, a district can unknowingly violate IDEA. (In some instances, “in-school” or “bus” suspensions can be considered “removal.”)
Interim Alternative Educational Setting. In an exception to the 10-day rule, under IDEA, if a student commits a weapon or drug offense at school, or if the student causes another person serious bodily injury at school, the school may unilaterally place the student in an interim alternative educational setting for up to 45 consecutive school days.
Manifestation Determination.
Removing a student from the education program designated in her IEP for more than 10 consecutive days (or a pattern of removals of more than 10 days) constitutes a “change in placement” under IDEA, requiring the school to convene a manifestation determination meeting in which members of the child’s IEP team will consider whether the violation was a manifestation of the disability. If the team determines that it was, the school may not change the student’s placement without parental consent.
Functional Behavior Assessment. If a manifestation determination results in finding that a student’s conduct was a manifestation of disability, or if a school changes the placement of a child with a disability under IDEA by removing him for more than 10 days, the school must conduct a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) to examine the “function” of the behavior, meaning its cause or purpose, and create a BIP aimed at managing the behavior in the future. For example, Billy, a student with ADHD, engaged in a violent and highly disruptive outburst at school one afternoon. To conduct an FBA, Billy’s special education teacher and other relevant school staff gathered all the evidence they could find regarding the outburst. What happened before the outburst? Had it happened before? If so, what interventions or discipline were used? The team isolated the reason for Billy’s behavior. Doing so allowed them to better formulate a BIP that not only suppressed the behavior or minimized its intrusion on the school, but ultimately extinguished that behavior and channeled Billy toward acceptable and productive behaviors in the future.
Post-Expulsion Services.
Where a manifestation determination conference results in the finding that a student’s violation of a code of conduct was not a manifestation of disability, the school may discipline the student as it would a student without a disability by changing her placement, such as by expelling her or transferring her to an alternative school. However, the school must still continue to provide the student educational services that permit her to participate in the general education curriculum and to progress toward her IEP goals.
The End Result
The bottom line is that administrators should be well schooled on appropriate districtwide and individualized preventative measures for managing student behavior and on the legal issues relating to the discipline of students with disabilities. Because the law can be intricate and unforgiving to administrators, they should seek good training and counsel from their attorneys, skilled vendors, and/ or professional and school associations in drafting policies and carrying out disciplinary strategies.
Allison Fetter-Harrott and Amy Steketee are attorneys specializing in school law with Baker & Daniels LLP, and Mary Jo Dare is an educational consultant for B & D Consulting in Indiana.
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Thursday, February 26, 2009
Surf City school districts consider 102 teacher layoffs
Huntington Beach City School District trustees voted to lay off 32; Ocean View School District is considering giving notices to 70.
By ANNIE BURRIS
The Orange County Register
Huntington Beach school district officials crunching numbers from the state’s recently passed budget are planning to give 102 elementary school teachers layoff notices next month.
Ocean View School District leaders are finalizing paperwork for a Tuesday school board meeting in which trustees could vote to give layoff warnings to up to 70 teachers.
Huntington Beach City School District trustees voted at their Feb. 17 meeting to give layoff notices to 32 teachers.
“It is not their fault and that is what is so frustrating,” said Ocean View Superintendent Al Rasmussen about the layoffs. “We are going to do everything in our power to keep our people.”
Ocean View and the city school districts have students in Huntington Beach Westminster, Fountain Valley and Midway City.
Ocean View teacher cuts would help district officials make $5 million in reductions they need to make to their budget which is about $75 million , he said.
City school district trustees said they voted for the layoffs last week before the state budget was passed in order to make the March 15 deadline to send employees notices. Feb. 17 was their last general meeting this month and their next meeting is March 10, which officials said was too close to the deadline.
“We can’t wait until the very end because they have to prepare the notice,” said Shirley Carey, school board vice president, adding that trustees could rescind the notices once budget numbers are finalized.
The reduction in teaching staff will save the city school district about $2.6 million a year, officials said. Last year, the school’s budget was about $50 million.
City school district teachers are frustrated and saddened by the trustees’ decision, said union president Kathy Hogan. The teachers were hoping that more cuts would be made at the district level instead of the teachers, she said.
“This is their life and job,” Hogan said. “(The trustees) are looking at people and not the budget.”
Officials at the Huntington Beach Union High School District say they are not anticipating layoffs. If notices need to be sent, the trustees would vote on layoffs during their March 10 meeting, officials said.
Contact the writer: aburris@ocregister.com or 714-445-6696
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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Brea school district delivers the bad news
The district is proposing to cut jobs and pull funding from programs to deal with $5.6 million shortfall.
By LOU PONSI
The Orange County Register
BREA — “How do you run a $100-a-day business on $87?”
Brea Olinda Unified School District Superintendant Skip Roland used that analogy at least half-dozen times when outlining specifics of the district’s proposed solutions to a potential three-year, $5.6 million shortfall during a BOUSD study session on Tuesday at the Civic Center.
Those projections are based on the effects of the state’s $8.5 billion reduction in funding for K-12 education.
“K-12 education makes up nearly 40 percent of the state budget and 60 percent of the (state) cuts went to K-12 education,” Roland said. “It seems like a disproportionate amount by our legislators.”
Potential BOUSD staff cuts starting in 2009-10 include:
•Eliminate four language arts teachers, saving $246,543
•Eliminate the school safety officer position at the high school, saving $84,690.
•Defer the hiring of a high school plant manager, saving $150,000.
•Reduce 10 special educational instructional aides, saving $150,000.
BOUSD’s proposals also include sweeping, or pulling, $874,224 in funds earmarked for specific programs in 2009-10 and placing that money in the general fund. The district proposes sweeping $44,033 from its GATE program and nearly $300,000 from funds that would have gone towards instructional materials.
The district’s proposals also has some “one-time solutions,” which included pulling $787,880 from funds earmarked for a variety of programs for the remainder of this school year, including music and physical education, and putting that money into the general fund.
“These are all things that we need to do, not things that we want to do,” said Assistant Superintendant John Fogerty.
Unknowns include a potential $785,000 in federal funding depending on the federal stimulus package.
The district must present a budget to the school board by March 9.
Staff members who could be laid off must be notified by March 15.
“We are in a period of time where we have to move really quickly,” Roland said.
Contact the writer: lponsi@ocregister.com714-704-3730
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Friday, February 27, 2009
Orange Unified to cut 34 certificated jobs
The school board approved the cuts Thursday as part of an effort to trim the budget.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
ORANGE – The Orange Unified School Board voted Thursday night to cut 34 certificated jobs as part of an effort to trim a projected $30 million deficit over the next two years.
The job cuts would effect mostly teachers, but also some counselors, officials said. The actual employees who will be laid off will receive their pink slips within the next two weeks, said Ed Kissee, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services.
By law, the district has until March 15 to notify teachers who are in danger of being laid off for the upcoming school year.
Orange Unified officials are working to slash the district budget in response the recently approved state, which cuts about $8.4 billion to education. Officials have said the district is facing a $10 million deficit this year, and a combined $30 million deficit over the next two years from the nearly $250 million yearly budget.
Other proposed cuts include closing four small schools – Panorama Elementary, Riverdale Elementary, Imperial Elementary, and Silverado Elementary – eliminating middle school athletics, increasing high school class sizes, salary reductions for all employees, decreasing the amount the district pays into employee health benefits, and charging high school athletes a $30 yearly transportation fee.
The school board will likely vote on the school closures and additional cuts at its March 12 meeting.
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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
O.C. schools try to pare millions of dollars from budgets
Capistrano, Brea, Fullerton are latest to outline schools cuts, layoff possibilities.
By WILLIAM DIEPENBROCK
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Orange County schools are outlining plans for millions of dollars in cuts and hundreds of layoffs in the aftermath of the passage of $8.4 billion in school cuts for this year and next.
Here’s a status report for districts across Orange County:
Anaheim Union High School District
In Anaheim Union, the budget will likely mean the 34,000-student district will have to cut a combined $39 million from this and next year’s budgets, Superintendent Joseph Farley said.
“We now have reliable figures to finalize our financing,” he said. “Before, we were just looking at projections.”
Farley said he expects the district to hand out pink slips in coming weeks to teachers and other staff to help balance the district’s $330 million annual budget. But an exact number of slips has not yet been determined, he said. The school board will vote March 5 on the total number of teachers who will get the layoff notices.
Farley said he was pleased to see from the new budget agreement that the district will have some flexibility when it comes to categorical funding, funds earmarked for specific services or programs that previously could not be spent on general fund items. For example, Farley said the district will likely use a $200,000 grant designated for new library books to pay for other budget shortfalls.
“New library books are important, but we can make better use of that money right now in other areas,” he said. “We can put off buying the new books for another year.”
Anaheim City School District
Anaheim City officials said they have projected a $10.3 million budget shortfall for the 2009-10 school year.
“We will be carefully examining the recently passed state budget to determine its impact for the district,” said district spokesman Peter Daniels. “In addition, we are hopeful that monies earmarked for schools in the federal stimulus package reach the intended audience.”
The school board will likely approve final cuts on March 9, Daniels said.
“During this time, we’ve asked our staff to be patient because many factors can change before we have a final outcome on what positions and programs will be reduced. We understand the difficulty caused by budget uncertainties, but ask that they remain flexible while we finalize decisions,” he said.
Brea Unified School District
The school district on Feb. 24 outlined a plan to cut $5.6 million in 2009-10.
The plan would eliminate four language arts teachers, saving $246,543; eliminate the school safety officer position at the high school, saving $84,690; defer the hiring of a high school plant manager, saving $150,000; and reduce 10 special educational instructional aides, saving $150,000.
BOUSD’s proposals also include sweeping, or pulling, $874,224 in funds earmarked for specific programs in 2009-10 and placing that money in the general fund. The district proposes sweeping $44,033 from its GATE program and nearly $300,000 from funds that would have gone toward instructional materials.
The district must present a budget to the school board by March 9.
Click here for more details on the Brea Unified budget cuts
Buena Park School District
Superintendent Greg Magnuson said it’s too soon to say what effect the new state budget will have on the district and its seven schools.
“We’re hearing a lot of the information we need is going to be in trailer bills,” rather than the main package, meaning it could be weeks before the budget’s full effects will be known,” Magnuson said.
That’s precious time lost for the district, which has to make decisions no later than May or June for a fiscal year that starts in July.
“We have to go in with a microscope,” he said.
As matters stand, the district faces a $4.5 million hole in a $50 million budget.
“Right now, we remain whole. We have an operating deficit. We have reserves, but then there’s next year,” Magnuson said.
He said federal stimulus package funds for the district could amount to $500,000 to $700,000, hardly a dent. The district is examining program cuts and potential teacher layoffs.
“We will prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” Magnuson said.
Capistrano Unified School District
Capistrano Unified now expects to trim $25 million from its 2009-10 budget under a “best-case scenario” — a plan that would require the loss of 356-plus jobs, including about 254 classroom teachers.
The plan, announced Feb. 25, is expected to be presented for adoption on March 9.
Officials are still working on elements of the plan, parts of which need to be negotiated with unions.
Click here for more on the CUSD budget issues.
Fullerton School District
Fullerton could lay off 74 teacher layoffs as part of $6.5 million cuts. Proposed cuts include:
A 20 percent reduction in International Baccalaureate, Gifted and Talented Education and Multiage programs amounting to $76,800.
A $202,000 cut to the All the Arts for All the Kids Program, which currently receives $300,000 annually from the district.
The elimination or reduction of the Elementary Music Program: $217,000.
A $1 million cut in administrative costs, including psychologists and two assistant principals.
A $1.3 million cut for certificated staff, including some school nurses, counselors and special education teachers.
A community forum to receive public comments will be held at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 26, at Ladera Vista Junior High School, 1700 E. Wilshire Ave.
Teacher’s union president Andy Montoya said all union groups will join for a protest rally at 4:30-5:30 p.m. March 12, at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue.
Click here for more on Fullerton School District’s budget issues.
Fullerton Joint Union High School District
Fullerton Joint Union High School District meets Feb. 25, in both open and closed sessions to discuss budget cuts.
Huntington Beach City School District
The district voted on the following list of layoffs Feb. 17:
2 full time, middle school, teacher specialist,student support
1 full time, elementary school, teacher specialist, student support
1 full time, teacher inclusionary practices, behavior interventions,
3 middle school core classroom teachers,
25 full time, kindergarten through 5th grade classroom teachers.
City school district trustees said they voted for the layoffs last week before the state budget was passed in order to make the March 15 deadline to send employees notices. Feb. 17 was their last general meeting this month and their next meeting is March 10, which officials said was too close to the deadline.
“We can’t wait until the very end because they have to prepare the notice,” said Shirley Carey, school board vice president, adding that trustees could rescind the notices once budget numbers are finalized.
The reduction in teaching staff will save the city school district about $2.6 million a year, officials said. Last year, the school’s budget was about $50 million.
City school district teachers are frustrated and saddened by the trustees’ decision, said union president Kathy Hogan. The teachers were hoping that more cuts would be made at the district level instead of the teachers, she said.
“This is their life and job,” Hogan said. “(The trustees) are looking at people and not the budget.”
Huntington Beach Union High School District
The high school district is preparing to review how the last-minute revisions will affect this year and next year’s budgets.
“I am not recommending any layoffs for budget purposes,” Superintendent Van Riley. “We have put ourselves in a fiscal position that will not require layoffs for budgetary reasons.”
Irvine Unified School District
Irvine Unified officials are preparing for the possibility of a changed funding model in which the district would forego state funds altogether in favor of local property taxes.
Superintendent Gwen Gross said with the projected statewide cuts, it now appears IUSD has the potential to move into a “local funding” model, often referred to as “Basic Aid.” In “Basic Aid” districts, the local property tax revenue is relied upon to fund school needs. The Laguna Beach and Newport-Mesa districts have long operated under this funding model.
“This new funding model would not make us immune to the economic challenges faced by our state, nor would it negate the need to identify cuts this year,” Gross said, adding that Basic Aid districts face additional challenges, like a mandate for larger budgetary reserves.
Last week, Irvine Unified officials were scrambling to digest the budget and start to understand the local implications.
“Our business services department will spend the next few days analyzing all aspects of the state’s spending plan to determine how much we will have to cut and what our parameters are in terms of categorical flexibility,” Gross said. “Essentially, the real work begins now.”
Gross said specific cuts have yet to be determined and the district will seek input from a specially formed committee that includes a spectrum of staff and community representatives.
La Habra City School District
La Habra Superintendent Susan Belenardo is relieved and hopeful that the district will have more definitive information in early March, before the layoff notice deadline. Layoffs are expected, but she as unsure how many.
“We don’t have something in hand that says this is what it will look like,” she said. “We have to wait for some formal guidance.”
Reduced penalties for some class-size reduction options – which have been a part of recent budget proposals – would help the district.
“The last update we had is that (the state) would lower penalties for class size. If you go over 20.4, you get penalized from your class-size reduction account.”
The district is holding a task force meeting on Monday with administrators and parent representatives from each district school. A study session relating to the budget will take place Feb. 26.
Click here for more on the La Habra school district’s budget issues.
Laguna Beach Unified School District
Laguna Beach Unified, a Basic Aid district that derives most of its revenue from local property taxes and does not rely on the state to fill its general-fund coffers, does not anticipate any layoffs in the 2009-10 school year, said district spokesman Darrin Reed.
But the school district is cognizant of the fact that local property values have fallen and could affect the district’s revenue in the future, he said.
“We have been reserving money knowing someday there would be a rainy day,” Reed said.
Magnolia School District
“We are going to take a look at the little bit of flexibility in using our categorical funds,” said Superintendent Ellen Curtin said Friday.
The board was to receive an update on the state budgetMonday, and will be looking at the district’s financial forecast.
“We see this as a multi-year problem,” Curtin said.
Newport-Mesa Unified School District
Newport-Mesa trustees will meet March 10 to review a proposal for $8 million in cuts to their 2009-10 budget. The plan would eliminate about 36 jobs, but most of those employees are expected to find other posts within the district. No layoffs are anticipated.
Paul H. Reed, deputy superintendent and chief business official, said the state’s budget plan does not change the district’s planning since it anticipated this level of cuts.
“We anticipated the level of cuts and only budgeted this year for what we thought was safe. It was obvious when the state legislature passed another gimmicky and foolish budget in September that it wouldn’t last while the economy was crashing and equally obvious that there would be mid-year cuts,” Reed wrote in an e-mail response to questions.
He said the federal stimulus money would provide some short-term relief.
“But it is one-time money and solves no long term challenges. We will, however, put the fed construction money to work with projects on the shelf which will be good for us and for the local economy,” he said.
Click here to see a list of the Newport-Mesa district’s possible budget cuts.
Ocean View School District
Ocean View School District leaders are finalizing paperwork for a Tuesday school board meeting in which trustees could vote to give layoff warnings to up to 70 teachers.
“It is not their fault and that is what is so frustrating,” said Ocean View Superintendent Al Rasmussen about the layoffs. “We are going to do everything in our power to keep our people.”
Ocean View teacher cuts would help district officials make $5 million in reductions they need to make to their budget which is about $75 million , he said.
Orange Unified School District
Orange Unified officials are reviewing the new state budget to determine impacts on the district’s finances. The district has been projecting a $30 million budget deficit over the next two years.
District officials have already considered shuttering as many as four small elementary schools, eliminating bus routes for high school students, merging multiple school calendars to one schedule, staff layoffs, pay freezes and reduction of district contributions to employee health benefits.
The school board will likely vote on the proposed closures Panorama Elementary, Silverado Elementary, Imperial Elementary and Riverdale Elementary, and other budget cuts on Feb. 26 or March 12, officials said.
Meanwhile, parents concerned about the possible Silverado closure have planned a march
. Click here to read about that effort.
Click here for more on the OUSD budget issues.
Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District
Placentia-Yorba Linda School District Superintendent Dennis Smith said he expects “significant” cuts next year, but specifics won’t be clearer until Monday.
“It’s really hard to know,” Smith said. “No one really knows the impact at this time.”
Saddleback Valley Unified School District
Saddleback Valley Unified, which was facing up to $19 million deficit next year, now projects a $10 million gap. The district is considering cutting from its general fund and categorical accounts to balance the budget.
Click here for the latest report on Saddleback’s budget planning.
Santa Ana Unified School District
Santa Ana Unified officials said the new state budget agreement falls within some of the earlier district estimates.
“The actions at first glance appear to be in line with our budget projections, if they hold up and are not changed,” said Ron Murrey, the district associate superintendent of business services. “The information we have at this time is not complete. Additionally, the Legislature always adjusts the first budget with trailer bills that tend to clean up unclear language that sometimes affect funding.”
Earlier this month, Superintendent Jane Russo announced that the district could cut up to 750 jobs because of state budget cuts. District officials have also said they could cut up to $21.9 million from the budget this year, and $35.9 million for 2009-10.
“There is an anticipation that the cuts by the state would cause the reduction of staff and other reductions as we have projected. There was no increase to student funding,” Murrey said.
The school board meeting, on Feb. 24, was to include a brief update regarding the state budget adoption. Early in March, the school board will have a study session to review both the state’s funding of schools and the federal economic package’s impact on the district.
The board will likely vote on teacher layoffs and other potential cuts in March.
Click here for more on Santa Ana Unified’s budget issues.
Tustin Unified School District
Deputy Superintendent Brock Wagner presented a grim budget picture Monday at a special meeting of the Tustin Unified Board of Education.
Wagner said that a preliminary analysis of the newly passed state budget shows that for 2008-09, the district lost $5 million in budget revenue due to cuts. Next year will bring a $7.5 million cut, and the following year will bring a $12 million cut because of a lost cost of living adjustment increase that was anticipated but lost.
Under the state budget, Tustin Unified is looking at a budget reserve of -5.41 percent by the 2010-11 school year. Wagner said.
Superintendent Richard Bray said staff reductions and budget cuts will be necessary to solve that shortfall, although more district employees will receive notices than are actually laid off.
Another possibility being considered is temporarily abandoning class-size reduction, Bray said. While the state would penalize the district for every student over the recommended 20:1 ratio, the district could earn as much as $17,000 per classroom when additional per student funds are factored in. Class-size reduction would be reinstated by the 2012-13 school year.
To meet a goal of a 3 percent budget reserve for the 2010-11 school year, “Everything has to be put on the table,” Bray said.
District employees will receive preliminary layoff notices by March 13; final notices will be received by May 15.
The school district plans to discuss the current budget again at 7 p.m. March 9.
“We know it’s going to be tough, we just don’t know how tough it’ll be this time,” Eliot said.
UC Irvine
S pecific impacts to UC Irvine have yet to be analyzed. For the University of California system, hits include to the nursing programs, employee retirement and capital expansion projects. Enrollment growth has been frozen.
“The university is very glad that a budget agreement was finally approved,” said Roy Dormaier, UC Irvine vice chancellor for planning and budget.
“And while we don’t think that we were treated unfairly related to other issues in the state budget, the additional cuts and lack of funding for enrollment growth and other major needs will create serious problems for UC to manage in the coming years.”Altogether, according to UC President Mark Yudof, who sent out a letter Wednesday about the proposed new budget, the cuts represent a $450 million shortfall for the UC system.
Note: The Register is still seeking information on the following districts: Los Alamitos Unified, Centralia, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Lowell Joint and Savanna.
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City police union agrees to budget talks with Sacramento officials
By Ryan Lillis
rlillis@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 – 4:21 pm
The union that represents Sacramento’s police officers has agreed to meet with city officials Thursday and hear their proposals for labor concessions designed to cut into a $50 million budget deficit.
So far, the police union is the only city labor group to agree to meet with city officials.
In a letter obtained by The Bee on Tuesday, police union boss Brent Meyer told city labor negotiators that while the union has no interest in reopening its entire contract, “we believe that there are several viable options available to our respective organizations that could go far towards meeting the goals of each.”
“The men and women of the SPOA recognize the enormity of the financial challenges which will face the City of Sacramento and its employees in the coming years,” Meyer wrote in the letter, dated Feb. 5. “We will endeavor to do our best to work in partnership with the City in addressing those issues so as to fairly meet or exceed the expectations of our membership.”
Meyer said union and city officials were scheduled to meet Thursday.
The Sacramento City Council will hear tonight night a preliminary budget outline for how the city’s $50 million deficit for the fiscal year beginning July 1 can be filled. That outline includes the effects of massive cuts to city services and layoffs.
The cutbacks would lead to decreased police patrols and fire protection in many neighborhoods, trash buildup and overgrown lawns at city parks and delays in many key development projects.
Many of the cuts appear likely, as most city labor unions have shown no signs of agreeing to a series of concessions that could slash the shortfall in half. Those concessions include salary freezes for all city employees and furloughs for those who do not work for the police or fire departments.
In an interview, Meyer said he could not speak specifically about whether his union was open to freezing their salaries until it learns what city officials have to say later this week.
However, he said he recognized the severity of the budget situation. Under the proposal to be discussed tonight, 67 police officers would be laid off.
“It would be devastating to the city, devastating to the police department and devastating to the citizens who rely upon us to provide a level of service,” he said.
If only the police union agrees to salary freezes, the city would save $6 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1. City officials said it is possible that unions who agree to concessions might not face the same level of cuts as those who do not.
“It would not go unnoticed if one union says they’re willing to do something,” Mayor Kevin Johnson said. “I would like to think that the other unions would say we want to do our part and if they don’t, then I believe that puts a very bitter and poor taste in all of our mouths because we’re talking about laying off people.”
Local 39, the city’s largest union, and the union that represents city firefighters have said they have not considered reopening negotiations on their contracts, which expire in 2010.
Chris Harvey, a firefighter union spokesman, said the city should look more closely at discretionary spending before it decides to cut services and jobs.
“To imply there are only two choices – give up your raises or we have to lay people off – is silly,” he said. “The third choice is to stop spending money on stupid things, especially in tight economic times.”
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State retirees’ health costs near $50 billion
By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 – 1:01 pm
Last Modified: Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 – 4:08 pm
As California’s government revenues are falling, its bill for state retiree health and dental benefits is approaching $50 billion, a report released today by state Controller John Chiang states.
The cost for retirees who receive their health and dental coverage through the California Public Employees’ Retirement System will be $48.2 billion this year, according to an analysis by Chicago-based actuaries Gabriel Roeder Smith & Co. The estimate equals the total value of future retiree benefits earned to date by retirees and current employees once they enter retirement.
Earlier forecasts had placed the obligation at $50.4 billion, but CalPERS kicked some surplus money into its self-funded health plan, and that brought down the bottom line, Chiang’s office said.
For years, the state has paid only the annual costs for retiree health care, pegged at $3.72 billion for the 2008-09 fiscal year. But the pay-as-you-go policy resembles making minimum payments on a very high-interest credit card bill; the debt outpaces the payment. California’s 2008-09 budget only provided $1.36 billion for retiree health benefits, half of its annual required contribution.
CalPERS is the nation’s second-largest public employee health purchaser after the federal government, covering nearly 1.3 million lives. Of those, 783,000 are state employees, retirees and their family members.
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Californians give Schwarzenegger, Legislature poor performance reviews
The governor gets a 33% approval rating, lawmakers 21%, according to a new poll. However, 70% like the way President Obama does his job.
By Michael Finnegan
February 26, 2009
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s popularity sank this month as the state budget crisis worsened, but Californians overwhelmingly approve of President Obama’s job performance, according to a new poll.
Schwarzenegger’s dismal ratings come amid a conservative backlash over $12.5 billion in tax hikes that he pressured fellow Republican lawmakers to join Democrats in passing last week.
Another John Palacio email blast. To subscribe, contact jpalacio@pacbell.net
Rush to Pump Out Stimulus Cash Highlights Disparities in Funding
Formulas Mean Aid May Not Track With Current Needs
By Michele McNeil
The gusher of new federal education spending in the economic-stimulus bill signed into law last week will be piped to states and school districts with little or no regard for how badly they need the money. The measure could leave some states without enough money to restore all K-12 funding cuts, while others see a cash windfall.
That twist, which some education advocates say could reinforce current funding anomalies, stems from the recession-driven imperative of pumping new funds out fast. Congress used existing federal formulas that tend to reward large districts and states with high per-pupil spending.
As a result, some states and districts are likely to benefit disproportionately from the two-year flood of new federal money. As governors and local school officials gear up to spend the aid, some of the big winners are beginning to emerge—and not all of them are among those hardest hit by the economic crisis.
Winners include states such as Alaska, Texas, and Wyoming that haven’t been forced to cut K-12 funding but will still get their share of $39.5 billion set aside for education in the stimulus package’s state fiscal-stabilization fund.
Also benefiting will be districts in high-education-spending states with large pockets of poverty, such as New York state, that already benefit from the formula for Title I, the federal program for disadvantaged students that is getting a $13 billion stimulus shot.
Rural districts, meanwhile, because of their small enrollment numbers, may not get a big enough chunk of money to make significant education changes, some school advocates warn. And for school districts in some of the most economically troubled states, such as California and Florida, the money from the stimulus package may not even come close to filling gaps created by state budget cuts.
“If we increase spending for one group of children while other groups suffer, this money won’t be as effective,” said Lawrence O. Picus, a school finance expert with the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.
But many education advocates—including those who point out flaws in existing funding formulas—agree that Congress had no choice but to use existing formulas to distribute the new funding, given how fast the stimulus legislation moved.
Slicing the Stimulus
SOURCE: Education Week
“That would have been an extremely complicated formula to develop so quickly; it’s really hard to quantify economic need,” said Michael P. Griffith, the school finance analyst with the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
Impact of Formulas
Overall, new federal aid to education totals some $115 billion under the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law Feb. 17. The measure is part of a massive federal effort to jolt of the country out of a worsening economic slump.
Not all of that education aid will come in the form of direct spending—large chunks are set aside for higher education tuition grants and tax credits. Another $200 million will go for states to establish teacher-incentive grants or to continue pay-for-performance programs.
Still, nearly $80 billion of the aid will be funneled directly to states and districts to shore up precollegiate education. Most of that money will flow in through three main streams: the $53.6 billion state stabilization fund, aimed at preventing layoffs and program cuts in education and other areas; $12.2 billion for special education; and $13 billion in additional Title I money for disadvantaged students. Those amounts will be allocated over two years.
And it’s here, in the details of how that direct aid will be distributed, that the quirks in federal education funding show up most starkly.
More than half the education stimulus money will go out through formulas that have long been used by the federal government. The new special education funding, for example, will be disbursed through the formula that guides current funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The additional Title I money will flow through the existing program formula, which is based on concentrations of poverty within schools and the amount of money a particular state spends per student.
But Title I, in particular, can magnify funding disparities. The formula favors districts with large numbers of low-income children—not just a high percentage of such children—and that factor benefits bigger districts, even if they are relatively affluent. And the formula gives more money to states with high per-student spending on education, which would favor a high-spending state like Massachusetts over a low-spending state like Arizona.
In Historic Package, Hefty New Funding For Pre-K, Beyond
The $787 billion economic-stimulus package signed into law Feb. 17 by President Barack Obama makes some $115 billion in aid available for precollegiate and higher education. Formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, it will funnel about $100 billion to states and school districts, about half of it through existing federal education funding formulas.
The largest single element is a $53.6 billion state fiscal-stabilization fund, much of which is intended to help avoid or reverse layoffs and make up for budget cuts in education and other programs. School modernization and repairs are an allowed—but not guaranteed—use of stabilization funds.
The stabilization money has strings attached. States will have to follow strict “maintenance of effort” rules and keep up their own education funding commitments. After backfilling for layoffs or budget cuts to K-12 and higher education, states will distribute any remaining money to school districts, using the Title I formula.
Most of the aid will flow through the U.S. Department of Education, including a $5 billion discretionary fund to be administered by the education secretary. Some aid will be administered by other agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start.
Stimulus Breakdown:
*Rural broadband is not specifically an education program, but is expected to benefit schools in rural areas.
SOURCE: Education Week
In addition, the Title I formula will also be used in allocating $22 billion in school bonding money. (“Congress Revisits Construction Tiff,” Feb. 25, 2009) And the formula will be used to direct $650 million in educational technology money—and even how some of the state stabilization fund is distributed to districts.
Formulas such as these, which emphasize sheer numbers of students, often mean that rural school districts don’t get enough money to undertake a very expensive project, education analysts say.
In Louisiana, the state board of education was so worried that the stimulus money might benefit large urban districts such as New Orleans at the expense of the state’s small, rural districts that members called an emergency meeting earlier this month to talk about the issue.
“When money is distributed on a per-pupil basis, it’s not going to be much money for some districts,” said Walter C. Lee, the state board’s vice president and the superintendent of the 5,000-student DeSoto Parish district in northwestern Louisiana. “This money isn’t going to have as major an impact on the smaller districts as it has on the larger systems.”
While any money is undoubtedly welcome, “rural school districts are getting slighted,” said Mary Kusler, the assistant director for advocacy and policy for the Arlington, Va.-based American Association of School Administrators. “It’s certainly not an equal playing field.”
Wide State Variations
For the sake of ease, the even bigger state stabilization fund relies primarily on an even simpler formula: state population, with an emphasis on school-age population.
Each state must use its share of the stabilization fund to backfill any cuts to K-12 and higher education based on its state school funding formula; anything left over will flow through the federal Title I formula to districts.
The stabilization fund also includes a separate, $8.8 billion pool that can be used for any public need, including—but not limited to—education. That aid also will be distributed to states on the basis of population, not fiscal need.
“There’s no sensitivity to the economic condition of the state,” said Amy Wilkins, the vice president of government affairs and communications for the Education Trust, a Washington organization that advocates on behalf of low-income students.
For example, North Dakota, which doesn’t have a budget deficit, gets the same share of money—proportionately speaking—as does California, where lawmakers last week approved a plan to close a budget deficit of $42 billion through 2010.
As a practical matter, school districts will have vastly different options in using their stimulus money, depending on where they are located and their states’ budget conditions.
With its rich sources of energy, Alaska isn’t in nearly the same budget trouble as a lot of other states. The latest tally shows the state with nearly $7 billion in a reserve account, even after a $1 billion loss in that fund’s value. But local school officials in the state still are looking forward to their piece of the stimulus pie and say they can put it to good use.
“You bet!” said Norman Wooten, a school board member for Alaska’s 2,800-student Kodiak Island borough district, when asked if his district needs stimulus money.
Estimates provided by the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee show that his district stands to get $1 million extra over two years from the Title I and special education money, not to mention additional money from its share of the state stabilization fund.
In that rural district—in which nine of the 15 schools are not connected by roads, but are reached by boat or plane—technology is critical, and the district has already invested in hard-wiring schools. But Mr. Wooten said the district could use the extra stimulus money for upgrades, such as going wireless.
Texas will also get a big windfall—given the state’s large population, it’s slated to get the second-largest amount of education recovery dollars, according to the House education committee’s data, behind only California.
But unlike California, Texas hasn’t had to cut school funding in recent years. In fact, Suzanne Marchman, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, said the legislature in the current biennial budget gave K-12 education an additional $3 billion above what the TEA sought, for a total of $20 billion.
“Texas education is still stable and healthy,” Ms. Marchman said.
So what might Texas use its extra federal money for? A state endowment that pays for school textbooks has taken a hit because of the downturn in the stock market, so filling that with any unrestricted education dollars might be an option. And Ms. Marchman said districts in the southern part of the state that got hit by Hurricane Ike last year may take advantage of their extra money to do renovations.
Wyoming, meanwhile, is expecting $145 million, according to congressional estimates. And that’s even though it “already has enough money to fund its schools,” said Mr. Picus, the school finance expert, who has worked with Wyoming school and state officials to revamp the state’s school funding system.
The state more than doubled its yearly spending on K-12 education since 1999, and now has one of the highest per-pupil funding rates in the country at $14,126 in 2006, according to the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center.
“If the past is any indication, they’ll use the money to raise salaries,” Mr. Picus said.
Others Less Fortunate
States such as Alaska, Texas, and Wyoming and their school districts “are going to have a lot of extra money to create an awful lot of new programs if they want,” said Mr. Griffith of the ECS.
But they are likely to be the exceptions. Most states will use their stimulus money to fill budget gaps. And for a few, the stabilization-fund formula won’t provide enough money to fill those holes completely.
The 42,599-student Marion County public schools in Ocala, Fla., last week sent layoff notices to 500 teachers in anticipation of budget cuts—jobs that likely won’t be saved by new federal money, officials warn.
“We wouldn’t put [stimulus money] into salaries,” said district spokesman Kevin Christian, who said the new funding is only a one- or two-year fix, while hiring or rehiring a teacher is a long-term investment.
What’s more, the restrictions in the Title I formula mean that the district can only use that money in its elementary schools—it’s only Title I schools—and not to help with cuts affecting its middle or high schools.
To make matters more complicated, the states must still work out details of how they will go about distributing the stimulus money once they receive it.
For example, money from the stabilization fund used to backfill school funding must be given to districts based on the state’s school funding formula. But the federal legislation doesn’t say which school funding formula; state legislators could, theoretically, craft a new one just for the stabilization aid.
And typically, state school funding formulas delegate power to the districts to divvy up the money among their schools. That could result in winners and losers within districts when the stabilization money is distributed, finance experts warn.
Furthermore, school finance experts point out that money is fungible—though it may be earmarked for a certain purpose, it may free up other dollars elsewhere in a state or district budget to spend for other purposes.
Mr. Griffith of the ECS said: “States can be as creative or as noncreative as they want to be.”
Vol. 28, Issue 22, Pages 1,26-27
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Stimulus Questions Answered, Round 1: How Much Money Will I Get?
Yesterday, we invited your questions on the stimulus and have gotten dozens. So thank you! And keep them coming…we’re going to try to get to all of them within the next several days or so. Here’s our first round of answers:
1. How much will my state/district/school be getting from the stimulus?
There are two places to look for this–but please keep in mind these are just estimates. The House Education and Labor Committee has posted estimates by state and district here. These estimates are particularly useful because they break down allocations by program—such as Title I, IDEA, education technology, etc. The education department also has estimates up for Title I and IDEA, which vary slightly from the Congressional estimates. Find those here.
2. What are the specifics on the innovation fund? (It’s being lumped in with the incentive funds in a lot of stimulus coverage).
The innovation fund is part of the $5 billion from the state stabilization fund that will go to the education department and Secretary Arne Duncan, who will award incentive and innovation grants. The innovation fund is worth $650 million. The recipients of the innovation funds will be local school districts, or a partnership between a nonprofit and one or more school districts or a nonprofit and a consortium of schools. These awards will be given out based on districts or other eligible entities that have made gains in closing the achievement gap, according to the law. School districts must also have met annual state performance measures for at least two years in a row, demonstrate academic achievement improvement for all groups of students, and make progress in a host of other things (graduation rate, high-quality teachers.) The districts must also demonstrate that they can get matching funds through partnerships with the private sector. Secretary Duncan has said he wants to use these awards, and the entire $5 billion fund, to push the “reform agenda.” If you want to read the language, go to page 438 of this very large PDF of the stimulus bill.
3. How can districts, states, etc. access funds from the “race to the top” pot? Will there be a proposal process? What types of initiatives can this money be used for?
This is related to the question above. The $5 billion pot of money is what Secretary Duncan is calling his “race to the top” fund. I already detailed the smaller innovation fund in the answer above. The rest of the fund will be awarded as “incentive grants” to states.
Governors will apply, the law spells out, and must show progress in four areas:
maintaining state funding for education at 2006 levels, achieving equity in teacher distribution, improving data collection and use, and improving standards and assessment. Those four areas, incidentally, are areas where governors must “assure” they’ll make progress when they take their bigger piece of the state stabilization fund. Duncan has said he’ll use the smaller incentive grants to hold states accountable for that. In calls to reporters and public appearances, Duncan seems particularly interested in improving standards. UPDATED: Just wanted to expand on this answer. The department hasn’t yet spelled out how districts and states can access these funds, which the law says shall be made available in fiscal 2010. We’ll keep you posted on that.
4. Are states supposed to restore spending to FY08 levels or FY06 levels? The legislation says different things in different places.
To qualify for state stabilization funds, states must be able to use their own state money to fund schools up to the level they were doing so in 2006. Then, they must use their federal stabilization money to backfill any cuts they made past those levels, to restore funding to Fiscal 2008 levels. This is an issue for Florida, which will seek a waiver from that 2006 “maintenance of effort.”
Posted by Michele McNeil on February 20, 2009 8:19 AM | Permalink
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Stimulus Questions Answered, Round 2: On Teachers
Here’s our second installment of answers to your stimulus questions. Read Round 1 here.
1. How will teacher salary be linked to student academic performance under this package? How will this impact “highly qualified” teacher criteria?
There’s no explicit language in the stimulus package linking salary to student performance. However, the stimulus does provide an additional $200 million for the Teacher Incentive Fund under the U.S. Department of Education. This now-larger pot of money will be used, as it was before, to fund pay-for-performance programs in school districts. Read more about the program here. As to the second part of your question, one of the “assurances” that governors have to make to receive their chunk of the state stabilization money is to take steps to address equitable distribution of “highly qualified,” experienced, and in-field teachers across all schools, including in very poor schools. This has been a provision under the No Child Left Behind Act that hasn’t been very well enforced, so it will be interesting to see what education secretary Arne Duncan does about this. I did ask Duncan specifically about the equitable teacher distribution provision during C-SPAN’s Newsmakers show, and he seemed more inclined toward incentives than enforcement. Finally, the equitable-distribution requirement also asks states to “improve teacher effectiveness.” Although there are no details on how states should address teacher effectiveness; this is potentially a new direction for the federal government, which has not referenced the issue before. (Thanks to my colleague Stephen Sawchuk, who blogs over at Teacher Beat.)
2. My school district, like many, is interested in getting training in some continuous improvement initiatives to help advance student performance and hold down costs. The problem, of course, is getting the money for the training. The question is, will the new stimulus package provide monies for grants for schools to get innovative training to better their operations? If so, who would we contact, what would that type of grant be called, what is the range of the grant award, and when will it be available?
Your question illustrates that there will be a lot of money out there that can be used for a lot of different things. Ultimately, once the money trickles down to the district level, school districts will have a lot of discretion to decide how to spend the money. Some may choose to hire or re-hire teachers, some may purchase technology, or others may do the kind of professional development you’re talking about. More specifically, your district may be able to tap the new Innovation Fund, which I explained more in depth here, in Questions 2 and 3.
3. Title II is referenced in the “School Improvement Programs” section. I would appreciate any explanation.
This part of the stimulus bill sets aside $650 million for Title II D, which is the EdTech program that helps districts train teachers on technology. The money will be distributed through the existing formula, which uses Title I to distribute grants to states, which then must distribute at least 95 percent of it to local districts. Please note that this is not the $3 billion teacher quality formula state grant program.
4. How much will go to keeping jobs (since it is stimulus) and how much will go toward No Child Left Behind?
I’m guessing you’re talking about education-related jobs, such as teachers. It’s really difficult to separate the two since teachers, administrators and instructional staff all are working to meet the goals and requirements under NCLB. Even though there are set formulas that determine how much of the money will go to states, and how the money will be distributed to districts, the districts will ultimately have a lot of discretion in determining how they spend their money. A lot of districts facing tough budget cuts will probably decide to re-hire teachers, but I’ve also heard from several districts that since this is one-time money, they might decide to use it on a one-time expense (such as buying computers.) After all, hiring or re-hiring a teacher is a long-term investment.
Posted by Michele McNeil on February 23, 2009 12:00 PM | Permalink
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Stimulus Questions Answered, Round 3: What Can I Do With My Money?
Here’s the third installment of answers to your stimulus questions. Check out Round 1 and Round 2.
How will the stimulus package address funds for Title IV (Safe and Drug-free Schools?)
Unlike Title I grants for disadvantaged students and money for special education, there isn’t a specific line item in the bill that covers Safe and Drug Free schools. But the short answers is that there might be some money in the bill for the program if districts have it left over and want to use it that way.
The longer answer: As you’ve probably heard, the bill includes $54 billion for a state stabilization fund that must first be used to “backfill” any cuts the state has already made in education. But, once those cuts are taken care of, the rest of the money in the fund flows to districts through the Title I formula. Districts are allowed to use it for any activity authorized under four different federal education laws, including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Adult and Family Literacy Act, the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. They can also use it for modernization, renovation, or repair of public school facilities.
ESEA governs the safe and drug free schools program, which means those excess state stabilization dollars can go to that program. But districts would have to deem it a higher priority than any of the other possible uses. It doesn’t get its own dedicated pot of money.
Will the stimulas package offer any additional funding specifically for the Even Start Family Literacy Program (Title I, Part B)? Additionally, will the package include any additional funding for adult literacy and/or parenting education?
This goes along with the previous question. As with Safe and Drug Free Schools, there isn’t a separate pot of money in the stimulus for Even Start, but, since it’s authorized under ESEA, districts can use a portion of their leftover money from the state stabilization fund for Even Start activities. That money can also be used for adult literacy programs authorized under the Adult and Family Literacy Act, as outlined above.
Are there funds to support school modernization and construction in the stimulus bill?
Great question, since this was a bone of contention as the bill was being crafted. And it goes back, yet again, to those state stabilization dollars that aren’t being used to backfill state cuts. Within that $54 billion fund, the $39.5 billion slated for districts can be used for a host of education-related programs outlined above, including school modernization and repair. And within the state stabilization fund, there is also $8.8 billion that goes to governors. They can use it for pressing needs, such as public safety, but can also direct it to education, including school modernization.
Why do I keep saying “modernization” instead of construction? It’s important to note that new school construction is not supposed to be a paid for using stimulus dollars, but the money can be used for modernization, renovation, and repair.
In AZ full day kindergarten was cut. Will the stimulus help offer that again?
The state stabilization money is supposed to be used first to backfill any cuts made to education. If Arizona gets enough money from the federal government to make up for all the cuts it has already made, the program may be restored.
I’m not sure if the stimulus money will make Arizona whole. It may not, according to this story. By my calculations, using estimates posted here, it looks like the state is getting about $1.43 billion total in education money for fiscal year 2009. That includes nearly a billion from the state stabilization fund, which is meant to backfill cuts. And I read in this story that The Grand Canyon State state faces a total deficit of $1.6 billion this year.
Posted by Alyson Klein on February 24, 2009 9:05 AM | Permalink
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California School News
Federal stimulus funds will help replace some state cuts
Published: February 24, 2009
School districts and county offices of education throughout California are anxiously anticipating relief from the federal stimulus package that promises to backfill vast cuts in state support for public education.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed by President Obama Feb. 17, provides $787 billion to help jump-start the nation’s flagging economy. Under the stimulus bill, education is slated to receive $115 billion, of which California should see about $8.6 billion.
The stimulus package will distribute funds to local education agencies in two ways: first, in grants allocated according to existing formulas for Title I, special education and a few large categorical programs; and second, through a large state block grant intended to replace some of the funding schools have lost through state budget cuts.
The stimulus comes at a critical time for schools, CSBA Assistant Executive Director for Governmental Relations Rick Pratt said, and the historic infusion of cash will help mitigate the impact of state funding cuts through 2010.
“At the same time, it’s like a finger in the dike,” Pratt said. “We need to figure out how, as a state, we are going to pay for the quality of schools we demand.”
Of the major funding categories, California K-12 schools will receive approximately:
$1.5 billion for Title I
$1.3 billion for special education
$220 million for child care
California is also slated to receive over $4 billion of the $53.6 billion in fiscal stabilization funding that’s intended to restore state education support to its 2008-09 level and to address other state budgetary shortfalls. Of total funding made available nationally, 81.8 percent, or about $39.6 billion, is earmarked for K-16 education, with the remaining 18.2 percent, or $8.7 billion, distributed at each state governor’s discretion for public safety or other services. Those purposes may include general education needs or modernization and repair of school facilities. Other than increased bonding capacity outlined below, the $8.7 billion pot is the only funding available in the stimulus for school facilities, since a school construction line item was removed from the final version of the stimulus bill.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said he was disappointed to lose the school construction funds, hoping that stimulus dollars would reinstate some of the 886 approved school projects that are on hold because of the state’s budget difficulties.
To give school construction projects some assistance, however, the stimulus package does provide a $24.8 billion guarantee for state and local bonds for school construction and modernization through the Qualified Zone Academy Bond program and a new Qualified School Construction Bond program. Both bonds offer the bond holder federal tax credits instead of interest. The new school construction bond program will cover new school construction and purchase of land, while QZABs are for modernization and repair of existing facilities. The stimulus package devotes the bulk of the funding—$22 billion—to the new school construction bond program.
Details about the application and disbursement of stimulus funds remain sketchy, but analysts at the U.S. Department of Education—the arbiter of how much states receive—plan to post guidance on the department’s Web site this week.
Initially, to qualify for their share of the stabilization funds, education agencies will need to submit to the California Department of Education a detailed report of their per-pupil expenditures during the 2008-09 school year. The CDE must receive the reports no later than Dec. 1 of this year; stabilization funds will be available through Sept. 30, 2010.
Related link:
Look for guidance from the U.S. Department of Education and estimates of local stimulus funds @ http://www.ed.gov/recovery.
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Saddleback district prepares to cut $10 million, 134 jobs
Latest plan scales back sports, bus service, and boosts class sizes
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
MISSION VIEJO – The Saddleback Valley Unified School District will need to cut $10 million from next year’s budget and about 134 jobs – including 33 classroom teachers – in response to the state budget signed Friday.
At a school board meeting Tuesday, district officials outlined a cost-cutting plan that includes canceling the college-level International Baccalaureate program at two of the district’s four high schools, scaling back the popular class-size reduction program in the primary grades, and making bus transit available only in areas with a “high need.”
Also under the plan, funding for high school lacrosse and roller hockey would be wiped out completely, as would all high school assistant sports coaches and the last remaining certificated librarians in high schools.
The cuts list also includes the Language Arts Assistance Program in elementary schools, which helps prevent children who struggle with language arts from falling through the cracks.
“No matter what we put on this list, people are going to say, ‘You can’t cut that; it’s too important,’ ” Trustee Dore Gilbert said at the meeting. “The reality is we’re going to cut.”
The school board is expected to authorize issuing layoff warnings at a March 10 board meeting. The layoffs become official if not rescinded by May 15.
The district lost money from its current 2008-09 budget, but officials said it was too late to make any cuts this year and the cuts would all be rolled into the 2009-10 budget.
Some parents who addressed the school board said trustees need to be more aggressive in addressing the budget crisis.
“You have a choice to continue to sit around and be stuck making decisions that will devastate, or you can be pioneers and explore new revenue,” said parent Amanda Morrell of Trabuco Canyon, who has two kids.
Also discussed was the continuing controversy over the school board’s January decision to keep Mission Viejo’s O’Neill Elementary School open. District staff had recommended closing this June as a cost-savings measure, but it was spared in a 3-2 school board vote.
On Tuesday, parents and some trustees said the school district should not be cutting programs and teachers without also closing O’Neill. The school’s closure would save the district about $500,000 annually in overhead expenses.
“If ever there was a time for us to be prudent, it’s now,” said parent Dolores Winchell of Lake Forest, who has two kids. “Cutting programs instead of closing underutilized schools is unconscionable.”
Although trustees said the $10 million in cuts would be devastating, the figure is not as bad as initially feared. Before the state adopted a 17-month state funding plan for public education, Saddleback officials said the cuts might top $19 million. The district brought that figure down, in part, thanks to the state’s new flexibility on how schools spend some categorical funds – money that used to be limited to specific programs.
Under the rosier budget picture, some areas previously proposed to be eliminated – including the elementary vocal music program and all of the district’s assistant principals – are no longer on the recommended cut list.
“The school board should be commended for acknowledging that music and arts are core curriculum subjects that are weighted just as heavily as math, science, history and English,” said parent Dave Moehring of Rancho Santa Margarita, who has a son in high school.
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
Proposed cuts
Saddleback Valley Unified officials have proposed $9.8 million in cuts and the elimination of 134 employee positions, including about 33 classroom teachers, to close the district’s projected $10 budget deficit in the 2009-10 school year.
Of the proposed cuts, $5.6 million would come from the district’s general fund, and $4.2 million would come from the district’s earmarked, “categorical” funds.
General fund cuts
$1 million: Scale back bus transportation, offering it only in areas of “high need”
$0.9 million: Reduce staffing in the district office (11 positions)
$0.69 million: Reduce technology services, including software purchases, licensing costs and network maintenance (2.5 positions)
$0.62 million: Eliminate the class-size reduction program in the third grade and modify it in the second grade (20:1 student-teacher ratio becomes 30 kids per class, with 10 kids pulled out for half the day) (32.5 positions)
$0.52 million: Eliminate the elementary school Language Arts Assistance Program (13.6 positions)
$0.44 million: Reduce library services and eliminate two high school librarians (4.3 positions)
$0.24 million: Eliminate funding for lacrosse and roller hockey, plus for all assistant sports coaches
$0.21 million: Cut special-education staffing (2 positions)
$0.2 million: Reduce high school counselors (2 positions)
$0.17 million: Keep the position of assistant superintendent of instruction vacant
$0.16 million: Require high school activity directors to take a pay cut and teach part-time (1.6 positions)
$0.16 million: Eliminate funding for elementary school student councils and five other co-curricular programs (California Scholarship Federation, National Honor Society, Mock Trial, Orange County Academic Decathlon, Advancement Via Individual Determination) (0.8 positions)
$0.11 million: Eliminate one high school assistant principal
$0.09 million: Cut the International Baccalaureate program from Trabuco Hills and El Toro high schools (0.4 positions)
$0.07 million: Eliminate the district’s field studies program (2.4 positions)
Categorical fund cuts
$1.4 million: Eliminate 14.2 middle and high school guidance counselors and psychologists
$0.85 million: Eliminate 9.8 non-classroom teachers
$0.83 million: Eliminate 18.1 secretaries and clerks
$0.41 million: Eliminate 12.2 instructional aides
$0.4 million: Eliminate stipends for special teaching sections and some non-classroom programs
$0.27 million: Eliminate 1.8 program specialists and coordinators
$0.08 million: Eliminate 2 campus supervisors
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Fullerton schools confronting $6.5 million in cuts
Reductions would include 74 teacher layoffs if class-size reduction is discontinued.
By BARBARA GIASONE
The Orange County Register
FULLERTON – Confronted with a proposed $6.5 million in budget cuts for 2009/10, Fullerton School District trustees took action Tuesday night to start the process of defining reductions that could include layoffs for 74 teachers if class-size reduction is eliminated.
Superintendent Mitch Hovey said the exact amount of cuts in the district’s $16 million budget is a moving target, one he sees as changing after the special state election in May to levy taxes, and the possibility of state borrowing.
But Hovey said the district must move forward to meet the March 15 deadline to deliver layoff notices and plans for other programs.
More than 300 teachers, principals and parents at the meeting listened to Hovey outline “cuts to the bone.” A community forum to receive public comments will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Ladera Vista Junior High School, 1700 E. Wilshire Ave.
The proposed cuts include:
•A 20 percent reduction in International Baccalaureate, Gifted and Talented Education and Multiage programs amounting to $76,800.
•A $202,000 cut to the All the Arts for All the Kids Program, which currently receives $300,000 annually from the district.
•The elimination or reduction of the Elementary Music Program: $217,000.
•A $1 million cut in administrative costs, including psychologists and two assistant principals.
•A $1.3 million cut for certificated staff, including some school nurses, counselors and special education teachers.
Hovey said he hasn’t met with the union employees, but California Service Employees Association representative Joe Ahlert said he anticipates the possible layoff of 200 of 600 employees “because we’re not paid as much.”
Teacher’s union president Andy Montoya said all union groups will join for a protest rally at 4:30-5:30 p.m. on Thursday at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue.
Montoya said temporary, probationary and full-time teachers could be affected by the layoffs.
“We’re trying to get some incentives for retirees,” he said.
Lead nurse Charlene Kisner told the board five full-time nurses oversee 20 campuses and 13,000 students. She said 4,000 students have identified syndromes and disorders, and the district should not make any cuts in her department.
After the meeting, first-grade teacher Lynne Frutchey said: “I understand very difficult cuts have to be made, but it’s really a sad thing they’re making cuts across the board without looking at the value of what each service provides.
“For example, leaving 1.5 nurses to serve an entire district is making the assumption that nurses provide an equal service to someone who inputs data on testing.”
Kindergarten teacher Teresa Green had similar feelings.
“This district is reactive and is putting it on us to solve the problems,” Green said. “I would like the district to be more proactive rather than leave the burden to the teachers.”
In his 37 years in education, Hovey said he had never seen any cuts like this.
“This is terrible, this is not what I went into education for,” Hovey said. “It seems I’ve been dealing with budgets ever since I got here almost two years ago.”
Contact the writer: 714-704-3762 or bgiasone@ocregister.com
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California schools struggling with budget-trimming decisions
Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
YES! Foothill Ranch first-grader Charlotte Baldi reacts to praise during a reading program that is facing cancellation.
Because of reduced funding, school districts across the state are facing teacher layoffs, class-size increases and elimination of programs.
By Seema Mehta
February 23, 2009
In a cheery classroom decorated with posters exhorting students to “Dive into a Good Book,” four first-graders, who are struggling to read, recited words ending with the “ang” sound — bang, rang, sang, fang, gang. The Foothill Ranch Elementary School students used their index fingers to trace the letters into squares of felt and carpet, imprinting the connection between the letters and the sound into their minds.
The Language Arts Assistance Program has helped a generation of struggling youngsters in this Orange County suburb become skilled readers. But it, along with sports teams, small classes and school librarians, may vanish next year as Saddleback Valley Unified School District officials trim $13 million in spending for the upcoming school year.
Under the budget approved by the state Thursday, schools and community colleges will be forced to cut $7.4 billion from their budgets this year and $3.2 billion next year. And a $787-billion federal economic stimulus package that is expected to send billions to school districts isn’t enough to backfill deficits, educators say.
“It doesn’t look good for us,” said instructor Tina Hatch, 52, who teaches the reading program designed for pupils in first, second and third grades. “It’s very sad because these kids definitely will fall through the cracks if there’s not a program like this.”
Because of reduced state funding, school districts across the state are dealing with such difficult decisions. They have been cutting spending annually in recent years, but prior trims — slimming the administrative staff, cutting back on maintenance, reducing the cleaning schedule — were mostly invisible to students and parents.
But now, in many places the low-hanging fruit is gone, and educators are left with painful cuts that reach directly into classrooms, including widespread teacher layoffs, increasing class sizes and the eliminations of music, sports and other programs that are not mandated by state and federal law. And that includes Saddleback’s reading-intervention program.
“You’re very definitely going to feel the pinch in the classroom because there’s no place else to go anymore,” said Saddleback Supt. Steven Fish, whose school board also is considering closing a neighborhood elementary school and trimming its International Baccalaureate program. “The list isn’t long enough. I need more.”
The state budget offers school districts greater flexibility to spend so-called categorical funds, which in the past have been earmarked for such specific items as textbook purchases.
Funds earmarked for limiting class sizes in kindergarten through third grades, however, were preserved for that purpose, a victory for the teachers unions and a blow to some local district officials who had been calling for greater flexibility in using that money.
An earlier proposal by the governor to shave five days from the school year was eliminated from the final package but will probably be raised again in the spring.
“This budget will result in real cuts to real students in the classroom,” said Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction. “These reductions will be felt and seen.”
A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said given the state’s fiscal crisis, state officials did the best they could to protect students.
“Probably more than any other sector of the budget, we went to great lengths to ensure that K-12 schools and community colleges had the greatest amount of flexibility and relief possible in what is the worst budget year in memory,” said H.D. Palmer, state deputy director for external affairs. “By definition, closing a $41.6-billion budget gap is going to create difficult decisions. We tried to minimize how difficult those decisions were for” schools.
In Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest school district, officials expect to slash about $800 million in spending for the next 18 months. District officials have yet to disclose how they expect to close this budget gap, but it is hard to imagine a scenario that won’t affect the district’s nearly 700,000 students. Layoffs are likely.
“I will be recommending cuts the likes of which this district has never seen,” said Supt. Ramon C. Cortines at a recent meeting.
Teachers must be warned by March 15 if they will face layoffs, but already districts have decided to send more than 12,000 pink slips to tenured and probationary teachers across the state, the most ever seen this soon before the deadline, said David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Assn.
The budget, he said, “was balanced on the backs of the students of the state of California.”
In Hayward, school trustees voted earlier this month not to participate in the state’s class-size reduction program and will boost class sizes in kindergarten through third grades, from the current maximum of 20 students per teacher to between 30 and 34 pupils per class. The move will allow the district to eliminate 120 teachers, saving $2.7 million annually.
“We just couldn’t afford it anymore,” said Val Joyner, spokeswoman for the 20,000-student district.
In Azusa, district officials decided this month to issue layoff warnings to 116 teachers — a dent in their efforts to cut $16.8 million from their annual $100-million budget.
“We’re already running lean and mean,” said Kathleen Miller, spokeswoman for the 11,100-student district. “Every program will probably be affected in some way.”
Districts throughout the state are shutting neighborhood schools. In the West Contra Costa Unified School District, which must cut tens of millions of dollars over the next three years, trustees decided earlier this month to close four schools.
“Closing schools is difficult at best but unfortunately necessary,” wrote district Supt. Bruce Harter in an open letter in January. “No one in our community, especially our board of education members and I, wants to close schools.”
He also warned of “substantial layoffs” in the upcoming school year.
“Last year, we cut $6.4 million from the budget by keeping the impact away from the classroom,” Harter said. “We won’t be able to do that this year. Every part of our district will feel the pain.”
In the Atwater Elementary School District, which is cutting counselors and reading coaches as part of its effort to trim $2.5 million from its $37.5-million budget, Supt. Melinda Hennes agreed with Harter.
“Last year, we approached our cuts with a focus on what can we eliminate and still provide quality services to our students,” said Hennes, whose district serves 4,600 K-8 students. “This year, it’s a whole different way of looking at things — what do we have to have, what do we have to keep in order to keep our doors open for kids.”
At Foothill Ranch, meanwhile, the budget problems weren’t far from the adults’ minds as the children practiced phonics.
“Teaching everybody, to me, is not a choice. It’s a responsibility to make sure we do the best we can for all students,” said Adele Walsh, a district reading specialist who supervises the Language Arts Assistance Program, which serves 1,000 students in 26 schools throughout the nearly 34,000-student district. “You have to intervene early and not wait until they’re so far behind.”
Eliminating the program would save more than $522,000 annually.
The program definitely has its boosters.
“I like reading about . . . people and animals,” said Charlotte Baldi, 6, adding that she’s “100% faster!”
Lisa Brosnan, a Rancho Santa Margarita mother whose 8-year-old twin boys went through the reading program last year and are now successful readers, said: “I feel sorry for our school district, all the districts, because they just have to put up with so much, just trying to keep the basics. It’s just really sad; we live in such a beautiful state, and we have to worry about stuff like this.”
s eema.mehta@latimes.com
Times staff writer Jason Song contributed to this report.
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Monday, February 23, 2009
Most popular Cal State campuses slam the door
They’ll take fewer students for first time in nearly 20 years
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
FULLERTON Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach both plan to cut enrollment for fall by about 1,500 full-time-equivalent students, making them two of the hardest hit in the 23-campus CSU system.
This will be the first time in nearly 20 years that the California State University has been forced to reduce its enrollment, by a total of the full-time equivalent of 10,000 students, in a year when applications for admission have been soaring.
The most popular CSU campuses – Fullerton, Long Beach among them – are expected to take the biggest cuts, since they have traditionally accepted more applicants than their official enrollment caps allow.
“This is probably the biggest reduction in two decades,” Long Beach State President F. King Alexander said.
The purpose of admitting fewer students is to make sure that those who do get in “have a quality academic experience,” said Allison Jones, who oversees enrollment management for the CSU system. “It doesn’t do any good to accept students if, when they get there, they can’t get the classes they need.”
The last time that CSU had to cut enrollment was during the state’s last major recession, in 1991 and 1992.
This time around, both Fullerton and Long Beach have drawn geographic boundary lines around their campuses, and accept students first who live within those areas. Others are accepted afterward, if there are still slots available.
“We receive thousands of applications from just beyond our service boundaries, and those would be the students most affected,” said Ephraim Smith, the head academic officer at Fullerton.
San Diego State University, another of the state’s most crowded campuses, has already moved to cut its enrollment by 1,500 to 1,600 full-time equivalents, spokesman Greg Block said.
CSU schools that don’t meet their enrollment targets continue to accept applications.
Nine Cal State campuses still had slots undergraduate slots available as of Monday, including Bakersfield, Dominguez Hills, Los Angeles and San Bernardino in Southern California, according to the CSUMentor application Web site. Most will cut off applicants as of March 1.
Since students are most likely to be accepted at their local CSU campus, they should make sure they have applied there to avoid being shut out, Alexander said.
“The bulk of these enrollment cuts will come from four or five institutions,” Alexander said.
CSU enrollment grew over the last decade from the full-time equivalent of 280,619 students to 363,223 in 2008. The actual number of students is higher – officials add their hours together to get the full-time equivalent.
Full-time equivalent enrollment was 28,362 at Fullerton last year, and 30,895 at Long Beach.
In addition to seeing an increase in applications this year, Jones also said the campuses have been reporting a huge surge in requests for financial aid.
“Two and three times as many people are applying for financial aid this year,” Jones said. “But then that’s to be expected, since California has almost double-digit unemployment.”
At Long Beach State, Alexander said not only are more students applying for financial aid, but more are staying in school, instead of dropping out.
Alexander said that students sometimes ask him whether or not they should go to graduate school, or go to work. This year, he said he’s advised them to put in that application for grad school.
“In this economy, who knows if they’ll be able to get a job?” he said.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
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Email Picture
Contractors at Hoover Dam, where thousands found work.
Obama stimulus: More old school fix-ups, less New Deal grandeur
Contractors at Hoover Dam, where thousands found work.
Quick spending to repair America’s infrastructure is the priority for most of the bill’s $787 billion. Instead of grand public works, officials seek to fix roads, schools, sewer lines and the like.
By Richard Simon
February 23, 2009
Reporting from Washington — Compared with the epic approach of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, President Obama’s economic recovery strategy could be summed up as: Think small — in a huge way.
FDR left a legacy of engineering marvels that still adorn the landscape: the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state, and New York’s LaGuardia Airport and Triborough Bridge among them.
But don’t look for similar monuments to emerge from the new stimulus plan, despite its $787-billion price tag. Billions in infrastructure spending is likely to go for less-glamorous but widely distributed projects such as repaving battered streets, repairing rundown schools and replacing aging sewer lines.
“Resurfacing, painting, lighting and maintenance programs are not as flashy as building a new bridge, but as projects they are no less important,” said Jeff Solsby of the American Road and Transportation Builders Assn. “They provide important benefits and create jobs to grow the economy.”
So forget about stimulus money going to build Los Angeles’ “Subway to the Sea,” a massive project aimed at easing the city’s legendary traffic problems, or for a long-sought light-rail extension to Los Angeles International Airport.
“The ‘shovel ready’ requirement in the stimulus bill recently approved by Congress makes it difficult to include grand public works projects,” said Burbank City Manager Michael Flad.
The tight timeline for infrastructure spending makes such things all but impossible. Half of the money for highways and bridges must be obligated within 120 days, the other half within a year.
The intent is to put people to work and pump money into the economy quickly.
“So we concentrated on projects that were ready to go . . . projects that were just waiting for the money so they could be built,” said Jim Berard, spokesman for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Most of those are not sexy things, but are badly needed nonetheless.”
Still, Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based free-market think tank, said: “Obama’s early statements on the stimulus, comparing its impact to that of [President] Eisenhower’s interstate highway program, created a false expectation that it would be comparable to the New Deal in building great new public works. The sad reality is that the bill Congress wrote and Obama signed is mostly make-work stuff.”
The New Deal paid for projects that stand out today, including Los Angeles artwork such as the Astronomers Monument in front of Griffith Observatory and a Streamline Moderne-style fountain outside the Hollywood Bowl, along with public works such as the Outer Drive Bridge that provides a key link in Chicago’s lakefront road system.
In contrast, Los Angeles County transportation officials are seeking to use a large chunk of their stimulus money to buy new buses. The Orange County Transportation Authority will probably use its $65-million share of highway stimulus funds to add a lane about seven miles long to the 91 Freeway.
“It may not be the Hoover Dam, but for the thousands of people stuck in that freeway gridlock every day, I think they’ll appreciate it just as much,” said OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnik.
Some officials react sharply to criticism that they are thinking small.
After the Bay Area city of Hercules drew heat for listing a duck pond park and dog park as possible uses of stimulus money, it declared in a statement: “Any job that puts someone to work is vital to both that individual, our community’s and our nation’s overall economic well-being.”
Brian Turmail of the Associated General Contractors of America added: “Just catching up on a big backlog of maintenance needs in itself will have a lasting legacy.
“In some older inner-city areas, if that money were used for school renovation, you wouldn’t get a Grand Coulee Dam, but you’d get a legacy that would be just as significant in those communities of going from buildings that are largely eyesores to buildings that are sources of community pride,” he said.
And some big projects may move forward under the stimulus bill.
New York and New Jersey, for example, hope to receive $1.5 billion toward a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River. The stimulus bill includes $8 billion nationwide for high-speed rail projects, although none has been chosen. California officials are expected to seek about $2 billion for work on a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco train. Proponents of an Anaheim-to-Las Vegas line said they also would seek stimulus money.
Gray Brechin, project scholar of California’s Living New Deal Project, which is cataloging FDR’s public works legacy, suggested it might not be so bad that a large chunk of the spending was going to maintain infrastructure.
Noting that the American Society of Civil Engineers has given the condition of U.S. infrastructure a grade of “D,” he said: “We now have an enormous hole out of which to climb. It’s a good thing that the New Deal workers built as well as they did, since they never could have imagined that we would stop maintaining what they left us.”
Moreover, said New Deal author Robert D. Leighninger Jr., FDR’s big projects were what the U.S. needed as it moved into a new era and new role in the world.
“Our needs for infrastructure, physical and cultural, large and small, were much greater then,” he said. “Building schools that had science labs, music rooms, gym/auditoriums and other uncommon facilities along with whole new university campuses improved the quality of education to prepare us for the role we were about to play in the world. Water and sewer works in small towns and large cities averted public health catastrophes that were looming. And some of the things that weren’t essential right away were very useful later on, like our state park system.
“We’ve done such a good job of neglecting the things we inherited from the New Deal that I’d be happy if we just got a massive dose of repairs out of this. New monuments are a lower priority.”
Marvin Malecha, president of the American Institute of Architects, said the stimulus bill’s focus represented a change in attitude, including an emphasis on spending to reduce dependence on foreign oil.
“There may not be the sort of impact from a physical standpoint that New Deal projects had,” he said, but “if a framework for a 21st century mass transit system is developed and we can minimize the 1 in 5 children who spend their school days learning in a trailer, then there will be a tremendous, positive, lasting impact.”
richard.simon@latimes.com
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OrlandoSentinel.com
The economy Education funding
Is 4-day week in schools’ future?
Dave Weber
Sentinel Staff Writer
February 22, 2009
Kids in Florida public schools could be going to classes four days a week instead of five next fall if the Legislature lets financially strapped school districts adopt the cost-saving measure.
School boards have been mumbling for months that a four-day school week would save a bundle on utility bills, diesel fuel for buses and certain other expenses, if only state law would permit it. Now some legislators are pushing just such a proposal.
“School boards and superintendents all around the state have been asking for this flexibility,” said Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Daytona Beach, a veteran lawmaker who has filed a bill to make the change during the upcoming legislative session.
Under her plan, schools no longer would be required to be open 180 days a year, as long as they put in the same number of hours. The common interpretation of the plan would be to have four longer school days.
School-district officials aren’t eager to go to a shorter week, which they acknowledge could be detrimental to students. But they see a four-day week as a desperation move that may be necessary if state funding for education continues to decline.
“It is not something that anybody would want to do, but it would save a whole lot of money,” said Cindy Barrow, a Lake County School Board member.
The Legislature cut school funding by 2 percent in January, and districts are bracing for the possibility of another 2 percent chop next month.
On top of that, Education Commissioner Eric Smith has warned school districts to expect a 15 percent cut in state funding for next school year.
For Seminole County schools alone, that would amount to a $64 million loss.
Officials in school districts across the region say such an extreme funding reduction would be devastating and would force them to take extreme measures to cover it.
“Everything is on the table right now until we see what the budget cuts are going to be,” said Peg Smith, superintendent of Volusia County schools.
Sponsor: ‘Another tool’
Rep. Kurt Kelly, R-Ocala, is sponsoring the bill in the House. He said it would not force districts to switch to a four-day week but would give them “another tool in their toolbox” to meet budget shortfalls.
“It is not mandatory, and it is not even encouraging it,” Kelly said. “It is saying you have that option.”
School districts are unsure how much money they might save by going to four days, but the prospect of spending a fifth less on bus fuel alone is attractive. There would be savings on utilities, too, if schools could be shut down for long weekends, and certain other costs tied to each day of school, such as meal preparation, might be trimmed as well.
Still, officials are cautious about jumping on board. Bill Vogel, superintendent of Seminole schools, said he wants to see how it works where the shorter week already is being tried.
For the past several years, Seminole schools have had a four-day week in the summer, but it mostly affected employees. Students attending summer-school classes for makeup or advanced work were on the abbreviated week, though.
Community colleges in Florida have experimented with a four-day week in summer, too. Brevard Community College last fall went to Monday-Thursday year-round, pointing to savings in energy costs.
Several states have let elementary and secondary schools switch to the shorter weeks, including Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota and Montana. Others, including Missouri and New York, are weighing it.
District: ‘Good things’
In Montana, more than a dozen mostly small, rural school districts have made the
jpalacio@pacbell.net
Friday, February 20, 2009
Massive school cuts inevitable, some hope on horizon
Parents, kids must brace for more changes to public education, officials say.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
California’s state schools superintendent says parents will need to step up to the plate like never before as public schools prepare to lose about $8.4 billion in state funding over the next 17 months.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell warned Friday that the education cuts included in a plan to close a $42 million state budget gap would have long-term impacts on the state’s ability to provide a quality education to its future workforce.
K-12 schools took the largest hit of any state agency.
“Parents are going to have to step up to the plate in an unprecedented manner, not only offering assistance in school but also at home,” O’Connell said. “The schools are going to be more limited than ever – fewer programs for the arts, larger class sizes, longer bus rides, fewer counselors, librarians and nurses.”
There is still hope that some of the money could return eventually. The new federal economic-stimulus package signed this week could infuse billions of dollars back into public education, as would a state ballot initiative that will come before voters in May.
For now, though, school districts across Orange County and the state are hunkering down as they crunch their budget figures to determine precisely how much they’ll need to cut.
Thursday’s passage of the 2009-10 state budget was a good thing, local officials said, in that it took away uncertainty from their financial future. But they said the effects are likely to be devastating nonetheless.
Orange County schools Superintendent Bill Habermehl said local school districts might be looking at about 2,000 layoffs this year, including scores of teachers, administrators, custodians, librarians and aides.
And unlike last year, when about 1,900 layoffs loomed across Orange County schools in response to a dismal state budget outlook, but only about 100 people ultimately lost their jobs, California is at a far different place today.
The state already has next year’s budget in place, which means school districts already know how much money they have – or don’t have.
By contrast, at this time last year, the state budget was only a proposal, and it improved dramatically for K-12 education in May, allowing for most of the layoff notices to be rescinded.
The biggest wild card right now for education funding in California is the $787 billion federal economic stimulus package that President Obama signed this week.
News reports have suggested at least $5 billion, and perhaps as much as $9 billion, could trickle down to California schools and community colleges, although it’s unclear how the money would be distributed and how it might help offset the state cuts.
More long term, the state budget plan will place five ballot measures before voters in a special election this May. One of those, if approved, could guarantee about $9 billion more in funding for public schools, state officials say.
And the state budget passed Thursday is not all bad news for public schools.
The school year will not be shortened by five days as the governor proposed, and local education officials were given new freedoms to spend earmarked state money as they see fit. For example, local officials will now have the ability to divert money earmarked to buy textbooks to help preserve smaller class sizes or pay teachers’ salaries.
“There were some modest success stories, but overall, there’s going to be less funding,” O’Connell said. “It’s only getting more difficult, but we’ll get through it.”
Although Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday signed off on the state Legislature’s plan for funding public schools over the next 17 months, Orange County school districts aren’t sure yet how much money they’ll have to work with.
As part of the budget plan, legislators crafted a complex series of accounting provisions to help school districts close their budget deficits, said Wendy Benkert, the Orange County Department of Education’s assistant superintendent of business services.
“It wasn’t until the last day that they were finalized,” said Benkert, who was in Sacramento earlier this week. “We didn’t have any bills or language (to work with before that); it changed a great deal from the governor’s proposal.”
Orange County school districts have known for weeks now that they might be able to tap into millions of dollars of “categorical” funds – earmarked pots of state money – to help backfill their general-fund coffers.
But because these measures were all ironed out at the 11th hour in Sacramento, local education officials don’t know exactly how they’ll help – and how helpful they’ll be, Benkert said.
The details will be fleshed out in the coming days.
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
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Saturday, February 21, 2009
Protesters march against school budget cuts in Anaheim
The Anaheim City School District faces a $10.3 million budget shortfall.
By EUGENE W. FIELDS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
About 350 parents, students and teachers marched through the streets of Anaheim today to protest potential school budgets cuts.
The group began at the Anaheim City School District office at 1001 S. East Street and walked a 4-mile loop before ending back at the district office.
Parent Eddie Suarez said the group plans to march every other Saturday in protest of cuts intended to close a $10.3 million budget shortfall for the next school year.
“We’ll keep doing it until something happens,” Suarez said. “Don’t cut our teachers. Maybe we can do something to reverse it.”
Board Trustee Jose Moreno said he shared the marcher’s frustrations.
“I’m incensed at the position the state has put our families in,” Moreno said. “They say that they care about education, but then they do something else.”
Contact the writer: 714-704-3704 or efields@ocregister.com
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Edward Hernandez, Jr., Ed.D (Chancellor of Rancho Santiago Community College District), R. David Chapel, Ed. (President, RSCCD Board of Trustees) and Santiago Canyon College President Juan Vasquez (l-r) throw out the ceremonial first pitch to celebrate the opening of the Santiago Canyon College softball complex.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Santiago Canyon College opens new softball field
The $2.3-million complex finally allows the third-year program to play on campus.
By EUGENE W. FIELDS
STAFF WRITER
ORANGE The Santiago Canyon College softball team hadn’t played a game yet when construction of its home field began in October 2007.
The team had to play its home games at Hart Park for two seasons.
The Hawks finally got a home of their own on campus when the $2.3-million softball complex was christened on Jan. 28, just before the team’s 8-1 victory over San Diego City College.
Larry Mercadante, an interim dean, said the program and complex would not have come about without the urging and support of Edward Hernandez Jr., chancellor of the Rancho Santiago Community College District.
“He told me to get a team going, and he’d make sure they’d have a place to play,” Mercadante said. “It’s been a three-year project and one of the things that was so satisfying was that from the beginning that’s what Dr. Hernandez wanted – he wanted a softball program.”
Funding for the facility came from Measure E, a bond measure passed in 2002.
The field has an artificial Field Turf playing surface in the outfield featuring the college’s initials and logo painted in centerfield. In addition, the complex features a team room, enclosed batting cages, a storage room, metal bleachers and an announcer’s table.
When asked which facility was the crown jewel of the college’s growing sports complex, Mercadante said he couldn’t pick between the soccer fields and the new softball complex.
“You can’t pick one over the other. They’re two different sports,” he said. “This one is more intricate, with the artificial turf and the dugouts. There’s just more to it in terms of putting it together.”
The scoreboard beyond the leftfield wall was still being lowered into place before Santiago Canyon’s game against San Diego City, but it has had had plenty of use since. The Hawks won their first five home games by a combined score of 48-19.
Coach Lisa Field said she will remember having to make the 12-mile roundtrip to and from Hart Park to practice and play games.
“We’ve been road warriors for the past two years,” Field said. “So there’s not a day that we take this field for granted.”
Contact the writer: 714-704-3704 or efields@ocregister.com
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Santa Ana College opens child care center
Facility will serve 144 preschoolers.
By THERESA CISNEROS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SANTA ANA Santa Ana College opened a new child development center just north of the Civic Center today, which district officials hope will satisfy its students’ high demand for child care, while laying the groundwork for a community hub in the working-class neighborhood.
The Rancho Santiago Community College District operates five facilities, which also serve as a training ground for district pupils pursuing careers in human development.
Early Tuesday morning, the Santa Ana College Child Development Center East Campus opened inside the former fellowship hall at St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church, a congregation that dates back nearly 100 years.
Organizers hail the debut as a win-win situation, both for the district, which sought to open a location closer to downtown, and for the church, which seeks to expand its outreach efforts in an area that has seen its share of crime.
“We’re called to be a light on this corner,” said Pastor Jon Pedersen of the church campus, which was built about 50 years ago at North Parton and 15th streets.
The center will be totally funded by a $632,000 annual grant from the state department of education.
It can accommodate 144 3-and 4-year-olds, bringing the number of children served annually through the district to 790. It’s open to district students and neighborhood families. So far, 54 kids are enrolled.
Services are free, but participating families must meet income guidelines, said Center Director Veronica MacKenney. The maximum annual gross income for a family of four, for example, is $50,256.
Maria Ruiz, 23, said the subsidy makes it possible for her daughter, Amber, 3½, to get a jump start on her education.
“With three kids, we would not be able to pay for school,” said Ruiz, who lives near the center.
Students can flex their creative muscles in science, writing and dramatic play stations during two sessions, Monday through Friday. The morning session runs from 8 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. and the afternoon session lasts from noon to 3:15 p.m.
Once the center gains momentum, college officials hope to work with the church to offer other community services, including parenting and ESL classes.
Information: 714-954-1178.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3707 or tcisneros@ocregister.com
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Web address:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/
090210110043.htm
Adolescents Involved With Music Do Better In School
ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2009) — A new study in the journal Social Science Quarterly reveals that music participation, defined as music lessons taken in or out of school and parents attending concerts with their children, has a positive effect on reading and mathematic achievement in early childhood and adolescence. Additionally, socioeconomic status and ethnicity affect music participation.
Darby E. Southgate, MA, and Vincent Roscigno, Ph.D., of The Ohio State University reviewed two nationally representative data sources to analyze patterns of music involvement and possible effects on math and reading performance for both elementary and high school students.
Music is positively associated with academic achievement, especially during the high school years.
However, not all adolescents participate in music equally, and certain groups are disadvantaged in access to music education. Families with high socioeconomic status participate more in music than do families with lower socioeconomic status. In addition to social class as a predictor of music participation, ethnicity is also a factor. Asians and Whites are more likely to participate in music than are Hispanics. While young Black children attended concerts with their parents, they were less likely to take music lessons.
“This topic becomes an issue of equity at both the family and school levels,” the authors conclude. “This has major policy implications for federal, state, and local agencies, as well as knowledge that can help families allocate resources that are most beneficial to children.”
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
St. Joseph’s gives $3 million to tackle childhood obesity
Organizers showcase components of the Healthy For Life/PE4Me campaign during a school assembly in Santa Ana.
By THERESA CISNEROS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SANTA ANA – An outreach campaign aimed at helping minority and low-income children develop healthy habits for life will soon take root in more than 100 schools across the county, thanks to a $3-million grant from the Saint Joseph Health System.
The Healthy For Life/PE4Me program is designed to curb escalating childhood obesity in populations with the highest rates, by helping students and their parents incorporate physical activity and a nutritious diet into daily routines.
The partnership, between Saint Joseph and the American Academy of Pediatrics, is now serving 1,500 students at 47 public and private schools in 20 cities, from Brea to Dana Point. With grant funds, it will grow to about 100 campuses over the next three years.
On Tuesday, organizers showcased the program during an assembly at Century High School in Santa Ana, which featured kickboxing, spinning and cooking demonstrations.
More than 190,000 Orange County children – 35 percent of county kids – are overweight or at risk of it, according to a 2005 report on obesity by the Orange County Health Needs Assessment, a community-based collaborative.
Obesity rates are higher among Latino children, and children from low-income backgrounds, who often lack the financial means or neighborhood resources – like parks and playgrounds – needed to eat healthy and exercise regularly, the report states.
The full-credit course is led by a campus physical-education teacher. Curriculum includes information on healthy dining and exercise using equipment donated by the health system. Participants are given physical exams three times a school year and receive medical referrals, if necessary.
A physician and dietitian from Saint Joseph also visit the schools to provide tips and health services.
In addition, nationally renowned chefs Jaime Martin del Campo and Ramiro Arvizu give students and their families tips on creating authentic Mexican dishes using healthy, low-cost ingredients. About 90 percent of participants are Latino and most are of Mexican descent, said Dr. Azhar Qureshi, a Saint Joseph senior vice president, so the recipes fall in line with what their families traditionally eat.
(St. Joseph Health System is a not-for-profit Catholic health-care system based in Orange. It oversees 14 hospitals in three Western states, including St. Joseph in Orange.)
Ten Healthy For Life/PE4Me high school participants were monitored and showed an average weight loss of 6.3 pounds over the first semester.
Students say the campaign is influencing their families to eat more fruits and vegetables and less junk food, soda and fast food.
“I love this program,” said Century student Othoniel Suarez, 16. “I learn what I can eat, what I can’t eat and how to work out.”
The idea for the program surfaced when Rancho Santa Margarita pediatrician Michael Weiss noticed increasing cases of childhood obesity in his private practice. Collaborating with schools and health-care providers, he created the PE4Me fitness program in 2004.
Organizers hope the program will have positive long-term effects and serve as a prototype for other districts statewide.
“We see a lot of people in the hospital, mostly adults, with diabetes and heart disease,” Qureshi said. “What we need to do is look at what got them there in the first place.”
Information: healthyforlifeonline.org
Contact the writer: tcisneros@ocregister.com or 714-704-3707
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Friday, February 20, 2009
COBRA subsidy helps, but not enough for many
By COURTNEY PERKES
The Orange County Register
For job seeker Barbara Duffy, the massive $787 billion dollar stimulus package boils down to one big number looming in her monthly budget spreadsheet: $368.
That’s Duffy’s cost to keep her health benefits through COBRA after recently losing her job as a loan coordinator at Washington Mutual. The law signed this week offers workers who have lost jobs since September a 65 percent COBRA subsidy. In March, Duffy’s portion for her PPO will drop to $128.80 instead of the full $368 cost of the plan.
“The timing is perfect for me. That can go to another bill,” said Duffy, 58, of Fullerton. “I know there are probably people who got laid off in July who are probably cursing.”
Human resource consulting firms have started briefing companies on how to comply with the new law and offer a second chance to qualifying former employees who initially declined COBRA. Businesses will receive a credit on their payroll taxes to offset the subsidy, which will last for nine months.
But not everyone will take advantage of the steep discount.
“It’s still expensive when you’re not working,” said 48-year-old Juan Gonzales of Placentia, who lost his job at a title company. “That’s the hard part of it. I was lucky enough my insurance was good until Dec. 31. I stocked up on the medication that I take. I’m trying not to get sick.”
COBRA allows unemployed workers to continue their group insurance through their former employer, though they must pay the entire premium that was once mostly shouldered by the company. For the healthy, it’s usually less expensive to buy an individual plan.
“The phrase that everyone says is, ‘COBRA is expensive,'” said Cathy Daugherty, a broker at Trademark Insurance in Orange. “No, it’s not. It’s exactly what your employer was paying; you were just unaware of how much. The only people who sign up for COBRA are the people who have health issues and really need it.”
Tustin resident Liz Allen is paying $498 a month for COBRA, but her goal is to not use that insurance at all.
At 46, she’s in good health but was rejected for an individual policy because she took migraine medication and Zantac for acid reflux. Allen, who lost her job as a computer programmer, was told to reapply after she’s been symptom-free for a year.
“This is really just a Band-Aid fix,” Allen said of the COBRA subsidy. “If they just re-did the guidelines to make it realistic or got rid of the automatic denial. Health care shouldn’t be a for-profit business. Why would you want stock in a product that does nothing but deteriorate over time?”
For some, their COBRA payments continue even after landing a new job.
Brett Wilson of Orange works as an executive in the mortgage industry, but his company stopped offering health insurance. He’s paying for COBRA because of a preexisting condition after falling down the stairs when he was 8.
“I’m a healthy guy and I haven’t had a seizure in 20 years,” said Wilson, 39. “I’m a person that can afford health care, but you’re going to decline me. That is ridiculous.”
The final legislation eliminated a provision that Ed Lawlor of Santa Ana had hoped for: allowing workers with 10 years at a company or who are 55 or older to keep paying for COBRA until they qualified for Medicare.
Lawlor lost his job in 2007 and after federal COBRA expired, he opted for an 18-month extension of coverage under Cal-COBRA. But that carried an additional 10 percent premium, costing $1,014 a month for an HMO. He’s 67 and will switch to Medicare soon, but his wife is only 60 and has diabetes.
“I’ve still got her covered for the next 18 months. Beyond that it’s going to be a bit sticky for us,” Lawlor said. “It’s something we’re going to have to deal with and probably have to pay through the nose again for a year’s worth of insurance.”
Though he would like to retire, Lawlor works as consultant for a construction company. He doesn’t receive benefits, but the income helps cover the COBRA payments. He said he wouldn’t dare go without insurance, especially after a one-day hospital bill for his wife’s surgery came to $46,000.
“I’m still very healthy, so I don’t mind working,” Lawlor said. “But I would love to able to have some time off to do things with my wife. I’ve worked since I was 15 years old, and I’d love to start enjoying life.”
Others are hoping for the best without insurance, even as medical bills are piling up.
Michelle Sundin, 39, of Huntington Beach lost her banking job in September. She opted against COBRA and found she could buy her thyroid medication for $4 at Wal-Mart. She recently saw her doctor to have a boil lanced — but only after she couldn’t sleep at night from the pain — and arranged to make payments.
“It is killing us without insurance, but it would have killed us more with COBRA,” Sundin said.
When Sundin’s daughter had pain from a kidney stone, they researched online a homemade remedy of lemon juice. Sundin’s boyfriend, though sick with an infection, decided not to fill a $200 prescription.
“Your whole (unemployment) check is your rent,” she said. “The only thing that’s going to work for us is finding new jobs with insurance.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-3686 or cperkes@ocregister.com
COBRA subsidy facts
•The 65 percent subsidy is only available for workers who were laid off between Sept. 1, 2008 and the end of 2009. The subsidy does not apply to COBRA because of divorce or voluntary departure from a company. Workers who were laid off before September are ineligible so the program’s cost can be kept under control.
•Employees who declined COBRA after Sept. 1 must be notified by their former employer that they can choose to enroll now and receive the subsidy.
•The subsidy is available for 9 months, beginning in March. To qualify, income can’t exceed $125,000 for individuals or $250,000 for married couples in the year the subsidy is received.
•Employees will automatically receive a discounted bill. The former employer will receive a tax break to cover the subsidy.
•A provision was struck from the legislation that would have allowed older workers or employees with 10 or more years at a company to continue COBRA until they qualified for Medicare.
•The subsidy expires once a person qualifies for health coverage from another employer.
News blast from SAUSD board member, John Palacio. To subscribe to his email notifications, email request to: jpalacio@pacbell.net
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Santa Ana Unified to send out 530 pink slips
Certificated employees, including classroom teachers, counselors, music teachers and others will receive layoff notices later this week.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA The Santa Ana Unified School Board voted unanimously tonight to send out 530 layoff notices as officials work to erase a projected budget deficit caused by state budget cuts.
The notices will go to certificated employees, including 345 classroom teachers. But also included will be counselors, music teachers, literacy coaches and other non-classroom teachers. The district has not yet decided on terminations for teachers working under temporary contracts.
“No one here on this board feels comfortable with the task at hand,” said Jose Alfredo Hernandez, the school board president. “We are going through a worldwide economic collapse. …The lights on and a teacher in the classroom is all we might be left with.”
Notices will be sent via mail Friday.
By law, school districts have until March 15 to notify teachers and other certificated employees in danger of losing their jobs for the next school year. Actual layoffs take place May 15. The county Department of Education estimates that more than 2,000 teachers could receive a layoff notice by March 15 as the county’s school districts struggle to overcome about $8.4 billion in cuts to education approved by Sacramento lawmakers last month.
In the 54,500-student Anaheim Union, officials have estimated the district will have to cut a combined $56 million this year and next from the district’s nearly $500 million annual budget.
District officials also discussed possibly laying off up to 259 classified employees, but the school board will vote on the issue at a later meeting.
Over the past five years, officials have already slashed more than $108 million from the district’s budget. Previous cuts include the reduction of hundreds of custodians, security guards, clerks, teaching positions, nurses, librarians, administrators and other positions. Officials have also cut millions from music and arts programs, reduced work days for many employees, and adjusted health benefits.
District officials said they hope to rescind many of the notices in coming weeks in case the state’s financial outlook improves.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Saddleback district pink-slips 170 employees, shutters school
O’Neill Elementary will close permanently; librarians, reading program, coaches and smaller class sizes are on the chopping block.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
MISSION VIEJO – Saddleback Valley Unified School District trustees on Tuesday voted to shutter one of the district’s oldest elementary schools and issue layoff notices to 46 classroom teachers and about 124 other employees.
The move is part of a plan to bridge a $10 million shortfall in the district’s 2009-10 budget – a plan that could also wipe out scores of programs and jobs, from lacrosse and librarians to two college-level International Baccalaureate programs.
“It’s a resolution none of us want to be passing,” school board President Ginny Fay Aitkens said of the unanimous vote.
Trustees authorized closing O’Neill Elementary School in western Mission Viejo in June, saving the district about $500,000 annually in overhead costs. The school board had blocked O’Neill’s closure in a 3-2 vote two months ago, but reversed course Tuesday in a 4-1 vote.
“I would like to apologize to the O’Neill community,” said Trustee Don Sedgwick, who voted to keep the school open at a Jan. 6 meeting. “It would have been easier if we had voted to close it two months ago.”
Sedgwick and the other Saddleback trustee who changed her vote, Nancy Kirkpatrick, said the budget picture had become much clearer since Jan. 6.
Two months ago, Saddleback did not know how much money it needed to cut, but once a state budget plan was approved in mid-February, trustees said they essentially got confirmation on how dire the budget picture would be.
It was not immediately clear how the $500,000 savings from O’Neill’s closure will help preserve other Saddleback programs and jobs.
HUGE CROWDS
An estimated 800 students, teachers and parents attended the school board’s emotionally charged, 4-1/2-hour meeting inside Mission Viejo High School’s performing arts theater. Hundreds who couldn’t find seats spilled out into an adjacent outdoor quad. Sheriff’s deputies patrolled the area on foot.
“At a time when we are facing extreme budget cuts, it is critical that the board make wise choices,” said parent Andrea Thorlakson of Lake Forest, who urged the school board to close O’Neill.
About half of the approximately 170 employees being pink-slipped must legally be notified by Sunday they could be out of a job in June. Layoffs don’t become permanent until May 15.
If none of the notices are rescinded, the cuts would force officials to scale back the popular class-size reduction program in the primary grades, make bus transit available only in areas of “high need,” and remove the last remaining certificated librarians in high schools. Completely eliminated would be the elementary-level Language Arts Assistance Program, which helps kids who struggle with reading.
Meanwhile, the college-level International Baccalaureate program at two of the district’s four high schools would be wiped out, as would funding for lacrosse, roller hockey and all assistant sports coaches.
Superintendent Steven Fish stressed that the layoff notices could be rescinded and that a final decision had not been to cut any specific programs.
The board has until June to finalize its cuts list. However, to close the district’s $10 million deficit, trustees would have to make all but $500,000 of the cuts identified thus far.
Hundreds of high school lacrosse players showed up to the meeting in their athletic gear, many brandishing lacrosse sticks. Some had handmade signs duct-taped to their sticks that read, “Don’t stick it to lacrosse!”
“We will make it continue,” said parent Tim Redwine of Lake Forest, who has three kids. “All we ask is that you do not eliminate the CIF status of lacrosse.”
Also on the cuts list are high school Orange County Academic Decathlon faculty coaches.
“It completely changed my life,” said decathlon participant Jenna Druce, a Mission Viejo High School senior. “With OCAD, it’s not just studying and memorizing facts. We come together. I’ve made so many friends that I don’t know what my life would be like without this program.”
Spared from elimination would be some programs and jobs previously targeted for cuts, including the elementary-level vocal music program and all of the district’s assistant principals.
O’NEILL’S FATE SEALED
O’Neill Elementary joins Mission Viejo’s La Tierra Elementary School on the list of Saddleback schools that will be shuttered in June. Trustees authorized closing La Tierra at a January board meeting, when O’Neill was spared.
Both Mission Viejo schools had been recommended for closure by district staff and a parent advisory committee in response to the loss of about 2,500 Saddleback students over the past five years. Saddleback officials expect enrollment to continue to decline.
O’Neill Elementary – in the Dean Homes neighborhood in western Mission Viejo – is the city’s oldest elementary school. It boasts stellar academics, with an Academic Performance Index score of 872, well above the minimum target of 800.
About 450 kids will need to be reassigned to one or more neighboring schools. The details of the reassignment plan will be fleshed out in the coming weeks.
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
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Monday, March 9, 2009
More than 1,880 O.C. school jobs cut as layoff deadline looms
Saddleback shuts oldest elementary; Santa Ana issues 530 layoff notices.
By FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
Orange County school districts on Tuesday brought the number of possible staff layoffs to nearly 1,900 as they dug for about $166 million in cuts to their 2008-09 and 2009-10 budgets.
And, since those figures represent about 10 of 29 agencies — including some that have more terminations under consideration — the threatened job losses are likely to rise by the hundreds while the cuts exceed $200 million.
About 1,000 of the employees identified for layoffs so far are certificated — a job category dominated by classroom teachers.
School districts are required to warn certificated employees of layoffs by March 15, making this week the last chance to send out the notices. Districts may also employ teachers under temporary contracts, and are not required to notify them by the same deadline.
A number of districts have targeted a wide swath of employees to ensure they have flexibility in deciding how to make cuts before their budgets are due in June.
Districts are responding to $8.4 million in state cuts to education for this year and next — a unique situation in California politics in which funding losses are known before school districts need to adopt budgets.
In past years, district often had to guess at the depth of cuts while waiting for state legislators to settle on a budget, only to retract many of the layoffs. In Orange County last year, more than 1,900 teachers were warned of cuts, but only about 100 lost jobs.
Some Orange County districts are hoping federal stimulus money or other changes will ease the expected cuts. Others are predicting budget losses that extend beyond 2009-10, and cutting now to prepare.
Here’s a district by district rundown. (Dollar figures typically represent cuts through 2009-10.) Click the links to get more detailed reports. Check back throughout the week for updates.
Anaheim Union High: 151 pink slips, 73 are teachers; $37 million in cuts
Brea-Olinda Unified: 29 jobs; 26 are teachers: $3.6 million in cuts
Capistrano Unified: 407 pink slips; 262 are classroom teachers; $25 million in cuts
Centralia Elementary: 139 layoff notices; up to 62 teachers; $3.4 million
Fullerton Elementary: 180 layoff notices; $6.5 million in cuts
Huntington Beach City Elementary: 42 teachers;
Ocean View Elementary: 72 temporary teachers;
Orange Unified: 254 temporary and permanent teachers; $30 million
Saddleback Valley Unified: 170 layoff notices; school closed; $10 million
Santa Ana Unified: 530 notices, including 345 classroom teachers; $56 million
Awaiting data:
Anaheim Elementary
Buena Park Elementary
Cypress Elementary
Fountain Valley Elementary
Fullerton Joint Union High
Garden Grove Unified
Huntington Beach Union High
Irvine Unified
La Habra City Elementary
Laguna Beach Unified
Lowell Joint
Los Alamitos Unified
Magnolia Elementary
Newport-Mesa Unified
Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified
Savanna Elementary
Tustin Unified
Westminster Elementary
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-layoffs11-2009mar11,0,2401795.story
From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. Unified board OKs layoff notices to about 9,000 employees
The letters will go out to 5,500 teachers, and the rest will go to workers such as counselors and administrators. Any job cuts would have to be approved in June.
By Jason Song
9:42 PM PDT, March 10, 2009
The Los Angeles Board of Education approved issuing preliminary layoff notices to about 9,000 employees Tuesday despite a large demonstration by the teachers union and some board members’ concerns over potential harm to educational quality.
In separate votes, the board approved sending letters to about 2,000 permanent elementary school teachers and about 3,500 probationary teachers informing them that they are in danger of losing their jobs.
The rest of the notices are going to non-teaching personnel, including counselors and administrators.
Before layoffs could occur in the nation’s second-largest school system, the board would have to approve the terminations in June.
Board member Julie Korenstein voted against both measures, and Richard Vladovic voted against one and recused himself in the other. Marguerite Poindexter Lamotte also abstained from a vote.
Because of the state and national fiscal crises, the district is facing a nearly $700-million shortfall over the next 18 months.
District officials said they hope to avoid laying off all of the employees who will be given notice.
But Supt. Ramon C. Cortines cautioned that the district’s deficit might grow. “If the revenue continues to be in the tank, we believe we will take another hit,” he said.
Some board members said they were concerned that layoffs would harm the quality of student educations.
“You can’t have a reduction in force of this magnitude and meet everyone’s needs,” Marlene Canter said.
Teachers union officials warned before the meeting that their members would perform an act of civil disobedience that could result in arrests. After protesting outside the board room, union President A.J. Duffy interrupted the meeting by speaking out of turn when it began.
“You know I’m not leaving the rostrum,” he said as board President Monica Garcia admonished him.
“You are out of order,” she said.
Union members, wearing red, sat in a semicircle around Duffy as the school board moved its meeting to a side room. Union members shouted “Shame on you!” and Korenstein, a strong union supporter, faced the crowd and put a hand over her heart before leaving the board room.
School district police ordered the group to disperse or face arrest. About 50 district employees who had been pre-screened by union officials remained behind, but police did not detain anyone.
The group remained in the board room, giving interviews to news media and discussing their concerns about larger class sizes and their students’ education.
“This country we love was born out of civil disobedience,” Duffy told the crowd.
The group left after nearly three hours to join another protest outside the building.
“We’ll be back here to stop the cuts!” they shouted.
jason.song@latimes.com
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Capistrano Unified parents, students decry cuts
From sports to music to adult education, school programs face cutbacks.
By PETER SCHELDEN
The Orange County Register
After learning their school board plans to cut $25 million from the budget, Capistrano Unified parents, students and teachers showed up in force of numbers Monday night to support their favorite programs.
From athletics to music to adult education, supporters used their one minute of public comment granted by the board to talk up the benefits that have helped them most.
Meanwhile trustees cautioned that no particular program would be defunded that evening.
Supporters of various programs filled all available seats and stood crowding the back of the room. As the night wore on, about a dozen sat cross-legged on the carpet.
Some of the attendants were simply curious to find out how the board would act on the cuts. Most had programs to support, though, like Aliso Viejo High School senior Breelin Gibola.
“Choir is so much more than just a bunch of sounds,” Gibola said. “It’s a life-skills-builder, and the best thing I’ve ever been a part of. It’s a culture. It’s learning self-esteem… It’s having your own family if your home life isn’t so great.”
Carol Dutch of San Clemente has a third-grade daughter enrolled at Marblehead Elementary. Dutch responded to a comment made early in the evening that all programs not required by law would be cut until further funding is found.
“I’m very concerned they declared that all programs will be cut,” Dutch said. “It’s easy to cut smaller programs. You think you’re not affecting many people. But if we want to start them again in three years, it will be very costly and difficult.”
Ken Nedler of Dana Hills High School was there to protect his own job, and that of other activity directors—professionals found in each of the district’s high schools who advise student governments on spending millions of student fee dollars.
“If you cut our position, what you wind up with is a school with no activities and the elimination of lower-level sports within a year,” Nedler predicted. He said cutting the positions will lead to cutting revenue-generating programs like school proms and performances.
Matthew Melissa, 16-year-old from Aliso Niguel High School, saw a similar snowball effect if elementary school music programs are cut. He has played saxophone in the Capistrano Unified School District since 5th grade, and even played at Carnegie Hall.
“Enrollment will sharply decrease in junior high, in high school,” if the elementary program is cut, Melissa said.
Eddie Ortega, 40, recently lost his job. So he went back to school through the district’s adult education program to earn his GED. He implored the trustees to maintain the program, which faces over a million dollars in potential cuts.
“There are so many of us that want to take that step back (to school)… but are afraid,” Ortega said. “The staff there and the teachers have been so helpful and encouraging.”
Keilani Conroy of Capistrano Beach said the board should start by cutting fully-catered special meetings, which have been several since the beginning of the year. She said she worries for teachers facing joblessness.
“I shutter to think what’s going to happen to them,” Conroy said. “I understand the budget cuts, but we can cut special meetings, catered meals. It’s not adding up.”
Trustee Larry Christensen said he regrets any cuts the board will finally make.
“I don’t think there’s a soul up here that wants to cut any jobs or any programs,” Christensen said. “The problem is the state has been spending like there is no tomorrow. We’re not talking about cutting any program right now, and certainly we don’t want to cut them.”
District pink slips 400, read here
Contact the writer: pschelden@ocregister.com or 949-492-5128
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As LAUSD layoffs loom, debate over teacher seniority resurfaces
Email Picture
Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
Richard Rivera taught in L.A. Unified for a decade but lost his seniority status when he went to a charter school.
Cutting enthusiastic, effective teachers just because they’re new is not good for students, say some district officials and education reform advocates. Unions leaders say it’s an issue of fairness.
By Jason Song and Seema Mehta
March 10, 2009
Richard Rivera joined the Algebra Project at exactly the wrong time.
After three years at charter schools, Rivera returned to the Los Angeles Unified School District last year as a math coach — a kind of roving instructor and supervisor — at Luther Burbank Middle School in Highland Park. He also agreed to work on the Algebra Project, a new program designed to keep low-achieving students involved in math.
But even though Rivera spent a decade teaching in the district, he lost his seniority with L.A. Unified because of his foray into the charter world. Because the district lays off teachers based on the amount of time they’ve worked for the school system, Rivera is now in danger of losing his job, and the Algebra Project might stall before it even begins.
If Rivera and other younger teachers involved in the program leave, the school goes “right back to square one,” said John Samaniego, the principal at Burbank, where test scores have slowly been rising.
Samaniego’s dilemma is common throughout the state as districts prepare to issue preliminary layoff notices to teachers by Friday and principals try to determine their plans for next year. The Los Angeles Board of Education is scheduled to vote today on whether to issue these notices to about 9,000 employees, including 5,500 teachers, because of an expected $700-million budget shortfall.
Outside of Los Angeles, more than 20,000 teachers statewide are expected to receive preliminary pink slips, according to teachers union officials. The California Teachers Assn. has planned protests this week against the widespread layoffs.
In L.A. Unified, instructors with less than two years of experience are expected to be given notice first. But some top L.A. Unified officials believe layoffs could rob the district of their most enthusiastic employees, and are trying to find ways to keep them.
“We have invested all this money in these new teachers . . . so we should have the ability to retain them,” said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, who represents Burbank Middle School.
Districts across the state, including L.A. Unified, are offering early retirement packages to employees, which would help retain younger teachers.
So far, nearly 2,000 L.A. Unified employees have agreed to retire early and the district plans to offer the program again.
Because less experienced teachers are cheaper, a district must lay off more of them to close a budget gap, leading to increased class sizes and the shuffling of classes and instructors.
Some board members have questioned whether the district can circumvent firing by seniority. Flores Aguilar said she would push the district to revise the law to allow districts to retain teachers based on merit.
In Washington, D.C., the superintendent is battling the teachers’ union to create a system that allows teachers to decide whether they want to retain seniority or pursue a higher-paying performance-based track. And Rhode Island’s Commissioner of Education ordered Providence schools to stop seniority-based bumping in February.
L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines also said he’s in favor of changing the system: “People need security and protection but we’ve got to move into the 21st century as well.”
Layoffs by seniority — last hired, first fired — have been part of the California Education Code for at least three decades, and A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said it was unlikely the union would support doing away with it.
“Until somebody can show me a fair or equitable way besides tenure, I don’t see it happening,” he said.
Researchers say districts can use a combination of student-assessment data and principal evaluations to lay off teachers based on effectiveness in the classroom.
This seniority “policy isn’t about kids,” said Marguerite Roza, an assistant professor at the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. “It’s about awarding job security to more senior members.”
Meanwhile, a recent eighth-grade math class at Burbank was chaotic. Students’ voices rose and fell depending on how far away the teacher was. A girl used the overhead projector as a finger-puppet stage and a boy asked if he could smash a photographer’s camera.
Students doing their work often had to consult a hanging multiplication table. “They should know that by now,” said teacher David Simms. “A lot of what we do is just catch-up.”
But there was an island of calm around Rivera, who was huddled in the back with two students, peppering them with questions and challenging their responses.
Rivera, 44, started working for the district in 1993 after receiving a master’s degree in education. He left 11 years later to work for two charters — public campuses that are independently run.
Because he did not teach at an L.A. Unified campus for more than 39 months, Rivera lost his seniority status. He doesn’t regret his decision.
As he made his way around the room, Rivera also tried to sign up students for the Algebra Project, a joint program between Burbank Middle School and nearby Franklin High School that is being funded by a five-year National Science Foundation grant.
Rivera and a group of volunteers, including two Franklin teachers, have spearheaded the effort and spent a recent Saturday visiting students at home to persuade them to sign up for the four-year program.
The program is aimed at low-achieving students who show promise and is being touted as a way to keep children involved in school and out of the numerous gangs in the area. Cortines said he hoped to find a way to keep enthusiastic instructors, including all of the teachers involved in the Algebra Project.
“I just think we’re going to have to find some creative, out-of-the-box ways to save teachers,” he said.
jason.song@latimes.com
seema.mehta@latimes.com
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Thursday, March 5, 2009
Centralia district faced with almost $5 million budget shortfall
139 employees have already received layoff notices.
By HEATHER McREA
The Orange County Register
BUENA PARK — The Centralia School District is facing a $4.8 million shortfall in its budget over the next three years, and has already notified 139 employees that they are slated to be laid off as part of the budget cuts, school officials said.
While it is hoped some of those jobs can be saved through natural attrition, Superintendent Diane Scheerhorn said the district will be operating with fewer employees and that will be reflected in a loss of support services for teachers and students – such as help in the classroom, maintenance and afterschool activities.
“I honestly believe that we are going to see that the students are still going to see the quality education that they have been receiving,” Scheerhorn said. “We won’t have the same number of adults to give the one-on-one attention to the children.”
The Centralia district will address a $3.4 million shortfall in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 budgets primarily with cuts to the next school year. In addition, a $1.4 million shortfall is forecasted for 2010-11, Assistant Superintendent Dave Giordano said.
“Over the last four years we have been cutting, but not as drastic as we will have to in the following years,” Scheerhorn said, adding about $3 million has already been trimmed from recent budgets.
The layoffs include 77 classified staff, with another 25 who are having their hours reduced, and 62 certificated staff, which include teachers, administrators and the like. A few of the other planned budget cuts include:
• Increase class-size ratios in first and second grades from 20-1 to 24-1
• Reduction of some busing routes
• Having classrooms receive cursory cleaning one night and a deep cleaning the next
• The 200 minutes of physical education students are required to receive every 10 days will have to be done by the teachers
While the district will still offer the fourth- through sixth-grade instrumental music program, the foundation that has bolstered the arts and music education of students has had to take time off for fundraising. Scheerhorn said the program will have to be looked at again next year.
School districts were given more freedom to spend earmarked state money as they see fit. The Centralia district is planning to “sweep” about $1.2 million from funds that are designated for specific programs – such as arts and music, transportation and other “categorical” programs – to use toward covering general operating costs.
Afterschool programs held on campuses but supported by the cities will continue, Scheerhorn said. “Additional services for the students will still remain intact.”
The district held several meetings on the budget with the public and its staff over the last couple of months, officials said, and there are plans to make another round with parents before the year is over.
“One ingredient always is the parents. We can always use parents’ involvement,” said school board President Dennis Salts. “A few hands here and there will make this a lot better. It’s all about the kids. We need help where we can get it.”
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Autism patients in California are dealt insurance setback
The Department of Managed Health Care declines to require carriers to pay for applied behavior analysis, an expensive therapy that insurers contend is an educational service, not medicine.
By Lisa Girion
March 10, 2009
California regulators said Monday that insurers must provide speech, occupational and physical therapies to their autistic members but rejected pleas to require insurers to cover the cost of behavior therapy that aims to help patients live in society.
At issue is so-called applied behavior analysis, a therapy that teaches patients skills such as self-feeding and stopping injurious behaviors such as head banging. The therapy can cost as much as $70,000 a year per patient.
Parents of children with autism have argued in lawsuits and in complaints to regulators that insurers, by refusing to pay for an array of autism care, are ignoring the Mental Health Parity Act. The 2000 state law requires insurers to treat mental conditions the same as medical conditions.
Autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the U.S., more prevalent than childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes and pediatric AIDS combined. There are an estimated 185,000 Californians with autism.
The state now treats about 37,000 significantly impaired autistic children, delivering a variety of services, including applied behavior analysis — at a cost of more than $320 million a year.
The disorder impairs communication and socialization and is often marked by repetitive behaviors such as rocking and head banging. Its cause is unknown, and there is no cure.
The state’s major insurers and HMOs routinely refuse to pay for applied behavior analysis, arguing, most recently, that it is an educational service, not medicine. The insurers also say that covering applied behavioral analysis will drive up premiums for everyone, although studies from other states have found such increases to be minimal.
Parents disputing the denials have been winning appeals to regulators in recent months as research on the effectiveness of the therapy has become more widely recognized.
In 15 of 16 recent disputes over insurance denials of applied behavior analysis for individual children, state-impaneled physician-reviewers have declared the therapy to be medically necessary. Those decisions required the insurers to pay for the treatment. The 16th case is pending.
The Department of Managed Health Care stepped into the controversy Monday, sending insurers a letter seeking to clarify their coverage obligations to cover autism and related disorders.
Parents lauded the department for making it clear that insurers must cover speech, physical and occupational therapies for their autistic members. But they were disappointed by its failure to address applied behavioral analysis.
Some said the letter set up the likelihood that parents would have to fight case by case to convince the department that the therapy should be covered. Only if they won that round would parents be able to take their case to an independent medical review panel, where they have been winning.
If not, it could be game over for parents.
“I have a problem with their staying silent on the most effective therapy,” said Bay Area parent advocate Kristin Jacobson.
“Does every child who needs insulin — or cancer treatment — have to take it all the way to the Department of Managed Health Care?” she said. “This is the only thing where every family has to fight it every time. And that didn’t stop today.”
Applied behavior analysis teaches skills by breaking them down into numerous steps and drilling them with positive reinforcement.
Some studies have shown that as much as 47% of children who receive the therapy are able to enter school with no further intervention and few, if any, symptoms of the condition, said Gina Green, executive director of the National Assn. of Professional Behavior Analysts.
Eight states have laws that explicitly require insurers to cover certain autism treatments. In California there is no specific autism law. But autism is one of the conditions that was supposed to be addressed by the Mental Health Parity Act.
State officials defended the plan. “We’re doing all we can within the limits of the law to make sure what should be covered is covered,” said Tim LeBas, assistant director of the Department of Managed Health Care’s Office of Health Plan Oversight.
Department spokeswoman Lynne Randolph acknowledged that the department would review coverage denials for applied behavior analysis case by case, trying to distinguish medical applications of the therapy from educational ones.
“We would say yes in certain instances,” she said.
Kaiser Permanente and other insurers have vigorously opposed an interpretation of the law requiring them to cover the therapy.
The department’s letter said it would develop regulations to formalize the requirements on insurers and to “provide additional clarity through an open and public process.”
Kaiser said Monday’s letter was “a step forward” but left some issues unresolved.
Charles Bacchi, interim president of the California Assn. of Health Plans, said the trade group looked forward to gaining further guidance through ongoing regulatory audits with individual insurers, as well as through the development of new regulations.
The courts may influence the course of autism coverage as well. Kaiser is the target of two proposed class-action lawsuits that accuse the company of violating the Mental Health Parity Act and other laws by routinely denying medical care, including applied behavior analysis, to its members.
Scott Glovsky, a Pasadena lawyer representing Kaiser members in one of the suits, said it was a shame that the department failed to address applied behavior analysis therapy.
“ABA is what children with autism spectrum disorders need the most,” he said.
The decision applies to insurance policies held by more than 21 million Californians and supervised by the Department of Managed Health Care. That includes health maintenance organizations and some preferred-provider organizations offered by several companies, including Kaiser, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Health Net and PacifiCare.
Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica advocacy organization, said the department might have crossed the line on “underground rule-making” by trying to change the rules by letter rather than through the formal adoption of regulations, which is a public process.
“This is a state agency winking at the HMOs and inviting them to deny claims to autistic children,” Rosenfield said. “This is going to be a license to steal for the HMOs, and they are giving it away without even holding a hearing, which is just an outrage, and also, I think, illegal.”
lisa.girion@latimes.com
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Published Online: March 6, 2009
Published in Print: March 11, 2009
Algebra-for-All Policy Found to Raise Rates Of Failure in Chicago
By Debra Viadero
Arlington, Va.
Findings from a study involving 160,000 Chicago high school students offer a cautionary tale of what can happen, in practice, when school systems require students to take algebra at a particular grade level.
Buoyed by recommendations from national mathematics experts, growing numbers of districts and states, such as New York and Texas, have begun requiring students to study algebra in 9th grade. Notably, California recently moved to require the subject even earlier, in 8th grade, although the policy faces legal roadblocks.
The Chicago school district was at the forefront of that movement in 1997 when it instituted a mandate for 9th grade algebra as part of an overall effort to ensure that its high school students would be “college ready” upon graduation.
The policy change may have yielded unintended effects, according to researchers from the Consortium on Chicago School Research, based at the University of Chicago. While algebra enrollment increased across the district, the percentages of students failing math in 9th grade also rose after the new policy took effect.
By the same token, the researchers say, the change did not seem to lead to any significant test-score gains for students in math or in sizeable increases in the percentages of students who went on to take higher-level math courses later on in high school.
“This policy that Chicago tried in 1997 seems to be sweeping the country now and not a lot of thought is being given to how it really affects schools,” Elaine M. Allensworth, the lead researcher on the study, said in an interview.
District Responds
Her co-author, Takako Nomi, presented the findings here in Virginia on March 3 at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, a group based in Evanston, Ill., that promotes cause-and-effect studies.
“It’s not surprising that you’re going to see an increase in [failure] rates if you raise the instructional requirements and you don’t raise the supports,” said Michael Lach, the director of the school system’s office of high school teaching.
Over the past seven or eight years, he said, the district has tried to boost student-success rates under the policy, which remains in place. Steps include developing curricular materials introducing students to algebra concepts in grades K-8, requiring struggling 9th graders to take double periods of algebra, and providing more professional development in math to middle and high school teachers, Mr. Lach said.
The consortium researchers said their findings grow out of an ongoing study of the district’s across-the-board efforts to upgrade academic requirements for all students. They plan to publish a report on the effects of the double algebra periods in April.
The scholars based their findings on data gathered on 11 waves of students entering 9th grade from 1994 to 2005.
They compared changes within schools from cohort to cohort during a period before the policy took effect with a period several years afterward. They also compared schools that underwent the changes with those that already had an “algebra for all” policy in place.
Effects Varied by Ability
The researchers calculate that, for a school that saw an increase of 20 percentage points in algebra enrollment due to the requirement, for example, the percentage of 9th graders failing math would increase by 3 percentage points for students in the lowest-ability quartile, 3.5 percentage points for students in the next quartile, and 8.9 percent for students in the quartile of students who were labeled to be of “average” ability.
The failure rate was not appreciably higher, though, among the highest-ability students, most of whom would presumably have taken algebra anyway.
“We thought the average-ability kids would be better able to handle algebra than the lowest-ability kids,” said Ms. Allensworth. “But it seems to have hurt their outcomes more than the lowest-ability kids.” One possible explanation, the researchers suggested, is that the lowest group had a higher failure rate before the policy took effect.
The lack of test-score growth, Ms. Nomi said, may be because math classes included children with a wider range of ability levels following the change, which might have spurred some teachers to water down their teaching.
Whether similar sorts of algebra mandates—or efforts to teach algebra at even younger ages—would have the same impact in other locations, however, is unclear, said Leland S. Cogan, a senior researcher at the Center for Research on Math and Science Education at Michigan State University in Lansing.
“Some research suggests the longer you wait to expose students to algebra the more difficulty they have making the transition,” he said.
Vol. 28, Issue 24, Page 11
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http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-cap9-2009mar09,0,2652444.column?track=rss
From the Los Angeles Times
CAPITOL JOURNAL
Senate leader makes big push for new-economy job skills
George Skelton
Capitol Journal
March 9, 2009
From Sacramento — The Legislature has a lot on its plate: water, healthcare, state survival. . . . So when the Senate leader identifies his top priority, ears perk up.
At least mine do. The Senate president pro tem — “pro tem” for short — normally has the power to make things happen. Especially when he’s allied with the minority leader, as he seems to be in this case.
Freshman Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) called a Capitol news conference last week to declare that his “No. 1 priority” — the “most important” agenda item for California — is to revamp public schools with sufficient vocational education to prepare young people for the “new economy.”
Except, educators don’t call it “voc ed” anymore. It’s now “career tech education.”
To say the news conference was sparsely attended would be generous. You could count the reporters on one hand. This subject is very wonky. Moreover, the Capitol news corps has been shrinking because of financial hard times.
The news conference subject was the decline but potential rebound of career tech.
“We are zapping ourselves of economic vitality by not assuring that thousands of young people are educated and trained for the workforce,” Steinberg said.
In 1987, nearly 74% of California high school students had taken some voc ed course, according to the California Manufacturing and Technology Assn. By last year, that percentage had dropped to around 29%.
Meanwhile, companies have been complaining that California schools aren’t producing enough skilled workers.
Jack Stewart, president of the manufacturing group, cites one Southern California example: the makers of aerospace fasteners — precision nuts and bolts that hold aircraft together. Alcoa is the biggest company, but there are several others in the Los Angeles Basin. They produce 23% of the world’s fasteners, $1 billion worth and provide 10,000 jobs.
“They’re unable to find the skilled workers in Southern California to fill the jobs,” Stewart says. So they must recruit from elsewhere or move out of state.
One result of an under-skilled workforce, Stewart adds, is a smaller middle class. As of December, the state had lost about 730,000 private-sector jobs with an average annual wage of $69,000 during the previous eight years. During that time, California gained 763,000 private-sector jobs that paid an average of $42,000.
Not good for the tax base.
What happened to voc ed — all those intriguing wood, metal and auto shops?
First, there was the misguided attitude that if Junior didn’t obtain a four-year college degree, he was doomed to second-class status, if not failure. So high schools shaped their curricula to meet University of California entrance requirements.
Second, voc ed courses, with all their equipment that constantly needs updating, aren’t cheap. In recent years, they’ve been among the first to land on the chopping block during periodic budget crises.
Steinberg and many Democrats believe it’s possible to prepare students for the university while still training them in career tech.
Rigorous math courses are needed to enter UC and also often to work in construction, he says. Provide options.
Employer groups and Republicans are inclined to just make sure high school graduates acquire enough skills to land good-paying jobs that don’t require four-year degrees.
“Not every course needs to be focused on entering the UC system,” Stewart insists. “That doesn’t make sense. Every student doesn’t have to fit through the same narrow keyhole. Some students want to go on and get a PhD. Others can’t wait to get out of high school.”
And too many drop out of high school — 21% statewide, 32% in the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to newly revised state data.
“That’s shameful,” Steinberg says. “It’s unacceptable from a human perspective. And it’s unacceptable if we intend to have the most robust economy in the country.
“Part of the reason kids drop out is because they’re struggling academically. But it’s often also because they don’t see the relevance — the relation between what’s being taught and what they might do with their adult life.”
They’re bored. Maybe some training in a skill — computers, nursing, construction, airplane fasteners — could interest them and benefit the economy.
Steinberg introduced a bill that would provide matching grants for “green” businesses if they agreed to partner with high schools on career tech education. The program would be funded by $5 billion in bonds, repaid by an existing utility fee that generates $300 million annually.
The money now goes to renewable energy research.
He called it “an investment in reducing the dropout rate, expanding workforce opportunities and targeting climate change.”
Other bills were introduced by Sens. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) and Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley).
Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta stood with the Democrats at the news conference and declared, “There is a lot of common ground across party lines here . . . . I think you’re going to find successes in the Legislature on both sides of the aisle.”
Good. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also is a career tech booster.
So what’s stopping everyone? Money. The state’s still broke.
It reminds me of what my mom used to tell us kids as we loaded our plates: Make sure your eyes aren’t bigger than your stomachs.
Maybe a little career tech; easy on everything else.
george.skelton@latimes.com
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Some excellent discussion can be found:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/3739
Some background on why I am concerned about charter, choice, or magnet schools.
Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion: Presidential
Thu Mar 12th 2009, 09:18 PM
First off, I know my resistance to phasing out public schools is a losing battle. Many teachers and retired teachers like me see a train wreck coming for public schools, but there is no way to head it off. That train wreck will not affect families with good financial resources. It will greatly affect those from deprived backgrounds as it will create a two levels of schools. I wrote about it in an earlier post here.
Since the charter schools are the way our party has chosen to go, here is some background. This idea is a mainstay of Al From and the Democratic Leadership Council. These schools were started to get away from the regulation in the public school sector, and in his own words…to provide competition and choice.
He decried the fact that public schools have a monopoly on education. Me, I always thought that was a good thing. But the propaganda has worked, and now the public schools and their teachers are seen as often being unworthy. All of that as funds are being taken away for vouchers to private schools, funding for kids in charter schools….leaving the public schools with less money all the time.
Then as the resources are drained, they speak of how little the public schools are getting done. So I know this post is like a little cry in the wilderness for what used to be and won’t be again. It will not change minds at all, and it will make no difference in the push for charter schools.
Key point. The charter, choice, magnet schools will not keep students who do not learn at that tier of education. They send them back to tier 2…the public schools that are left.
Here are Al From’s words from 2000. They are coming true in a big way now under a Democratic congress and a Democratic administration.
Al From called for charter schools in 2000…coming to fruition now
The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is now calling for reforms including school choice and merit pay for teachers…..America is a tale of two public school systems: one that works reasonably well, although it could certainly be better, and one that is by almost any standard a disaster,” says From.
..”From argues that the public school system too often serves the interests of teachers and administrators at the expense of the students themselves. It is a “monopolistic” system that “offers a ‘one-size-fits-hardly-anyone’ model that strangles excellence and innovation” he says.
Characterizing charter schools as “oases of innovation,” From writes, “The time has come to bring life to the rest of the desert-by introducing the same forces of choice and competition to every public school in America.”
From also says Democrats should work to redefine the very notion of public education itself.
“We should rid ourselves of the rigid notion that public schools are defined by who owns and operates them,” he writes. “In the twenty-first century, a public school should be any school that is of the people (accountable to public authorities for its results), by the people (paid for by the public), and for the people (open to the public and geared toward public purposes).”
His statement about ownership of schools worries me if taken to its logical conclusion. His statement about public schools not having the interest of students…that angers me greatly.
“”We should rid ourselves of the rigid notion that public schools are defined by who owns and operates them,” he writes.”
Fine, I know others here differ. But I had too many great kids shoved out of such schools and sent back to those of us who teach in what I refer to as the 2nd tier. They were often disheartened and embarrassed…feeling like failures because they could not meet the high standards.
It is impossible to keep the NCLB out of play here. It is perhaps one of the reasons for the number of charter schools being raised in each state. Hear me out on this. I will quote some comments from one of my favorite politicians on this topic. As 2013 comes near…we will need those schools as the public schools begin to fail the impossible standards.
2003 Howard Dean on NCLB… “every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school.”
“The president’s ultimate goal,” said former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), one of the Democrats who now harshly attacks NCLB, “is to make the public schools so awful, and starve them of money, just as he’s starving all the other social programs, so that people give up on the public schools.”
…”MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean on Sunday urged states to reject federal No Child Left Behind funding, and said he would if still governor of Vermont.
”It’s going to cost them more in property taxes and other taxes than they are going to get out of it,” Dean told The Associated Press following a campaign stop.
…”Dean criticized President Bush, saying his administration will lower the standards for good schools in New Hampshire, making them more like poorly performing schools in Texas. The Bush administration believes ”the way to help New Hampshire is to make it more like Texas,” Dean told supporters in Manchester, adding that ”every school in America by 2013 will be a failing school.”
”Every group, including special education kids, has to be at 100 percent to pass the tests,” Dean said. ”No school system in America can do that. That ensures that every school will be a failing school.”
It is happening in Florida in a big way now. Because of the NCLB and the scores on the FCAT many schools were getting warnings last year….and they could soon be closed, the staff fired, and one of the options is turning them into charter schools. My head starts to spin as I think of 18 schools being under the gun like this. Most of these schools are the schools which have been treated as tier 2 schools and deprived of resources.
The true ugly face of NCLB seen in Florida now….turn failing schools into..well, something else.
Schools face sanctions…18 in one county.
Restructuring a school is the most serious penalty for not meeting AYP, said Sherrie Nickell, the associate superintendent of learning.
Some restructuring options include the school becoming a charter school, replacement of staff or having a separate organization contract to run the school.
Rhonda Ashley, Polk’s director of Title I schools, said for some schools the district would choose a fourth, more flexible option, which allows the district to control changes in the schools. Some of those options would include expanding or narrowing grade levels, or extending the school day or year.
Here are the options that were suggested in the article from last year for these “failing” schools.
1. Becoming a charter school. Though they are start up funded with public money, they do not have to meet the regulations that public schools must meet. That is getting into some cloudy areas.
Charter schools do not have to keep students who do not perform to expectation and their standards. Correct me if some of that has changed. Where do you send those students then? Now they send them back to “public” schools whose funding is being taken away for “charter” schools.
2. Replacement of staff. So sad. Instead of providing support there are only penalties. There are so many good teachers at these 18 schools, laboring without proper tools and books.
3. Having a separate organization contract to run the school.This is the option that says “privatize” the most loudly. These schools whose funding has been sidetracked for private school vouchers and charter schools, and don’t forget magnet schools which get all they need….these schools will now be turned over to a private contractor.
The teachers will be fired, the school will turned over to some organization to run it. Next term more public schools will fail because they can not reach the impossible standards of meeting 100% of the NCLB goals.
And the cycle begins again. And the people have been told for so long how bad the public schools are, how bad the teachers are….that they are primed and ready for the changeover.
Discuss (67 comments) | Recommend (17 votes)
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/3731
Let’s talk about merit pay from two teachers’ views. Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion: Presidential
Wed Mar 11th 2009, 02:07 AM
One teacher was in a school in a deprived neighborhood. The principal was not a very good one. The county knew that, but they put their less capable administrators in the schools whose parents would not be too critical. The parents cared deeply about their children and wanted a good education for their children.
These parents lacked the money and community standing to be demanding of a principal. No one listened to them that much except the devoted teachers. Many did not speak good English, some spoke almost none. In the fancier schools there were people to help translate and aid communication. The poorer school had little access to specialists.
This school had much of the supply money shifted from it to a charter school, or a magnet school, or a school of choice. This school had old worn out text books. Yet when the students did not “produce” in the charter, magnet, choice schools…..they were sent back to the deprived school.
Guess what. The funds never came back with them.
The children were just like children everywhere, some were intelligent, some were challenged. But there were not the amenities or facilities provided for them.
While the poor school had old worn textbooks, the schools with advantaged students had in many cases two textbooks. One set for home, another set for school. Didn’t want them to sprain their backs.
The difference was not in the children and their capabilities and intelligence….it was in the lack of resources that were desperately needed.
I taught in that school my last years before retirement. I loved my kids and gave them all that I could.
A neighbor taught in a prestigious school of choice. Her daughter attended there, and had two sets of textbooks. When we compared notes it was like night and day. She was stunned at our working conditions.
Let’s compare our two classes one year. I had 32 in my class. 5 were severe Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD or ADHD). Two others severely learning disabled, with little access to any help but me. I did what I could. One was so disturbed that he would suddenly start kicking the wall, or banging his head on the desk. I referred for testing, got nowhere. The asst principal would carry him out of class when it got too bad. Then I had to settle down the class and start over.
My class was so busy with just getting by in life, coping with so many other things…that there was little teachable time left. It was not their brains or capabilities….it was the utter despair some felt.
My neighbor in contrast had the children of people who had the finances to provide what was needed. Children of doctors and professors who knew better than to send their kids to a school like ours.
They had access to home computers, tutors, anything they needed. The teacher only had to ask, and specialists appeared magically.
Needless to say my class did not score well on the state or national testing. It was not their abilities, it was not my teaching skills. It was trying to teach with constant disruptions, no help, and parents who were usually not willing to help at home. I did all the right things to teach them, but too many things got in the way.
My neighbor’s class aced the FCAT and national tests.
Under the merit system Duncan and Obama are proposing, she would get a raise….and I would not have.
I taught human beings with hearts and souls and good minds, but life got in the way. I worked twice as hard as my neighbor, but it did not matter.
Children are equal, no matter their color, their race, their economic status. But unless we can address their problems of poverty, drug-filled neighborhoods, and often abusive parents…they will not ace tests.
That is the reality of what Obama is planning, and as a retired teacher I disapprove. He intends to keep the NCLB and apparently increase the standards.
The elite will come out okay in this, the others won’t in the long run.
Discuss (127 comments) | Recommend (21 votes)
Email Blast from John Palacio:
Title I Turnaround Programs Due for Big Cash Boost
By David J. Hoff
In the seven years since enactment of No Child Left Behind Act, the number of academically troubled schools identified for turnarounds has grown steadily.
The federal money for the work of turning around them hadn’t—until now.
The change came last month when President Barack Obama signed the economic-stimulus measure into law. The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will give states a previously unexpected $3.4 billion to spend on improving the schools that are farthest from reaching the NCLB law’s goal that all children be proficient in reading and math by the end of the 2013-14 school year.
“With these kind of revenues, you can do some things that had been on the table but weren’t attainable,” said Peter McWalters, Rhode Island’s commissioner of education. He listed options such as summer professional development for teachers, leadership training for principals, and academic and leadership coaches for struggling schools.
Help on the Way
Federal money for school improvement projects will rise dramatically this and next fiscal year.
Note: Totals include money appropriated specifically for school improvement and money reserved for that purpose under the NCLB law’s Title I.
Other state leaders are mulling similar ways to use the $3.4 billion in stimulus money for school improvement over the next two years.
Such comprehensive approaches are important, one researcher said, because schools identified for help under the program need comprehensive and sustained interventions for them to succeed.
“It’s a really complex problem, and no single thing … is guaranteed success,” said Caitlin Scott, who has studied states’ school improvement efforts for the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group that is tracking implementation of the NCLB law. “There’s not just one thing you can purchase.”
Big Pay Day
As with several other K-12 programs, the so-called school improvement section of the NCLB law will receive a sudden infusion of money that many in the education field could not have expected before the nation’s economy fell into crisis, prompting the stimulus package.
The new measure appropriates $6.5 billion in fiscal 2009 and again in fiscal 2010 for the NCLB law’s Title I program, which serves schools with high numbers or percentages of disadvantaged students. In each fiscal year, $1.5 billion is reserved for the so-called school improvement program under Title I.
And of the $5 billion remaining each year, the No Child Left Behind law requires states to reserve 4 percent for improving schools that have persistently failed to make adequate yearly progress, or AYP, under the 2002 law and to provide other technical assistance to districts.
In all, that will give states $1.7 billion in fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2010 for school improvement.
What’s more, states will receive another $1.1 billion for school improvement efforts under the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill that President Obama signed last week. (“Winners vs. Losers In 2009’s Budget,” this issue.)
With a total of $2.8 billion allocated in fiscal 2009, and probably at least that much again in fiscal 2010, states’ school improvement efforts will receive a dramatic influx of cash over spending levels from two years ago.
Using that money to fix struggling schools will be a key part of the Obama administration’s efforts, federal officials say, to reduce the dropout rate and increase the number of students earning college degrees.
“Stemming the tide of dropouts will require turning around our low-performing schools,” President Obama said in a March 10 speech at a meeting of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
And in guidance released March 7 on how to spend the stimulus money available for education, the U.S. Department of Education underscored the emphasis on school improvement efforts by saying it would not grant states’ requests to spend the improvement money on other priorities in the Title I program.
Working With Districts
Under the NCLB law, states must allocate 95 percent of such improvement money to districts. So far, states have taken several approaches to spending it, according to Ms. Scott of the Center on Education Policy, who has studied such efforts in five states.
Most states send a team of experts to review a school who recommend and monitor changes. In that process, the team or other consultants provide professional development for teachers and principals. Some states hire academic coaches for teachers or mentors for principals, with the aim of helping them improve their instructional strategies and leadership.
Arkansas, for example, is using America’s Choice, a school improvement model developed by the National Center for Education and the Economy, based in Washington.
But critics say such approaches have been inadequate so far.
“By and large, most cities feel that [states’ help] isn’t meeting their needs, is weak, is not focused, and is not terribly effective,” said Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington group that represents about 60 of the nation’s largest urban districts.
Big Task
At the end of the 2007-08 school year, about 3,600 public schools—or 4 percent the total—had failed to make adequate yearly progress for five or more years. That number had doubled by 2008-09. (“Schools Struggling to Meet Key Goal on Accountability,” Jan. 7, 2009.)
And states may end up considering drastic steps in schools failing to show signs of improvement.
Those steps could include closing poor-performing schools and converting them to charter schools, or using school interventions that have proved successful elsewhere, said Alex Medler, the vice president of research and analysis for the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a Denver-based advocacy group that helps run school improvement programs.
Without such aggressive moves, improvement efforts could result in little change or progress, said Rae Belisle, a member of the California board of education.
“We keep doing the same old thing out there,” said Ms. Belisle, who is the chief executive officer of EdVoice, a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization that links donors with parent groups working to improve California schools.
“They piddle this money away,” she said of her state’s efforts under the NCLB law and state programs.
Vol. 28, Issue 25, Pages 13,15
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Science News
Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills
ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009)
— Children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published in the journal Psychology of Music.
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According to authors Joseph M Piro and Camilo Ortiz from Long Island University, USA, data from this study will help to clarify the role of music study on cognition and shed light on the question of the potential of music to enhance school performance in language and literacy.
Studying children the two US elementary schools, one of which routinely trained children in music and one that did not, Piro and Ortiz aimed to investigate the hypothesis that children who have received keyboard instruction as part of a music curriculum increasing in difficulty over successive years would demonstrate significantly better performance on measures of vocabulary and verbal sequencing than students who did not receive keyboard instruction.
Several studies have reported positive associations between music education and increased abilities in non-musical (eg, linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children. The authors say there are similarities in the way that individuals interpret music and language and “because neural response to music is a widely distributed system within the brain…. it would not be unreasonable to expect that some processing networks for music and language behaviors, namely reading, located in both hemispheres of the brain would overlap.”
The aim of this study was to look at two specific reading subskills – vocabulary and verbal sequencing – which, according to the authors, are “are cornerstone components in the continuum of literacy development and a window into the subsequent successful acquisition of proficient reading and language skills such as decoding and reading comprehension.”
Using a quasi-experimental design, the investigators selected second-grade children from two school sites located in the same geographic vicinity and with similar demographic characteristics, to ensure the two groups of children were as similar as possible apart from their music experience.
Children in the intervention school (n=46) studied piano formally for a period of three consecutive years as part of a comprehensive instructional intervention program. Children attending the control school (n=57) received no formal musical training on any musical instrument and had never taken music lessons as part of their general school curriculum or in private study. Both schools followed comprehensive balanced literacy programmes that integrate skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.
All participants were individually tested to assess their reading skills at the start and close of a standard 10-month school year using the Structure of Intellect (SOI) measure.
Results analysed at the end of the year showed that the music-learning group had significantly better vocabulary and verbal sequencing scores than did the non-music-learning control group. This finding, conclude the authors, provides evidence to support the increasingly common practice of “educators incorporating a variety of approaches, including music, in their teaching practice in continuing efforts to improve reading achievement in children”.
However, further interpretation of the results revealed some complexity within the overall outcomes. An interesting observation was that when the study began, the music-learning group had already experienced two years of piano lessons yet their reading scores were nearly identical to the control group at the start of the experiment.
So, ask the authors, “If the children receiving piano instruction already had two years of music involvement, why did they not significantly outscore the musically naïve students on both measures at the outset?” Addressing previous findings showing that music instruction has been demonstrated to exert cortical changes in certain cognitive areas such as spatial-temporal performance fairly quickly, Piro and Ortiz propose three factors to explain the lack of evidence of early benefit for music in the present study.
First, children were tested for their baseline reading skills at the beginning of the school year, after an extended holiday period. Perhaps the absence of any music instruction during a lengthy summer recess may have reversed any earlier temporary cortical reorganization experienced by students in the music group, a finding reported in other related research. Another explanation could be that the duration of music study required to improve reading and associated skills is fairly long, so the initial two years were not sufficient.
A third explanation involves the specific developmental time period during which children were receiving the tuition. During the course of their third year of music lessons, the music-learning group was in second grade and approaching the age of seven. There is evidence that there are significant spurts of brain growth and gray matter distribution around this developmental period and, coupled with the increased complexity of the study matter in this year, brain changes that promote reading skills may have been more likely to accrue at this time than in the earlier two years.
“All of this adds a compelling layer of meaning to the experimental outcomes, perhaps signalling that decisions on ‘when’ to teach are at least as important as ‘what’ to teach when probing differential neural pathways and investigating their associative cognitive substrates,” note the authors.
“Study of how music may also assist cognitive development will help education practitioners go beyond the sometimes hazy and ill-defined ‘music makes you smarter’ claims and provide careful and credible instructional approaches that use the rich and complex conceptual structure of music and its transfer to other cognitive areas,” they conclude.
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Journal reference:
Joseph M. Piro and Camilo Ortiz. The effect of piano lessons on the vocabulary and verbal sequencing skills of primary grade students. Journal Psychology of Music, 16th March 2009
Adapted from materials provided by SAGE Publications/Psychology of Music, via AlphaGalileo.
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Education chief: Secretary Duncan urges schools to do more than invest in the status quo.
SOURCE: Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington Bothell/Rich Clabaugh/STAFF
Schools wrestle with how to spend stimulus funds
Should they launch new programs to help kids or try to save jobs threatened by tough economic times?
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Washington – At the heart of President Obama’s historic $787 billion economic stimulus program is a tough choice for educators: Do states and local school districts use the $100 billion spike in federal aid to do new things for kids or mainly to backfill the status quo?
The Obama administration is calling on schools to do both. But with state and local governments facing massive budget shortfalls, the challenge will be to avoid seeing the mandate to save existing jobs trump prospects for dramatic, systemic change.
“We’re putting $100 billion on the table…. We may never see this kind of money in public education again,” US Education Secretary Arne Duncan told urban school leaders at the annual meeting of the Council of the Great City Schools in Washington on Sunday.
“If all we do is use the stimulus money to invest in the status quo, we’re not going to get to where we need to go. We’re not going to get close,” he warned.
Before the stimulus package, which Mr. Obama signed into law on Feb. 17, US public schools faced the prospect of a 18.5 percent drop in state funding through fiscal year 2010 – a shortfall of about $54 billion, according to the Center on Reinventing Public Education in Seattle.
Without federal help, that could have meant a cut of 9 percent of jobs in K-12 education, or some 574,000 jobs, according to the CRPE report.
With local governments – battered by foreclosures and a plunge in housing values – covering about 44 percent of K-12 public school costs, the overall budget shortfall would have been even deeper.
“We have districts that were laying off people by the hundreds and thousands,” says Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation’s largest city school districts.
“It could do nothing but wreak havoc on the progress that these urban districts have made academically over the last several years,” he said.
In many cities, class size – one of the most consistent elements in strategies to improve student achievement – would have jumped to more than 40 students per class, up from 25. School districts were also projecting cuts in building repair and renovation.
To avert thousands of teacher layoffs, Secretary Duncan announced on March 7 that $44 billion in stimulus funding will be made available to states in the next 30 to 45 days.
The stimulus plan provides $54 billion in new federal dollars for a State Fiscal Stabilization Fund to replace state spending cuts, including $8.8 billion for priority initiatives of governors that could include education.
Another $13 billion in stimulus funding will boost programs to help schools serving poor families under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and $12 billion is assigned to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
But Washington also wants to use stimulus funding to leverage changes in how schools operate. To be eligible for a second round of funding, states and local school districts must demonstrate that they are also serious about reform.
“If you’re just filling gaps, filling holes, that will disqualify you from other dollars,” Duncan told urban school leaders, who met with Obama administration officials in the White House on Monday.
At the heart of the Obama administration’s reform agenda is college- and career-ready standards and establishing better data systems to track student progress. In addition, states and school districts must demonstrate that they are shifting teaching talent to the lowest performing schools.
Both the Bush and Clinton administrations made a case for higher standards. The Bush administration required testing in reading and math for Grades 3, 5, and 8. But the Obama Education Department wants to move US schools to extend standards and accountability all the way to teachers and the schools that train them.
“We want to know which teachers are really adding value, and we need to track teachers back to their schools of education,” he said on Sunday. “Some schools of education are doing a great job helping teachers come to the profession ready to learn and ready to drive student achievements and others aren’t.”
In Pennsylvania, the new stimulus money means the $300 million budget for education announced in February has been increased to $418 million. But noting that the funds run out in two years, Gov. Edward Rendell (D) is urging local school districts to use the funding for “legacy” projects, such as school repair or teacher training.
But Philadelphia Superintendent Arlene Ackerman says that the stimulus gives urban schools “a chance for real innovation,” including regional early childhood centers. “We wouldn’t have been able to focus on initiatives like that without stimulus funding,” she says.
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Santa Ana Unified names top teachers
Four educators are selected as 2009 Educators of the Year.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA Four Santa Ana Unified School District educators were named 2009 Educators of the Year during surprise visits to their classrooms by Superintendent Jane Russo Tuesday.
The teachers were: Elementary Teacher of the Year Annee Hartzell; Intermediate Teacher of the Year Nicholas Gentile; High School Teacher of the Year Susan Groff; and Support Services Educator Rachel Gil. The four were nominated by their peers and staff.
Here are brief bios of the winners provided by Santa Ana Unified.
Annee Hartzell — special education teacher for the visually impaired at Edison Elementary School— makes an impact on her students and their families everyday. She took a developing visually impaired program and turned it into a model program. She was able to secure the materials and technology needed for her students to achieve. Ms. Hartzell holds high standards for each of her students and expects that each of her students will reach their highest goals academically, socially and emotionally. Being visually impaired herself, Ms. Hartzell accepts no excuses from her students as she makes none for herself.
Nicholas Gentile — social studies teacher at McFadden Intermediate — creates a classroom environment where every one of his students is successful. He works with other teachers to create meaningful lessons, gather relevant resources and model exemplary teaching. In addition, Mr. Gentile provides key information and support for Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) teachers, provides morning tutoring for any student needing assistance and provides support in student discipline by making his classroom available to students who need extra attention in modifying their classroom behavior.
Susan Groff — biology and anatomy teacher at Middle College High — provides her students with authentic scientific equipment and real-life applications in her lessons daily. Ms. Groff analyzes and modifies her curriculum each year to introduce students to innovative research models and provide standards-based instruction. She is resourceful in obtaining materials and supplies from business partners and other organizations for creating engaging lessons ranging from using inexpensive beads to harvesting worms and fruit flies to study genetics.
Rachel Gil — English and literacy coordinator at Villa Fundamental Intermediate — believes all her students can achieve success no matter what strengths or weaknesses they may possess. Ms. Gil makes herself available for students before, during and after school to meet with teachers to plan lessons, hold demonstrations and collaborate. She also mentors some of our newest teachers.
The District elementary, intermediate and high school teachers of the year will be participating in the 2009-10 County Teacher of the Year competition. All four educators of the year will be honored in a May ceremony.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
Most Capistrano district administrators to be pink-slipped
The school board is expected to authorize about 407 layoff notices next week, including to the district’s much-maligned management staff.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Almost every district-level administrator in the Capistrano Unified School District is expected to be pink-slipped next week under a radical cost-cutting strategy that’s intended to give district trustees “maximum flexibility” as they work to pare next year’s budget.
The school board on Monday night is expected to authorize issuing tentative layoff notices to 27 administrators who work at the district’s San Juan Capistrano headquarters – along with 262 classroom teachers and about 119 other employees – to help close a $25 million budget gap.
“We understood it would be coming to this,” school board President Ellen Addonizio said. “We need maximum flexibility in moving forward in the next few years, based on the problems that the state of California has.”
The approximately 407 pink slips expected to go out next week will give Capistrano officials flexibility to decide over the next few months how many jobs actually need to be cut, trustees said.
All of these employees legally must be notified by March 15 they could be out of a job at the end of a year.
“It doesn’t mean all of these people will be laid off,” Trustee Ken Maddox said. “I don’t believe, for example, we’re going to completely wipe out class-size reduction. It’s on the table to be examined, but it’s my hope we can retain a portion of it.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month signed off on a 17-month state budget plan calling for $8.4 billion in cuts to K-12 public schools. In response, Capistrano officials said they must cut $25 million from the 2009-10 school year budget.
DISTRICT-LEVEL LAYOFFS
Last week, district officials outlined their layoff plans for teachers, school site administrators and other employees, but the proposal to pink-slip district-level administrators was not released until Tuesday.
It calls for all 27 assistant superintendents, directors, coordinators and program specialists to be given written notice their services might not be needed at the end of the school year. Only Capistrano’s superintendent and three deputy superintendents who work under separate, individual employment contracts would be spared. The plan also does not include non-management staff, such as secretaries.
The plan already is piquing the interest of parents who for years have criticized the size of the district’s administrative staff.
Capistrano Unified does not have an unusually large district staff – last year, about half of its administrators were eliminated during budget cutting – but it’s long been a sensitive subject in the Capistrano community.
District administrators work in a sprawling, $38 million complex flanked by palm trees in southern San Juan Capistrano. When the 126,000-square-foot building opened in 2006, it was dubbed the “Taj Mahal” by its detractors and became a rallying cry for parents who accused the district of neglecting aging campuses to build it.
Last year, it was proposed to be closed and sold. And every time budget cuts are proposed, parents demand to know why the administrators who work in it are being spared at the expense of classroom teachers.
Officials said not all district administrators could – or would – be laid off. But it will be up to trustees to decide in the coming weeks who stays and who goes.
UNION CONCESSIONS
The district’s ability to retain its administrators – as well as teachers and other employees like counselors and aides – will depend largely on what concessions the district’s employee unions are willing to make in the coming months, trustees said.
A 1 percent salary cut for all employees, for example, would save Capistrano an estimated $2.97 million. A cap on employee health benefits, meanwhile, could save $4 million.
On Monday, trustees are expected to ratify a 2008-09 teachers union employment contract that calls for no cost-of-living salary increases this year but does not freeze the automatic salary raises known as “step and column” for the union’s 2,400 members.
These automatic raises, combined with the rising cost of employee health benefits and the cost of hiring new teachers to support growing schools, are expected to cost Capistrano $10.8 million more next year, officials said.
If a 2009-10 teachers union contract is not hammered out by the end of this year, teachers would work under the 2008-09 contract again next year and receive all of its benefits.
Teachers union President Vicki Soderberg did not return a phone call Friday seeking comment.
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
Layoff notices
Capistrano Unified officials are expected to authorize pink-slipping about 407 school and district administrators, classroom teachers and other employees next week.
231 classroom teachers in grades K-3 (elimination of class-size reduction)
31 classroom teachers in grades 4-12 (increase average class size by 1 student each)
27 counselors (of 33 total, leaving just one per high school)
26.2 district-level administrators
26 resource teachers on special assignment
22.6 music teachers (elimination of elementary school music program)
17.5 middle school assistant principals (of 17.5 total)
11 elementary school assistant principals (of 11 total)
6 high school activity directors (of 6 total)
5 special education teachers
2 principals (adult and community education; community education)
1 school psychologist
1 elementary school Chinese language teacher
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Resolving Special Education Disputes in California
Stephen Lipscomb
February 2009
Full Report
[PDF]
This paper examines the formal process for dispute resolution between the parents of special education students—who make up about 10 percent of all California public school students—and the school districts that educate them. Requests for resolution are concentrated in fewer than a third of the state’s school districts; the rate tends to be higher in larger, densely populated districts, and in districts in higher-income areas. Overall, the state has one of the highest request rates in the country, but most disputes are settled before a formal hearing.
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Friday, March 6, 2009
Teachers rally against cuts in education
Four school districts and other supporters waved signs and shouted in Placentia to raise awareness.
By ERIN WELCH
The Orange County Register
PLACENTIA About 40 teachers from four school districts in north Orange County gathered with other supporters in Placentia Friday night to protest state budget cuts in education.
The group, North Orange County United Teachers (NO CUTS) and teachers from Buena Park School District, both Fullerton school districts, the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District and USC graduate students made signs and cheered at Yorba Linda Boulevard and Kraemer Boulevard.
The gathering garnered several honks from passing motorists.
After the state legislature adopted the state budget last month, the results have been trickling down to school districts statewide. School districts in Orange County are facing possible furloughs, bigger class sizes and, of course, layoffs.
Many protestors here wore pink shirts to symbolize their protest date – the last Friday before pink slips were to be handed to district employeess.
“We want to bring attention to this state’s problem with budget cuts,” said Brian Eldridge who is a fifth-grade teacher in the Buena Park School District. “The education system has had cuts before, but we are getting to the point now where we just can’t handle any more. There’s no way we can cut more without it directly affecting the kids.”
A series of rallies were organized by a group of USC graduate students, Social Workers for Education.
As a part of a school project they collaborated with area school districts to raise awareness about the affects of state budget cuts on education.
“Everyone thinks everything’s OK now because the budget got passed – that’s not true. Everything’s not OK,” Melanie McCook said. “These kids aren’t items on a budget. They are faces and they are our future. We need to start investing in them better.”
Teachers at the rally not only asked for honks from passers-by, but encouraged people to write their legislators letters and make phone calls.
“I believe my school district is doing everything it can for our kids,” Jay Beckelheimer said, who is a special education teacher in Buena Park. “Our frustration is toward the state legislators and the governor.”
Contact the writer: ewelch@ocregister.com or 714-704-3719
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Thursday, March 5, 2009
151 jobs cut in Anaheim Union High School District
Teachers, counselors, secretaries, aides and others will begin receiving pink slips Friday.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
ANAHEIM – The Anaheim Union High School Board voted Thursday to cut 151 jobs as part of an effort to erase a looming budget deficit.
Seventy-seven of the cuts were to certificated positions – 73 teachers, two administrative jobs and two counselors. The rest were to classified employees, including clerks, instructional assistants and secretaries. The cuts would go into effect at the start of the 2009-10 school year.
“This district is absolutely saddened by the position we find ourselves in,” said Superintendent Joseph Farley. “These kinds of reductions will have a profound effect on the district.”
By law, school districts have until March 15 to notify teachers in danger of losing their jobs for the next school year. Actual layoffs take place May 15. The county Department of Education estimates that more than 2,000 teachers could receive a layoff notice by March 15 as the county’s school districts struggle to overcome about $8.4 billion in cuts to education approved by Sacramento lawmakers last month.
In the 34,000-student Anaheim Union, officials have estimated the district will have to cut a combined $37 million over the next two years from the district’s $330 million annual budget.
The teaching positions cut would mostly affect special education, and lead to larger class sizes in some areas, officials said. Officials have already informed 11 temporary teachers that they would not be brought back next school year.
“This is definitely going to be painful. It’s going to affect not only those who will lose their jobs, but also their families and our students,” said Katherine Smith, the school board president.
Pink slips will start going out Friday to employees, officials said.
Still, Farley said he hopes the district can rescind some of the layoff notices by May 15 if other revenue sources appear, or the state budget situation improves in coming weeks.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
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Great Park kicks out Cal State Fullerton’s Irvine campus
Lennar Corp.’s plan for a ‘learning district’ includes razing the building. Sudden change leaves students worried and administrators scrambling for another location. Irvine Spectrum is possible.
By Paloma Esquivel
March 8, 2009
Cal State Fullerton officials stood at the old El Toro Marine base about seven years ago and proclaimed a new era with the opening of a campus extension. Eventually, school officials said, the campus would become a sprawling satellite merging education and recreation at Irvine’s planned Great Park. Perhaps, some thought, it might even become California’s newest state university.
Now the college has been booted to prepare for private development. School officials are scrambling to find a new site before the lease expires in four months, leaving the future of educational facilities at the Great Park unclear.
The last-minute wrangling has students wondering how to prepare.
The effect of the move could be anything from “extreme impact to slight inconvenience. We just don’t know,” said Adam Brinton, 30, a psychology major. “For them not to take into consideration that we need to plan for a move shows a lack of foresight.”
In fact, school officials planned for years to make a permanent campus at the site of Irvine’s proposed mega-park. Initial proposals called for setting aside nearly 300 acres for an even larger campus.
When Irvine signed a deal with Lennar Corp. to develop the Great Park, the firm proposed building a “Lifelong Learning District” that would include a combined college campus for several schools. Many school and city officials assumed that Cal State Fullerton’s Irvine campus would be incorporated into the district.
Now, with two Great Park residential neighborhoods on hold because of the economy, the builder says it wants to prepare to develop the land for the learning district. And, because plans call for razing the campus’ building, that means Cal State Fullerton’s satellite campus and its nearly 2,000 students have to go.
Carol Wold, a community affairs official with Lennar, could not say what kind of educational services would eventually occupy the learning district.
University officials said Lennar had accommodated the school by extending its lease until the end of June.
But Jack Smart, who is in charge of property acquisition for the satellite campus, acknowledged that the hope had been to have a “permanent presence” at the future Great Park.
Lennar, Smart said, “knew of our interest in staying.”
In the last few months, officials have looked at a number of possible sites, but none has worked out.
“It wasn’t as though we were sitting around doing nothing,” Willie Hagan, the university’s vice president for administration and finance, said in response to criticism that the school has been dragging its feet in finding another location. He declined to name any of the sites, saying school officials might need to revisit them if current negotiations fall through.
Officials are in talks for a spot for the school at the Irvine Spectrum, a sprawling outdoor mall and office complex about four miles from the satellite campus, but have not finalized an agreement, said Susan Cooper, dean of the Irvine campus.
Even if a lease is settled soon, she said, the building would have to be remodeled to create classrooms.
Several students on campus said they were unsure about the future — and worried they might not have time to prepare for a switch to the main campus. Psychology majors Danielle Hogan, 31, and Sara Nekou, 24, said they worried they might have to make a longer drive to an area with less parking.
Michael Elms, 24, said he was frustrated by the lack of information.
“Nobody knows too much right now about what’s going to happen,” he said.
Smart said he was “hopeful that things will come together.”
He held out the possibility that the school might one day return to the Great Park.
“The former base is the best location in Orange County,” he said. “Whether [a return] is likely, I couldn’t say.”
paloma.esquivel@latimes.com
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calculus8-2009mar08,0,3361898.story?page=2
From the Los Angeles Times
Proof of Anaheim math teacher’s skill is in students’ test scores
The former engineer has won a national honor for his energetic commitment in the classroom. Last year his young charges, who think he may be the best math teacher anywhere, aced the AP calculus test.
By Carla Rivera
March 8, 2009
Sam Calavitta presides over what may be the noisiest, most spirited math class in the nation.
He greets each student personally, usually with a nickname (“Butterfly,” “Batgirl” and “Champ” are a few) and a fist bump. Then he launches a raucous, quiz-show-style contest.
Boys and girls line up on opposite sides of the room, Calavitta shouts out complex equations from index cards, and the opposing sides clap and cheer with each correct answer.
“State the anti-derivative of the secant function,” Calavitta yells.
“The natural log of the absolute value secant x plus tangent x plus c,” a student answers correctly.
Next it’s a trigonometry game, with students shifting partners after each question is posed, making a mad dash around tightly squeezed desks to find a new spot.
This is a typical day in Calavitta’s Advanced Placement calculus class. His students at Fairmont Preparatory Academy in Anaheim think he may be the best math teacher on any campus, anywhere. They may be on to something.
Just look at his AP calculus exam scores from last year: All 81 of his students aced the college-level test, earning an average score of 4.79 out of 5. Sixty-nine of the students earned a perfect 5.
On Feb. 19, he was one of 50 teachers from around the country to win the 2009 Siemens Award for Advanced Placement, which recognizes “exemplary teaching and enthusiastic dedication to students and the AP program.” He received a $1,000 prize.
And in 2008, the College Board recognized Fairmont Prep as having one of the strongest AP calculus programs in California.
On a campus with about 560 students in seventh through 12th grades, 30% are enrolled in AP calculus classes. Since Calavitta began teaching AP courses in 1993, his students have had a 96% pass rate on the exam.
On campus, he is called Mr. Cal or simply Cal. His rapport with students, like his energy, comes easily. Think drill sergeant and trusted advisor. He sees himself as a math coach.
Boredom is an enemy. He — and his students — are always on the move.
“He challenges you, but he also makes you feel comfortable and makes it understandable,” said Brook Jeang, a 16-year-old junior. “It’s the Cal method. You can’t really duplicate it.”
Calavitta, the father of nine, is a former aerospace engineer who developed his philosophy of teaching from sports, where he competed as a wrestler and is now a triathlete. The drill is the same — learn new skills, master them through practice, but always circle back to the basics.
“One of the difficulties with the conventional teaching approach is teachers’ feeling their job is to disseminate information from the textbook and have the kids regurgitate it, and then it’s quickly forgotten,” said Calavitta. “The promise I make to my students is that, ‘I will never let you forget.’ ”
Esther Chung, 16, said Cal helped her feel confident in her skills from the start, even though she’d never taken an AP exam. Students can receive college credit if they pass AP tests; Chung got a 5.
“There’s never a day when we’re not having quizzes and competitions,” said Chung. “He prepares you so well that when you actually get to the exam, it feels like just another day in Cal’s class.”
Stephen Yoo, 13, wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to learn from Mr. Cal. He is one of two eighth-graders taking AP calculus this year; 13 is an extremely young age to tackle the subject. Last year, one of Calavitta’s eighth-grade students scored a perfect 5 on the AP exam.
“He’s known as a teacher who can change students, not only in school but out of school,” Stephen said. “I had never been used to putting everything I had into math, because it was relatively easy. But this year I’ve learned about effort, and I really appreciate that.”
Calavitta’s route to the classroom has been somewhat circuitous. He has taught for 19 years but started off as an analyst at an aerospace firm that developed satellite telecommunications systems.
He coached high school wrestling and, in 1999, moved his family to Montana, where he worked as a hand on a 100-year-old ranch. He was a principal at Calvary Chapel Academy in Yorba Linda before being recruited by Fairmont.
He has written calculus textbooks and consults with public school districts and teachers on math instruction.
Calavitta is also an associate professor at Cal State Fullerton under an arrangement that allows students taking any of his classes to receive full college credit.
He tutors students during lunch and holds Saturday sessions that draw up to 60 students every weekend.
And he and his wife, Monica, run a summer wrestling and character-building camp in Montana.
Fairmont, housed in a hacienda-style mansion built in 1929, charges a top tuition of $16,870, and 10% to 12% of students receive financial aid.
Most of his students are not math whizzes, Calavitta said, but they are jazzed about calculus, a branch of mathematics that involves rates of change and is used in science, engineering and economics.
“What they get out of calculus here is a belief that they can do something that they never thought they’d be able to do,” Calavitta said. “My job is not to foster or cater to brilliance but to nurture perseverance.”
Before taking Calavitta’s class in 2004, former student Stephen Whitlock hated math. But he ended up with a 5 on the AP exam and is senior at Orange’s Chapman University majoring in math and planning to teach.
“I had always wanted to teach, but I never knew what [subject] until I took his class,” said Whitlock, who is Calavitta’s classroom assistant. “It takes hard work and meticulous planning on his part. I see that now that I’m working for him.”
Whitlock is one of a group of former Calavitta students on the path to math degrees and teaching careers, said Fairmont Chief Executive Robertson Chandler.
“If you think back to the past, everyone has a teacher who had an impact, someone they remember for years,” he said. “It’s about the math, but it’s also about developing character and discipline and having a commitment to them doing well.”
Fairmont offers an advanced math program in which students can earn up to 22 units of college credit. Next fall, it will launch an Engineering and Applied Sciences Magnet Program, co-founded by Calavitta and colleague Joe Dossen.
Calavitta’s ability to spark interest in math is unusual, said Hank Kepner, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, who added that the number of math majors in colleges is flat.
“Kids have so many competing things they can get interested in, both in and out of school, and there are so many other disciplines calling them,” said Kepner, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “Selling that passion and excitement for a subject is something that students need to hear and see.”
Teaching runs in Calavitta’s blood — his mother, father and grandfather were in the profession — and he’s frustrated by people who blame instructors for the shortcomings of public education. He has taught in public schools with 55 kids in class and understands the stress and frustration.
He feels a kinship with another storied Southern California math teacher, Jaime Escalante, whose success teaching AP calculus to minority students at East Los Angeles’ Garfield High School won national plaudits and inspired the film “Stand and Deliver.”
Both teachers subscribe to the theory that learning should be fun. Calavitta has met several of Escalante’s former students at professional seminars.
“I feel what Escalante himself saw is that academics are secondary,” Calavitta said.
“If you want to make a difference in a kid’s life, you have to first of all let them know that they make a difference in your life.”
carla.rivera@latimes.com
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-admit8-2009mar08,0,4495429.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Colleges share applicants’ anxiety
Economic uncertainties prompt private institutions to admit more students in order to meet enrollment targets. But public schools, including UC and Cal State, are taking fewer students.
By Larry Gordon
8:17 PM PST, March 7, 2009
It’s not much solace for nervous college applicants awaiting acceptance or rejection letters, but there is plenty of anxiety this month inside college admissions offices as well.
Many colleges and universities in California and around the country report unprecedented uncertainty about how the depressed economy and state budget cuts could affect fall enrollments. As a result, they say they cannot rely this year on the admission formulas that typically help them hit enrollment targets without overcrowding dorms.
So, many say they are doing things differently this month as they prepare to send admissions letters and online notifications.
Many private colleges and universities, for instance, say they will accept more applicants than in previous years and put more names on waiting lists in case families’ money worries mean fewer students than usual decide to attend.
But public schools, including the University of California and California State University, which are facing enrollment cuts amid stronger demand for their relatively low-cost education, will accept fewer students than usual this year. Some are starting waiting lists for the first time.
And many in both sectors said they will put extra effort this spring into receptions and campus visits for admitted students before the May 1 deposit deadlines. The wooing of students from waiting lists also may go deeper into the summer than usual, some experts predict.
“There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty” among colleges this admissions season, said Jonathan Brown, president of the Assn. of Independent California Colleges and Universities. He described the situation as “the most confusing” in the 30 years he has been involved in higher education.
Susan Wilbur, UC’s systemwide director of undergraduate admissions, said the grim economic news makes it tougher than usual to predict enrollment. “How this will come out is hard to say. It is a difficult year for admission officers and for families,” she said.
Many different — and conflicting — trends are at play. The pool of high school graduates is slightly smaller this year than last. Yet in bad economic times, more people usually attend college, particularly public colleges, rather than look for jobs. With growing unemployment and dwindling college savings accounts, only hefty financial aid will persuade some students to enroll at an out-of-town public university, let alone a private campus, rather than a local community college. In addition, for many families, there is uncertainty about student loans and reluctance to take on debt.
At the same time, enrollment cutbacks at UC and Cal State and worries about the availability of classes there may send some students to private colleges that may offer generous financial aid.
“It’s almost like role reversal” with applicants, said Sandra Hayes, Santa Clara University’s dean of undergraduate admission. “Usually they are waiting on pins and needles for us,” she said. “It’s our turn to be in the hot seat this year.”
Santa Clara probably will raise its acceptance rate from about 58% to 60% and expand its waiting list, she said.
Other private schools, including USC, Boston College and Colgate University, also say they expect to raise admittance rates by a couple of points or so in case more accepted students than usual choose to enroll at public universities instead.
L. Katharine Harrington, USC’s dean of admission and financial aid, said that if the school decides to exceed last year’s 22% acceptance rate, she will happily take the risk that more students than expected might show up in the fall.
“That’s the thing I’d love to get my hand slapped for,” she said, jokingly adding that she would open her home to students left without dorm rooms.
USC received 35,600 applications this year, about 200 fewer than last year. But to help ease families’ financial concerns, the school is boosting its budget for undergraduate financial aid by 8%.
Among colleges expecting to expand their waiting lists this year are Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, the University of Washington in Seattle and Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.
At Loyola Marymount, Matthew Fissinger, director of undergraduate admission, anticipates that more families will push their decisions as late as possible this year. “It’s going to be a year when families are going to be very careful and thorough in comparing their options in admission and financial aid,” he said.
At Stanford University too, officials said the traditional formulas no longer apply.
In response to a new financial aid program that waives tuition for families earning up to $100,000, freshman applications shot up 20% from last year, to 30,300, said Richard Shaw, dean of undergraduate admission and financial aid. So Stanford expects to reduce its acceptance rate to 8% from about 9.5% last year, he said.
And although Stanford’s yield rate — the percentage of accepted students who enroll — typically runs at about 70%, this year’s is harder to predict, Shaw said. Many families “are certainly in different circumstances now,” he said.
California’s two public university systems are reducing enrollment for the coming school year even though applications rose — about 3% at UC and 4% at Cal State, officials said.
Although the rates vary among its 23 campus, Cal State traditionally accepts about 75% of applicants and about half of those enroll, said James Blackburn, director of enrollment management services. This year, the system is lowering its acceptance rate to a still undetermined level.
To help manage that change, four more Cal State campuses — Pomona, San Francisco, Long Beach and Fullerton — will start waiting lists this year, doubling the number of campuses using them, Blackburn said.
UCLA, which received 55,665 applications this year, has been spared the freshman enrollment cuts some other UC campuses face. Still, Vu T. Tran, undergraduate admissions director, said UCLA will admit somewhat fewer students this year because he expects more of them than usual to decide to enroll there, rather than at private colleges. Last year, UCLA admitted 20% of its applicants. About 37% of those chose to attend, he said.
“Predicting yield is a very challenging task at every university. This year, the economy is an added factor,” Tran said.
Colleges say they will pay more attention to recruiting wavering admits. For example, American University in Washington, D.C., will host 11 out-of-area receptions in April, said Sharon Alston, interim executive director for enrollment. The school also plans to mail acceptances a week earlier than usual, in mid-March.
“There’s value in being the first out,” she said.
larry.gordon@latimes.com
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Glendale schools ban teachers’ personal coffeepots and fridges
District officials say removing appliances such as microwaves and coffee makers will save $60,000 a year. The ban has upset some teachers who depend on the items to get through their day.
By Raja Abdulrahim
March 3, 2009
When the bell rings at 7:15 a.m. at Glendale’s Roosevelt Middle School, Sharon Schara begins teaching a remedial math class. Throughout the day, she leads 120 students through the maze of math and often works through lunch. And, after the last bell rings, she might remain in her classroom for hours into the evening with members of the Robotics Club.
Beside her desk in the rear corner sit a refrigerator and microwave that give her easy access to Lean Cuisines, water and the four colas she often drinks to make it through the day.
Schara, like some of her colleagues at Roosevelt and other schools, depends on having easy access to food and snacks since she can’t leave students unattended and the teachers lounge is at least a five-minute walk from her bungalow.
But as part of a new energy policy in the Glendale Unified School District, teachers must remove most personal appliances from their classrooms.
The rule was approved as part of a broader energy policy last summer, and district officials say cutting those appliances will save $60,000 per year. The wider program has saved $2 million, the district said.
“It’s such a bad idea,” Schara said. “I just can’t get over what a bad idea it is.”
Trying to reduce energy costs is hardly new for school districts, but as the need to cut expenses and the pressure to think green increase, some school districts are getting more creative — beyond the basics of recycling bins and turning off the lights at night.
In preparing its rules, Glendale’s energy committee examined 18 other energy policies and borrowed ideas to set hot-water temperatures and turn off computers at night, as well as the appliance ban.
The Rialto Unified School District, in San Bernardino County, once charged teachers and staff members a fee for the use of appliances. Now teachers must receive approval for such items as refrigerators, microwaves and space heaters. Deputy Supt. Joseph Davis estimated that about 90% of teachers no longer have the appliances, though the district hasn’t taken an official tally.
The Jurupa Unified School District recently instituted an annual fee policy that will go into effect next year: $40 for refrigerators, $10 for microwaves and $10 for coffee makers.
The Val Verde district has banned the appliances outright.
Merrilee Harrigan, vice president of education at the Alliance to Save Energy, a coalition of business, government, environmental and consumer groups, said that although a ban on appliances will save money, she doubted whether it was the best policy.
“If you just kind of do a knee-jerk thing like no one can have microwaves or coffee makers, you’re alienating the teachers,” she said.
Still, she said, for districts that have already taken other energy-saving steps, it might be necessary.
Energy Education, a Dallas-based consultant for school districts, shares the alliance’s sentiment of not wanting to pit teachers against the energy program. In addition, it might not be a fight worth picking, given that appliances account for a small percentage of energy costs, said spokesman Mike Gullatt.
But Scott Price, Glendale’s business services administrator, said the energy committee decided that it needed a policy or “nothing will happen.”
The Glendale Teachers Assn. came out against the ban and instead pushed for a voluntary policy.
Some teachers might go an entire day without stepping outside their classroom door.
“I teach bell to bell, I’m flying bell to bell, every day,” said Pat Rabe, a math teacher at Crescenta Valley High School. “And when we don’t have access to these things immediately, we don’t eat.”
The refrigerator in Rabe’s classroom is shared with another teacher; the policy allows appliances in areas far from the lounge or cafeteria.
But teachers say they now have to coordinate schedules because the door must be locked if a teacher isn’t in his or her classroom.
Like others, Rabe often spends lunch doing extra work with students in her classroom but wonders if the ban will put an end to that.
“The students ultimately are going to lose,” she said. “Because a lot of times if I have to choose between eating and helping a student . . . I’m going to choose to eat.”
raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com
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6 experts on Obama’s call of college for all: Could it be done? And what would it take?
By JUSTIN POPE and LIBBY QUAID, AP Education Writers
11:23 AM PST, February 28, 2009
In his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, President Barack Obama called for every American to pursue some form of education beyond high school.
It’s an ambitious goal — some might say impossible. Currently, only two of every five American adults have a two- or four-year college degree. Millions of Americans struggle even to complete high school, with one in four dropping out. And even a high school degree is no guarantee a student is ready for college.
Particularly alarming are the college rates for low-income and minority students. One recent study reported more than 90 percent of low-income teens said they planned to go to college — but only half actually enroll.
Those who do enroll are substantially less likely than others to finish their degree. If they borrowed money for college and don’t graduate, they may be worse off than if they hadn’t even started college.
The Associated Press asked six experts — from the worlds of policy, philanthropy, and some who work directly with struggling students — to answer the same two questions.
Is the president’s goal realistic? And what would it take to attain it? Here are their responses.
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Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, an advocacy group for children, particularly poor and minority children:
Absolutely! Just as those GIs stepped up to the challenges of college, today’s young people will, too. But we have work to do.
First, we must get serious about high schools. Instead of preparing some for college and others for the jailhouse, we need to help high schools prepare every student for college.
Second, we have to dramatically improve results for low-income and minority students, now more than half of our youth. Increasing their success is the only way to ensure our national success.
Finally, colleges need to accept some responsibility for improving graduation rates. (See collegeresults.org for information on any college.) That includes holding costs down, and focusing not just on getting students in the door, but out with degrees. Yes, students need to work harder. But what colleges do matters a lot.
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Richard Vedder, Ohio University professor and member of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education assembled by former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings:
Not everyone can or should go to college. Given the dubious quality of our secondary schools as well as limited cognitive skills and motivation, many students are incapable of college-level work. Fulfillment of President Obama’s goal would lead to many students failing, resources being squandered and the quality of postsecondary education being diluted.
I think it is sheer fantasy to believe we will lead the world in the percent of young adults with college degrees by 2020. More generally, the president’s approach is the equivalent of dropping dollars out of airplanes over student homes and college campuses. That will not change colleges’ behavior to make them less arrogant and elite, and more affordable, efficient and accountable.
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Nicole Hurd, executive director of the National College Advising Corps, which places recent college graduates in low-income schools to work as college guidance counselors:
All students are capable of continuing their education beyond high school. And while there are no easy answers, one way to open the door wider is to demonstrate to our young people that college is possible.
No one can do this better than recent college graduates. There is something powerful about a 23-year-old telling a high school student that “I went to college and if I can do it, you can, too.” Or “My family was worried about the cost of college, but the aid is out there. Let’s sit down and fill out your FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid).” Or “If you want to go to college and get a good job, you need to take hard classes and do your best.”
Many of the barriers to higher education, whether financial, social, or cultural, can be overcome through this kind of mentoring and advising. In calling high-school students to college, President Obama is calling college students to service. Just imagine if 500 recent graduates served in our public high schools. Such a group could mentor 150,000 low-income and first-generation students — and could help thousands enroll in college who might not otherwise have found their way. While this kind of service isn’t the only solution, it could go a long way.
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Eduardo J. Marti, president of Queensborough Community College in New York City:
President Obama’s call for higher education for all Americans is doable.
The United States began building higher education capacity in 1947, when the Truman Commission established the concept of universal access to higher education and created open admissions community colleges. The 1965 Higher Education Act established financial aid. These two actions resulted in a post-secondary education system that guarantees access to all. No other country has this infrastructure.
All Americans, young or old, can use community colleges to upgrade their skills or obtain a degree. This existing system can be used to retrain displaced workers for better jobs and it can be used to prepare the leaders of tomorrow. We must make America competitive again.
We must also hold our community colleges accountable by developing strenuous metrics of excellence. The national Achieving the Dream Project is studying innovative approaches in 82 colleges and we can use those results to measure our success. The shattered dreams and wasted fiscal resources that result from low graduation rates must be stopped.
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Gaston Caperton, former governor of West Virginia and president of the College Board, which works to connect students to college and runs the SAT and AP exam programs:
Not only is the president’s goal realistic, achieving it is also vital to the future economic and social well-being of our society. Among the most important steps to attain it are:
—An earlier start to schooling, especially for youngsters from low-income families. Greater access to and participation in preschool programs, such as Head Start, would help put many, many more young people on the path to college.
—Access to more rigorous courses in middle and high school, taught by teachers with strong training and access to sustained professional development.
—Better strategies for making college affordable, such as early college savings plans for all students, including plans that are subsidized by the government for low-income families.
—Adult education programs that make it easier to return to college, through online courses or community colleges.
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Jamie P. Merisotis, president of the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation, which works to expand access to higher education:
President Obama’s goal is challenging, but it’s certainly realistic. At Lumina Foundation, our own goal is to increase Americans’ attainment of high-quality degrees from its current 39 percent rate to 60 percent by 2025.
We know that our goal is ambitious. Fortunately, there are steps that can be taken — by educators, policy makers and the public — to help realize BOTH goals.
First, we must ensure that students truly prepare themselves for college success: academically, financially and socially. Second, higher education institutions must direct their full energies toward the success (not just the enrollment) of students — especially low-income and minority students. Finally, we must encourage efforts that improve efficiency and productivity on the nation’s campuses, so more students are properly served.
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Parents of autistic boy who was Tasered question police actions
The child’s mother and father say Hawthorne officers removed the disabled boy from school days after the incident last year and questioned him without a lawyer present.
By Richard Winton and Jack Leonard
March 3, 2009
The family of a 12-year-old autistic boy who was shot last year with a police stun gun at a Hawthorne middle school accused police officials on Monday of removing their son from school in handcuffs days after the incident and subjecting him to an interrogation in retaliation for a misconduct complaint the family had filed.
The family’s attorneys contacted The Times after reading the Hawthorne Police Department’s version of the Sept. 23 incident in the newspaper this week. The department had declined to name the boy.
Despite knowing the youngster was developmentally disabled, investigators had him agree to waive his Miranda rights to remain silent or have an attorney present at the interview, which occurred at department headquarters, the boy’s parents said. They said police also threatened to take the boy to Juvenile Hall.
“I really believed that someone was going to call and explain why a 12-year-old was shot in the back with a Taser,” said Larry Mathews, the boy’s father, who filed a complaint the day after the incident. “And I still haven’t heard.”
The boy’s mother, Almarietha Mathews, said the police overreacted and failed to take into account their son’s disorder.
“They arrested him for acting out his mental disability,” she said.
The Times is withholding the boy’s name because he is a minor.
Hawthorne Police Lt. Michael Ishii said the boy assaulted a security guard and kicked a police officer in the groin before he was shot with the 50,000-volt Taser as he ran toward a campus exit. Police have launched an internal investigation into the use of force.
He said investigators followed procedures in reading the child his Miranda rights before interviewing him to determine whether he knew the difference between right and wrong — a critical element in deciding whether criminal charges should be filed. Detectives spoke to him for no more than 20 minutes, Ishii said.
“After we spoke to the minor, our investigator had a lengthy discussion with the parents so that they would understand the policies and procedures we were going through,” Ishii said.
The issue of using Tasers on children has become controversial in recent years. Several cases in Florida and other parts of the country have prompted calls for a ban on the shocking of minors.
Some police departments discourage the use of electroshock weapons on juveniles, and a National Institute of Justice report last year found that more research is needed to determine the health effects of shocking small children.
Ishii said Officer Vincent Arias made the decision to use the weapon after the boy’s adult sister had been called to the school and had been unable to calm him down.
But the boy’s family disputed the police account.
They said he began feeling agitated when he was asked to line up for his photograph during a “photo day” at the school and started running around the campus.
They said the school’s security guard tried to rush the boy and detain him, making their son feel more agitated. The school called the family for help, the couple said, but when the boy’s sister, Lauren Mathews, arrived she was held back and prevented from intervening.
Lauren Mathews, a senior at Stanford University, said she arrived before the police officer, and had calmed her brother down. She said Arias ran at full speed toward her brother, agitating him once again. She said she never saw her brother kick Arias and accused the officer of escalating the problem.
The boy was shot with the Taser in the back. Arias deployed the electric charge twice.
“To watch my brother shaking on the ground, it was very traumatic,” the sister said. “He wasn’t the same for days afterward.”
The family said the boy urinated on himself and was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance to have the stun gun’s two electrode darts removed from his back.
The family filed a legal claim against the city late last week alleging a variety of civil rights violations, including discrimination because of the boy’s disability and race. The child is African American. Arias is Latino.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said prosecutors allowed the boy to enroll in a counseling program.
If he successfully completes the program, she said, a criminal case will not be filed against him.
richard.winton@latimes.com
jack.leonard@latimes.com
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President Barack Obama meets Tuesday, March 3, 2009, in the Oval Office with representatives of the Boy Scouts of America during their visit to present the President with the Boy Scouts’ annual report. UCI student and Sea Scout Ruben Hipolito, in the white uniform, is to Obama’s right. COURTESY OF THE WHITE HOUSE
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Orange County Boy Scout meets the president
UCI student chosen to meet the nation’s leaders this week.
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
Ruben Hipolito had a hard time sleeping in his hotel room in the nation’s Capitol. Some of it might have been because he was only a few hours away from meeting the President of the United States.
But much of it was because he hadn’t finished his homework from UC Irvine.
“I didn’t sleep at all, partially because of nerves, partially because I had an assignment due,” said Hipolito, 20, of Midway City.
Even though Hipolito is spending the week in D.C., representing the Boy Scouts of America and meeting the leaders of our nation, he still had to finish analyzing a poem for his Spanish class at UCI.
So, while the other six scouts’ delegates also chosen to present the Boy Scouts annual “Report to the Nation” were sleeping, Hipolito, 20, was down in the hotel lobby, writing a report for Spanish class and e-mailing it to his professor so it wouldn’t be late.
That’s just the sort of kid he is, the kind who doesn’t miss his class assignments no matter what. The kind who earned his Eagle rank, the highest award in Scouting, at age 12. Most boys never earn the coveted Eagle at all, and those who do are usually just shy of their 18th birthday.
“I finished the assignment at 5:40 a.m., went to bed and had to get up at 6:15 a.m.,” Hipolito said.
It wasn’t that hard to get up, though, knowing that in a few hours he’d be standing in the Oval Office, meeting the nation’s leader.
Hipolito was chosen as a Sea Scout, a nautical program for young men and women ages 14-21, to represent the Boy Scout’s Orange County Council.
He also serves as assistant scoutmaster for Troop 1134 in Huntington Beach. A junior at UCI, he lives at home with his folks in Midway City, while he attends UC Irvine, studying biology and Spanish. He hopes to attend UCI medical school and become a pediatrician.
He met the president Tuesday, when scouts presented their leather-bound report to him in the Oval Office, along with an honorary membership card to scouting. Hipolito’s part of the ceremony was to hand President Obama a ceramic eagle statue.
Every U.S. president since William Howard Taft has received the report and its delegation, according to the BSA.
“He said, “Thank you very much” and that he was really happy to meet with us,” Hipolito recalled. “He said he was proud of the young leaders that we were and the leadership roles we have attained.
The president looks “much more animated” than he does on TV, he said.
As they were walking out, Hipolito said the group ran into the First Lady. Michelle Obama spontaneously gave a personal hug to every member.
“She looked taller than she does on TV,” he said.
Tuesday also included the rounds of other sites such as the Supreme Court and Pentagon.
Today, Hipolito and his group are scheduled to spend the day on Capitol Hill, meeting the nation’s top legislators.
A representative group of scouts is chosen each year to present the report to the Speaker of the House, as per the Boy Scouts of America charter.
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Richard Cuciti, who is commodore for the Orange County Sea Scout Squadron, nominated Hipolito for the honor.
Hipolito, who has earned 67 merit badges and three Eagle Silver Palm awards, also earned the top rank of quartermaster in Sea Scouts and also the top award in the Venturing program.
“It’s like the Triple Crown of scouting – they’re the highest awards a youth can earn,” Cuciti told officials at UCI. “It’s extremely rare for someone to have all three.”
Hipolito remembers that he joined scouting at age 5 at Starview Elementary School in Midway City, and never looked back. By age 12, he had earned his Eagle rank.
Oldest of a family with eight children, Hipolito said all the children in his family are in scouting except the 3-year-old.
“Scouting exposes you to a lot of life-changing things and teaches you skills you learn for a lifetime,” he said. “The program is definitely worth every second you put into it.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
Ruben Hipolito was selected to meet President Obama in D.C.. He is a UCI student and championship archer, as well as many other accomplishments. COURTESY OF UCI COMMUNICATIONS
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Ruben Hipolito
UCI undergrad and Eagle Scout who will meet President Obama
Scout’s honor
Undergraduate Ruben Hipolito will present Boy Scouts’ ‘Report to the Nation’ to President Obama (02.23.2009)
It’s the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.
Yet UCI undergraduate Ruben Hipolito can be forgiven if he wasn’t quite prepared for last month’s phone call from Boy Scouts of America headquarters saying he’d been chosen from among 3.5 million scouts nationwide to represent the organization before the U.S. president and Congress.
“I was so surprised I dropped the phone and it shattered in front of me,” Hipolito says. “I had to put the parts together and call them back.”
Hipolito, assistant scoutmaster of Huntington Beach Troop 1134, learned that he and five other distinguished scouts will meet with President Barack Obama and Congress in early March to deliver the Boy Scouts’ Report to the Nation, an annual summary of scouting’s accomplishments. Hipolito will represent the nation’s Sea Scouts, a coed nautical program for 14- to 21-year-olds. “It’s scouting on sailboats,” he says.
When Hipolito is summoned to the Oval Office, he’ll be prepared.
“I have no idea what I’m going to say yet, but I’m going to practice,” he says. He’ll forego his traditional Sea Scout uniform – a modified version of U.S. Navy whites – for a formal one custom-made for the occasion.
Hipolito, a 20-year-old Midway City resident, has moved swiftly through the ranks of scouting, becoming an Eagle Scout at age 12 – five years before most garner the required 21 merit badges. He has also earned the top Sea Scout rank of quartermaster and the Venturing Silver Award – the highest honor bestowed in the scouts’ adventure program for older youths.
“It’s like the Triple Crown of scouting – they’re the highest awards a youth can earn. It’s extremely rare for someone to have all three,” says retired Navy Capt. Richard Cuciti, commodore of the Orange County Sea Scout Squadron, who nominated Hipolito for the national delegation.
Hipolito was Santa Ana Scout of the Year in 2005 and 2006, Los Angeles County Scout of the Year in 2005 and Orange County Scout of the Year in 2006. The scholarships are awarded by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
He has 67 merit badges, another rare achievement, and boasts three Eagle Silver Palm Awards – one for every 15 extra badges.
“If it wasn’t for scouting, I would not have had direction or known what I wanted to do,” Hipolito says. “Scouting has exposed me to hiking, archery, motorboating, chemistry, farm mechanics – all kinds of things. That’s how I fell in love with sailing.”
He has honed his seamanship skills through the UCI Campus Recreation sailing program and shown other scouts the ropes as boatswain, the top-ranking Sea Scout ship’s officer.
“Ruben is very motivated and very smart. He learned the ideals of scouting and put them into play by helping younger scouts grow and mature,” Cuciti says.
The eldest of eight children, Hipolito says all of his siblings except one – a 3-year-old – are in scouting. He loves kids and hopes to attend medical school and become a pediatrician after getting his bachelor’s in biological sciences and Spanish.
“There’s no stopping that young man when he sets his sights on a goal,” Cuciti says. “He’s got a great life ahead of him.”
— Kathryn Bold, University Communications
More email blasts from SAUSD board member, John Palacios:
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Editorial: Central planning trashes decent neighborhoods
Santa Ana, with its finger on the eminent domain trigger, “mugged” property owners.
The Orange County Register
Sunday’s front-page Register investigation, “Redevelopment’s underbelly,” makes clear what we have long argued: California’s redevelopment agencies squander tax dollars, destroy lives and, at the end of the day, often make worse the neighborhoods they promise to revive.
The newspaper focused on the city of Santa Ana, which over the past 10 years has spent nearly $23 million to acquire 60 parcels of land that would make for the foundation of its Civic Center Walk project. Although officials denied that they used the power of eminent domain to take any properties, the newspaper produced many letters city officials sent to property owners threatening to use eminent domain if they did not sell their homes to the city. Owners who sold tell tear-jerking stories about being forced to leave their homes, their neighbors and their lifestyles as city officials promised to do something “better” with the properties.
That’s a typical City Hall ploy – claiming that property is not taken by force because the actual sales were completed without the use of eminent domain. Yet many property owners would not sell unless they were threatened with eminent domain. As anti-eminent-domain attorney Chris Sutton often explains, muggers rarely pull the trigger on their guns before people turn over their wallets. Likewise, cities rarely actually use eminent domain – the threatening letter usually does the trick for most people.
Years later the “redeveloped” area is now mostly a collection of vacant lots, a slum as one city council member puts it. The area might not have lived up to city planning department preferences, but a functioning neighborhood is far better for the city, from a tax and aesthetic standpoint, than a bunch of ugly, trash-collecting lots. And, of course, the current housing downturn has made it unlikely that the promised projects will materialize any time soon. Thanks to city officials, the effort to improve the city has made it far worse.
The Register captured the situation well: “It wasn’t economic hardship that emptied this neighborhood, just east of downtown. It wasn’t a crime wave or bad schools that chased away the families. No, this patchwork of vacant land littered with empty bottles and crumpled food wrappers was the work of the city.”
This cost a small fortune for a city, and the $23 million doesn’t include the many other costs involved, such as clearing the land, relocating residents, paying staff salaries and expenses. Also typical of the redevelopment schemes, some people – in this case savvy investors – did quite well and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in quick profit by selling their properties to the city.
Ironically, despite Santa Ana’s massive failure in redevelopment, the city had, until recently, been pushing forward a massive redevelopment-like program called the Renaissance Plan, which embraced an even broader vision for changing the character of the city. Yet these programs are not fundamentally different than the urban renewal projects that destroyed so many cities in the East during the 1960s. How long will it take before Orange County officials realize that free markets work far better than Soviet-style central planning?
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Deficit puts Santa Ana anti-gang commission in jeopardy
The panel formed two years ago to help curb street crime might be cut along with five other commissions to save the city about $425,000 a year.
By Tony Barboza
February 4, 2009
A gang-intervention panel that was formed two years ago in Santa Ana to help curb street crime is likely to be disbanded as the city tries to erase a $15-million deficit.
The Early Prevention & Intervention Commission, a 17-member panel of community members and representatives from the school system and law enforcement and social services agencies charged with developing strategies to keep young people out of gangs, is on the chopping block along with five other city commissions.
Targeting gangs
Santa Ana, the most urban city in Orange County, had 13 homicides and 151 assaults last year connected to gangs, a marked decrease from the year before.
Police said activity among Santa Ana’s 90 active gangs has been on a general decline since the mid-1990s, when there were dozens of gang killings every year. In 1993, when gangs claimed 47 lives, residents became so frustrated and afraid that they asked the city to develop an action plan for ridding the city of its gang culture. The next year, police staged a massive, citywide gang sweep, which resulted in prison terms for many gang leaders.
When the anti-gang commission formed two years ago, it was lauded as an innovative way for the city, which traditionally focuses on planning, zoning and business development, to further address a social problem.
“For the first time in a long time we’ve got a way to start making headway,” said the panel’s vice chairman, Albert Garcia.
But now that progress is at risk.
“It’s very unfortunate and disheartening,” Laura Morfin, past chairwoman of the anti-gang commission, said of its possible demise. “Gang issues in the city are not going to go away. If anything, they’re going to get worse.”
However, Morfin said the city never fully supported the commission and that recommendations submitted more than a year ago — such as holding a citywide gang-prevention conference or adding a young adult to the panel — didn’t receive any feedback. She resigned in December.
Like cities across the country, Santa Ana has been hit hard by declining tax revenue during the recession and has been forced to slash its budget by laying off more than 40 workers, raising fees, cutting costs and services at parks and libraries, and even voting to raise zoo admission by a dollar.
The commissions that would be shut down are advisory to the council and not among the three panels required by the city charter. The city’s 14 commissions cost more than $650,000 in stipends for commission members, salaries for support staff, meals and supplies, a city report concluded.
The city would save about $425,000 a year by dissolving six of them, including the Historic Resources Commission, the Environmental and Transportation Advisory Committee, the Library Board, the Youth Commission and the Human Resources Commission, according to a staff report. Their responsibilities would be distributed among the remaining commissions.
At a meeting Monday, City Council members suggested alternatives, such as making the commissions temporarily “go dark” or meet quarterly and as needed. The council voted unanimously to give the chair of each of the six targeted commissions 30 days to submit ideas to become more efficient.
“Everything that is in place is needed,” said Councilman Sal Tinajero. “But these are the tough decisions we face.”
Some cautioned that the move would limit public participation, making City Hall leaner but more insular.
“We need to make sure not to over-correct,” said Councilman David Benavides. “I just want to make sure we don’t limit the access our community has to City Hall.”
Many commissioners are hoping the city doesn’t rush into a decision.
“We are the eyes and ears of our elected representatives in a way that they can’t be,” said Ava Steaffens, a member of the gang-prevention commission. “It’s a shame that they’re closing the door on some potential solutions that could be right in front of our faces.”
tony.barboza@latimes.com
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Friday, February 6, 2009
Santa Ana buys land for Bowers expansion
The city expects the museum to pay back the $1.3 million the land cost. The museum says it plans to use the lot for parking for now.
By DOUG IRVING
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA The Bowers Museum will receive a piece of prime real estate for a possible future expansion under a $1.3 million land deal engineered by the city.
For the near future, though, the museum plans to use its newly acquired piece of land the way it has for some time – as a parking lot.
The City Council agreed this month to spend $1.3 million from a redevelopment account to buy the land on Main Street, just south of the museum. The city expects the museum to pay back that $1.3 million to its general operating budget, said Cynthia Nelson, the deputy city manager in charge of redevelopment.
The development company that owned the land, Steadfast Courtyards, had planned to build luxury condominiums there. It approached the city about selling late last year, after the housing market collapsed.
The $1.3 million price tag was “considerably below market value,” according to a staff report given to the City Council.
The city owns all of the Bowers Museum’s land and buildings, and helps cover some of its operating expenses – to the tune of more than $2 million this year. A nonprofit corporation pays for the rest of its expenses under an agreement with the city.
The museum may use its new site for future expansion, according to the staff report, which gave no further details. “Frankly, I don’t see doing (that) in the next year or so,” Bowers President Peter Keller said.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or dirving@ocregister.com
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Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Vietnamese American ‘freedom flag’ endorsed
Santa Ana gives formal recognition to former South Vietnam banner.
By DOUG IRVING
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA – The red-striped “freedom flag” that has become a potent symbol of struggle and pride for Vietnamese Americans won the formal recognition of Orange County’s biggest city Monday night.
Santa Ana’s City Council voted 7-0 to recognize the former flag of South Vietnam as an emblem of “resilience, freedom and democracy” and to encourage its display.
The vote does not displace any other flag, but does give the city’s official blessing to the striped flag that many in the Vietnamese-American community see as a rallying point.
Dozens of Vietnamese Americans in the audience broke into cheers and applause as the council voted; one woman shouted: “Thank you! I love you!” A few people waved their yellow-and-red flags, and a young woman wearing a yellow-and-red scarf snapped photos.
The flag – officially known as the Vietnamese American Freedom and Heritage Flag – has three red stripes on a yellow background to represent the three regions of Vietnam. It once flew over South Vietnam; refugees took it up again as they fled communist Vietnam.
Many Vietnamese Americans refuse to recognize the red-star flag of communist Vietnam and fly the old South Vietnamese flag instead.
Santa Ana’s decision to recognize the former flag of the south comes just weeks after city officials shut down an art exhibit that had drawn protests for its depiction of communist symbols. The center of that controversy: A photograph of a Vietnamese girl in a red tank top with a star in the center, resembling the flag of communist Vietnam.
Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen told Santa Ana’s City Council that the striped freedom flag “represents our continued vigilance in the fight against the tyranny of Vietnam.”
Orange County recognized the old flag of South Vietnam as the official symbol of the Vietnamese American community in 2005. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave the state’s blessing to the flag in 2006.
The cities of Garden Grove and Westminster have also formally recognized the flag. Backers of the flag are going city to city to get further recognition.
Santa Ana’s decision to follow suit was a “recognition and a celebration of our diversity here in the city,” said Councilman Vincent Sarmiento.
“We will never know your struggle whole-heartedly,” added Councilman Sal Tinajero. The city’s vote, he said, was a gesture: “We want to know, we want to learn, we want to recognize.”
Staff writer Deepa Bharath contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or dirving@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Santa Ana’s annual black history parade canceled
Organizers halt this Saturday’s procession because of a lack of funds, but history fair marches on.
By THERESA CISNEROS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SANTA ANA An annual black history parade that has grown over the past 30 years to include more than 100 entries is being canceled by organizers for the first time because of a lack of funds.
The parade, which has historically been spearheaded by the Orange County Black Historical Commission, was supposed to be held this Saturday and include floats, a school band competition and appearances by elected officials and community group members.
Organizers recently nixed the procession because they failed to raise the $50,000 to $60,000 needed for police security, cleanup and other overhead costs associated with staging a quality parade, said Helen Shipp, who started the parade with eight entries in 1979.
Instead, members of the commission and The G.R.E.E.N Foundation — a Brea-based group that serves African Americans in Orange County — will focus their efforts on putting on the cultural fair that accompanies the parade.
Shipp said that the celebration is usually funded by monies collected through fundraisers and individual donations. But nowadays people aren’t contributing like they used to. Some potential donors are out of work, and those who still have jobs are strapped for cash, she said.
“The money’s just not coming in,” she said.
In years past, the city has contributed to the event when possible, said the city’s Gerardo Mouet, executive director of the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Agency. This year, city government can’t pitch in because it’s facing its own economic challenges, he said.
Organizers said they’ll soon regroup and work on bringing the parade, which usually draws about 10,000 spectators, back next year.
Without the parade, organizers expect attendance at the community fair to dip to 5,000 or 6,000.
The event – this year the theme is, “The legacy never ends. …New vines grow from strong roots” – is for children and adults and includes booths, exhibits and entertainment by singers, school bands and choirs.
A unique draw is the history walk, which features exhibits on items that were invented by African Americans, said Myra Jolivet, a volunteer who handles public relations for the fair.
“It’s important to know about history, because history goes on,” said Shipp, the parade’s founder. “I don’t care what nationality you are — you need to know your own history and what we all have contributed in order to make America what it is.”
Contact the writer: tcisneros@ocregister.com or 714-704-3707
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$15,000 tax credit won’t help low-income home buyers, experts say
The Senate measure offers the credit to anyone buying a primary residence. But buyers must earn enough to have $7,500 in income taxes — $81,900 per year for a family of four — to get the full benefit.
By Ben Meyerson and Sarah Gantz
February 9, 2009
Reporting from Washington — The Senate’s proposed $15,000 tax credit for home buyers would boost the ailing housing market but do little to help low-income people who need it most, experts say.
The measure, which is part of the $827-billion economic stimulus plan that the Senate is due to vote on Tuesday, would offer the credit to anyone who buys a primary residence. But to take full advantage of the credit, buyers would have to earn enough to use it and spend at least $150,000 on a home.
As many as 1 million home sales could result from the tax credit, according to Mary Trupo of the National Assn. of Realtors. “By increasing demand and decreasing inventory, it’ll help to stabilize home values and result in fewer foreclosures,” she said.
But low-income people will not benefit, said Linda Couch, deputy director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “The bill is focusing a lot more of its resources on higher-income households and home ownership than it is on the lowest-income people and people really teetering on the edge of homelessness.”
Since the money comes as a deductible tax credit spread over two years, home buyers must earn enough to have $7,500 in income taxes — $81,900 per year for a family of four to get the full benefit, according to the housing coalition.
But if the home costs less than $150,000, the deduction is only worth 10% of the house’s value, meaning that those buying the cheapest homes wouldn’t receive the full benefit.
Alma Jill Dizon, a Realtor from Riverside, agreed that there wasn’t much in the measure for low-income Americans. “From what I can tell, it’s really going to benefit people who already have enough salary” to buy a house, said Dizon, who said she sells homes from $150,000 to more than $1 million.
Dizon said her market is dominated by older, three-bedroom, one-bath homes in need of repair. Those houses sell for about $150,000 to first-time buyers who don’t have the savings to make a deposit on something larger.
“You have to owe enough in taxes in the first place” to take advantage of the rebate, Dizon said. “That’s why it benefits people who earn more money and earn more on taxes.”
But the tax credit could greatly help the housing market by making the more expensive homes in the area more appealing, she said. What once were multimillion-dollar homes in Riverside now are priced between $500,000 and $1 million, she said. With a tax credit, those homes — many of which are on the brink of foreclosure — are beginning to look more attractive to buyers.
“This isn’t actually going to get a lot of people buying houses at the very bottom,” Dizon said. “Who is going to start buying more houses is people in the middle and upper range. That can be good as far as staving off more trouble in those ranges, in those better neighborhoods.”
But halfway across the country, in Cleveland, another Realtor, Ralph A. Vaneck could use a hand selling nicer homes. There, the median income is half of Riverside’s — $27,007 compared with $54,099.
“The non-foreclosure market is where the major help is needed — that’s the dead part of the market,” said Vaneck, president of Westway Realty. Those homes are priced between $95,000 and $120,000.
People are more interested in purchasing foreclosed homes because they can get them for as little as $35,000, he said; 85% of his business comes from selling foreclosed homes.
The Senate measure expands an incentive approved last year — a $7,500 credit for first-time home buyers that had to be repaid later. The House’s version of the economic stimulus package renewed last year’s provision and eliminated the payback requirement.
But the Senate bill goes further, making the credit available to anyone buying their primary residence, and doubling the eligible amount to $15,000.
Once the Senate passes its version of the stimulus package, a conference committee will resolve differences between it and the House bill. Then both houses will be asked to vote on the compromise.
Trupo of the National Assn. of Realtors sees hope in whatever the housing credit turns out to be, although Realtors favor the higher amount.
“If it’s $15,000, $7,500 or somewhere in the middle, there is going to be a significant impact to the market,” she said.
Helping the housing market get back on its feet is in the interest of everyone, said Jerry Howard, president and chief executive of the National Assn. of Home Builders.
“Until you stabilize house values, you won’t be able to stabilize — let alone stimulate — the economy,” he said. “This is the kind of stimulus that ought to get buyers off the sidelines and into the housing market.”
bmeyerson@tribune.com
sgantz@tribune.com
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Editorial: Trying to reinflate the housing bubble
Garden Grove, Westminster don’t need to use tax dollars to buy up foreclosures
An Orange County Register editorial
Garden Grove and Westminster are the latest Southern California cities to consider using taxpayer dollars to “solve” the so-called housing crisis. But there’s little chance that the dollars will do anything more than waste money, increase the power of local government fiefdoms and even slow the market correction that’s going on in real estate. Officials’ explanations for why they may embrace this state-government-funded program are contradictory. And local housing programs have been unsuccessful over the years, in good economic times and bad, so it’s foolhardy to expand them.
The program, as the Register explained, would create a partnership between the two cities “to apply for funding that would help both communities buy back or redevelop foreclosed homes and distressed properties in their neighborhood.” Both cities are involved in ongoing public discussions about the proposal, with no decisions likely until later this month.
There are so many problems with this idea. There is no real housing crisis. Market-based economies are constantly adapting to new realities, provided the government doesn’t interfere with market processes. For instance, the Register also reported Tuesday that the demand for homes in Orange County has soared by 70 percent above last year’s levels. This isn’t the result of government programs, but of falling prices. O.C. prices have tumbled in the past year, and when prices fall back to Earth, buyers snap up the bargains. Yet government at all levels seems committed to trying to artificially reinflate the housing bubble.
Furthermore, the state is in tremendous budget crisis – a real crisis, thanks to constant overspending by Sacramento politicians. Any government agency that proposes to use state money to fund another program is involved in something unethical, even if it’s “free money” that’s already allocated to specific programs. These housing programs can never help more than a few people. Ironically, city officials complained that their housing-assistance programs didn’t work when prices were going up, as the assistance levels were too low to help people afford anything. But now that prices are going down, those same officials are trying to sell the public on new affordable-housing programs instead of celebrating that the market is, on its own, creating oodles of affordable housing.
We opined the other day about nearby Santa Ana’s failed efforts to redevelop some neighborhoods east of downtown. Garden Grove also has a history of failed redevelopment projects. Indeed, the city has become one of the state’s poster children for redevelopment abuse. Yet these cities have the audacity to call for more power and money to deal with this problem, which is entirely caused by factors outside of any city government’s control.
Given the budget insanity at the state level and the stimulus insanity at the federal level, it’s hard to be too harsh on cities for wanting to join in on the action. Still, the best antidote for craziness is sanity, not more craziness. Why don’t Garden Grove and Westminster tend to the basics of city government and let real estate buyers and sellers work out the foreclosure situation on their own?
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http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-bonita-irvine-2318112-canyon-parents
Strong academics, fun environment make this O.C.’s best elementary school
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Strong academics, fun environment make this O.C.’s best elementary school
Dedicated community drives school’s success.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
Comments 10| Recommend 2
IRVINE – Parents at Bonita Canyon Elementary School say the campus community is so tight-knit and focused on their kids, success is inevitable.
Students at the Irvine school say they love the supportive, nurturing environment, where everyone’s happy, learning and having fun.
A stellar blend of academics, ethnic diversity, physical fitness and other factors has thrust Bonita Canyon to the No. 1 spot in a comprehensive ranking of Orange County’s 388 public elementary schools.
“We should have high scores; we have everything,” said Principal Robin Beacham, who has been at the school 11 years. “We have very professional teachers here, and the parents send us great kids with a lot of life experiences – travel, culture, museums.”
POPULAR CHOICE
Affectionately known as “B.C.,” Bonita Canyon Elementary is nestled in Irvine’s Turtle Rock neighborhood just a few miles east of UC Irvine. It’s home to about 560 children.
The K-6 school has grown considerably in the past three decades. When it opened in 1977, it was designed for about 350 kids. About half of classes are housed in portables now.
“It’s a really nice school, and the curriculum is really good,” said Bonita sixth-grader Dhruv Nathwani, 12, student council president. “They are teaching us what we need to learn, but at the same time, having fun.”
After elementary school, Bonita Canyon children attend Irvine’s Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, followed by Irvine’s University High School, which was ranked the No. 3 public high school in Orange County last year by the Register.
More than 50 parents in the Irvine Unified School District requested to enroll their children at Bonita Canyon last fall via an intradistrict transfer, but the school was only able to accommodate a handful of those requests.
Bonita Canyon doesn’t have the highest standardized test scores in Orange County, although its Academic Performance Index – an overall gauge of a school’s scholastic showing – comes in a close second. Its API score of 966 is two points lower than Turtle Rock Elementary School a few miles away.
The Irvine campus has never won a national Blue Ribbon award, arguably the highest honor a school can receive, but it’s been named a California Distinguished School three times, most recently in 2006.
Teachers at Bonita Canyon work in grade-level teams to keep academics rigorous and to identify children who are falling behind. They form skill groups in their classrooms, and the school’s brightest children are encouraged to break off and work more independently. In math classes, some children begin studying pre-algebra in the sixth grade.
“We don’t let the kids rest on their laurels,” said second-grade teacher Sandy Jones, who has been at Bonita for 12 years. “Teachers don’t either, even the people who have been teaching a long time. You work on weekends, at 6 at night.”
WELL-BEHAVED KIDS
The school emphasizes a bee-themed behavior policy known as the “Bonita Be’s” – “Be your best! Be responsible! Be respectful! Be safe! Be a friend!” – which rewards children for good behavior with orange-colored “Star Student” tickets that can be turned in for prizes.
Teachers say Bonita children are generally respectful and well mannered, and bullying is not an issue. The school reported no expulsions or suspensions last year.
“Everyone is so nice and friendly and kind here,” said fourth-grader Alex La Padula, 9, who transferred to Bonita from a private school in San Pedro. “My old school was supposed to be better than a public school, but it wasn’t. I’m glad I moved here.”
Teachers stress that community support plays a big part in what makes Bonita Canyon so successful. More than 80 percent of parents join the school’s PTA, and many are regular volunteers devoting hundreds of hours of service and thousands of dollars to Bonita each year.
Last summer, for example, parents paid to outfit a new campus computer lab with 36 computers.
“If we have time, we help the kids, the teachers,” said parent Carol Lin, who has two sons at the school and was named Bonita’s Parent Volunteer of the Year. “If we have extra money, we put it into the school, into the classrooms.”
Parents work to foster a sense of community and make new families feel welcome. Much of the bonding takes place informally at Chaparral Park adjacent to Bonita, parents say.
At the beginning of the school year, lists of parent phone numbers are passed around and parents are encouraged to call one another for any reason, whether it’s to check up on a homework assignment or ask for a recommendation on a good pediatrician.
“What a blessing that I found a place like this,” said parent Kathy Curtis, who has two kids at Bonita and three older ones who went through the school. “Everybody really cares here. The parent involvement – it just feeds on itself. It’s not even the type of school where you need to pick one teacher, because they’re all great.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-schools-gold-2318798-elementary-kids
A shared vision unites O.C.’s top elementary schools
A shared vision unites O.C.’s top elementary schools
Gold Medal schools rise above the rest for measurable success and triumph.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
Comments 14| Recommend 8
Enthusiastic children. Terrific teachers. Dedicated parents.
It’s the formula for success repeated constantly at the Orange County campuses where achievement and triumph are undeniable.
The 49 schools named gold medalists in the Register’s review of all 388 elementary county campuses are as varied as they are successful, yet they all share a clear understanding of where they are and how they’ll get to the next level.
And they’ve been able to translate their goals into direct, measurable achievement.
“I can just see the passion of the teachers and everyone else around the school,” said Sarah Clayton, a parent at gold medalist Harbour View Elementary School in Huntington Beach. “Teachers actually call my home to make sure my daughter gets her homework assignments after she’s out sick. You can tell they genuinely care for every student.”
The Gold Medal schools stand out for their ideal mix of academic performance, physical fitness, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, and other factors.
PARENT INVOLVEMENT
Parents at Gold Medal schools have taken all the right steps to ensure their kids have the best educational experience possible.
Teachers say many of them read with their kids at home, stress homework over playtime, and expose their kids to culture, arts and sports. They encourage and model good behavior, make sure their kids get to school on time everyday and establish good communication with teachers.
“I don’t think that people at other schools across the county put in any less effort than we do,” said Ryan Bollenbach, principal at gold medalist Ladera Elementary School in Tustin. “We are just very fortunate. We have phenomenal teachers. The students come here ready to learn. The parent support is great in all aspects.”
At many Gold Medal schools, reputation drives continued success. When families with an expressed commitment and dedication to their children’s education move into a school’s attendance boundaries, achievement can go nowhere but up.
In the Irvine Unified School District, where 13 of the district’s 20 elementary schools were named gold medalists, parents are widely known to move into the area specifically for the schools.
“There’s so much parental and community support here,” said Ann Bennett, a 13-year Irvine Unified science resource teacher.
Bennett has worked in a number of the district’s elementary schools and her three kids attended No. 1-ranked Bonita Canyon Elementary.
“Parents want to work in the classrooms and want to raise money. For them, they know grades matter.”
At gold medalist Chaparral Elementary School in Ladera Ranch, Principal Kevin Rafferty said he’s talked to at least 15 or 20 families who moved into the school’s attendance boundaries specifically for the school.
“Families tell me directly, without solicitation, ‘The whole reason we’re here is because of the great school you have here,’ ” Rafferty said. “It’s one of those things that spreads by natural word of mouth.”
Teachers at Gold Medal schools, meanwhile, meet regularly to collaborate, exchange ideas, review test scores, and design customized intervention strategies for at-risk kids.
“Every kid at Olinda is one of our kids,” said Trish Walsh, a fourth-grade teacher at gold medalist Olinda Elementary School in Brea. “We work across grade levels, regardless of whether a kid is in our classroom. We all do whatever we can.”
OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
At most Gold Medal schools, the majority of children come from privileged backgrounds.
Only four of the 49 gold medalists have more than 24 percent of their children who hail from low-income families, and only three had schoolwide English fluency rates less than 70 percent.
These campuses, as well as others with small proportions of disadvantaged kids, hold firmly to the notion that every child can learn and be successful.
They offer highly structured tutoring sessions before and after school, and their teachers have an unwavering commitment to doing whatever it takes to help kids from falling through the cracks, even if it means working through lunch or at night.
“The pressure is coming from ourselves,” said Carole Wong, principal at Mission Viejo’s Cordillera Elementary School, a gold medalist where about 24 percent of kids are low income.
Cordillera’s Academic Performance Index score shot up 31 points last year, to 882.
“We will reorganize the students – maybe one teacher will take kids out for an extra period to do an extra lesson with them. We try to maximize every minute we have in school.”
Gold Medal schools also have successfully overcome ethnic and cultural barriers at home. Gold medalist Ethan Allen Elementary School in Fountain Valley employs part-time Spanish-speaking and Vietnamese-speaking liaisons to translate for parents and allow them to express their needs and concerns in their native tongue. A small group of parents also assists with this effort.
“The parents realize, oh, this is our school now,” said parent Mai Bui, who volunteers as a parent liaison to Vietnamese families. “I really think Ethan Allen is not just a public school, but a community that cares. If we do it right, we’re pushing each other, and we raise the bar.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-sonora-language-2318442-children-english
A low-income school bucks the odds
Test scores skyrocket after principal puts her foot down.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
A low-income school bucks the odds
Test scores skyrocket after principal puts her foot down.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
Comments 10| Recommend 4
COSTA MESA – Four years ago, Sonora Elementary School’s academic performance was sliding downhill – fast.
The Costa Mesa school was put on federal academic probation for failing to meet its standardized-testing targets under the No Child Left Behind Act, and with a large disadvantaged population – more than 60 percent English language learners and about 75 percent low-income – improvement seemed like a long shot.
That’s when Principal Christine Anderson put her foot down.
“We started eliminating excuses about why they couldn’t learn,” Anderson said. “We started telling the kids, ‘You will learn, even if it’s before or after school.’ ”
School officials established a language learning lab and hired Spanish-speaking instructional aides to work with small groups of children daily.
Pre-teaching – a concept in which Sonora’s English learners go over reading passages and vocabulary words a week before they ever see the material in their regular classrooms – was introduced, and administrators wrote grants allowing the school to pay its teachers to stay before and after school for tutoring.
Sonora Elementary’s test scores began rising rapidly. Over the next two years, the school’s Academic Performance Index score – an overall gauge of a school’s scholastic showing – shot up by 135 points, to 844. California’s benchmark target for schools is 800.
More important, scores began rising among the lowest-performing subgroups of children, including English learners and low-income children, allowing Sonora to be taken off federal probation – known as Program Improvement – just a year after it was slapped with the designation.
“It’s really the environment,” said instructional aide José Barron, who works with English learners in Sonora’s language lab. “We’ve made this a place where kids want to be. You can totally see the change.”
For achieving at a level that rivals campuses with far more privileged populations, Sonora Elementary has been named a Gold Medal school on the Register’s list of best elementary schools in Orange County – and is spotlighted in this article as a shining example of a school that beat its demographic odds.
Sonora has the lowest percent of English-proficient children of any Gold Medal school on the list and the second-highest percent of low-income children, yet it managed to capture an impressive 17th-place ranking overall.
CHANGING EXPECTATIONS
Sonora, which opened in 1962, educates about 475 children in kindergarten through fifth grade. It’s located in a residential neighborhood near the 55 and 73 freeways, just south of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s headquarters.
In the mid-1990s, when class-size reduction was introduced, Sonora’s fourth- through sixth-grade children were shifted to another campus, and it’s only in the past two years that Sonora’s begun adding back older children, one grade at a time. The school introduced fifth grade this year and will have sixth-graders next fall.
Teachers say the academic expectations at Sonora are very different than just a few years ago. At-risk children are now expected to show up for extra tutoring either before or after school, or for both sessions. And while the school can’t force kids to come, parents are told the teacher is expecting to see their child.
“Sonora has lots of wonderful teachers and they encourage us to do more reading,” said fifth-grader Elaine Alvidrez, 10, who attends the language lab. “I read at a higher level than last year and I take more AR (Accelerated Reader) quizzes now. It makes me feel proud of myself.”
Fifth-grader José Uribe, 11, who goes to the language lab and math tutoring after school, was barely reading at a first-grade level when he began at Sonora two years ago, his teachers said.
“I didn’t want to be lower than the other kids,” he said. “I did more and more reading, and I saw I was improving more and more. Now I’m reading at grade level.”
Sonora is garnering considerable recognition for its turn-around. About two weeks ago, it was honored with a federal No Child Left Behind Title I distinguished school award for its work closing the achievement gap among its disadvantaged populations, one of only two schools in California to get the award.
And last year, it was named a California Distinguished School, the third time it’s received the designation over the past decade.
“A lot of people think you’re not going to get the same education as a kid who goes to school in Newport Coast, but you actually do,” said PTA President Katrina Foley, a Costa Mesa city councilwoman. “This is the real world.”
TARGETING LANGUAGE ARTS
Sonora’s multi-faceted intervention program is targeted at the school’s biggest standardized-testing weakness, language arts. Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials, in fact, have studied the language lab, officially known as the Instructional Support Program, for possible replication at their other schools.
Sonora teachers divide their classrooms into about four groups of children based on language arts skills – the high-performers, the English language learners and two average-performing groups in the middle.
For 30 to 45 minutes each day, the groups are separated. The English learners go to the language lab; the other groups move to classrooms where they work with children at their same skill level.
Sonora, however, doesn’t just offer extra help in language arts. The school also offers after-school science and math tutoring.
“When we’re learning something new (in math), I don’t understand it, but when I’m relearning it, I don’t have trouble with it,” said fifth-grader Emily Dominguez, 10, of Costa Mesa, who goes to math tutorial twice a week after school. “I used to get a lot of the answers wrong. It made me feel proud that I actually started getting them right.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/education/article_2048639.php
O.C.’s best high schools
Orange County’s best schools owe their prowess to a combination of magnet programs, motivated students, strong arts and athletics, according to the first-ever Orange County Register ranking of public, comprehensive high schools.
Read about the schools, search our interactive databases and join the discussions about what makes a great high school.
OXFORD
TROY
UNIVERSITY
MIDDLE COLLEGE
IRVINE
6. OCHSA
7. LA QUINTA
8. CYPRESS
9. NORTHWOOD
10. WOODBRIDGE
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/text-2238861
Take a look at Orange County’s private high schools
By FERMIN LEAL and SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
What makes a great high school? The right blend of students, teachers and parents, each committed to their role in achieving goals in academics, leadership and community service.
Private schools are capable of handpicking highly motivated, talented students who share their philosophy, religious outlook and academic standards. And in Orange County, they offer a range of attractive options, from K-12 programs to intense four-year academies.
An elite group of Orange County public schools – identified as the top 10 public schools in the Register’s 2007 rankings – is keeping pace.
These public schools range from high-performing neighborhood schools to a cluster of magnet schools that strive to emulate the successful educational strategies of private schools.
HOW THEY STACK UP: A cluster of 11 of Orange County’s largest and best-known private schools scores nearly identically to the top 10 public schools on the SAT, but beyond that each type of school offers different strengths and benefits. Click here to read our analysis.
PROFILES: Numbers can only take you so far when examining private schools – their very nature makes each unique in approach and focus. Click below for profiles of the 11 private high schools featured in this report and to review our top 10 public campuses. (Lists are alphabetical.)
Formulas for success
The PRIVATE SCHOOLS The PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Capistrano Valley Christian Schools : Personal attention and an international flair.
Cypress High School: Celebrates diversity while pushing all student groups to success.
Cornelia Connelly High School : Building self-confident, open-minded women.
Irvine High School: Academic and nonacademic options; developing socially conscious citizens.
Eastside Christian High School: A focus on academics, spiritual growth and community service.
La Quinta High School: Solid academics and strong participation in arts, athletics and business programs.
Fairmont Preparatory Academy : In-depth, hands-on learning, science magnet programs.
Middle College High School: Magnet program allows students to attend college during high school.
Jserra Catholic High School: Young school offers strong facilities and intense technology.
Northwood High School: Top-notch academics, facilities, academic teams; arts and music programs
Mater Dei High School : Nationally ranked sports yes, but also rigorous academics and college preparation.
OC High School of the Arts: Charter school offers strong academics and a variety of specialized arts academies.
Rosary High School: Rigorous curriculum, diversity of electives, sense of sisterhood. Oxford Academy: Magnet school clusters top students for rigorous college preparation.
Sage Hill School : Balance of academics, athletics, activities and service for a diverse student body.
Troy High School: Tech magnet school takes pride in academics, athletics, arts and activities.
St. Margaret’s Episcopal : Learning, leadership and service with a strong focus on transition to college.
University High School: Award-winning academic teams, diverse arts, music programs.
Santa Margarita Catholic High School : Rich in arts, college prep for students of varying strengths. Woodbridge High School: Top academics, extracurricular involvement and a sense of community.
Tarbut V’Torah : Combines stellar academics with lessons on Jewish heritage.
Methodology: How the private schools were chosen, the limits of the data sets studied.
OC Register site that helps you compare schools using this link: http://ocregister.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/cs_where/ca/
And HOW those schools are ranked by the OC Register, using this methodology:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/schools-score-school-2318468-measures-test
Our methods: How the schools got their rankings
System involved hand-selected categories and gave special emphasis to some areas.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Comments 0| Recommend 2
The task: The Orange County Register’s rankings are designed to show which elementary schools in Orange County provide the richest academic experience and strongest environment for learning – from schools with the best test scores to those with cultural diversity and small class sizes. The results generated a ranking system of 26 measurements for 388 public elementary schools.
All the data used to create the rankings came from the state Department of Education and is available publicly. The categories were chosen and weighted.
Who wasn’t ranked: After consultation with county education leaders, we decided to omit K-8 schools from our rankings, but to keep smaller schools with fewer grade offers than the typical K-5 or K-6. Because we know parents will want to know how their schools performed, we provide the raw data for those K-8 schools without the rankings.
Here is how the Register determined the rankings:
OVERALL RANKING
This score is determined by combining a school’s academic and school environment scores.
Academics forms 75 percent of the total ranking. School environment contributes 25 percent.
ACADEMICS
•2008 Academic Performance Index: An aggregate of STAR and other measures used by the state to determine school performance. The API accounts for one-fourth of the total Academics score.
•2007 API similar schools ranking: Used by the state to compare schools with others with similar demographics. The 2007 similar school score is the most recent. 2008 similar schools rankings won’t be released until May, so the Register used the most recent 2007. This equals one-eighth of Academics score.
Note: Newport Elementary had issues with reporting some test results to the state in 2007 so the school did not have a 2007 similar school score. Trabuco Elementary and Silverado Elementary schools did not receive a score because of their small sizes. All other schools without a score in this category were not yet open in 2007.
•2007-2008 API score change: Measures whether schools improved their API score over the past year. This score equals one-eighth of the Academic score.
Note: Newport Elementary had issues with reporting some test results to the state in 2007 so the school did not have a score in this area. All other schools without a score in this category were not yet open in 2007.
•2008 Schoolwide English proficiency: Measures the percent of students in the entire school who scored proficient or better on state English tests. This score equals one-eighth of the Academic score.
2008 Schoolwide math proficiency: Measures the percent of students in the entire school who scored proficient or better on state math tests. This score equals one-eighth of the Academic score.
•2008 Achievement Gap: A combination of 2008 math and English scores of low-income students and English learners, the two groups in Orange County that have struggled the most traditionally on state tests. This score equals one-eighth of the Academic score.
Note: Schools with fewer than 10 students classified as English learners or low-income can’t report scores for these groups.
•2008 No Child Left Behind: Measures whether schools met all federal testing targets required by the 2001 act. This score equals one-eighth of the Academic score.
SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT
•2007-08 Average class size: Measures the average number of students in classes across the school.
•2008 Fitness Test: Measures the percent of students schoolwide who passed all six sections of the California Physical Fitness Test.
Note: The test is only administered to students in grades five, seven and nine. Schools without these grades have no score in this category.
•2007-08 Diversity: Measures the number of different ethnic, racial or socio-economic student groups at campuses. Schools with the most balanced number of different student groups scored higher in the diversity category.
•2007-08 Truancy, expulsions and suspensions: Measures the school’s truancy rate, expulsions and suspensions.
Note: Elementary schools in Orange Unified do not have a score in this category because of an error in reporting data from the state.
•2008 School awards: The number of National Blue Ribbon or California Distinguished School awards
All school environment measures are weighted equally.
Note: Data for k-8 campuses was included, but these schools were not ranked because of the significant differences between those school and elementary campuses.
GREATSCHOOLS, INC.
The Orange County Register is partners with GreatSchools, a nonprofit that provides a format for reviewing school data and allowing parents to review their schools.
GreatSchools ranking: GreatSchools provides its own overall ranking, too, based solely on the averages of a school’s California test scores. When compared with schools in a city, those numbers are adjusted based on a school’s enrollment.
GreatSchools parent reviews: Parents are allowed to post comments on individual schools. Read comments about your school or add your own.
GreatSchools parent ranking: Great Schools also generates a ranking based on parent reviews.
GreatSchools test data: Great Schools provides California Standards Test data for each class and subgroup at a given school.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/schools-school-county-2318696-elementary-students
Elementary success doesn’t always come where you expect
Demographics are a good indicator, but some schools buck trends.
Elementary success doesn’t always come where you expect
Demographics are a good indicator, but some schools buck trends.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Comments 8| Recommend 2
Orange County’s nearly 388 public elementary schools come in all shapes, sizes and models.
One campus has just 73 students, while the largest enrolls 1,370. Some schools are tucked into hillsides and canyons, others huddle amid urban sprawls, and a few overlook harbors lined with palm trees and million dollar yachts.
The Register’s report, “Orange County’s Best Public Schools: Elementary Excellence,” ranks these diverse schools using 26 measurements that include state test scores, federal ratings, class sizes, diversity and other data.
So what are the key ingredients that contribute to school excellence?
Some of the conclusions are to be expected. Schools with small percentages of low-income students generally rank higher and earned more medals than those where the majority of students are poor.
But other factors are less obvious, or contradict commonly held beliefs. Having smaller class sizes and a smaller school, which many parents have said contribute to school quality, does not necessarily correlate to better schools, according the Register’s report.
Rankings summary
Elementary schools are ranked from 1 to 388. Forty-nine schools are honored with gold medals for scoring 70 percent or higher; 78 received silvers for scoring 65 percent or better; and 71 earned bronzes for 60 percent of better.
Information on PTAs and parental involvement, community support through donations and other services, and other intangibles, which educators say can contribute greatly to a school’s quality, are not included because of the lack of consistent data.
Most school rankings rely solely on academics to determine a school’s quality. GreatSchools, Inc., a nonprofit that provides a schools database and parent forum to the Register, builds its chief ranking based on average test scores.
In contrast, the Register uses a weighted system that gives 75 percent of the value to academics and 25 percent to environment and diversity.
County Superintendent William Habermehl, who reviewed the Register’s methods, said the Register’s ranking provides a more comprehensive picture. But Habermehl warned that rankings should not be the sole measure of school quality.
“Schools at the top have done a wonderful job and deserve the recognition they get,” he said. “Schools at the bottom may be working very, very hard to improve.”
Keys to success
Since the overall rank of a school is based largely on academic achievement, schools that earned the highest test scores fare the best.
A school’s Academic Performance Index is weighed heavily in the overall ranking, about one-sixth of total score. The state has used the API to rate schools for about 10 years. Bonita Canyon Elementary, the Register’s top-ranked school, has an API score of 966, the second highest in the county.
Every school with an API of 877 or higher earned a medal. Thirty-six Gold Medal schools have an API score higher than 900. No schools with an API score of less than 800 earned gold or silver medals.
All schools that received medals meet federal No Child Left Behind goals, except for University Park Elementary in Irvine, which earned a Bronze Medal on the strength of its other scores, including a 901 API score.
All schools in Irvine Unified received medals, with 13 of 20 earning gold. Irvine Unified ranks as the top district for elementary schools, followed by Los Alamitos Unified and Brea-Olinda Unified. In each of those districts, most campuses received a medal of one type or another.
Gold Medal recipients generally have few low-income students. Only four Gold Medal schools have more than 24 percent of students classified as low-income. The exceptions are Sonora Elementary in Costa Mesa, Las Lomas and Ladera Palma elementaries in La Habra, and Allen Elementary in Fountain Valley.
In contrast, schools with many poor students generally rank near the bottom. Nearly all the high poverty schools also have a majority of students classified as English learners, adding teaching challenges that can lower test scores.
About 150 of the 190 schools that failed to receive a medal have an enrollment of low-income students higher than 50 percent. Most of these schools are in Anaheim, Santa Ana, and similar areas.
“It’s always going to tough to compare schools with different student populations,” said Myra Belize, a parent at Las Lomas, where more than 76 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-priced meals.
“The fact that some of these high-poverty schools did so well should be celebrated. But we should not be quick to punish these same types of schools that struggled.”
No achievement correlation
With an enrollment of 1,224, Melinda Height Elementary School’s size rivals most middle schools and some high schools. The Rancho Santa Margarita campus also averages 24 students per class, which ranks in the bottom half of elementary schools in the county. Still, Melinda Heights is a gold medalist and ranks 24th overall in the county.
When measuring quality schools, school size and average class sizes appear to carry little weight. Twenty-six Gold Medal schools have an average class size below the county median of 23.2, while 23 are above the median. Twenty-four gold medalists post total enrollments higher the county average of 602.
“Even though Melinda Heights has a lot of students, it’s not a crowded school,” said Victoria Thompson, a parent of two students at the campus. “If the classrooms are well updated and there is room for that many students, then school size is not an issue.”
Truancy rates also have little impact in determining a school’s ranking. About half the schools that earned medals have a truancy rate higher than 22 percent, the county average.
Trish Montgomery, the spokeswoman at Westminster School District, said student misconduct data can sometime be deceiving because campuses with high numbers can have administrators, teachers or school policies that more strongly enforce rules of conduct.
All O.C. schools still “better than the rest”
As a whole, the county’s 388 elementary schools outperform state averages in almost all of the measurements used by the Register.
The county scores for API and English and math proficiency are all significantly higher than scores for peers statewide.
For example, 63 percent of O.C. elementary school students scored proficient on English tests, compared to 51 percent statewide. Local schools also have smaller class sizes, fewer truancies and won Blue Ribbons and California Distinguished School awards at a higher rate than in other areas.
“If you take many of the schools from Orange County that would appear at the bottom of any ranking here and put them in another county, I bet you they be in the middle, or better,” said Habermehl, the county superintendent.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
Visit the link directly to access the chart and details.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/includes-school-data-2335266-districts#
Chart: 2009 Job losses, budget cuts and salary details
Chart: 2009 Job losses, budget cuts and salary details
Data on O.C. school district’s proposed budget cuts
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
The following data includes 2008-08 data on enrollment, average salaries and school performance. Layoff, termination and total cuts data is as of March 13, 2009. .
More email notifications from SAUSD Board Member, John Palacio:
Friday, March 13, 2009
No layoffs at Garden Grove Unified, officials say
The school district will likely face a $62 million deficit over the next three years, but officials say they are determined to keep their teachers
By DEEPA BHARATH
The Orange County Register
GARDEN GROVE — The school district, despite a severe budget deficit, will try not to eliminate teaching positions, officials said.
“We have not nor do we plan to send out any layoff notices to our teachers,” said Alan Trudell, spokesman for the school district. “We’re trying not to cut people, but we are cutting positions.”
The district will also need to scale back on several programs considering the projected $62 million budget shortfall over the next three years, Trudell said.
“That means we’ll be scaling back summer school as well as eliminating most conference attendance,” he said.
The district has also negotiated its teacher-to-student ratio from 29.1 to 31.1 beginning the next school year, Trudell said. But the district will still preserve the 20-to-1 class sizes in grades one, two, three and kinder-1 combination classes.
“If a person retires, we will cut that position,” Trudell said. Those cuts will come mostly with regard to clerical and custodial positions, he said.
The district, like every other operation in this tough economy, is trying to curtail its expenditures, Trudell said. The district will make only those purchases that are “absolutely necessary,” he said. What they can do without, they will do without, Trudell said.
Garden Grove Unified School district serves more than 55,000 students in most of Garden Grove and portions of Santa Ana, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Cypress, Stanton and Anaheim.
The school district, however, will not rely on parents to raise money for various programs or to pay for staff.
“We definitely won’t do that,” Trudell said. “It is an unreliable source of funding.”
Contact the writer: 714-445-6685 or dbharath@ocregister.com
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Friday, March 13, 2009
Irvine Unified plans no budget cuts for 2008-09
But 164 layoff notices sent to temporary teachers.
By ERIKA CHAVEZ
The Orange County Register
Irvine Unified will make no cuts to this year’s budget, in contrast to most other area school districts slashing millions from their budgets.
The district did send out 164 layoff notices to temporary teachers, a standard annual practice. Most years, the majority of the teachers don’t actually get laid off, said district spokesman Ian Hanigan. The deadline to let teachers know whether the layoffs will stick is May 15.
District officials are anticipating a $7 million shortfall in categorical funds for the 2009-10 school year, but some of that deficit might be offset by the categorical flexibility that has been offered as part of the state’s recently adopted budget. That means the district might be able to move money around from different funds to cover the shortfall, a practice that was previously prohibited.
Unlike neighboring school districts, Irvine Unified will not cut any administrative or classified positions, and class sizes won’t increase. District officials credit the unflagging support of the Irvine Public Schools Foundation, the Irvine Company and the city of Irvine for the district’s relatively stable financial footing.
Another factor is the district’s transition into a different funding model, in which Irvine Unified would forego state funds altogether in favor of local property taxes.
Superintendent Gwen Gross said with the projected statewide cuts, it now appears IUSD will move into a “local funding” model, often referred to as “Basic Aid.” In Basic Aid districts, the local property tax revenue is relied upon to fund school needs because it exceeds what the district would receive from the state. The Laguna Beach and Newport-Mesa districts have long operated under this funding model and Basic Aid districts tend to have more stable budgets.
Laguna Beach is making no cuts and no layoffs this year, and Newport-Mesa plans no layoffs and $8.2 million in cuts.
Irvine School Board members will further discuss potential teacher reductions at a March 18 budget study session, but Hanigan said district officials believe the majority of those who received layoff notices will be back next year. The board will vote on any reductions at an April 7 meeting.
The district will likely adopt a final budget at a June 23 board meeting.
While the district is on relatively sound financial footing for now, the future will hold challenges. Irvine Unified expects to fall back into a “revenue limit” formula in 2010-11, which means it would once again be reliant on state funds. That could translate into a $10 million shortfall without corrective action.
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Friday, March 13, 2009
Class-reduction could vanish from many O.C. schools
Some schools hope new funding will ease cuts; others expect to trim hundreds more jobs.
By FERMIN LEAL and SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
At a class size of just 20, first-grade teacher Celeste Benninger says she’s able to give all her students the time and attention they need.
But increasing her class size to 25 or even 30 could change all that, she says.
“Right now, students needing the extra help get it,” said Benninger, a teacher at Greenville Fundamental in Santa Ana. “It’s going to be more difficult now with all these cuts.”
Orange County’s 28 public school districts announced this week budget cuts of more than $290.4 million and layoffs for as many as 3,063 employees. (Click here for a chart on school cuts.)The impact will be seen in everything from larger class sizes and school closures, to the loss of high school counselors and music and arts programs.
Most of these cuts will affect teachers, students and parents alike, they said. But the increase in class sizes at many of the county’s more than 600 public schools this fall will likely be the most significant hit, Benninger and other educators said.
Many of the county’s 28 school districts have announced they intend to completely eliminate popular class-size reduction programs, increasing classes in the early elementary grades from 20 to 24 students or more.
“The days of 20 to 1 could be over,” said Eleanor Rodriguez, a parent of a first-grader at Guinn Elementary in Anaheim. “Schools are going to be in pretty bad shape now with all these cuts. Class sizes are definitely going to suffer.”
Larger class sizes this fall
Local districts are reporting that at least 1,490 of the school employees issued pink slips this week are classroom teachers. Most of these teachers work in elementary schools operating class-size reduction programs, according to school officials.
In Capistrano Unified School District, the class-size reduction program in first, second and third grades would be wiped out, causing class sizes to jump from an average of 20 students each to 30 or more. In Capistrano’s kindergarten classes and across all other grade levels, meanwhile, average class sizes would be increased by one student each.
In Saddleback Valley Unified, second-grade classes would lose their all-day 20 to 1 student-teacher ratio in favor of a more cost-effective program called Option 2, in which 10 students are pulled out of a larger class of 30 for half the day to receive instruction in language arts and math. Saddleback’s third-grade classes, meanwhile, which operate under the Option 2 model, would see that program canceled in favor of all-day class sizes of 30 or more.
Anaheim City School District will also increase class sizes from 20 to 24 students in grades one and two, while Orange Unified will increase from 20 to 25 in the same grades.
Most county districts implemented class-size reduction programs almost 10 years ago when the state approved additional funding for schools that limited class sizes to 20 students in kindergarten through third grade. Districts had to contribute some funding to offset costs of the program.
The state will continue to provide money for the program, but many districts are now saying they can lo longer afford their contributions.
Other budget effects
Educators caution larger classes sizes won’t be the only significant changes next school year.
Many districts are eliminating high school counselors, meaning an increase of counselor-to-student ratios. Four campuses will close, Silverado Elementary, Dickerson Elementary in Buena Park, and O’Neill Elementary and La Tierra Elementary in Mission Viejo.
Districts are also slashing music and arts programs and cutting librarians, instructional aides, custodians, and other positions. Class sizes will also increase in ninth-grade English, and across other courses in middle and high schools.
In previous years, most, if not all of the certificated employees who received pink slips eventually had their notices rescinded weeks later. But this year, some are less optimistic and have begun planning for unemployment.
Elementary school teacher Kim Duran, who received a pink slip this week for the second year in a row, said she’s worried about her financial stability – she’s got a mortgage, a son at UC Irvine, and earns more money than her husband.
“One of the most frustrating things for me is that I put so much into this job, and I feel like my services are not valued,” said Duran, 39, a fifth- and sixth-grade combination teacher at Lake Forest’s Rancho Cañada Elementary. “My mom said to me, ‘You’re a smart lady. You can go out and get another job.’ I had to explain to her, this is not just a job or even a career for me; it’s my life. I feel so strongly about education.”
Budget uncertainty remains
Many school administrators hope federal stimulus funds in coming weeks may trickle down to schools, or the economy may improve, meaning some of the already approved layoffs or budget cuts can be retracted. But they’re also expecting the worst, including the possibility that voters may reject the slate propositions on the May ballot aimed at keeping the state from falling again into a deep deficit.
“It’s kind of like throwing darts against the board, and the targets are all on one side of the board,” said Tom Ressler, principal at San Juan Hills High School in San Juan Capistrano. “Education in general, we really still don’t know what our budget is. We really don’t’ know if these propositions don’t pass what will happen.”
Officials from county Department of Education told superintendents earlier this month that they should not plan on federal stimulus funds to save the day. Distribution of funds for education is still unclear statewide, and districts should not include these federal funds in their projections, said state Superintendent Jack O’Connell.
In Santa Ana Unified, where teachers and other certificated employees will receive 530 pink slips today, officials said they will likely cut another 250 classified employees in coming weeks.
After Orange Unified’s board voted Thursday to close Silverado Elementary, Trustee Kimberlee Nichols warned that more cuts could be coming. Reconsideration of further school closures and other drastic cuts might be a possibility before the start of the next school year, she said.
“We might not be done yet,” she said.
Register staff writers Peter Schelden and Theresa Cisneros contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
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Saturday, March 14, 2009
More spending doesn’t equal more learning
California public schools and teachers cry for more money, but new analysis reveals no link between higher learning and higher spending.
By VICKI E. MURRAY
Education policy expert with Pacific Research Institute in Sacramento
Jack O’Connell, California’s superintendent of public instruction, recently claimed that Education Week’s latest Quality Counts report “ranks us a dismal 47th in the country” for school funding. That ranking needs some clarification, but the revenue that school districts actually receive would better inform the education policy debate.
About half of California’s regular school districts, 469 in all, already exceed Education Week’s national average of $9,963 per student. In fact, those regular unified, elementary, and high-school districts receive an average $12,800 in state and local funding per student. That average jumps to nearly $14,000 per student when federal funding is included. Yet, Superintendent O’Connell recommends more money.
“What I am asking for is greater investment at a time when the state is virtually broke,” he explained. “We must expect a different commitment from the citizens of California,” he said. Otherwise, “We will never be the great state our citizens deserve unless we invest in our future.”
Evidence from his own department, however, indicates that pouring more money into the current public school system is unlikely to have a discernable impact on overall student performance.
About half the students at the 469 above-average-funded regular school districts do not score proficient on the California Standards Test in math or English language arts, even though total per-student funding in some cases approaches or exceeds $20,000, even $30,000. Forget the national average, those amounts beat the U.S. Census Bureau’s grade-A funders hands down – even after adjusting their per-student funding to reflect California’s cost of living. These big spenders include Washington, D.C., which receives $18,700 per student, and New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, where per-student funding ranges from $16,600 to $18,600.
Yet more money is no guarantee of higher achievement. Look at Orange County:
Slightly more than 70 percent of students at Laguna Beach Unified are proficient in English language arts and math; and more than 80 percent of students are proficient in those subjects at Irvine Unified. Irvine enrolls more socioeconomically disadvantaged students and English learners but Laguna Beach Unified receives $3,400 more per student, nearly $14,700 compared with $11,300 for Irvine.
Likewise, about as many students at Los Alamitos Unified and Brea Olinda Unified are proficient in English language arts and math as their peers in Laguna Beach. Los Alamitos and Brea Olinda also enroll more socioeconomically disadvantaged students and English learners, but they receive around $4,500 less per student than does Laguna Unified.
Instead of looking at what other states are spending, policy-makers should look at what California schools districts are accomplishing, since some districts are doing more with every education dollar they receive. Policy-makers should also examine why districts with higher proportions of socioeconomically disadvantaged students and English learners, who are more expensive to educate, actually receive less revenue.
In Orange County, districts with the highest proportions of those students get up to $1,600 less per student on average than districts with the lowest percentages. “Other” state and local funding for most of the restricted earmark categorical programs is primarily responsible for that disparity – even though those programs are largely intended to serve low-income and English-learner students. Orange County is not an isolated instance.
Average proficiency rates in English language arts and math among the all state’s highest-revenue regular school districts are nearly indistinguishable from the lowest-revenue regular districts. In fact, among California’s top 20 and bottom 20 revenue districts – unified, elementary, and high school – more students on average in the lowest-revenue districts are proficient in English language arts and math (53 percent) than their peers in the highest-revenue districts (48 percent).
Still, across California the number of regular school districts where a majority of students is not proficient outnumbers the school districts where a majority of students is proficient by about 3-1. The public cost is substantial. At school districts where a majority of students are not proficient, per-student revenue can range from $6,800 to nearly $33,000. This per-student funding range closely resembles the range of districts where a majority of students are proficient, from $8,000 to just over $29,000.
This California revenue review should not be taken to suggest that school districts’ funding should be slashed to the levels of the lowest-revenue districts, or ratcheted up to the highest levels. The numbers, however, reveal that the current system for financing public schooling is rife with deep disparities, inexplicable inequities, and inexcusable performance – even though hundreds of districts meet and exceed various national funding averages.
Even if every California school district were a national revenue leader, there is no guarantee they would lead in what matters most: student learning. More equity, more efficiency and more effectiveness – not simply more money – should be the guiding principles for California’s education reform debate.
This chart breaks down funding sources, levels of English-learning and socioeconomically disadvantaged students and level of proficiency in Math and English Language Arts for Orange County and its school districts. Pacific Research Institute.
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Friday, March 13, 2009
Westminster schools may lose temporary teaching staff
School district will not lose full-time teachers, but most temporary teachers may not be hired back for the next school year, officials say.
By DEEPA BHARATH
The Orange County Register
WESTMINSTER The school district will not lay off any teachers, but will most likely make the cuts with its temporary teaching staff, officials said.
The Westminster School District cut $3.4 million from its $80 million budget last year in anticipation of the state budget crisis, said district spokeswoman Trish Montgomery. The district also reduced its categorical budgets by 6.5 percent or $500,000, she said.
“We are not planning on laying off any teachers,” Montgomery said. However, the district usually hired about 75 temporary teachers each year, which may change, she said.
“We’re hoping not to lose all of them,” Montgomery said.
Temporary teachers do not have to be notified if they don’t get hired back, she said. Whether they get hired back or not will depend on next year’s budget and enrollment numbers, she said.
Montgomery said she does not have projected budget numbers for next year or 2011. Next year’s cuts will depend on the impact of the federal stimulus package, she said.
The K-8 school district serves about 10,000 students in parts of Westminster, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove and Midway City.
In June the school district made cuts in janitorial, administrative and clerical staff. Among the programs cut was the district’s intervention program that helped students who were suspended or having other problems with completing school work, Montgomery said.
The school district will also work with its foundation and PTAs to look at other options to help raise money, she said.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6685 or dbharath@ocregister.com
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
BOUSD cuts jobs and increases class size
The district will cut 26 teacher jobs, two classified jobs and one management position.
By LOU PONSI
The Orange County Register
BREA — The Brea Olinda Unified School District board on Monday approved the release of 26 teachers – six by layoff, two because of probationary release and 18 who are on temporary contracts – Superintendant Skip Roland said Tuesday.
“We had some spirited debate,” Roland said of Monday’s meeting, which lasted more than three hours.
Included in the reductions are the elimination of four elementary school teachers and one language arts instructor and a Spanish teacher in grades seven to 12.
The district also plans to cut two classified positions and one management position.
Teachers working under temporary contracts who are given layoff notices are often brought back the following year, but Roland said that can’t be guaranteed in the current economy.
“In a normal year, we might be more aggressive about bringing people back,” he said.
Those who could lose their jobs must be notified by March 15.
The cuts, made to help compensate for a potential three-year, $5.6 million shortfall, made up a portion of $1.9 million in reductions for the 2009-10 school year.
Along with the reductions comes a class size increase for ninth-grade English classes and the sweeping of funds from several categorical programs which will be placed in the general fund.
English classes at the ninth-grade level will increase from 20:1 to 25:1. Other class sizes at the high school level will increase by one, Roland stated. There are currently no plans to increase class sizes in grades kindergarten through eight.
Roland said the district’s financial situation could change – for better or worse – depending on how quickly federal stimulus money becomes available and whether a May 19 ballot measure passes, which could make an additional $5 billion available to the state for 2009-10. If it fails, schools could endure future cuts.
Contact the writer: lponsi@ocregister.com714-704-3730
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Friday, March 13, 2009
La Habra school district to deliver 35 pink slips
LHCSD will also increase class sizes to deal with financial woes.
By LOU PONSI
The Orange County Register
LA HABRA – The La Habra City School District board on Thursday voted unanimously to lay off 35 teachers for the 2009-10 school year.
The cuts will save about $2 million in salaries, Superintendent Susan Belenardo said.
“We need our teachers and I just wish there were a better way,” Belenardo said. “I wish there were a better method of funding from the state so we wouldn’t have to do this to people.”
Kindergarten through second-grade classrooms could take the biggest hits, with 23 cuts proposed for positions at those levels.
However, Belenardo said the number of reductions to specific grades could change if teachers are transferred to different levels.
The board also approved the district’s recommendation to sweep a total of $852,409 from four categorical programs and transfer that money to the general fund.
The district is implementing the measures to help deal with a forecasted $942,000 deficit for the remainder of 2008-09 and a $3.3 million shortfall expected for 2009-10.
“When we have to reduce staff for any reason, we do so with a heavy heart,” board president Sharon Brown said. “These are people’s lives.”
Class size increases were also approved by the board.
With fewer teachers, kindergarten classes could rise from a 20:1 student/teacher ratio to 30:1 and second- and third-grade classes to 25:1.
“That’s very difficult,” Brown said. “Everyone values small class size, especially at the lower levels.”
Ladera Palma Elementary School Principal Kathy Kalcevich said the quality of education will not be affected.
“It can’t,” she said. “We have a job to do.”
The board previously approved the elimination of the assistant superintendent and child welfare and attendance officer positions, effective after the 2008-09 school year, saving about $400,000.
Contact the writer: lponsi@ocregister.com714-704-3730
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Friday, March 13, 2009
100 Los Alamitos Unified teachers to get pink slips
School district that serves Los Alamitos, Rossmoor and Seal Beach is facing a $5.6 million budget deficit.
By JAIMEE LYNN FLETCHER
The Orange County Register
LOS ALAMITOS– One hundred teachers may lose their jobs as school officials look to offset a $5.6 million budget deficit prompted by the state’s grim financial status.
The district will hand out 100 pink slips to teachers by Sunday, officials said. The slips do not guarantee that teachers will lose their jobs but it warns them of the possibility.
The district is researching possible budget relief measures that could restore some program and personnel cuts, officials said.
Los Alamitos Unified School District serves about 9,400 students in 10 schools in Los Alamitos, Rossmoor and Seal Beach.
School board members have approved $618,000 in cuts to its current $88 million budget and $4 million in reductions to its 2009-10 budget, school officials said.
Reductions this year include eliminating some vacant staff positions and reducing nursing services in schools. The district also implemented a hiring and spending freeze to save money, said Superintendent Gregory Franklin.
Cuts for 2009-10 include increasing the staffing ratio in some classrooms, reducing extra service pay for teachers who coach or advise student groups and eliminating eight night custodians, among other cuts.
The district is looking at some options to lessen the blow but, for now, many of these measures are an uncertainty.
Flexibility of some categorical funds could provide one-time relief for the district by allowing school officials to use earmarked funds for other expenses such as personnel, the district reported.
The flexibility statute expires in 2013-14 and the district would have to cut expenses at that time, school officials reported.
The district will also be working with employee associations to negotiate lower pay during the crisis. Fundraising through foundations and Parent Teacher Association groups is another option to generate some revenue.
The district also expects to receive about $1 million in federal stimulus funds to help with Special Education.
The district is looking to keep parents informed of budget issues on its Web site http://www.losal.org. The latest updates are reported in downloadable newsletters and parents can e-mail questions to school officials.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6692 or jfletcher@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tustin Unified sends 117 layoff notices as part of $11 million in cuts
District will also eliminate class size reduction at most grade levels.
By ERIKA CHAVEZ
The Orange County Register
Tustin Unified will cut $11 million from this year’s budget in the wake of a dramatic reduction in state funding, and will send 117 preliminary layoff notices to teachers.
Those cuts will come primarily through said staff reductions as well as the elimination of non-essential expenses including conferences, materials and certain energy costs.
Next year will be even harsher, with a projected $12.5 million budget cut for 2009-10. The bulk of the savings will come from teacher salaries; 117 fewer teachers will save the district $8.9 million. Other cuts will include eight administrative positions and 17 district office positions. Classified staff reductions will comprise another $600,000 in cuts, but district officials have not yet finalized the number of positions that will be eliminated.
Still more cuts include $1.7 million in reduced transportation costs, delaying the opening of the Orchard Hills K-8 school for a savings of $560,000, and eliminating middle school sports for a savings of $110,000.
Another crucial cost-saving move is the elimination of class-size reduction at most grade levels. Grade 1 class sizes will rise from 20 to 24.5; grades 2 and 3 will jump from 20 to 29.5 students. Class sizes in grades 6 through 8 will go from 29.5 to 30, and grade 9 through 12 classes will jump from 29.5 to 31 students.
Kindergarten and grades 4 and 5 won’t see increases in class size. District officials have indicated plans to reduce class sizes as soon as it is financially feasible.
District officials said they will continue to look to the Tustin Public Schools Foundation and school-level parent organizations for additional support as they scurry to stanch the flow of red ink. One example: the foundation’s “Save Our Sports” campaign, which aims to raise enough money to pay for the eliminated middle school sports programs.
Deputy superintendent Brock Wagner says during his 37-year career, he has never seen such “devastating” circumstances.
“We are totally dependent on state funding for schools,” Wagner said. “If the state reduces funds, we reduce expenditures; we have no control.”
BY THE NUMBERS
Tustin Unified is making many cuts to deal with a dramatic decrease in state funding:
$11 million: Amount cut for 2008-09 school year
$12.5 million: Projected cuts for 2009-10 school year
117: Preliminary layoff notices sent to teachers
$560,000: Amount saved by pushing back opening of new K-8 school
29.5: The new average number of students in grade 2 and 3 classrooms
Source: Tustin Unified School District
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Fullerton School District announces 180 potential layoffs
Superintendent sees state budget as a moving target that could affect reductions.
By BARBARA GIASONE
The Orange County Register
FULLERTON – Fullerton School District trustees on Tuesday announced potential layoffs for a total 180 certificated employees to meet the projected $6.5 million in budget cuts for 2009-10.
Certificated employees include teachers, librarians, nurses, counselors and psychologists.
Assistant Superintendent Mark Douglas said 84 notices for potential layoffs would be delivered Wednesday to permanent and probationary employees. Another 78 will be handed to temporary workers who hold one- or two-year contracts.
And 18 employees on special assignment in the district will receive notices, but may be returned to the classroom in September.
However, administrators stressed every decision is a moving target because the state’s budget changes regularly.
To qualify the need for personnel cuts, Superintendent Mitch Hovey and Assistant Superintendent Gary Cardinale reviewed programs in jeopardy.
The projections were based on the district’s Second Interim Report from July 1, 2008 to Jan. 31, 2009 that trustees approved Tuesday.
In a detailed report, Cardinale and Hovey emphasized the district stands to lose $17 million in state funding between the 2008-09 and 2010-11 budget.
Cardinale said the district – among other cuts – would have to eliminate home-to-school transportation, pull $588,000 from deferred maintenance, eliminate elementary music programs for grades five and six and slice $209,000 from class-size reduction.
“And there could be a reduction in property taxes or lottery payments that would affect us,” Hovey said.
Speaking to a standing-room-only audience, board President Hilda Sugarman said a grassroots effort had been launched to collect funds for the district’s many nonprofit foundations including All the Arts for All the Kids Foundation, which is taking a $200,000 hit, and the Fullerton Educational Foundation.
Sugarman said the trustees agreed to take a 25 percent pay cut from their $400 monthly stipend, Hovey said he would take a salary cut and the union presidents said employees discussed taking salary cuts if it meant saving programs.
In an emotionally stirring video created by the Fullerton Elementary Teachers Association, teachers divulged how job losses would affect their lives. Among the issues were: No home, no health insurance; unable to care for a future family; a single mom on unemployment; no health insurance for a cancer-surviving husband; moving out of Fullerton.
“Our intent is to put faces to cuts,” FETA President Andy Montoya said. “We’re looking at fundraising and salary cuts.”
Raymond School parent Russell Miller in a cheerleading mode challenged everyone to band together and consider a parcel tax or a fundraiser. He said a local Realtor pledged to donate $500 from each of his sale closures to the cause.
“We’re being held hostage by a state legislature, which doesn’t want to help us,” Miller said.
Trustee Minard Duncan, who said he wouldn’t vote for any cuts until fellow board members committed to forming a foundation or using an existing one to raise money, ultimately got his way at the end of the meeting. To punctuate the promises, a transportation employee ran forward with a personal check and Hovey passed along cash to get the ball rolling.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3762 or bgiasone@ocregister.com
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Saddleback Valley parents and students speak out against cuts
About 800 people overflow Mission Viejo theater Tuesday to plead for programs, jobs.
By ALEJANDRA MOLINA
The Orange County Register
MISSION VIEJO – About 800 parents and students attended the Saddleback Valley Unified School District meeting Tuesday night to support favored instructors and programs facing cuts as the school board wrestled with making $10 million in cuts from its 2009-10 budget.
From International Baccalaureate and the Language Arts Assistance Program to lacrosse, hockey and O’Neill Elementary supporters, attendees voiced how certain programs have benefited their school community.
The Performing Arts Theatre was packed while several dozen people crowded outside, listening to the meeting through a speaker. Many in the crowd outside were lacrosse supporters from schools like El Toro High and Trabuco Hills High.
Brenda Heck, whose daughter is a freshman lacrosse player at El Toro High, was at the meeting to see how lacrosse fared.
“If they’re going to cut the program – cut the funding, they should put out a statement of where the money went,” Heck said. “If there are additional funds that are needed, allow us to do some fundraising.”
Lacrosse and hockey supporters were there for the same reason – to ask the board to keep the sport CIF sanctioned and let parents worry about funding.
“We’re here so that the boys can still letter in the sport,” said Sandy Peterson, whose son plays hockey at El Toro High. “That is our agenda.”
Lindsay Werner, sophomore class president for Laguna Hills High, wanted to support high school activities directors on the list to take a pay cut and teach part time.
“If activities directors are put part time, ASB will also be put part time as well,” Werner told trustees. “Being involved in ASB has made all the difference in my high school experience.”
For Sarah Jystad, a senior at Mission Viejo High, the Orange County Academic Decathlon made her high school experience memorable.
“Without the academic decathlon, students will miss out on a huge opportunity in terms of public speaking and cooperating with others as a team,” Jystad said. “It’s full of camaraderie and it helps boost self confidence because you’re very accomplished after learning so much information.”
A strong support system was there for O’Neill Elementary, which was being considered for closure.
For parent Sahar Razavi, keeping O’Neill Elementary open was crucial.
“I gave up custody of my child so she can go to O’Neill,” said Razavi, who drives from her La Palma residence to volunteer at the school. “She’s a special needs child and needs help with her math. At O’Neill, she just flourishes.”
For Mission Viejo High parent Heather Armes, the discussion of cutting IB and lacrosse was hard to hear.
“Losing CIF status (in lacrosse) is just shameful,” said Armes, whose daughter plays lacrosse. “There are college opportunities, especially for girls.”
In regard to IB, Armes said her son has put in a lot of work in the curriculum and it would be devastating to see it wasted.
“They should be allowed to participate in a program that was offered to them as they entered high school,” Armes said.
Dawn Rodriguez, an instructor for the Language Arts Assistance Program offered at all the district’s elementary schools, said the program is essential for the growth of the students they help to read.
“The success of the students has been immeasurable,” Rodriguez said. “It’s hard to say what would happen … there will be some loss for some of the kids.”
Contact the writer: amolina@ocregister.com or 949-454-7360
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Public input sought immediately on CSU and UC budget cuts
March 12th, 2009, 9:08 am · Post a Comment · posted by Marla Jo Fisher, Staff Writer
Orange County Register
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer must decide by April 1 whether the state has received enough money from the recently passed federal stimulus package to avoid cutting Cal State University and University of California budgets by $100 million.
You can send him an email at cdiac_education@treasurer.ca.gov to tell him what you think he ought to decide. The public hearing on the matter is in Sacramento on March 17.
The state budget bill included a trigger that would avoid certain cuts if California received at least $10 billion in federal stimulus money by June 30, 2010. California is slated to receive $40 billion from the federal government.
Click here to go to the treasurer’s page with more detailed information and explanations.
This would be the spending that could potentially be restored:
University of California system: $50 million
California State University system: $50 million
Non-college-related cuts that could be restored:
SSI/SSP: $267.8 million
Courts (new judges, trial court operations, other): $171.3 million
CalWORKS: $146.9 million
MediCal Optional Benefits: $129.4 million
In-Home Support Services: $78 million
MediCal Local Assistance/South Los Angeles Medical Services: $54.1 million
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Huntington district to consider cuts from adult school tonight
Honors for adult school students also on agenda for high school district trustees.
By ANNIE BURRIS
The Orange County Register
HUNTINGTON BEACH – Trustees with the city’s high school district tonight will consider cutting teachers and programs from the Huntington Beach Adult School for two years to help balance the budget.
At the same meeting, the board will hold a special reception to honor Adult Education Week, which began Monday.
Students from the adult school are slated to receive “Lifelong Learners” awards tonight.
“I have attended the school for two years and it has taught me the computer skills I didn’t know that I had,” said Tom Augenfeld in an e-mail to the Register. “I received a promotion at work because of my computer skills that I learned.”
Board president Bonnie Castrey, who approved the reception and awards for tonight’s meeting, was not immediately available for comment.
Trustees are also looking at eliminating summer school except for special education students and scaling down funding for art, music and physical education classes.
The Huntington Beach Union High School District will save about $7 million by downsizing the adult school, helping them make $9 million in reductions necessary for the 2009-10 school year budget, said Superintendent Van Riley said. Seven adult education teachers would get layoff notices as part of the school’s cuts, he said.
The new $8.5 adult school facility is slated to open July 2011 and will be location at the south end of Ocean View High School.
“The adult education program has provided a valuable service to our community for many years,” Riley wrote in an e-mail. “In two years when the new facility opens, I am recommending a return to the full funding model for adult education.”
Adult classes including English as a Second Language will continue at satellite locations throughout the district.
The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. at the district offices, 5832 Bolsa Ave. The reception honoring students from the adult school begins at 7 p.m., also at the district offices.
Contact the writer: aburris@ocregister.com or 714-445-6696
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Thursday, March 12, 2009
Irvine Unified considers budget cuts for 2009-10
But 164 temporary teachers’ contracts aren’t being renewed.
By ERIKA CHAVEZ
The Orange County Register
Irvine Unified will make no cuts to this year’s budget, in contrast to most other area school districts slashing millions from their budgets.
The district did send out 164 layoff notices to temporary teachers, a standard annual practice. Most years, the majority of the teachers don’t actually get laid off, said district spokesman Ian Hanigan. The deadline to let teachers know whether the layoffs will stick is May 15.
District officials are anticipating a $7 million shortfall in categorical funds for the 2009-10 school year, but some of that deficit might be offset by the categorical flexibility that has been offered as part of the state’s recently adopted budget. That means the district might be able to move money around from different funds to cover the shortfall, a practice that was previously prohibited.
Unlike neighboring school districts, Irvine Unified has no plans to cut administrative or classified positions. District officials credit the transition into a different funding model, in which Irvine Unified would forgo state funds altogether in favor of local property taxes.
Another factor, is the unflagging support of the Irvine Public Schools Foundation, the Irvine Co. and the city of Irvine for the district’s relatively stable financial footing.
Superintendent Gwen Gross said with the projected statewide cuts, it now appears IUSD will move into a “local funding” model, often referred to as “Basic Aid.” In Basic Aid districts, the local property tax revenue is relied upon to fund school needs because it exceeds what the district would receive from the state. The Laguna Beach and Newport-Mesa districts have long operated under this funding model and Basic Aid districts tend to have more stable budgets.
Laguna Beach is making no cuts and no layoffs this year, and Newport-Mesa plans no layoffs and $8.2 million in cuts.
Irvine school board members will further discuss potential teacher reductions at a March 18 budget study session, but Hanigan said district officials believe the majority of those who received layoff notices will be back next year. The board will vote on any reductions at an April 7 meeting.
The district will likely adopt a final budget at a June 23 board meeting.
While the district is on relatively sound financial footing for now, the future will hold challenges. Irvine Unified expects to fall back into a “revenue limit” formula in 2010-11, which means it would once again be reliant on state funds. That could translate into a $10 million shortfall without corrective action.
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Monday, March 9, 2009
2,856 O.C. school jobs targeted as layoff deadline looms
Orange Unified shuts down Silverado Elementary, boosts class sizes.
By FERMIN LEAL and SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
Orange County school districts this week have targeted 2,821 employees for job cuts as they seek to carve roughly $275 million in spending before Sunday’s state layoff notification deadline.
The figures represent 24 of 29 districts, making it likely the possible losses will rise by hundreds of jobs and the amount slashed in budgets for 2008-09 and 2009-10 could approach $300 million.
More than half of the employees identified for possible layoffs so far are certificated – a job category dominated by classroom teachers.
Hit hardest is Santa Ana Unified, the county’s largest district where $56 million in cuts prompted board members Tuesday to issue layoff notices to 530 certificated staff, including 345 classroom teachers.
“No one here on this board feels comfortable with the task at hand,” said Santa Ana Unified’s board president, Jose Alfredo Hernandez. “We are going through a worldwide economic collapse. … The lights on and a teacher in the classroom is all we might be left with.”
In years past, districts often had to guess at possible cuts, and issued many more notices than needed; this year, California has already adopted a budget that requires $8.4 billion in statewide education cuts – money districts are paring from their 2008-09 and 2009-10 spending plans.
Still, several O.C. districts have indicated they are issuing large numbers of notices to ensure flexibility in making cuts before budgets are due in June. Districts also hire teachers on temporary contracts. Those employees don’t require the same layoff warnings, but are often informed in March, too.
Last year, districts warned more than 1,900 permanent and temporary teachers of layoff or termination, but ended up dropping only about 100.
Under current plans, the cuts will reach deep into classrooms, ripping through class-size reduction efforts and International Baccalaureate programs.
But they won’t end there. Some districts expect to slash administrators, slice away at after-school sports, limit busing and other support services and force the closure of multiple schools.
Saddleback Valley Unified, which faces declining enrollment, voted Tuesday to shut one of its oldest schools – O’Neill Elementary in Mission Viejo – just months after trustees pledged to keep it open.
More than 800 community members attended the meeting as the board wrestled over $10 million in cuts.
“I would like to apologize to the O’Neill community,” said Saddleback Trustee Don Sedgwick, who voted to keep the school open at a Jan. 8 meeting. “It would have been easier if we had voted to close it two months ago.”
Orange Unified, which plans to cut 254 permanent and temporary teachers, is facing a $30.1 million deficit. On Thursday, the district decided to close Silverado Elementary School, boost class sizes, cut some high school counselors and charge $30 fees to high school athletes, among other cuts.
And officials warned more cuts could be in the offing.
Schools expect to continue refining their budget trims for the next several months.
Capistrano Unified, which voted to issue about 407 layoff notices Monday as part of $25 million in trims, warned community members to expect changes.
“We’re not talking about cutting any specific program at this point,” Capistrano Trustee Larry Christensen said. “Many of them are negotiated options that have to do with everyone involved in the school district.”
Here’s a district-by-district rundown.
(Dollar figures typically represent cuts in 2008-09 and 2009-10, although schools differ in how they’re making cuts, with not all trimming the current-year budget.)
Click the links to get more detailed reports. Check back throughout the week for updates.
Anaheim Elementary: 34 permanent teachers and 174 temporary/probationary teachers; $10.4 million in cuts
Anaheim Union High: 151 jobs, including 73 teachers; $37 million in cuts
Brea-Olinda Unified: 29 jobs, including 26 teachers; $3.6 million in cuts
Buena Park Elementary: 57 jobs, including 41 classroom teachers; $3.1 million in cuts
Capistrano Unified: 407 jobs, including 262 classroom teachers; $25 million in cuts
Centralia Elementary: 139 jobs, including up to 62 teachers; $3.4 million
Cypress Elementary: 25 jobs, including 18 teachers; $1.4 million in cuts
Fullerton Elementary: 180 jobs; $6.5 million in cuts
Fullerton Joint Union High: No layoffs anticipated at this time; $10.3 million in cuts
Huntington Beach City Elementary: 32 teachers
Huntington Beach Union High: Equivalent of 30 adult-education full-time teachers; $9 million in cuts
Irvine Unified: 164 temporary teachers informed their contracts won’t be renewed; no cuts.
La Habra Elementary: 35 teaching posts; $4.2 million in cuts
Laguna Beach Unified: The basic aid district, which derives its funding primarily from local property taxes, is not planning any layoffs or budget cuts.
Lowell Joint: 27 employees (22 to be out of jobs March 31), but no classroom teachers affected; $1.4 million in cuts
Magnolia Elementary: 22 temporary teachers; $2.8 million in cuts
Newport-Mesa Unified: 36 positions cut, but no layoffs (positions cut through attrition); $8.2 million in cuts
Ocean View Elementary: 72 temporary teachers; $6 million in cuts
Orange County Department of Education: 93 teachers (22 temporary; 71 probationary and permanent); at least $9 million in cuts
Orange Unified: 254 temporary and permanent teachers; $30.1 million in cuts
Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified: 91 jobs; $14.1 million in cuts
Saddleback Valley Unified: 170 jobs, including 46 classroom teachers; school to close permanently; $10 million in cuts
Santa Ana Unified: 530 jobs, including 345 classroom teachers; $21.5 million this year, $35 million next year
Tustin Unified: 140 jobs, including 117 teachers; $23.5 million in cuts
Awaiting data:
Fountain Valley Elementary
Garden Grove Unified
Los Alamitos Unified
Savanna Elementary
Westminster Elementary
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Thursday, March 12, 2009
‘Stand Up for Schools’ rally draws 500 to Fullerton
Commuters give thumbs up to pickets one day after 180 layoff notices are distributed.
By BARBARA GIASONE
The Orange County Register
FULLERTON Horns blared through one of downtown Fullerton’s busiest intersections Thursday afternoon in support of 180 educators in the Fullerton School District and those throughout the state who received layoff notices this week.
Most of the rush-hour motorists who blew through Chapman Avenue and Harbor Boulevard learned of other major cuts to education by reading the protest rally signs held by nearly 500 teachers and their supporters.
Teachers union President Andy Montoya said in an earlier statement the rally was an action to show state legislators that people are in this together.
“In Fullerton – “The Education City” – people will not sit quietly and allow these cuts to happen,” he said.
Fullerton administrators projected on Tuesday the district will have to slice $6.5 million from its 2009/10 budget if additional funding isn’t found.
Assistant Supt. Mark Douglas, who wound his way through the crowds, said the layoff notices in the elementary district represented “the ugliest number.”
“It can only get better,” he said.
Those who stood on curbs and juggled signs held personal reasons for joining the demonstration.
Fern Drive School fourth-grade teacher Steve Rabenston, who got his pink slip Wednesday, said he substituted for six years until he could sign a full-time contract in 2007.
“This district is home,” he said. “It looks like I may have to start subbing again and move back in with my mom.”
Rabenston’s teaching partner Don Martineau, wearing a sandwich-board style sign, blamed the district for spending too much money on the former superintendent’s 1:1 laptop program, leaving less money for teachers to teach the program.
Dressed in the requisite pink-and-black attire, Beechwood School first-grader Kameryn Bergeron, 7, waved her “Save the Teachers” sign.
“I want them to save Mrs. Powers or I’ll be sad if we lose her,” she said.
Nearby classified employee Sheryll Honseal said that although final cuts have not been announced for her division, rumor has it the district planned to cut hours in half, take away benefits and cut salaries perhaps up to 60 percent.
“My husband is self-employed and his business is way down,” Honseal said. “At our ages of 50 and 53, there are not a whole lot of people to hire you.”
City Councilwoman Sharon Quirk, who has taught in the district for 23 years, spotted dozens of teachers she hadn’t seen for years.
“I’d rather be out here celebrating (friendships) than trying to save our jobs,” she said.
For one hour, a chorus of cheers responded to motorists waving or giving the thumbs up to the demonstrators. But businesswoman Terri Olson Spreen, whose second-floor office is adjacent to the intersection, said she didn’t hear the commotion until she went downstairs for a Starbucks.
“My friends are teachers, and it’s affecting all of us,” she said. “I’m in human resources, and a lot of my clients are cutting back.”
At least one motorist wasn’t amused.
Cutting across lanes to avoid the commotion, he caught the attention of a police officer monitoring the demonstration. The red and blue lights stood out among the sea of pink and black. A siren could never have been heard.
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Parents, students and school staff gathered at Segerstrom High School Friday morning to show support for those facing layoffs. THERESA CISNEROS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Friday, March 13, 2009
Teachers, parents rally in pink to protest job cuts
More than 2,800 school jobs expected to be lost at O.C. schools.
By FERMIN LEAL, SCOTT MARTINDALE and THERESA CISNEROS
The Orange County Register
Scores of teachers, parents, students and other supporters across Orange County are rallying in front of schools this morning to protest education cuts and teacher layoffs.
On this day dubbed “Pink Friday,” many are wearing pink and black, symbolizing the pink slips teachers are receiving this week to notify them they might be laid off because of deep state budget cuts to schools.
They carried posters saying “No More School Cuts,” “Save Our Teachers,” and “Schools Need To Come First,” and marched along busy streets as cars honked to show support.
Santa Ana Unified
On MacArthur Boulevard and Raitt Street in Santa Ana, dozens of teachers from several Santa Ana Unified schools started gathering as early as 6 a.m.
Districts countywide have already announced more than 2,800 potential layoffs to teachers, administrators, counselors, instructional aides and to other positions. Santa Ana Unified, hid hardest, is sending layoff notices to 530 teachers.
“We’re just out here to show our support,” said Pat Ingles, a kindergarten teacher at Greenville Fundamental Elementary. “These education cuts are hurting our ability to teach.”
Greenville first-grade teacher Celeste Benninger said the budget cuts could mean some elementary class sizes will increase from 20 to 30 students.
“Right now, students needing the extra help get it,” she said. “It’s going to be more difficult now with all these cuts.”
Saddleback High special education teacher Jennifer Skelton said, “We’re just tired of cuts. What’s happening is just hurting kids the most.”
The Segerstrom event was organized by the Santa Ana Educators’ Association. Other rallies were scheduled to take place simultaneously at campuses across the district, including Carr Intermediate, Esqueda Elementary, Mendez Intermediate and Villa Intermediate schools.
Joseph Tagaloa, a Segerstrom teacher who attended SAUSD schools, urged passing motorists to honk their horns in support.
“When I was in high school some of my mentors were teachers,” he said. “Assuming it’s the same today, and they still get rid of us, that could be someone’s mentor, or someone they look up to who will be gone.”
Segerstrom High senior Jesus Nolasco stood with his teachers at the Santa Ana school.
“A lot of the parents don’t know how bad these cuts will be. We want to show that and also show we care,” he said.
Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified
At Travis Ranch K-8 School in Yorba Linda, about 75 teachers and supporters stood outside in the minutes before school began, waving banners and cheering wildly when cars honked horns in support.
Travis Ranch employees were clad in black and waved pink-lettered signs reading “Stand Up For Schools,” “In California Today, 1,000’s of Teachers Will Receive Pink Slips” and “Your Kids Deserve Better.”
“I’m in full support of my teachers and education throughout the state of California,” said Travis Ranch principal Larry Mauzey, dressed in all black, down to his suit tie.
Travis Ranch teachers were unsure how many teachers were pink-slipped at their school, but said they are standing outside today to support colleagues statewide
“This is solidarity for all teachers in the state,” said 38-year teacher Helen Davis, who teaches fifth grade at Travis Ranch. “The kids will get less personal instruction. The ratio of staff to students is going to go up.”
“We’re going to lose the very structure of what we’ve built,” said Travis Ranch middle school math teacher Lisa Ogan, a teacher for 20 years.
Teachers said they’ve shared with students their reasons for rallying.
“The kids are concerned about who we’re going to lose from our school,” said Bobbie Flora, a Travis Ranch middle school language arts teacher for 23 years. “I tell them I’m standing up for them. Teachers care. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t be here.”
Tustin Unified
Tustin Memorial Academy in Tustin Unified, a GATE magnet school, was awash in pink attire this morning, too, reports parent Naomi Dei Rossi, who has a son in second grade and one in kindergarten.
“It was just a sea of pink,” she said. “The whole school – teachers and students and parents.”
Dei Rossi said she’s heard about eight of the school’s teachers, including some of the GATE instructors, received pink slips. Some people were giving the pink-slipped teachers cards this morning.
The district’s parents are launching a letter-writing campaign on behalf of their teachers, too, and Dei Rossi said her next step today was to write hers.
Check back for updates on the day’s rallies.
Discussions on School District Transparency and Parent Rights by the SFSchools list serve. To subscribe, please request at this email:
sfschools@yahoogroups.com
Why is transparency with the community important? Because transparency is always about honesty and integrity, as the financial meltdown has shown us with its hidden trillions in derivatives. The district has refused to allow the public its legal right to review how the school planning is going. It has invoked an exemption from public disclosure provided in the Public Records Act. Not only is this hypocritical given the Strategic Plan’s emphasis on transparency, but the exemption cited is invalid.
After this brief intro I have pasted a letter below, which I wrote to the District explaining the public record request issue in greater detail.
The District has staked its future on a new plan centered around the Balance Scorecard. It is a plan that is supposed to bring all the stakeholders into the process of transforming the District’s schools. But is this new community effort for real or just talk? Consider this.
Each school is in the planning process. Some schools are doing better than others. If you want to know about your plan you might be able to find out by asking your principal. But if you want to know how the District is doing on a whole this is not information that is available. In fact, not until after all the scorecards are due on May 1 is the District going to divulge any of that information. This creates two problems.
1. The District is unwilling to allow the public a chance to see how the process is unfolding across the District. This secrecy raises the specter of problems. Are there problems with the BSC and what are they, if any? Can they be identified and resolved?
2. How can schools learn from each other if they write their plans in isolation. Is this a smart strategy? The District wants this “learning” to take place later, even though they post bits and pieces of BSCs on the Beyond the Talk website. This policy of isolation is counter to very core of the Strategic Plan. Is the District testing the know-how of its principals by making them work independently? And if so, why do they allow the posts on the website?
In the meantime, the District is doing everything it can not to let me see other school drafts. But as you will read below, they already released them. They believe I would write a damaging account of their process so far. So they are trying to do preemptive damage control, in my opinion. But they would say that is not the case- they are simply trying to protect the integrity of the process by allowing schools to work without interference. So is reporting on the process interference or feedback? Is the community entitled to participate and inform the process or should the process by controlled entirely by the District without community feedback?
Here is the letter I wrote.
Thank you for the response to my records request of March 6, 2009.
I ask you to reconsider your denial of my request based on the following:
The exemption cited in 6255 of the Government Code and/or the deliberative process privilege, was waived when the District released BSC drafts to various members of the public, many of which I have in my possession. Please refer specifically to Section 6254.5 below in the postscript, which basically says that if you give drafts to one member of the public outside the agency you cannot withhold it from other members of the public. It is a disappointment that the District is acting under a veil of secrecy despite the context of a policy of transparency expressed in the Strategic Plan. It was not my intention to act as the spoiler even if I could.
I am aware that the District would like to analyze each principal’s Scorecard development without a great deal of public intervention at this stage. This would be understandable, at least in part, if I believed that the District was truly intent upon holding the schools accountable for the work they have done. I have consistently spoken out using my limited knowledge and means to address the host of problems that, in both our opinions, legal and otherwise, pervade Alamo Elementary School. But my single-handed efforts have gone without remedy, (though certainly it has been a pleasure to have made your acquaintance in the process). So I am understandably skeptical about District promises.
I am not resolute of opinion that the District is intent upon meeting its stated performance management goals, particularly in regard to “community engagement” – my particular area of interest. It is also quite obvious that many hardworking and creative principals will not be pleased with the idea of having to share the fruits of their labor, in regard to the Scorecards, with other principals who ought to meet the needs of their own unique communities – even if this is contrary to the ultimate goal of cross-fertilization of successful strategies, as described in the Strategic plan. This seems to be a basic conundrum of the Plan itself, something that the District has, I’m sure, considered.
Lastly, the school site council has a legally mandated role to develop and recommend a school plan and that cannot be accomplished if the BSC drafts are withheld, even under the exemption you claim, until the agenda for the SSC vote is posted, at which time the District must release the drafts. Certainly you must understand that an SSC cannot develop and recommend a plan it has never seen.
Thank you for your reconsideration.
Sincerely yours,
Don Krause
PS:
CALIFORNIA FIRST AMENDMENT COALITION
534 4th St., Suite B
San Rafael, CA 94901
Q: May records be selectively disclosed to the public — to some people, but not to others?
A: No. If an agency discloses a record to a “member of the public” — a person with no particular official role or special legal entitlement to obtain it — that record cannot then be withheld from other members of the public on the basis of a permissive exemption. The agency may change its general policy and take a more restrictive line concerning a certain type of document in the future, but in all but a few situations, a particular record cannot selectively be made accessible to some members of the public and not to others. The Act states:
Section 6252. As used in this chapter: . . . (f) ‘Member of the public’ means any person, except a member, agent, officer, or employee of a federal, state, or local agency acting within the scope of his or her membership, agency, office, or employment.
Section 6254.5. Notwithstanding any other provisions of the law, whenever a state or local agency discloses a public record which is otherwise exempt from this chapter, to any member of the public, this disclosure shall constitute a waiver of the exemptions specified in Sections 6254, 6254.7, or other similar provisions of law. For purposes of this section, “agency” includes a member, agent, officer, or employee of the agency acting within the scope of his or her membership, agency, office, or employment.
This section, however, shall not apply to disclosures:
(a) Made pursuant to the Information Practices Act (commencing with Section 1798 of the Civil Code) or discovery proceedings.
(b) Made through other legal proceedings.
(c) Within the scope of disclosure of a statute which limits disclosure of specified writings to certain purposes.
(d) Not required by law, and prohibited by formal action of an elected legislative body of the local agency which retains the writings.
(e) Made to any governmental agency which agrees to treat the disclosed material as confidential. Only persons authorized in writing by the person in charge of the agency shall be permitted to obtain the information. Any information obtained by the agency shall only be used for purposes which are consistent with existing law.
(f) Of records relating to a financial institution or an affiliate thereof, if the disclosures are made to the financial institution or affiliate by a state agency responsible for the regulation or supervision of the financial institution or affiliate.
(g) Of records relating to any person that is subject to the jurisdiction of the Department of Corporations, if the disclosures are made to the person that is the subject of the records for the purpose of corrective action by that person, or if a corporation, to an officer, director, or other key personnel of the corporation for the purpose of corrective action, or to any other person to the extent necessary to obtain information from that person for the purpose of an investigation by the Department of Corporations.
The following are compliments of SAUSD board member, John Palacio:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/schools-stimulus/index.html
Special Education Stimulus Money Raising Cautions
For years, school officials have complained that the federal government hasn’t met what they say is its obligation to fully fund the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, which governs the education of 6.7 million students with disabilities.
Within the next few weeks, though, the federal tap will open up, releasing an extra $6.1 billion for districts to use for special education, with another $6.1 billion to come later this year. The money is part of the massive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed last month to help stimulate the recession-battered economy.
That money is on top of the $11 billion appropriated for special education in the current fiscal year.
Though grateful for the largess, school leaders face restrictions with that money. The rules governing the use of federal special education money mean that it’s unwise for districts to use the added funding to start new programs or hire new teachers. If they were to do so, districts would have to continue to pay for those costs in two years, when the federal infusion goes away, under a provision in the IDEA that requires districts to avoid making large cuts in programs from year to year.
The U.S. Department of Education, in recently released guidelines, suggests that special education aid under the stimulus measure be used for one-time expenditures. (“Ed. Dept. Outlines Conditions for Stimulus Use,” this issue.)
“Generally, funds should be used for short-term investments that have the potential for long-term benefits,” such as professional development, the department’s guidance says.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reiterated the point when he testified before the House Budget Committee last week.
“There’s a huge opportunity to help train regular education teachers to better work with special education children,” he told the committee.
The extra $13 billion in Title I money for schools serving large numbers of low-income students should also be used for short-term investments, particularly in early-childhood education, the Education Department guidance says.
But spending on short-term projects may leave school administrators in the position of buying equipment with one pot of money, while laying off teachers at the same time, said Bruce Hunter, the associate executive director of advocacy and policy for the American Association of School Administrators, in Arlington, Va.
Though the Education Department is trying to balance competing needs, “the statutes are prescriptive, and the regulations are prescriptive, and there’s not a lot of latitude,” Mr. Hunter said.
Like many superintendents, Mr. Hunter wasn’t critical of the Obama administration’s efforts: The economic crisis “is just bigger than anyone thought it was going to be.”
Long-Term Implications
The IDEA allows some flexibility in spending federal aid. Every federal special education dollar must be spent on special education, but the law allows districts to reduce their local contribution to special education when they receive an increase in federal funds.
That flexibility means that Judith Johnson, the superintendent of the 3,000-student Peekskill, N.Y., district, will be able to use stimulus money to preserve about five teaching positions in next year’s proposed budget. However, the stimulus measure didn’t prevent the district from sending layoff notifications last week to some 50 staff members, including teachers, clerical employees, and custodians. The employees who may end up being laid off at the end of this school year represent about 10 percent of the district’s staff.
Ms. Johnson said the stimulus money is welcome, although it’s unclear when districts in New York state will see it. She said the stimulus could prompt discussion of other important funding issues.
“I would just want to ask them, ‘Have you thought about the implications down the road? Have you thought about the fact that the rules that govern IDEA need to be changed?’” she said. “We feel very comfortable raising the questions, because we feel we’re finally being listened to.”
Michael P. Benway, the superintendent of the 6,400-student Valparaiso, Ind., district, is more fortunate than some of his colleagues. Several years ago, the district started cost-saving measures, including eliminating some positions by attrition and increasing the class loads of newly hired teachers.
The measures were not popular at the time, Mr. Benway said, but they left the district in a position where the stimulus dollars can be used to enhance programs, instead of filling a large budget gap. His special education money is tentatively slated to go toward training paraprofessionals and strengthening the district’s response-to-intervention program.
He doesn’t expect to start any new programs with the money, however. “That is very traumatic, when you introduce a program, and then you have to reduce it,” he said.
With a special education population constituting about 25 percent of the 4,600-student Salem, Mass., district, Superintendent William J. Cameron Jr. said he isn’t as concerned about starting new programs, because the district was going to be facing those costs anyway. Traditionally, Salem has paid for many special education students to attend programs outside the district.
The stimulus money can be spent increasing the district’s capacity to serve those students, he said.
Vol. 28, Issue 25, Pages 6-7
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Special Eduation: Charting a Course After High School
The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act calls for schools to help students develop a plan that will carry them to college or the workplace, but the requirement remains a challenge for families and educators alike.
By Christina A. Samuels
Kathy Eckert-Mason doesn’t think she’s an unrealistic mom.
Yet as she worked with school officials on a plan that would provide a smooth path from high school to college for her son, Rick, she wondered if teachers saw her that way.
Rick Mason, now 20, has autism. He had always been included in regular classes, but with an aide providing support to him and other classmates with special needs. His mother wanted his high school to help him attain the self-sufficiency to handle classes at an out-of-state university.
His teachers, she believes, saw his prospects as less expansive. They suggested he could attend community college in their hometown of Corvallis, Ore., while living at home.
For students with disabilities, planning for life after high school is regulated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, just like other aspects of special education. But despite tweaks to the federal law over its 34-year history—including a relatively recent change that requires schools to give students a summary of their strengths, skills, and needs when they graduate—developing a solid transition plan remains one of the most challenging parts of the IDEA to carry out.
Ms. Eckert-Mason said that in her situation, “I walked away kind of disillusioned by it all.”
Through her own professional contacts as a vocational-rehabilitation counselor for the state of Oregon, Ms. Eckert-Mason arranged job-shadowing opportunities for her son, assisted him during college visits, and now offers support as he attends the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, where he is a sophomore majoring in health education.
Ms. Eckert-Mason said she thinks high school administrators “have this one mold, and this is what you do. Sometimes, the special education staff gets stuck in that.”
Moving Into Adulthood
The U.S. Department of Education is funding an extensive study of students who were ages 13 to 16 in 2000, as they moved into adult roles. In 2004, researchers released a report that focused specifically on students with disabilities. Among the findings:
• School staff members reported that about 70 percent of students with transition plans participated actively by providing input into the plans. Twelve percent of those students took a “leadership role.”
• About 6 percent of secondary school students with disabilities reportedly did not attend their individualized-education-program meetings that dealt with transition planning, and about 15 percent had parents who did not attend.
• Overall, about half of students with disabilities planned to go to college, but that intention varied from 10 percent of students with mental retardation to more than 70 percent of students with visual impairments.
• Students from upper-income households were more likely than those from lower-income families to plan on attending a college or university, and to have schools make contacts with colleges and universities on their behalf.
• Low-income and African-American students were more likely to have vocational training, placement, or support identified as post-school needs.
SOURCE: “Transition Planning for Students with Disabilities: A Special Topic Report of Findings From the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2”
As the IDEA has moved from mainly ensuring compliance by school officials to promoting positive outcomes for students with disabilities, lawmakers have added rules that require schools and students to look to the future.
For example, the law says postsecondary goals should be a part of students’ individualized education programs, by at least the time they turn 16, along with measurable steps to achieve those goals. Students are to be involved in creating their own IEPs as much as possible, and community organizations should be part of the planning if a student will need continuing help after leaving school. The IDEA allows students to remain in school until at least age 21.
There is evidence that the changes have created better postsecondary outcomes for students with disabilities. A federally financed long-term study of such students, released in 2004, showed that almost 90 percent had started transition planning as outlined by the IDEA. School personnel reported that about three-quarters of students with disabilities were following a course of study that would help them achieve their goals.
But the very nature of the IDEA requires students, parents, and teachers to make a significant mental shift as students near the end of their time in high school. When students are covered by the IDEA, they can be relatively passive recipients of federally mandated services. Students will not lose out on services for not showing up to an IEP meeting, for example, even if they’re invited to come.
But all that changes when high school ends. Students have to actively pursue the accommodations they need for success at work and in higher education, and without the ability to advocate for themselves, pushing for those accommodations could be a struggle. Teachers and parents, who have spent years supporting a student, also have to learn to take a hands-off role, particularly if a student plans to go to college.
“Colleges and universities don’t want to hear from Mommy,” said Stan Shaw, a professor at the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, and the co-director of the university’s Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability.
What the Law Requires
For precollegiate students with disabilities, transition planning is governed by the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.
Among the provisions:
• Individualized education programs are to include “appropriate measurable postsecondary goals based upon age-appropriate transition assessments related to training, education, employment, and, where appropriate, independent living skills.”
• Transition planning is to begin no later than the first individualized education program in effect when the student turns 16.
• The school must invite the student to participate in any IEP meeting that includes discussion of postsecondary goals.
• Districts must complete a “summary of performance” for a student leaving school that “includes recommendations on how to assist the child in meeting the child’s postsecondary goals.” The summary should include “academic achievement and functional performance,” but otherwise the law does not make requirements on the states.
NOTES: The IDEA does not apply to students who are attending college or other postsecondary institutions. Those institutions are governed by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Generally, those laws do not require institutions to modify their curricula, though they are required to offer accommodations, which could include extended testing time, sign-language interpreters, or a reduced course load.
Students are also not required to inform their postsecondary schools of their disabilities, and colleges are not required to assess students for their special needs.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education
Another complication is that the IEP—which is the key documentation of a disability for a precollegiate student—has no sway over postsecondary institutions. Instead, colleges and universities often require an independent evaluation of a disability, and the IDEA has made clear that local school districts are not required to provide testing for that purpose, said Larry J. Kortering, a co-principal investigator with the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center and a professor of special education at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.
A 2004 addition to the IDEA requires that students receive a “summary of performance” from their school that outlines the students’ strengths, weaknesses, and need for accommodations. Those who backed the creation of such a document said the information would help students be active advocates on their own behalf. At its most useful, the document could also serve as the proof of a student’s need to receive accommodations from a college or university, if the postsecondary institution chose to accept it.
But districts have not used the potentially powerful document to its fullest, said Mr. Shaw, the University of Connecticut professor.
Because the IDEA and its accompanying regulations do not clearly define what has to be in a summary of performance, Mr. Shaw organized a task force of representatives of national professional organizations and disability advocacy groups to develop a model template. The template includes a clear identification of a student’s disability, a list of postsecondary goals, a description of the student’s current performance along with any accommodations or modifications to the curriculum used by the school, and a set of recommendations for how to achieve success after leaving high school. Depending on the student, the recommendations could be for adaptive devices, assistive services, or compensatory strategies.
“The attempt was to make something useful and practical and not difficult to fill out,” Mr. Shaw said. However, some states have responded to the requirement “with something that can be filled out on a postcard.”
Mr. Shaw and his colleagues at the university’s center on postsecondary education and disability tracked the adoption of the model template in states. Of 43 states surveyed, 90 percent had created state forms that included all the elements required by the federal special education law. Nine states had adopted the model template directly.
Seventeen states required attaching test scores to the document, which is not recommended under the federal law, but is included in the model template because colleges typically want such information. But only 12 states require students to complete any part of the document, which Mr. Shaw said is an important element.
“The law, unfortunately, was not very prescriptive. But everything we know says that self-determination is critical for these students,” he said.
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Even without a summary of performance, some problems could be improved by better communication between school districts and colleges, experts say. Unfortunately, the two aren’t always used to talking to each other, said Mr. Kortering, with the national transition center.
“Higher ed has got to quit being this ivory tower where we say we have all the answers. We’ve got to say, ‘What do we need to do to help these kids be successful?'” he said. By the same token, he added, “public school folks have got to do a better job of talking.”
Transition planning doesn’t pose a challenge just for the college-bound. For students who will rely on community support after they end school, the depth of transition planning can end up being dependent on where they live.
Elsie May Gladding, a retired minister with the United Methodist Church, ran into the issue when looking for services for her daughter, Emily Thompson, 20, who has autism.
Ms. Gladding said she was happy with the services available to Emily when the family lived in Frederick, Md., located about 50 miles from Washington and Baltimore. The program she was enrolled in spent half of a school day training students in “life skills,” and Emily, then 18, worked as a volunteer assistant in a medical center for the rest of the day. The transition coordinator for the program was plugged in to the community, and could direct students to the different vocational options available.
The students involved in the program were thriving, Ms. Gladding said. “We didn’t know anybody who was sitting on the couch.”
A move two years ago to rural Alton, Va., just north of the North Carolina border, was a shock for her. The community “had nothing of substance for these kids,” she said.
“The high school worked really hard at trying to put together something that would work, just trying to give her things to keep busy,” Ms. Gladding added. Eventually, the high school modified Emily’s IEP to include a private school placement that provides job and life-skills training similar to the program Emily attended in Maryland.
“We’ve been able to receive services, but we had to work very hard for it,” Ms. Gladding said. “It’s totally inconsistent across the state. The local school districts just do what they can.”
While the IDEA offered parents of college-bound students a helpful document through the summary of performance, the 2004 re-authorization of the law took away a requirement that schools follow up multiple times with outside community-support agencies.
The U.S. Department of Education, in explaining the change, said dropping that requirement would ease the paperwork burden on schools and allow them to focus on “active strategic partnerships” with agencies that provide support to people with disabilities. The change also saves districts money, the department said.
Transition planning for students with disabilities continues to be the focus of several initiatives. For example, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, in Alexandria Va., heads a “community of practice” around the issue that links several states that are working to improve their planning for students with disabilities. Ten states, more than a dozen national organizations, students, and federal agencies like the U.S. Departments of Labor and Justice are involved in that effort.
The federal Education Department also funds technical-assistance centers nationwide to help districts on the topic. One of the newest, the Transition Education Network, will provide professional development to districts in Florida. The network, with headquarters at the University of South Florida’s campus in St. Petersburg, will also work with preservice and current teachers, said Lyman Dukes III, the principal investigator and an associate professor of special education at the university.
Transition “is a challenge and it remains a challenge. There are so many pieces of the puzzle that it is very easy to drop one,” Mr. Dukes said.
Parents are also seeking out their own sources of information. Alison Thomas has six sons, two of whom—Zackary, a 17-year-old junior and Christopher, a 16-year-old sophomore—are in the beginning process of planning for life after high school. Their disabilities include Asperger’s syndrome.
Ms. Thomas, who lives in Allen, Texas, and is the director of communications for a church, worries that the academic bar has been set too low for her children. She recently attended a transition conference in Austin and came back armed with ideas, including pushing for a student-led IEP process. Through that process, she hopes the school will learn more about her sons’ hopes for their lives after they leave high school.
“Here’s what I’ve learned: It’s all about networking,” Ms. Thomas said. “You have to tap every avenue you can possibly identify.”
Coverage of pathways to colleges and careers is underwritten in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Vol. 28, Issue 25, Pages 18-21
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SmartBrief: Report: Elementary schools have preserved arts, music programs
GAO finds school arts curriculum not hurt by standardized testing
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, March 18, 2009
By MATTHEW HAAG and HOLLY YAN / The Dallas Morning News
A government report found that elementary school time devoted to art and music curriculum hasn’t changed despite the ongoing pressures of standardized testing in core subjects such as math and science.
The report, prepared by the Government Accountability Office, allays the possible fears of art and music teachers that increased emphasis on high-stakes tests – such as the TAKS test in Texas – has reduced students’ exposure to the fine arts.
“Amid concerns about possible elimination of arts education, the national picture indicates that the vast majority of schools have found a way to preserve their arts education programs,” the GAO report stated.
The report found that 90 percent of elementary teachers surveyed indicated that art and music curriculum remained the same during three school years starting in 2004-05 and ending in 2006-07. Only 7 percent of the teachers reported that instruction time decreased. The survey didn’t address instruction time changes in junior highs or high schools.
“Our study identified a more likely reduction in time spent on arts education at schools identified as needing improvement and those with higher percentages of minority students,” the report stated.
The GAO, a federal agency that reports to Congress, conducted its study in response to concerns that the No Child Left Behind law’s annual yearly progress reports, which grade and compare schools’ math and English scores, would deprive students of art and music instruction.
However, the report concluded that additional research would be required to determine NCLB’s impact.
In the Dallas area, some fine arts teachers said their instruction time hasn’t decreased in recent years. But some said they feared that students would be exposed to less art and music education as schools increasingly focus on standardized testing.
“I feel like, in my class, they get a good exposure to music,” said Joyee Foster, a music teacher at Williams Elementary School in Garland. “But I think they are starved for art. They don’t even have time in the classroom to even spend on art.”
However, she said, instances occasionally arise in which she wonders if her instruction time is being whittled away.
In previous years, the principal required her to take her music students on bathroom breaks so they would not ask to go during English or math classes, she said. That problem was corrected, she said, but this year her Friday music class meets in the school’s gym so the students can fulfill their physical education credit while dancing to music.
A few years ago, Foster said, students were routinely pulled from her class for six weeks for TAKS remediation.
“Students are often pulled out of courses – especially music courses – so additional TAKS remediation can take place,” said Karen Kneten, communications manager for the Texas Music Educators Association. “We’re hearing that from instructors across the state.”
Plus, Kneten said, the state’s new graduation requirements, which call for high school students to take four years of math, science, English and social studies to graduate, have the potential to hinder music education.
“Because of all the academic requirements, maybe they used to be in basketball, choir and theater,” Kneten said. “Now they potentially have to make a choice of two or one of those.”
Jeff Turner, instrumental music coordinator for Plano ISD, said his district has tried not to deprive students of fine arts curriculum despite the test pressure and an additional physical education requirement in middle school.
“There is some pullout in the middle schools for TAKS remediation in Plano, but it’s hard to say how many students,” Turner said. “Our school district has done a good job.”
Karen Young might be bucking the trend.
Only about 4 percent of the elementary teachers in the GAO survey said their instruction time increased. Young, a music teacher at Stephens Elementary School in Garland ISD, is among them.
This school year, she has incorporated music into a weekly fourth-grade math course she teaches to advanced students. Lately, she’s taught fractions using music notes.
“Rhythm is basically the division of the beat,” Young said. “It’s been wildly successful at my school. It’s very exciting.”
The teachers said that not all students learn the same way and that fine arts shouldn’t be seen as expendable or unnecessary. Sometimes, they said, music and art is the best way for a student to learn.
“Fine arts classes teach kids to use a different part of their brain and teaches them to be creative problem solvers and work together in teams, which is what we’re finding employers are looking for in the workforce today,” Turner said.
mhaag@dallasnews.com; hyan@dallasnews.com
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High school student saves teacher choking on almond
Cypress High ninth grader Sam Barrera, left, used the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge an almond his teacher Judy Rader, right, was chocking on during third period freshman English. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Thursday, March 19, 2009
High school student saves teacher choking on almond
Freshman Sam Barrera uses lessons he learned in online health course.
By ERIC CARPENTER
The Orange County Register
CYPRESS – Judy Rader expects her students to remain attentive during her English lessons. But she’s even more thankful that one of her students was paying close attention in health class – it may be what saved her life.
The third-period bell for her freshman English class at Cypress High School was about to ring at 10 a.m. Wednesday and Rader needed a snack to make it through to lunch. So, she reached into a plastic bag on her desk and popped a few whole almonds.
One stuck in her throat.
As the bell rang and students settled into their desks, they noticed Rader hopping up and down and grasping her throat.
Mrs. Rader, are you OK?! students shouted.
She couldn’t breathe.
A senior teacher’s aide threw his arms around her abdomen and gently pumped her stomach. But no luck. The almond remained.
That’s when freshman Sam Barrera, 15, knew he had to act.
“I could see he wasn’t doing it quite right,” Barrera said. “He was going in and out with his hands, not in and up.”
Barrera – part of the school’s AVID program that helps students with average grades get on a track toward pursuing college – had taken an online health course over the summer and a hands-on workshop that taught the Heimlich maneuver.
So Barrera jumped out of his seat while the aide ran for help.
Nearly a minute had passed and Rader wasn’t getting any oxygen to her brain.
Barrera remembered the basics: He put his arms around his teacher’s abdomen, felt for her belly button with his finger, went up two inches, clasped his hands together and pulled in and up.
Once.
The second time harder.
The third time, he lifted his teacher off the ground. The almond popped out.
Rader began to cough. And much-needed oxygen flooded into her lungs.
“I just kept saying, ‘I’m OK, I’m OK,’ ” Rader recalled.
Her students were worried about her. Two girls were so shaken, they began to cry, Barrera said.
Rader was so anxious to reassure her students that she was fine, she quickly moved on with her lesson plan and forgot to thank Barrera.
“I thought about it and had to stop what I was doing and go give him a hug for saving my life,” Rader said.
Emergency officials did not have to respond because of Barrera’s quick aid. Capt. Greg McKeown, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority, applauds Barrera for jumping into action.
Health officials with the American Red Cross say a person can lose consciousness within three to five minutes unless the air passage is cleared.
Rader and Barrera said that they lost track of time during the incident, but they think that her blockage was cleared within two minutes.
“A blocked airway will lead to death. It’s great that he didn’t hesitate,” McKeown said. “He showed huge leadership and his efforts definitely helped this teacher survive.”
Barrera’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed at school. As word spread across campus, he heard a common refrain as he walked the halls.
“Everybody was like, ‘Hey, hero. What’s up?'” Barrera said, grinning.
He was paying close attention to the lessons over the summer because he’s decided he wants to be a firefighter, Barrera said.
His life-saving efforts likely just boosted his résumé, said Ben Carpenter, principal at Cypress High.
Rader said she wanted to make sure Barrera’s family knew how thankful she was, so she put in a call to his mom.
“I got home and told my mom what I did,” Barrera said, “and she was like, ‘What? No you didn’t’
“I told her, ‘Check your phone,'” he said. She was so proud of her son, she began to cry.
Rader said she’s still trying to figure out a proper thank you.
“People keep asking me if I’m going to give him some kind of extra credit,” she said. “That doesn’t seem like enough.”
For more information about local CPR and Heimlich classes, look online at http://www.oc-redcross.org or http://www.ocfa.org.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3769 or ecarpenter@ocregister.com
——————————————-
Anaheim Union recognizes three Teachers of the Year
Recipients include two science teachers and a reading instructor.
By ERIC CARPENTER
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
ANAHEIM Two science teachers and a reading instructor have been named Teachers of the Year in the Anaheim Union High School District.
The three teachers received their awards during a surprise visit this week from Superintendent Joseph Farley and other administrators who brought banners and balloons into their classrooms.
The recipients are: Dean Elder, science teacher at Anaheim High School; Phyllis Fukumoto, science teacher at Dale Junior High School; and reading teacher Karen Pollack from Brookhurst Junior High School.
At Anaheim High, Elder was surprised by his wife, Meg, who teaches dance at the school, and the couple’s daughter, Natalie, who is a junior there.
His students applauded his accomplishment – and suggested that Elder share the good fortune by giving them a night without homework.
At Brookhurst, Pollack was stunned into silence by the surprise ceremony.
“I don’t have the words, which is unusual, because I talk all day,” Pollack said.
At Dale, Fukumoto was the school’s third consecutive winner of a district Teacher of the Year award. Last year, it was history teacher Rob Gaudette, and the year before, AVID teacher Andra Schwartz.
In the classroom, Fukumoto’s award was greeted with rousing applause from students.
Their response was no surprise to Dale Principal Kirsten Levitin.
“Phyllis is here until 5:30 or 6 at night – over the summer. She’s amazing,” Levitin said. “She is always changing her lessons, saying that kids change, so she needs to change the lessons.”
The three teachers will represent the district at the Orange County Teacher of the Year Awards program, sponsored by the Orange County Department of Education, later this year. From there, they could go on to compete for California Teacher of the Year honors.
Last year, two Anaheim Union teachers were honored at the state competition.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 7 1 4-704-3769 or ecarpenter@ocregister.com
COURTESY OF THE ANAHEIM UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
Anaheim High School science teacher Dean Elder is caught by surprise in his classroom by Superintendent Joseph Farley, his wife, Meg, and daughter, Natalie, from left.
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Friday, March 20, 2009
School’s iPod Day a fundraising iDea that rocks
By FRED SWEGLES
The Orange County Register
It isn’t every day that Gabby Cullen, 12, gets to take her iPod to school and listen to the Jonas Brothers.
Before this week, she never could. iPods were, and are, taboo on campus.
But Thursday was a special day at Vista del Mar Middle School in San Clemente. Gabby was one of 200 kids, teachers and staff members who paid $5 each to get to listen to tunes during select times in the school day.
About three-fourths of Vista del Mar’s 500 middle-schoolers own iPods, the staff figures, so iPod Day seemed a swift way to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in memory of former VDM student Katie Westland, who died of leukemia in 2006.
Organizers said iPod Day generated $1,000 in donations – more than double the $400 raised a day earlier selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
This is the third year Vista del Mar has held a two-week fund drive to fight blood cancers. The first effort raised $12,000 in 2007, when memories of 14-year-old Katie’s death were fresh. In 2008, the school raised nearly $7,000.
This year, teacher Sue Puccinelli and the 18 students in her sixth-grade leadership program faced a bigger challenge – raising money in a recession at a school where most kids now are too young to have known Katie.
Donut Day and iPod Day were part of a bigger effort, “Pennies for Patients.” Each classroom gets a donation box. Students are asked to give spare change, scrape up coins from the floor of their car or find pennies under the couch.
“The kids have really stepped up,” Puccinelli said. “I’ve had kids come in with baggies full of all different change. I’ve had kids come in and drop a $20 bill in there.”
Totals will be tallied March 27.
The first year’s $12,000 was boosted by a school assembly where Katie’s mom, Carolyn Westland, “really touched the kids,” Puccinelli said. “A lot of (those) kids knew Katie. We also had a lot of matching donations from businesses.”
Carolyn Westland is back on campus this year, helping the fund drive. Students and staff got “Katie’s Pennies Make Sense” bracelets, and Thursday, students who donated got to listen to their iPods during morning break, lunch and a special in-class period.
“I gave the kids a little 10-minute period in each of my classes,” Puccinelli said. “I was amazed. It was so quiet in here when they were listening. I’m thinking, ‘Man, iPods really do help some of the kids focus better!’ So it was good.”
“It actually helps me write,” said Tatum Reddington, 10.
Teachers pulled out their own iPods. “I was listening to John Mayer,” Puccinelli said.
“I don’t know who he is!” one of her students exclaimed.
Contact the writer: fswegles@ocregister.com or 949-492-5127
—————————
Anaheim Union recognizes three Teachers of the Year
Recipients include two science teachers and a reading instructor.
By ERIC CARPENTER
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
ANAHEIM Two science teachers and a reading instructor have been named Teachers of the Year in the Anaheim Union High School District.
The three teachers received their awards during a surprise visit this week from Superintendent Joseph Farley and other administrators who brought banners and balloons into their classrooms.
The recipients are: Dean Elder, science teacher at Anaheim High School; Phyllis Fukumoto, science teacher at Dale Junior High School; and reading teacher Karen Pollack from Brookhurst Junior High School.
At Anaheim High, Elder was surprised by his wife, Meg, who teaches dance at the school, and the couple’s daughter, Natalie, who is a junior there.
His students applauded his accomplishment – and suggested that Elder share the good fortune by giving them a night without homework.
At Brookhurst, Pollack was stunned into silence by the surprise ceremony.
“I don’t have the words, which is unusual, because I talk all day,” Pollack said.
At Dale, Fukumoto was the school’s third consecutive winner of a district Teacher of the Year award. Last year, it was history teacher Rob Gaudette, and the year before, AVID teacher Andra Schwartz.
In the classroom, Fukumoto’s award was greeted with rousing applause from students.
Their response was no surprise to Dale Principal Kirsten Levitin.
“Phyllis is here until 5:30 or 6 at night – over the summer. She’s amazing,” Levitin said. “She is always changing her lessons, saying that kids change, so she needs to change the lessons.”
The three teachers will represent the district at the Orange County Teacher of the Year Awards program, sponsored by the Orange County Department of Education, later this year. From there, they could go on to compete for California Teacher of the Year honors.
Last year, two Anaheim Union teachers were honored at the state competition.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 7 1 4-704-3769 or ecarpenter@ocregister.com
COURTESY OF THE ANAHEIM UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
Anaheim High School science teacher Dean Elder is caught by surprise in his classroom by Superintendent Joseph Farley, his wife, Meg, and daughter, Natalie, from left.
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http://www.ocregister.com/articles/santa-district-foundation-2343870-union-schoolsfirst
Santa Ana Unified recognizes supporters
Henry T. Nicholas III, The Ronald Simon Foundation, and SchoolsFirst Credit Union receive awards for contributions to school district.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
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SANTA ANA Santa Ana Unified Superintendent Jane Russo recently recognized Broadcom co-founder Henry Nicholas III, the Ronald Simon Foundation and SchoolsFirst Credit Union for their contributions to the school district.
During the annual State of the District address last week, Russo presented Nicholas, who donated funds to open and operate two tutoring and mentoring centers in Santa Ana, with the district’s Innovative Partner of the Year Award.
“I am humbled to accept this award and want to thank the teachers and administrators who turn the raw material of students into bright and successful adults,” Nicholas said. “I was blessed to start a company with talented and creative people. But that was nothing compared to what teachers do every day. I’m grateful to be able to help these remarkable people in a small way to have a lasting impact.”
The Ronald Simon Foundation received the Scholastic Partner of the Year Award. Since 2005, the foundation has selected several juniors from various Santa Ana high schools to enter the Simon Scholars program, providing each student with six years of stipends and scholarships in excess of $32,000 each to help fund their college education. To date, the foundation has contributed approximately $2.5 million toward scholarships in Santa Ana.
“The organization looks forward to continuing the program as long as it makes a difference,” said foundation President David Dukes. “Wherever this program goes, know that it all began with the Santa Ana Unified School District and we’re proud to be your partner.”
SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union received the Longevity Partner of the Year. The credit union has made many contributions and continues to support district students, staff members, and the community in a myriad of ways, Russo said.
SchoolsFirst recently donated $25,000 to the school district, has underwritten many Educators of the Year recognition events, and supported Santa Ana Unified’s Measure G campaign by serving as the phone-banking headquarters.
“It’s because of you and the educators of Santa Ana that we are honored and privileged to play a small role in contributing to the community,” said Rudy Hanley, CEO of SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gang-county-jury-2337939-orange-prevention
More pre-teens joining O.C. gangs, report finds
More pre-teens joining O.C. gangs, report finds
Grand jury, surprised to find that juvenile gang membership is increasing, pleads for additional funding.
BY JESSICA TERRELL
The Orange County Register
Comments 61| Recommend 4
Gang prevention efforts should be spared the budget ax as membership in Orange County gets younger and younger, according to an Orange County Grand Jury report released Tuesday.
“When we began looking into the subject of children involved in gangs, we found very quickly that we had some major misconceptions about the problem, and we think it is very likely that the other citizens of Orange County share those misperceptions,” said Janet Buell, jury member and principle writer of the report.
The jury found few problems with crime prevention efforts in Orange County, and their recommendations were primarily to increase funding for preventative programs that are proving successful.
Citing a recent study by Vanderbilt University Law School, jury foremen James Perez pointed out that the cost to taxpayers for dealing with chronic criminals jumps from $65,000 at age 12 to $5.7 million over a lifetime. Orange County taxpayers’ money is well spent on preventative programs, according to the jury’s report.
One of the jurors’ misconceptions was that gang membership in Orange County is insignificant. While overall gang membership has dropped dramatically in the last decade, gang membership for juveniles under age 14 has risen steadily since 2002, to nearly 300 countywide.
Despite the spike in younger gang members, they still make up only a small number of overall gang membership.
“Young gang members have always been a problem,” Assistant District Attorney Bruce Moore said. “A 14-year-old with a gun is the most dangerous creature because they don’t have the conscience to have judgment.”
There are an estimated 300 gangs in Orange County and roughly 13,000 gang members, according to Moore.
With roughly 70 gangs in Santa Ana alone, the problem is far more widespread than the jurors previously believed.
Another misconception: that gang prevention activities should start in middle school and focus only on the children. Many juvenile gang members come from large families and reaching out to parents who can then mold the entire family can be more cost effective, Buell said.
The Pio Pico collaboration, cited in the grand jury report as an exemplary gang prevention program, offers parenting classes aimed at everything from regaining control to teaching parents about hygiene and nutrition.
The jury said it was trying to balance its recommendations with the harsh reality of budget limitations.
“It is very difficult to write a report and make recommendations in today’s economic climate,” Buell said. “We have had to get a little bit creative in some of our recommendations, because there is no point in writing them if they can’t be followed.”
One of the “creative” suggestions was to hire a fulltime fundraiser who could solicit donations from local businesses with a vested interest in keeping Orange County crime-free.
“Who benefits most when there is no gang activity in a city? Well the businesses (that) have to paint over the graffiti regularly and have endured some of the crime that results from gangs benefit tremendously,” Buell said.
Although the jury made pleas on behalf of a number of O.C. gang-prevention organizations, the panel had no specific financial requests to present. Moore said he was disappointed that the Board of Supervisors was not invited to the press conference.
Moore said that if funding was not increased to gang prevention programs, he hoped that at the very least it would not be taken away.
“They want to cut everything, cut every agency,” Moore said. “If they cut our agency, they cut intervention.”
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/students-year-teacher-2331486-teachers-school
Santa Ana Unified names top teachers
Four educators are selected as 2009 Educators of the Year.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Santa Ana Unified names top teachers
Four educators are selected as 2009 Educators of the Year.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
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SANTA ANA Four Santa Ana Unified School District educators were named 2009 Educators of the Year during surprise visits to their classrooms by Superintendent Jane Russo Tuesday.
The teachers were: Elementary Teacher of the Year Annee Hartzell; Intermediate Teacher of the Year Nicholas Gentile; High School Teacher of the Year Susan Groff; and Support Services Educator Rachel Gil. The four were nominated by their peers and staff.
Here are brief bios of the winners provided by Santa Ana Unified.
Annee Hartzell — special education teacher for the visually impaired at Edison Elementary School— makes an impact on her students and their families everyday. She took a developing visually impaired program and turned it into a model program. She was able to secure the materials and technology needed for her students to achieve. Ms. Hartzell holds high standards for each of her students and expects that each of her students will reach their highest goals academically, socially and emotionally. Being visually impaired herself, Ms. Hartzell accepts no excuses from her students as she makes none for herself.
Nicholas Gentile — social studies teacher at McFadden Intermediate — creates a classroom environment where every one of his students is successful. He works with other teachers to create meaningful lessons, gather relevant resources and model exemplary teaching. In addition, Mr. Gentile provides key information and support for Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) teachers, provides morning tutoring for any student needing assistance and provides support in student discipline by making his classroom available to students who need extra attention in modifying their classroom behavior.
Susan Groff — biology and anatomy teacher at Middle College High — provides her students with authentic scientific equipment and real-life applications in her lessons daily. Ms. Groff analyzes and modifies her curriculum each year to introduce students to innovative research models and provide standards-based instruction. She is resourceful in obtaining materials and supplies from business partners and other organizations for creating engaging lessons ranging from using inexpensive beads to harvesting worms and fruit flies to study genetics.
Rachel Gil — English and literacy coordinator at Villa Fundamental Intermediate — believes all her students can achieve success no matter what strengths or weaknesses they may possess. Ms. Gil makes herself available for students before, during and after school to meet with teachers to plan lessons, hold demonstrations and collaborate. She also mentors some of our newest teachers.
The District elementary, intermediate and high school teachers of the year will be participating in the 2009-10 County Teacher of the Year competition. All four educators of the year will be honored in a May ceremony.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/cali-m26.shtml
No answers for joblessness, austerity
Obama “town hall” meetings in California
No answers for joblessness, austerity
By Dan Conway and Kevin Martinez
26 March 2009
Recent weeks have seen a marked acceleration of the state of California’s economic woes. The state’s official unemployment rate increased to 10.5 percent in February, the highest recorded in 26 years. Separate teams of University of California economists recently predicted that the rate will rise to as much as 15 percent by spring 2010, even though monies received from the federal stimulus package were included in the projection.
The state’s deteriorating employment outlook was also a significant factor in a March 13 announcement by the state legislative analyst office, which stated the state faces an additional $8 billion shortfall through fiscal year 2009-2010. The announcement came a mere three weeks after the state legislature passed a budget including nearly $20 billion in spending cuts and regressive tax and fee increases (See “California legislature passes massive austerity budget”).
These severe austerity measures, first proposed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in collusion with the leadership of the state Democratic Party, were meant to address the then $42 billion budget shortfall. The original figure was based on an expected unemployment rate of 9.1 percent and was revised after recent unemployment figures were made known. There is now every reason to expect that the state’s budget outlook will continue to deteriorate as unemployment rises to levels not seen since the Great Depression.
Last week, President Obama visited California and held two public meetings in Costa Mesa and Los Angeles before an audience of hundreds of people who asked a range of questions dealing with the state and national economic crisis.
Friday’s town hall meeting in Los Angeles was introduced by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, “one of the great innovators of state government,” according to Obama and “an outstanding partner with our administration.” This is a man who has decimated social services depended upon by millions of Californians and thrown into jeopardy the education of future generations.
It soon became evident that these meetings were merely a public relations stunt orchestrated by the Obama administration to feign outrage at Wall Street’s theft of public funds while convincing the public that more of their money was necessary to bail out the banks and rescue the US financial system.
Regarding the wretched state of the economy in California, Obama was forced to say, “I don’t need to tell you these are challenging times. I don’t need to tell you this because you’re living it every day. One out of every 10 Californians is out of work right now. You’ve got one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Budget cuts are threatening the jobs of thousands of teachers across this state.”
Having acknowledged this reality, Obama proceeded to offer nothing but empty platitudes for California workers.
A teacher from Santa Ana who received a pink slip from her school district told Obama, “Our class sizes are between 36 and 44. This is normal. I’ve been in the district for over 25 years. I have seen what our kids can do when someone cares. The Teacher of the Year also received a pink slip.” She asked, “How are we going to make sure that money comes to our districts that need it the most, the urban districts?”
While Obama stated, “we’ve got to provide better teacher training,” he went on to add, “I think that it is important for us to make sure that we have assessments that everybody can agree—because ultimately we’ve got to know that our kids are meeting high standards.” In other words, unnecessary standardized testing will remain on the budget, teachers will not.
The president also appealed to economic nationalism when he explained, “We can’t afford our kids to be mediocre at a time when they’re competing against kids in China and kids in India who are actually in school about a month longer than our kids.”
As opposed to the president’s comments, which were largely disingenuous, the remarks made by audience members reflected a genuine sense of anger and anxiety about the current economic crisis. One rather poignant comment was made at the Los Angeles meeting by eight-year-old Ethan Lopez, who said, “President Obama, our school is in big trouble because of budget cuts. Twenty-five of our teachers have already been fired.” He then showed the president a stack of letters he and his classmates had signed to help keep their teachers working. More than 8,000 teachers and educational staff in Los Angeles County received pink slips on March 16, the majority not expected to return to work next September.
Obama answered by quickly, claiming that the so-called America Reinvestment and Recovery Act would “give more money to the state to keep teachers in their jobs.” In reality, the stimulus funds will not reach California’s school districts in time to rescind the tens of thousands of pink slips sent out to teachers. The $4.8 billion in state stabilization funds set aside for California would be largely absorbed to pay for the additional $8 billion decline in revenues estimated since Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget was passed last month.
One of Obama’s more feeble responses was given to a man who said, “Last October I lost my job after 13 years. I was laid off. Now when I look for a job, people tell me that I have a felony from 20 years ago—I can’t get any work. I have a family to support. What do I do?”
Obama made a series of unserious proposals about investing in construction and infrastructure, as well as “clean energy,” before getting back to the man’s question. He told him, “In the meantime the most that I can do is to make sure that you’ve got unemployment insurance that you can rely on, that you’ve got COBRA that you can rely on, that your family is able to get some support during these difficult times, and then to try to get these jobs created as quickly as possible.”
Obama asked the man what job he had, and he replied that he worked in the auto industry for Toyota. This became just another opportunity for the president to mention how he supports “clean, fuel-efficient” cars and plans on spending $15 billion a year for clean-energy auto technology. He made no mention of the struggle that millions are facing trying to find a job, or the wave of layoffs hitting autoworkers in the US and elsewhere.
One woman asked, “Since American taxpayers have had to bail out a lot of large banks—Citibank, etc.—and they don’t feel they’ve gotten any benefit for themselves, do you support caps on interest rates that the same companies we have bailed out with our money can charge regular consumers on credit cards? Because it’s up to 30 and 40 percent.”
Obama could only muster vague support for the idea before adding, “Generally speaking, if you’re just running up your credit card and you don’t think that there’s a bill to be paid, you’ve got problems. So all of us, I think, have to be more thoughtful about how we use them, and ultimately we’ve got to take responsibility if we are going on shopping sprees that we can’t afford.”
In explaining why the large banks are receiving hundreds of billions worth of public funds for running their institutions into the ground, Obama said, “Here’s the problem. It’s almost like they’ve got—they got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger. You don’t want them to blow up, but you got to kind of talk them—ease that finger off the trigger.”
In other words, CitiCorp, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo are essentially acting like suicide bombers threatening the world financial system with calamity. Whether or not the president was aware of it, his comments underscored who really runs the country.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/officials-school-teachers-2331373-district-employees
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Santa Ana Unified to send out 530 pink slips
Certificated employees, including classroom teachers, counselors, music teachers and others will receive layoff notices later this week.
Santa Ana Unified to send out 530 pink slips
Certificated employees, including classroom teachers, counselors, music teachers and others will receive layoff notices later this week.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Comments 8| Recommend 0
SANTA ANA – The Santa Ana Unified School Board voted unanimously Tuesday to send out 530 layoff notices as officials work to erase a projected budget deficit caused by state budget cuts.
The notices will go to certificated employees, including 345 classroom teachers. But also included will be counselors, music teachers, literacy coaches and other non-classroom teachers. The district has not yet decided on terminations for teachers working under temporary contracts.
“No one here on this board feels comfortable with the task at hand,” said Jose Alfredo Hernandez, the school board president. “We are going through a worldwide economic collapse. …The lights on and a teacher in the classroom is all we might be left with.”
Notices will be sent via mail Friday.
By law, school districts have until March 15 to notify teachers and other certificated employees in danger of losing their jobs for the next school year. Actual layoffs take place May 15. The county Department of Education estimates that more than 2,000 teachers could receive a layoff notice by March 15 as the county’s school districts struggle to overcome about $8.4 billion in cuts to education approved by Sacramento lawmakers last month.
In the 54,500-student Santa Ana Unified, officials have estimated the district will have to cut a combined $21.5 million this year and $35 million next year from the district’s nearly $500 million annual budget.
District officials also discussed possibly laying off up to 259 classified employees, but the school board will vote on the issue at a later meeting.
Over the past five years, officials have already slashed more than $108 million from the district’s budget. Previous cuts include the reduction of hundreds of custodians, security guards, clerks, teaching positions, nurses, librarians, administrators and other positions. Officials have also cut millions from music and arts programs, reduced work days for many employees, and adjusted health benefits.
District officials said they hope to rescind many of the notices in coming weeks in case the state’s financial outlook improves.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-middle-kids-2333696-students-schools
Adolescence, poverty hinder middle school safety
Educators say kids at this age need to be mentored, actively encouraged to make better choices.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Adolescence, poverty hinder middle school safety
Educators say kids at this age need to be mentored, actively encouraged to make better choices.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
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Middle schools are populated by kids who have decided they’re old enough to act like adults, but aren’t willing or ready to accept the responsibility that comes with being one, educators say.
That mentality creates a slew of challenges for middle school educators as they work to get students through these rocky transition years in a safe, secure learning environment – one devoid of fights, bullying, violence, habitual truancy, alcohol and drugs.
“There’s so much temptation to get off your game, make poor choices, get caught up in the social aspect,” said middle school counselor and eighth-grade teacher Melanie Miranda, who works at Tustin’s Pioneer Middle School. “We do what we can to reward kids for making good choices.”
Middle schools have developed all sorts of programs and strategies to acknowledge and promote good behavior – recognition ceremonies, after-school activities, in-class workshops on citizenship – but they also acknowledge that peer pressure, home life and other influences beyond their control can wreak havoc on the fragile psyche of middle school students.
The pressures in middle school can be so intense that many parents, when given the option, keep their kids at K-8 schools, where the student body is smaller and kids typically maintain close friendships and stronger connections to their elementary school roots.
“My kids had a much tighter-knit group of friends that they stayed with,” said parent Tim England, who has an eighth-grader at Rancho Santa Margarita’s Arroyo Vista K-8 School and two older kids. “There is also much more parent presence because of the elementary school, so there’s just not an opportunity for kids to be hanging around and doing things they shouldn’t be doing.”
Even after adjusting for population differences, Arroyo Vista’s middle school component boasts one of the lowest suspension and expulsion rates of any middle school in Orange County.
POVERTY AT ROOT
At Orange County campuses where suspensions and expulsion rates are considerably higher than the county average, educators say many students are battling gang influence, broken homes, severe emotional trauma and, above all else, poverty.
Poverty is the single most important factor affecting campus safety, educators say. Impoverished families are generally too busy working multiple jobs to keep proper tabs on their children, and impoverished neighborhoods breed crime, gangs and other unhealthy behaviors.
“A lot of times, students don’t have the positive role models they need,” said Chris Esperanza, principal at Anaheim’s South Junior High School. “If they’re already connected to a gang, it’s hard for us to replace the support and connection they have with their gang.”
South Junior High, a few miles east of downtown Anaheim, had the highest number of drug- and violence-related suspensions last year of any Orange County middle school. About three-fourths of its 1,460 students qualify for free and reduced lunches.
“School tends to be an afterthought because they’ve got so much going on, on a personal level,” Esperanza said.
MULTI-FACETED INTERVENTIONS
Getting middle school students on the right track takes the dedication of an entire school’s faculty and the resources of a multi-pronged intervention strategy, educators say.
South Junior High has a host of tools at its disposal, ranging from counseling and mentoring to tutoring, after-school activities and mandatory homework sessions.
In one particularly simple but effective strategy, school administrators walk students down South Street to busy State College Boulevard after school each day, ensuring kids won’t loiter, vandalize and steal from local businesses.
In the Santa Ana Unified School District, where several intermediate schools grapple with high suspension and expulsion rates, district officials are working to train all middle school teachers on how to cut down on fighting and how to promote positive classroom attitudes.
This year, a program called Safe and Civil Schools was rolled out across all of the district’s intermediate schools. Through focused discussions, a hand-picked group of teachers at each campus identifies key areas of concern – such as anger management – and figures out how best to discuss and promote the issues in class.
“For these students to really learn academically, they need to have a relationship with the teacher,” said Nancy Diaz-Miller, Santa Ana Unified’s director of pupil support services. “Once they’re comfortable and engaged, fights and problems decrease and campus safety increases.”
CREATIVE DISCIPLINING
Middle schools generally take aggressive and consistent disciplinary action when students misbehave, including suspensions and expulsions, but administrators are always looking for more effective ways to turn around troubled kids.
Instead of simply suspending a student who gets into a fight, for example, school officials might have in-depth conversations to get to the bottom of why students were fighting and then refer them for special services, such as anger management or community service.
A student accused of bullying might be instructed to spend time working in a class of special-needs kids; a student caught fighting might be assigned community service and a reflective paper in addition to suspension.
Targeting students who struggle academically or who are failing also can have big payoffs in improving schools’ overall security.
At South Lake Middle School in Irvine, a gold medalist in the Register’s first ranking of middle school quality, about 10 percent of students come from low-income families and 107 kids were suspended last year.
One way South Lake administrators combat that is to identify a select group of eighth-graders each spring for enrollment in the school’s Lifeboat program, now in its sixth year. Although it’s optional, the program is marketed aggressively to the kids hand-picked for it.
For seven weeks, participants spend all their recesses, snacks and lunches in a classroom together, plus two hours after school daily. Because the students are eighth-graders, it’s hard to measure the program’s long-term success, administrators say, but anecdotal evidence suggests it’s turning kids’ lives around.
“They work on their homework, but they also talk about what’s stressing them out and what it’s like to be able to get all of your homework done,” Principal Bruce Baron said. “It’s one of the most positive places around.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/district-trudell-school-2334302-grove-positions
No layoffs at Garden Grove Unified, officials say
The school district will likely face a $62 million deficit over the next three years, but officials say they are determined to keep their teachers
Friday, March 13, 2009
No layoffs at Garden Grove Unified, officials say
The school district will likely face a $62 million deficit over the next three years, but officials say they are determined to keep their teachers
By DEEPA BHARATH
The Orange County Register
Comments 4| Recommend 1
GARDEN GROVE — The school district, despite a severe budget deficit, will try not to eliminate teaching positions, officials said.
“We have not nor do we plan to send out any layoff notices to our teachers,” said Alan Trudell, spokesman for the school district. “We’re trying not to cut people, but we are cutting positions.”
The district will also need to scale back on several programs considering the projected $62 million budget shortfall over the next three years, Trudell said.
“That means we’ll be scaling back summer school as well as eliminating most conference attendance,” he said.
The district has also negotiated its teacher-to-student ratio from 29.1 to 31.1 beginning the next school year, Trudell said. But the district will still preserve the 20-to-1 class sizes in grades one, two, three and kinder-1 combination classes.
“If a person retires, we will cut that position,” Trudell said. Those cuts will come mostly with regard to clerical and custodial positions, he said.
The district, like every other operation in this tough economy, is trying to curtail its expenditures, Trudell said. The district will make only those purchases that are “absolutely necessary,” he said. What they can do without, they will do without, Trudell said.
Garden Grove Unified School district serves more than 55,000 students in most of Garden Grove and portions of Santa Ana, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Cypress, Stanton and Anaheim.
The school district, however, will not rely on parents to raise money for various programs or to pay for staff.
“We definitely won’t do that,” Trudell said. “It is an unreliable source of funding.”
Contact the writer: 714-445-6685 or dbharath@ocregister.com
Some comments to the thread:
* This is where education reporters need an ability to ask a follow-up question. My sources tell me that the plan in GG is to phase out credentialed librarians over the next two years. In 2009-10 they will move to the classroom 1/2 time, in 2010-11 full time. They are not counted as RIF because they are moved into the classroom. They will be limited to serving a mere 40 students, where before they served the entire school. This is a real disappointment for those who watch the schools, as GG has held the high ground in Orange County for years with fully staffed school libraries in grades 7-12.
* I am house-hunting as we speak. I have just called my realtor to begin looking in GARDEN GROVE… where obviously kids come first. I commend you for doing that. I live in Anaheim now and they have voted to throw our kids under a bus but!!! have no fear! all is not lost, they will keep the administration jobs all in tact because why ??? because they feel they are needed more than the teachers that actually teach our kids. At Katella they have administrators tripping over each other and I wouldnt give you 2 cents for a one of them. The principal is great but he needs to do some soul searching. Some of the worst administrators I’ve ever seen hold a job work at Katella High and will remain gainfully employed while good teachers lose their jobs.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/teachers-cuts-pink-2334152-schools-students
Teachers, parents rally in pink to protest job cuts
More than 2,800 school jobs expected to be lost at O.C. schools.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Teachers, parents rally in pink to protest job cuts
More than 2,800 school jobs expected to be lost at O.C. schools.
By FERMIN LEAL, SCOTT MARTINDALE and THERESA CISNEROS
The Orange County Register
Comments 514| Recommend 15
Scores of teachers, parents, students and other supporters across Orange County are rallying in front of schools this morning to protest education cuts and teacher layoffs.
On this day dubbed “Pink Friday,” many are wearing pink and black, symbolizing the pink slips teachers are receiving this week to notify them they might be laid off because of deep state budget cuts to schools.
They carried posters saying “No More School Cuts,” “Save Our Teachers,” and “Schools Need To Come First,” and marched along busy streets as cars honked to show support.
Santa Ana Unified
On MacArthur Boulevard and Raitt Street in Santa Ana, dozens of teachers from several Santa Ana Unified schools started gathering as early as 6 a.m.
Districts countywide have already announced more than 2,800 potential layoffs to teachers, administrators, counselors, instructional aides and to other positions. Santa Ana Unified, hid hardest, is sending layoff notices to 530 teachers.
“We’re just out here to show our support,” said Pat Ingles, a kindergarten teacher at Greenville Fundamental Elementary. “These education cuts are hurting our ability to teach.”
Greenville first-grade teacher Celeste Benninger said the budget cuts could mean some elementary class sizes will increase from 20 to 30 students.
“Right now, students needing the extra help get it,” she said. “It’s going to be more difficult now with all these cuts.”
Saddleback High special education teacher Jennifer Skelton said, “We’re just tired of cuts. What’s happening is just hurting kids the most.”
The Segerstrom event was organized by the Santa Ana Educators’ Association. Other rallies were scheduled to take place simultaneously at campuses across the district, including Carr Intermediate, Esqueda Elementary, Mendez Intermediate and Villa Intermediate schools.
Joseph Tagaloa, a Segerstrom teacher who attended SAUSD schools, urged passing motorists to honk their horns in support.
“When I was in high school some of my mentors were teachers,” he said. “Assuming it’s the same today, and they still get rid of us, that could be someone’s mentor, or someone they look up to who will be gone.”
Segerstrom High senior Jesus Nolasco stood with his teachers at the Santa Ana school.
“A lot of the parents don’t know how bad these cuts will be. We want to show that and also show we care,” he said.
Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified
At Travis Ranch K-8 School in Yorba Linda, about 75 teachers and supporters stood outside in the minutes before school began, waving banners and cheering wildly when cars honked horns in support.
Travis Ranch employees were clad in black and waved pink-lettered signs reading “Stand Up For Schools,” “In California Today, 1,000’s of Teachers Will Receive Pink Slips” and “Your Kids Deserve Better.”
“I’m in full support of my teachers and education throughout the state of California,” said Travis Ranch principal Larry Mauzey, dressed in all black, down to his suit tie.
Travis Ranch teachers were unsure how many teachers were pink-slipped at their school, but said they are standing outside today to support colleagues statewide
“This is solidarity for all teachers in the state,” said 38-year teacher Helen Davis, who teaches fifth grade at Travis Ranch. “The kids will get less personal instruction. The ratio of staff to students is going to go up.”
“We’re going to lose the very structure of what we’ve built,” said Travis Ranch middle school math teacher Lisa Ogan, a teacher for 20 years.
Teachers said they’ve shared with students their reasons for rallying.
“The kids are concerned about who we’re going to lose from our school,” said Bobbie Flora, a Travis Ranch middle school language arts teacher for 23 years. “I tell them I’m standing up for them. Teachers care. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t be here.”
Tustin Unified
Tustin Memorial Academy in Tustin Unified, a GATE magnet school, was awash in pink attire this morning, too, reports parent Naomi Dei Rossi, who has a son in second grade and one in kindergarten.
“It was just a sea of pink,” she said. “The whole school – teachers and students and parents.”
Dei Rossi said she’s heard about eight of the school’s teachers, including some of the GATE instructors, received pink slips. Some people were giving the pink-slipped teachers cards this morning.
The district’s parents are launching a letter-writing campaign on behalf of their teachers, too, and Dei Rossi said her next step today was to write hers.
Check back for updates on the day’s rallies.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/class-school-sizes-2335223-elementary-districts
Class-reduction could vanish from many O.C. schools
Some schools hope new funding will ease cuts; others expect to trim hundreds more jobs.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Class-reduction could vanish from many O.C. schools
Some schools hope new funding will ease cuts; others expect to trim hundreds more jobs.
By FERMIN LEAL and SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
Comments 24| Recommend 3
At a class size of just 20, first-grade teacher Celeste Benninger says she’s able to give all her students the time and attention they need.
But increasing her class size to 25 or even 30 could change all that, she says.
“Right now, students needing the extra help get it,” said Benninger, a teacher at Greenville Fundamental in Santa Ana. “It’s going to be more difficult now with all these cuts.”
Orange County’s 28 public school districts announced this week budget cuts of more than $290.4 million and layoffs for as many as 3,063 employees. (Click here for a chart on school cuts.)The impact will be seen in everything from larger class sizes and school closures, to the loss of high school counselors and music and arts programs.
Most of these cuts will affect teachers, students and parents alike, they said. But the increase in class sizes at many of the county’s more than 600 public schools this fall will likely be the most significant hit, Benninger and other educators said.
Many of the county’s 28 school districts have announced they intend to completely eliminate popular class-size reduction programs, increasing classes in the early elementary grades from 20 to 24 students or more.
“The days of 20 to 1 could be over,” said Eleanor Rodriguez, a parent of a first-grader at Guinn Elementary in Anaheim. “Schools are going to be in pretty bad shape now with all these cuts. Class sizes are definitely going to suffer.”
Larger class sizes this fall
Local districts are reporting that at least 1,490 of the school employees issued pink slips this week are classroom teachers. Most of these teachers work in elementary schools operating class-size reduction programs, according to school officials.
In Capistrano Unified School District, the class-size reduction program in first, second and third grades would be wiped out, causing class sizes to jump from an average of 20 students each to 30 or more. In Capistrano’s kindergarten classes and across all other grade levels, meanwhile, average class sizes would be increased by one student each.
In Saddleback Valley Unified, second-grade classes would lose their all-day 20 to 1 student-teacher ratio in favor of a more cost-effective program called Option 2, in which 10 students are pulled out of a larger class of 30 for half the day to receive instruction in language arts and math. Saddleback’s third-grade classes, meanwhile, which operate under the Option 2 model, would see that program canceled in favor of all-day class sizes of 30 or more.
Anaheim City School District will also increase class sizes from 20 to 24 students in grades one and two, while Orange Unified will increase from 20 to 25 in the same grades.
Most county districts implemented class-size reduction programs almost 10 years ago when the state approved additional funding for schools that limited class sizes to 20 students in kindergarten through third grade. Districts had to contribute some funding to offset costs of the program.
The state will continue to provide money for the program, but many districts are now saying they can lo longer afford their contributions.
Other budget effects
Educators caution larger classes sizes won’t be the only significant changes next school year.
Many districts are eliminating high school counselors, meaning an increase of counselor-to-student ratios. Four campuses will close, Silverado Elementary, Dickerson Elementary in Buena Park, and O’Neill Elementary and La Tierra Elementary in Mission Viejo.
Districts are also slashing music and arts programs and cutting librarians, instructional aides, custodians, and other positions. Class sizes will also increase in ninth-grade English, and across other courses in middle and high schools.
In previous years, most, if not all of the certificated employees who received pink slips eventually had their notices rescinded weeks later. But this year, some are less optimistic and have begun planning for unemployment.
Elementary school teacher Kim Duran, who received a pink slip this week for the second year in a row, said she’s worried about her financial stability – she’s got a mortgage, a son at UC Irvine, and earns more money than her husband.
“One of the most frustrating things for me is that I put so much into this job, and I feel like my services are not valued,” said Duran, 39, a fifth- and sixth-grade combination teacher at Lake Forest’s Rancho Cañada Elementary. “My mom said to me, ‘You’re a smart lady. You can go out and get another job.’ I had to explain to her, this is not just a job or even a career for me; it’s my life. I feel so strongly about education.”
Budget uncertainty remains
Many school administrators hope federal stimulus funds in coming weeks may trickle down to schools, or the economy may improve, meaning some of the already approved layoffs or budget cuts can be retracted. But they’re also expecting the worst, including the possibility that voters may reject the slate propositions on the May ballot aimed at keeping the state from falling again into a deep deficit.
“It’s kind of like throwing darts against the board, and the targets are all on one side of the board,” said Tom Ressler, principal at San Juan Hills High School in San Juan Capistrano. “Education in general, we really still don’t know what our budget is. We really don’t’ know if these propositions don’t pass what will happen.”
Officials from county Department of Education told superintendents earlier this month that they should not plan on federal stimulus funds to save the day. Distribution of funds for education is still unclear statewide, and districts should not include these federal funds in their projections, said state Superintendent Jack O’Connell.
In Santa Ana Unified, where teachers and other certificated employees will receive 530 pink slips today, officials said they will likely cut another 250 classified employees in coming weeks.
After Orange Unified’s board voted Thursday to close Silverado Elementary, Trustee Kimberlee Nichols warned that more cuts could be coming. Reconsideration of further school closures and other drastic cuts might be a possibility before the start of the next school year, she said.
“We might not be done yet,” she said.
Register staff writers Peter Schelden and Theresa Cisneros contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/mar/28/local/me-classsize28
Santa Ana accused of creating phantom classes for state funds
By H.g. Reza and Seema Mehta
March 28, 2007
Santa Ana Unified School District administrators created false class rosters and misused substitute teachers to qualify for state funding earmarked for small classes for elementary students, according to eight teachers, school documents and state officials.
At Washington Elementary School, for instance, documents reveal that school officials created a second-grade roster showing students in a class that didn’t exist. The phantom classroom diluted the number of second-graders in existing classrooms — allowing the average class size to fall below 20.5 and giving the district an additional $1,024 per student per year.
A substitute teacher at Washington Elementary was assigned to the nonexistent class. Several teachers said she only spent a few hours over the last month in each classroom instructing students on her roster. Since then, school officials said, she has been assigned to cover full time for a teacher on medical leave and no longer visits the classes.
State officials said the district’s actions appeared illegal — even if substitute teachers were used for part of the day — and plan to launch an investigation.
“That would clearly be a blatant attempt to violate the intent of the law,” said Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction who wrote the class-size reduction legislation in 1996 as a member of the state Senate. “We make it real clear to schools that they need to make sure they have 20 students to a class.”
District officials defended the practice that they have put in place in 25 elementary schools, saying substitute teachers “team teach” a couple hours per day with classroom teachers — which they said is a legal way to ensure that the district retains its class-size reduction funds. The money is vital for struggling students, administrators said.
“It’s a priority for the board to keep [the program] in place, because we have a majority of non-English-speaking students,” said Supt. Jane A. Russo. “We have to prioritize our efforts to get them speaking and writing English by the third grade. It’s a must so they can continue to learn.”
In the current school year, the 54,800-student district is expected to receive about $16 million through the state’s class-size reduction program, which was designed to help schools maintain small classes in kindergarten through third grade, according to the state Department of Education.
SAUSD board member, John Palacio’s email blast 3/26/09 on current issues:
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Capistrano cuts could boost classes to more than 30 students
Proposal would also drop music program and cut funds for GATE, AVID.
The Orange County Register
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO Capistrano Unified School District officials on Tuesday recommended that trustees eliminate the popular 20:1 class-size reduction program in first to third grades as well as the block music program in fourth and fifth grade.
Deputy Superintendent Ron Lebs also proposed eliminating 17 counselors, 11 assistant principals and 10 district-level employees for a savings of $3.7 million as the district strives to cut $25 million from its 2009-10 budget.
The balance of the cuts would come from a wide array of programs – from high school athletics to adult education.
Lebs identified $24.3 million in cuts, leaving a shortfall of $680,000 that may need to be bridged later, depending on state budget projections.
“There was really no sense of accomplishment in this task,” Lebs said. “Everything in this list is painful.”
About 200 people attended the special budget meeting, with more than 20 community members voicing concerns about the district’s budget recommendations.
Among their primary concerns are the potential decisions affecting class sizes, which could grow in many cases to more than 30 pupils in first through third grades.
“I have a second-grader and a fourth-grader, and I noticed a huge difference when my fourth-grader went to fourth grade,” said Betty Zoe, a parent of students at Vista Del Mar Elementary School.
Zoe said she’s had to supplement her fourth-grader’s education with private tutoring to help him get the personal attention he needed with the larger class sizes.
A subcommittee of the board of trustees plans to rework the district’s budget recommendations before a final special budget meeting April 2. The board plans to vote on a final budget proposal April 13.
Contact the writer: rkesarwani@ocregister.com or 949-454-7347
Recommendations
$8.7 million: Eliminate 20:1 class size reduction in grades 1-3 and increase class sizes to 25:1 for 67 classrooms and 31.5:1 for the rest
$3.7 million: Eliminate 17 counselors, 11 assistant principal positions and 10 district-level positions
$3.4 million: Reallocate grant funding
$2.7 million: Increase class size in grades 4-12 by one student
$1.5 million: Retain funds allocated for textbook purchases
$1.2 million: Transfer funds from a facilities maintenance account
$1 million: Eliminate block music program
$1 million: Reduce adult education programs
$420,000: Reduce high school athletic programs
$380,000: Eliminate TLC resource teachers
$362,000: Projected increase in student enrollment
$250,000: Reduce Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program
$176,000: Reduce staff development
$100,000: District-level operational adjustments
$50,000: Increase fees for summer athletic camps
$50,000: Decrease frequency of bus service inspections
$50,000: Reduce Achievement AVID student enrichment program
$20,000: Eliminate new principal coaching
Source: Capistrano Unified School District
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez25-2009mar25,0,4942695.column
From the Los Angeles Times
Seniority, not quality, counts most at United Teachers Los Angeles
Steve Lopez
March 25, 2009
Here’s what I did:
I went to the website for United Teachers Los Angeles, clicked on the union contract and hit “print.”
The job laid waste to a small forest of trees, producing a 347-page document the size of a fat phone book.
So why am I telling you this?
Because layoff notices just went out to 5,500 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified schools, and the UTLA contract guarantees one thing: Those notices aren’t going to the least effective teachers. Quality has nothing to do with it.
It’s all about seniority.
The teachers union has every right to scream about funding cuts and potential layoffs (even if we won’t have real numbers for several weeks at least).
But what union President A.J. Duffy won’t admit, as he raises a stink, is that when good teachers are on the chopping block and burned-out teachers are protected, it’s because of his union’s contract.
Simply put, the UTLA contract — like a lot of others in the state — requires that the last hired are the first fired.
And let’s not let the district off the hook. It agreed to this arrangement, which ensures that when pink slips go out, there’s no distinction between excellence and mediocrity.
After I printed out the UTLA contract, I went to the website for Green Dot Public Schools, which runs some well-regarded charter schools in the county. It was a mere 33 pages.
Steve Barr, Green Dot founder, is no fan of UTLA.
He says the union has two primary purposes that have nothing to do with educating children: preserving prohibitively expensive lifetime benefits for teachers and their families, and allowing more senior teachers to work where they want rather than where they’re needed, with tenure making even the burnouts untouchable.
“Why is the teachers union against getting every dollar into the classroom . . . and why is it against hiring and firing decisions being made at the school site?” Barr asks.
To be fair, Green Dot has only a fraction of the number of schools and teachers that L.A. Unified has, and for the most part it has the benefit of smaller campuses and less-entrenched faculties.
But its model, which gives principals more control and teachers more influence, puts the emphasis on education rather than politics and power.
In the Green Dot contract, the section on layoffs is six lines long (versus four pages in the UTLA contract).
If necessary, Green Dot takes into account a teacher’s evaluations and expertise. Only if there are no differences on those things does seniority come into play.
In L.A. Unified, there is a possibility that if the cuts are made, the best and brightest teachers will be on the unemployment line, replaced perhaps by burned-out bureaucrats who may not have been in a classroom since the Carter administration and might never have been good teachers to begin with.
“Those people left the classroom for a reason,” said Dorit Dowler, a Micheltorena Elementary parent who was among a couple of dozen protesters who turned out for Tuesday’s L.A. Unified school board meeting on the subject of budget cuts.
Another parent, Suzie Haleblian, said merit should prevail over seniority. She doesn’t want to lose good teachers at Ivanhoe Elementary — which happens to be my daughter’s school — just because they’re relatively new.
“Our kids get report cards,” Haleblian said. “Maybe our teachers could get report cards.”
That’s essentially what President Obama said last week when he condemned decades of failure in American public education and called for major reforms.
“It’s time to start rewarding good teachers, stop making excuses for bad ones,” he said.
In defense of teachers, grading them can be difficult and subjective. And there’s no question that at times, good teachers need union protection from inept principals.
But we need more flexibility all around — and less dead weight at the district headquarters — if we’re going to handle budget cuts and have any hope of improving our schools.
At my daughter’s school, I’d much rather have the very capable principal decide on staffing rather than have decisions forced on her by Duffy and a bloated union contract.
At 347 pages of boilerplate and trivial specificity, the UTLA document manages to dehumanize teachers and crush innovation, treating them like components of an outdated machine rather than like intelligent, independent, adaptable professionals.
Every school has teachers who stand above the rest. Some of them veterans, some of them not. Why can’t they be rewarded?
If Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa weren’t so eager to lock up UTLA support in his potential run for governor, he’d be joining Obama’s call to rebuild a broken system.
And teachers and parents ticked off about a tenure policy that throws good teachers under the bus would do well to keep marching outside L.A. Unified’s headquarters.
Among the protesters Tuesday was Robert Rubisa, a third-grade teacher at Los Angeles Elementary.
With 11 years on the job, he didn’t get a layoff notice. But his wife, a fourth-grade teacher with less experience, got a pink slip.
Rubisa said he went to his union rep and suggested that teachers give back some of their sick days to help balance the budget and avoid some layoffs.
“The union rep said we should not balance the budget on teachers’ backs,” Rubisa said.
I liked Rubisa’s idea, but I’m looking through the UTLA contract now and having trouble figuring out how many sick days teachers have.
Maybe it’s here in Article IX, Hours, Duties and Work Year. No, I don’t think so.
Maybe it’s somewhere between Pages 108 and 132, under Article XII, Leaves and Absences. But where?
I’ll have to get back to you on this.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
UC spends $1 million for top brass while cutting classrooms
Campuses get news of cuts the same day that regents approve new jobs
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
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UC Irvine next year will admit 550 fewer freshmen and charge 9 percent more tuition under a plan to help the system cope with a $450 million shortfall over the next two years.
Other UC campuses are making similar reductions, with pay cuts and furloughs likely to follow, according to a memo issued Thursday by the UC Office of the President.
That same day, the office issued a second announcement that sparked anger among some: The UC regents had approved filling three executive positions worth a total of more than $1 million.
State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who has been a frequent critic of UC salary and benefits packages, said criticized the move. He said UC should have “saved the money” and found another way to fill the jobs.
“They are continuing to live in their ivory tower and don’t have a clue as to what’s going on in the rest of the country,” Yee said.
The three appointments and salaries:
Gary Falle, UC associate vice president for federal governmental relations: $270,000
Peter Taylor, UC executive vice president and chief financial officer: $400,000
Daniel Dooley, UC senior vice president for external relations: $370,000
The San Francisco Chronicle also reported that, during the same session, regents offered two former chancellors each a year’s paid leave worth a total $717,000.
UC Davis former Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef will earn $315,000 for the coming year to retool his laboratory, talk to the public and start writing a book, according to minutes of the regents’ compensation committee. He will also receive $7,500 to move his things from his free university residence to a private home.
He will also have use of a secretary who earns $91,000 plus benefits, and an office budget of $39,000 during his year off to include international travel to Asia and Iran.
J Michael Bishop, M.D., the former chancellor for UC San Francisco, will receive a year’s leave at $402,200, his base pay as chancellor. He will also receive $10,000 toward the cost of moving from his free university home into private housing.
President Mark Yudof, who himself earns more than $1 million a year in pay and benefits, did not return phone calls or e-mails for this story.
UC spokesman Paul Schwartz provided a written statement saying two of the positions were existing jobs that were vacant.
Also, Dooley will save money by holding down two executive jobs now, instead of one, he said.
The new chief financial officer job was created to bring more financial accountability to UC, the statement reads. The newly hired CFO has a base salary of $400,000, plus an $8,916 annual auto allowance, $64,000 as a relocation allowance, plus the actual cost of moving, $15,000 in temporary relocation living expenses, mortgage loan assistance and entertainment allowance, among other benefits.
Two of the jobs involve the important task of bringing federal funding to UC, according to the UC statement.
“These are positions that are needed to provide the level of management effectiveness and accountability expected of the university, and in one case we’ve asked an individual to take on two vice presidential jobs for the salary of just one – a salary savings of $320,000,” according to the statement.
“These appointments also are within the context of major cuts in the budget of the Office of the President, a pay freeze for existing senior staff, restrictions on travel and a host of other cost-cutting measures here and on every UC campus.”
Julio Posadas, executive vice president for UAW Local 3299, which had a long contract struggle with UC, said $1 million could have filled many vacant staffing positions for patient care and student care workers.
“Our workers are facing short-staffing issues and their quality of work is going down,” Posadas said. “Students are facing cutbacks in their services. It’s shameful they are only focusing on the top executives, which seems like they’re going back to their old ways.”
In the past, University of California has come under sharp criticism for lack of accountability for money quietly paid to executives in extra bonuses, stipends and other perks.
A 2005 independent regents’ review on university pay found “inappropriate compensation, benefits and perquisites” for system executives and failure to use “fundamental, common-sense business and management practices.” In some instances, the true amount of pay, including benefits and bonuses, was hidden from regents and public view, according to the report.
UCI student leader Andres Gonzales said he is “kind of angry” about the hirings, especially when his class sizes are getting bigger, although officially the UC Student Association is not opposed.
“There is some frustration students have that they’re putting money into their own staff, not the students,” Gonzales said. “But these were positions that have been vacant and were budgeted for already.”
Student regent D’Artagnan Scorza, who represents students on the board, said he can see” how the timing of the hires appears to be poor.”
“It would concern me if I were a person on campus and I didn’t understand what was going on,” Scorza said. “But these are positions that have been vacant for quite some time and they just happened to be filled at this moment.”
Scorza said the positions that were filled are “functional positions that it’s not possible to leave vacant. We need these governmental relations people to be our federal liaisons.”
The university needed more help with its finances, especially now that budget cuts are under way, he said.
“It’s more difficult to figure out ways to cut your budget when the positions responsible for that are not filled,” Scorza said.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Beleaguered chancellor retires under fire
‘No fraud, no criminal conduct’ found in investigation against him.
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
COSTA MESA – The beleaguered chancellor of the Coast Community College District agreed today to retire, after a special, closed-door meeting of trustees that acknowledged no fraud or crimes had been found in a 3-month-long investigation.
The district chancellor and trustees oversee operations at Coastline, Golden West and Orange Coast colleges, one of the largest community college districts in California.
“The district’s investigations have not uncovered any evidence of fraud or criminal conduct by Dr. (Kenneth) Yglesias,” states an eight-page separation agreementapproved by the five trustees today.
Both sides agreed not to say anything disparaging about the other, in the agreement, which also specified that the district would not start any new claims or investigations against the retiring chancellor.
On Dec. 11, trustees voted in closed session to place Yglesias on paid leave from his $248,000-year job and to hire investigators to probe unspecified allegations against him. Despite rampant speculation on campuses, the reasons remained a closely guarded secret.
On Wednesday, both sides agreed Yglesias would formally retire, effective June 30.
“There was a finding of ‘no wrongdoing’ on either part,” trustee Mary Hornbuckle said about the closed-door settlement.
Hornbuckle said she’d been instructed by the district’s lawyer not to talk about what happened in the meeting.
Under the separation agreement, Yglesias will receive the following:
His regular pay of $20,250 per month until the end of June
A lump sum of $73,212 to purchase a year of credit in the retirement system
District health benefits for himself and his wife for life
Nursing home insurance premiums to a maximum of $5,000 each year
District spokeswoman Martha Parham said Ding-Jo Currie, president of Coastline College, will continue as acting chancellor until an interim executive can be selected.
Yglesias was not present at today’s meeting, Parham said, and did not want to comment.
A resident of Huntington Beach, Yglesias became the Coast chancellor in 2004, replacing the retiring Bill Vega. Previously, he had been president of Golden West, a college administrator, a high school teacher and an officer in the Foreign Service.
In January, while the faculty was still on winter break, the board placed Yglesias on leave and hired an investigative firm, Barboza & Associates of Los Angeles, for $295 an hour, along with computer experts Datatriage Technologies for $325 an hour, to look into the chancellor.
Hornbuckle and trustee Walt Howald voted against hiring a general counsel and investigative firm to look into Yglesias, a move approved on a 3-2 vote.
“My opinion is there are better ways to have conducted this business, such as, you talk directly to the person involved,” Hornbuckle said before today’s meeting.
No investigative report was ever filed, Parham said tonight.
Board President Jim Moreno has never explained what the investigation was about. He has consistently declined to comment.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
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Thursday, March 19, 2009
Education officials: Don’t count on federal stimulus
Schools may not get much of the estimated $8.6 billion in stimulus money they so desperately need.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
When schools across Orange County pink-slipped more than 3,000 educators last week in response to state budget shortfalls, parents and teachers held out some hope – millions of dollars from the $787 billion federal stimulus package would trickle down to local campuses and soften the blow of the cuts.
Now, even that glimmer of hope appears to be fading. With California’s budget woes only getting worse, school districts may never see much of the federal funding that was intended to help stabilize their budgets, officials say.
California’s independent Legislative Analyst’s Office last week recommended about $3.6 billion more in cuts to public education in the 2009-10 school year, with the intent that federal stimulus money would replace those depleted funds.
“If the state uses the stimulus money to backfill its own coffers, we’re not sure if we will see any of those dollars,” said Renee Hendrick, the Orange County Department of Education’s executive director for business services. “It’s awful. I’m just not sure how districts are going to do it.”
The California Department of Education is anticipated to receive $6 billion in stimulus money through the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, a pot of money that was presumed to trickle down to school districts and be used to offset their general-fund budget deficits. Education officials also are expecting to receive an additional $2.6 billion earmarked for specific programs.
If the state shaves off $3.6 billion from the stabilization fund, however, school districts will get less than half of the money they were hoping for.
And the news could get grimmer for schools. State education officials cannot release federal stimulus dollars to school districts until the state Legislature authorizes it and sets guidelines for the money’s use. Legislators could potentially tack on additional spending restrictions, so long as they don’t conflict with federal guidelines.
Education officials also say they’re bracing for the possibility that the process could take months, based on past instances of political wrangling in Sacramento over education funding. This would tie up the money well beyond school districts’ May 15 deadline to revoke pink slips and the June 30 deadline for school districts to submit finalized 2009-10 budget plans.
“The big uncertainty is how long it will take the federal government and Legislature to authorize us to allocate the money,” said Carol Bingham, the California Department of Education’s director of fiscal policy. “Once we get that permission and know what formula we have to use, then the process to allocate money is fairly straightforward – maybe a month.”
RECEIPT OF MONEY UNCERTAIN
California is expected formally apply for certain federal education funds later this month and anticipates receiving confirmation a few weeks later on exactly how much it’s getting. Once the totals are known, lawmakers and state education officials can begin planning for the money’s release to school districts.
The state Department of Education, for its part, is urging the Legislature to get the federal stimulus money to schools as soon as it’s received. But the state’s top financial planners have recommended that California try to conserve as much of that money as possible in the short term, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office report from last week.
“While seeking to offset 2009-10 general fund costs is the most immediate concern, the large budget shortfalls on the horizon require a strategic multiyear approach regarding the expenditure of the federal funds,” the report says. “The Legislature should seek to preserve as many federal dollars as possible to help balance the budget in future years – as opposed to committing them now for augmentations.”
The state Legislature last month slashed $8.4 billion from public education in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, part of its plan to close a 16-month, $42 billion budget deficit. The deficit is now projected to be $6 billion worse by the end of the 2009-10 fiscal year.
In years past, school districts essentially had to guess at possible cuts, pink-slipping many more teachers than necessary until budget information was more certain. Last year, for example, Orange County school districts issued layoff notices to more than 1,900 educators, but only about 100 lost their jobs.
This year, California has already adopted its budget, and with the state’s financial situation growing worse, the federal stimulus package was seen by many in the education community as the last beacon of hope. Now, it appears public education will be lucky to avoid even deeper cuts in the coming months, educators say.
“Sadly, we have been deprived of the funding necessary to continue at our already reduced funding levels,” Capistrano Unified school board President Ellen Addonizio said at a recent meeting. “We are going to have to cut another $25 million from our budget and fear it might even be more.”
MORE RELIABLE DOLLARS
One sizeable source of stimulus funds that lawmakers will have a tougher time withholding are two key earmarked pots of money – for schools with a Title I poverty designation and for special education. California is expected to receive $1.2 billion in Title I money from the federal stimulus package and $1.1 billion under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.
The money could help local schools by freeing up funds that normally would be spent in these two areas. For example, in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District, where $10.3 million must be slashed from the budget through June 2010, officials anticipate receiving $5.8 million in Title I and IDEA funds over a two-year period.
“I’m not sure if we could capture all $2.9 million each year, but it’s going to help,” Superintendent George Giokaris said. “The difficulty is we still need to plan for after the money goes away.”
Also troubling for education officials is what spending restrictions might be attached to the money. With IDEA funds, for example, the U.S. government has strict guidelines for how school districts must account for the money and carefully crafted spending formulas that limit how it can be spent and that help equalize special education spending from one school year to the next.
Education officials say they’re waiting on the federal government to issue guidelines for spending those earmarked stimulus dollars.
“I don’t think parents should be optimistic,” said Hendrick of the county Department of Education. “We’ll be happy if we see those dollars, but they are one-time dollars and our cuts are so large that I’m not sure how much they’ll help, especially if we’re going to receive further cuts.”
For now, the Orange County Department of Education isn’t allowing school districts to balance their budgets using any stimulus dollars they might anticipate receiving.
The state, by contrast, is already relying on stimulus money to stay in the black – $8.5 billion of it.
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
Stimulus funds
California is expected to receive $8.6 billion for public education from the $787 billion federal stimulus package approved last month. School districts in California theoretically will be able to use three main types of this federal stimulus money to help offset their budget deficits, but it’s not clear yet how much they’ll get.
$6 billion: State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, a pot of money with relatively few spending restrictions
$1.22 billion: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), for special education
$1.12 billion: Title I funds, for schools with a federal poverty designation
The remainder of the California Department of Education’s anticipated $8.6 billion stimulus package will be divided among the following areas.
$0.07 billion: Educational technology state grants
$0.06 billion: Vocational rehabilitation state grants
$0.05 billion: IDEA grants for infants and families
$0.04 billion: IDEA preschool grants
$0.02 billion: Federal work study
$0.004 billion: Services for older individuals who are blind
$0.002 billion: Independent living state grants
Source: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act state allocations chart, Feb. 19, 2009
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Friday, March 20, 2009
Read report: Ex-Capistrano schools chief ‘insubordinate’
Fired Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter broke laws, deliberately embarrassed school board, termination report says. He rebuts.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – The recently terminated superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District is painted in a scathing, 54-page report as an insubordinate, scheming administrator who tried to sway school board elections and double-bill the district for travel expenses.
Former Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter also is accused of showing “disturbing disregard” for student confidentiality matters, violating school board policies and state laws, and deliberately working to undermine and embarrass the school board, according to the report, a copy of which was obtained the Orange County Register late Thursday.
The termination report, dated March 17 and signed by board President Ellen Addonizio, lists 25 charges against Carter and examples for each charge – as many as nine examples per charge. The charges – not all of which are deemed significant or substantiated in the report’s findings – were presented to Carter on Feb. 26.
Carter responded with a 23-page rebuttal to all of the charges on March 9, the day he was fired.
Many of the 25 charges appear to stem from Carter’s poor working relationship with Capistrano’s seven-member board, including personality clashes that led to heated verbal arguments and untimely roadblocks to progress on key district affairs. But the report also contains more serious charges that Carter violated state laws.
Carter’s rebuttals are incorporated into his termination report, but the report dismisses those responses for the most part, noting that “a number of statements in Carter’s rebuttal are untrue or grossly misleading.”
The report offers no indication that Carter will be paid for any of the 28 months remaining on his employment contract.
Phone calls to Carter and Addonizio were not immediately returned.
INFLUENCING ELECTIONS
In Capistrano’s hotly contested June 2008 and November 2008 school board elections, Carter is accused of using his position as superintendent to illegally influence the outcome of the races. E-mails sent from Carter’s official district e-mail address show that he worked to help certain candidates get endorsements, including from Capistrano’s teachers union and Orange County’s schools superintendent, and instructed a secretary to “prepare an agenda” that allowed a school board candidate “to visit 2-3 schools a day.”
Carter confirmed engaging in these activities in his 23-page rebuttal, but argued they did not constitute “political activities.” The school board, in its report, didn’t buy into Carter’s defense.
“After stating, ‘I deny that I participated in political activities,’ Carter admits providing Peggy Lynch (a retired superintendent from San Clemente) and county Superintendent William Habermehl with names of political candidates to support,” the report says. “The denial that doing so constitutes ‘political activities’ is not credible.'”
The report notes that the law prohibits district employees from using school district time and resources “for the purpose of urging the support or defeat of any ballot measure or candidate.”
This is the same law that indicted ex-Capistrano Unified Superintendent James Fleming is accused of violating when he purportedly created “enemies” lists of school board opponents during a failed 2005 school board recall attempt. Fleming is scheduled to be tried next month on those charges.
DOUBLE-BILLING
Carter also is accused of attending at least two conferences in which he improperly billed the district for meal expenses.
On March 9, the day he was fired, Carter attempted to correct these “errors” by handing over a personal check for $130, the report says.
For example, at the three-day Northern and Southern California Superintendents Joint Conference in Napa Valley in May 2008, Carter requested $55 per-diem meal reimbursements for a May 8 dinner and a May 9 lunch and dinner, even though the event already included these meals. Saying it was an inadvertent mistake by his secretary, Carter on March 9 refunded the district $120 for those meals.
“I admit to inadvertently not checking these two vouchers as thoroughly as I should have,” Carter wrote in his rebuttal.
POOR FINANCIAL CHOICES
The report also notes that Carter “demonstrated a disregard for district funds at a time of increasing fiscal uncertainty.”
At the three-day California Superintendents’ Health and Wellness Institute in Temecula in October 2007, Carter was reimbursed a $200 registration fee to attend one-hour seminars on topics like “the advantage of being a green district” and participate in activities including “a day of workout sessions and health screenings” and “networking and wine tasting.”
“The trustees knew I had been hospitalized for four days the first week of June with a serious health problem,” Carter wrote in his rebuttal. “… This conference had excellent suggestions on how to address job pressure.”
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The report also says that one of the sponsors of the October 2007 institute was Max Medina of Rancho Cucamonga-based WLC Architects. Four months after attending the institute, Carter recommended that Capistrano Unified use WLC as the sole provider of architectural services to the district; previously, three different architectural firms had been used.
Carter denied any improper conduct, but the report said “his failure to disclose that WLC Architects was a sponsor of the Health and Wellness Institute at the time he recommended WLC … likewise demonstrated, at the very least, poor judgment and a failure to keep the board informed.”
CONFIDENTIALITY BREACHES
Carter also is accused of using the blind-copy e-mail function to send copies of at least nine district e-mails to his personal friends and colleagues outside the district. This “fundamental breach of trust,” the report says, allowed information about students and employees to be viewed by the wrong eyes.
The report also notes that following the district’s June 2008 recall election, Carter failed to update the list of e-mail addresses he was using to correspond with trustees, resulting in communication going to some former trustees and not current trustees. Carter called it an oversight, but the report said it demonstrated his “disturbing disregard” for the proper dissemination of important information.
PREVIOUS ALLEGATIONS
Many of the other charges outlined in the report have been covered by the Register during the course of Carter’s tumultuous, 18-month tenure:
-Carter attempts in spring 2008 to alter his employment contract by inserting a lucrative termination clause that was never approved by the school board. The school board, in its termination report, characterizes the act as an attempt at “fraud and deceit.” In his rebuttal, Carter says former board President Mike Darnold and the school board secretary inserted the clause because it was inadvertently omitted during the contract negotiations and Carter had “wanted” it from the beginning.
-Carter pushes forward in winter 2008 with construction of a $3 million outdoor stadium at newly opened San Juan Hills High School in San Juan Capistrano on a plot of land not owned the district. The school board says it demonstrated Carter’s “inadequate oversight” over the project. Carter says he relied on improper legal advice; the board says it’s no excuse – it was his responsibility.
-Carter tells trustees he and his staff “dropped the ball” on installing two much-needed portable classrooms at San Clemente’s Benedict Elementary School in summer 2008, forcing classes to be housed in the school library and music room. Carter cites turnover in staff in the district office as responsible for the oversight.
CAUSE OF POLITICAL STRIFE
Many in the Capistrano community have been quick to defend and praise Carter.
His supporters have said he was extraordinarily dedicated to his job and made great strides to repair the politically fractured district.
At a Dec. 18 meeting in which Carter’s performance was evaluated, trustees listened to 3-1/2 hours of testimony from dozens of parents, teachers and community members; all but a handful of the speakers implored the school board not to fire Carter, as was widely believed to be his fate.
But the school board’s termination report points the finger of blame for many of the district’s political problems on Carter.
In one case, he was responsible for a “deliberate attempt to set up public opposition” to a district proposal in January to permanently shutter a Laguna Niguel elementary school, the report says.
ATTACK ON PERSONAL CHARACTER
Carter’s personal character is also called into question in the report.
On Jan. 5, the day before the school board put him on paid administrative leave, Carter used a district-owned computer to e-mail a friend during the work day: “There are 5 trustees who are as cowardly as any group I known [sic], and they backed off trying to fire me. I hope the hell they do, then I would get a nice buy-out and go on an extended golfing vacation!”
“While Carter purports to ‘love’ the district and care for its students and the community, his apparent certainty that he would receive a ‘nice buy-out’ and ‘an extended golfing vacation’ at district expense is insulting and offensive to every member of that community,” the report says.
Six days after he was put on leave, Carter again used a district-owned computer to e-mail a friend. At the end of the message, he wrote, “I will call you tomorrow. Where are all the white women?”
The context of that e-mail is unclear, but the board noted that Carter, in his rebuttal, did not “attempt to explain the inappropriate, racially charged language.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
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Court tosses slander lawsuit against Garden Grove ex-superintendent
Nguyen-Lam may have a beef in alleging that she lost her job because man called her a communist, court says.
By DEEPA BHARATH
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
WESTMINSTER KimOanh Nguyen-Lam may have dropped her lawsuit against the Westminster School District over a bitter hiring dispute in 2006, but she is still going after a local resident who called her a “communist” during that controversial period.
The Court of Appeals in Santa Ana threw out a claim by Sinh Cuong Cao that Nguyen-Lam was trying to freeze his free speech rights by filing a lawsuit alleging slander. The appellate court concluded that Nguyen-Lam has a good chance of proving that had Cao not accused Nguyen-Lam of being a communist, she may not have lost her appointment as the district’s superintendent.
Nguyen-Lam’s lawsuit alleges that Cao told thentrustee Judy Ahrens that their superintendent appointee was a communist.
Communism is a touchy issue in Orange County’s Vietnamese American community. The perception of people, organizations or even artists as communists has sparked off massive protests in the past in central Orange County.
But Cao’s attorney, Mark Bucher, said Cao did not call Nguyen-Lam a “communist.” “Even if he did, it would have had no impact on (Nguyen-Lam’s) appointment,” Bucher said.
None of the school board members at the time was Vietnamese and calling Nguyen-Lam a communist would have meant very little to a non-Vietnamese board, Bucher said.
The controversy began after Westminster school board members in May 2006 voted to hire Nguyen-Lam as superintendent. A week later, two trustees who are now no longer on the school board – Ahrens and Jim Reed – rescinded their votes. Both Reed and Ahrens said they became convinced later that Nguyen-Lam was not qualified for the job.
Nguyen-Lam, who was re-elected in November to serve on the Garden Grove school board, went back to her job at the Center for Language and Minority Education at Cal State Long Beach.
The appellate court’s Feb. 26 decision was important for Nguyen-Lam, said her attorney Katrina Foley.
“It’s really a vindication for KimOanh,” Foley said. “You should not be allowed to recklessly call people things that they are not. In KimOanh’s case, it ruined her chances of becoming the superintendent of the Westminster School District.”
CONTACT THE WRITER: 7 1 4-445-6685 or dbharath@ocregister.com
FILE PHOTO: THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
KimOanh Nguyen-Lam speaks at a rally outside the Westminster School District in June 2006 after the school board rescinded a vote to hire her as superintendent.
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Las Flores teacher honored
Middle school teacher honored for outstanding contributions.
By MARK EADES
The Orange County Register
Annette Bushkin, a sixth grade teacher at Las Flores Middle School, received an Outstanding Contributions to Education award from the Orange County Board of Education on Wednesday, March 11.
Bushkin, who teaches advanced English and Social Science, maintains a book club for children who arrive before the start of school each day. During that time, she reads and discusses books with the students.
She also shared an article entitled, “The Puppy Saver” with her classes as part of their study of non-fiction literature. The article featured Bill Smith and his organization called Main Line Animal Rescue which rescues puppies from puppy mills in Pennsylvania.
Inspired by the article, the students wrote letters of support to Bill and his organization and began to raise money to support his efforts.
Contact the writer: meades@ocregister.com or 949-454-7352
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Some schools are cutting back on homework
When is homework just busywork? Weighing stress against learning, some districts are cutting back on academic work outside the classroom.
By Seema Mehta
March 22, 2009
Los Angeles Times
Rachel Bennett, 12, loves playing soccer, spending time with her grandparents and making jewelry with beads. But since she entered a magnet middle school in the fall — and began receiving two to four hours of homework a night — those activities have fallen by the wayside.
“She’s only a kid for so long,” said her father, Alex Bennett, of Silverado Canyon. “There’s been tears and frustration and family arguments. Everyone gets burned out and tired.”
Bennett is part of a vocal movement of parents and educators who contend that homework overload is robbing children of needed sleep and playtime, chipping into family dinners and vacations and overly stressing young minds. The objections have been raised for years but increasingly, school districts are listening. They are banning busywork, setting time limits on homework and barring it on weekends and over vacations.
“Groups of parents are going to schools and saying, ‘Get real. We want our kids to have a life,’ ” said Cathy Vatterott, an associate education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who has studied the issue.
Trustees in Danville, Calif., eliminated homework on weekends and vacations last year. Palo Alto officials banned it over winter break. Officials in Orange, where Rachel Bennett attends school, are reminding teachers about limits on homework and urging them not to assign it on weekends. A private school in Hollywood has done away with book reports.
“As adults, if every book we ever read, we had to write a report on — would that encourage our reading or discourage it?” asked Eileen Horowitz, head of school at Temple Israel of Hollywood Day School. “We realized we needed to rethink that.”
Nancy Ortenberg is happy about the change.
“Homework is much more meaningful now,” said Ortenberg, whose daughter Isabelle, 9, was in school before the policy took effect in 2007. Before the change, it was a chore for her daughter, but “now she reads for the pure joy of reading.”
Homework was once hugely controversial. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, social commentators and physicians crusaded against it, convinced it was causing children to become wan, weak and nervous.
In a 1900 article titled “A National Crime at the Feet of American Parents” in the Ladies’ Home Journal, editor Edward Bok wrote, “When are parents going to open their eyes to this fearful evil? Are they as blind as bats, that they do not see what is being wrought by this crowning folly of night study?”
California was at the vanguard of the anti-homework movement. In 1901, the California Legislature banned it for students under 15 and ordered high schools to limit it for older students to 20 recitations a week. The law was taken off the books in 1917.
Homework has fallen in and out of favor ever since, often viewed as a force for good when the nation feels threatened — after the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, for example, and during competition with Japan in the 1980s.
The homework wars have reignited in recent years, with parents around the nation arguing that children are being given too much.
Much of the debate is driven by the belief that today’s students are doing more work at home than their predecessors. But student surveys do not bear that out, said Brian Gill, a senior social scientist with Mathematica Policy Research.
Instead, in today’s increasingly competitive race for college admission, student schedules are increasingly packed with clubs, sports and other activities in addition to homework, Gill said. Students — and parents — may just have less time, he said.
Not all object, however.
“Obviously we want to think it’s busywork, but most of the time it’s really helpful,” said Allison Hall, 16, a junior at Villa Park High in the Orange district. Allison, who is taking five Advanced Placement classes, has up to three hours of homework a night; she also is on the cross country, track and mock trial teams and does volunteer work.
But others say there is just too much, especially for younger children. Karen Adnams of Villa Park has four children. She said that heavier course loads make sense for older children but that she doesn’t understand the amount of work given in lower grades.
“I think teachers have lost touch with what a third-grader or a fifth-grader can really do,” she said.
Vatterott, a former principal, said she became interested in the subject a decade ago as a frustrated parent. Her son, who has a learning disability, was upset by assignments he didn’t understand and couldn’t complete in a reasonable time.
She decided to study the effectiveness of homework. That research showed that more time spent on such work was not necessarily better.
Vatterott questioned the quantity and the quality of assignments. If 10 math problems could demonstrate a child’s grasp of a concept, why assign 50, she asked? The solution, she said, was not to do away with homework but to clarify the reasons for assigning it.
Some schools, among them Grant Elementary in Glenrock, Wyo., have gone further. Principal Christine Hendricks had grown concerned that students were spending too much time on busywork and that homework was causing conflicts between parents and children and between teachers and students. So she got rid of it last year except for reading and studying for tests.
“My philosophy, even when I was a teacher, is if you work hard during the day, I don’t like to work at night. Kids are kind of the same way,” she said.
Other districts, including San Ramon Valley Unified in Danville, Calif., have taken a more nuanced approach.
Since San Ramon revised its homework policy last year, the youngest students are given no more than 30 minutes a night; high school students have up to three hours of work. District trustees also decided that aside from reading, no homework should be given to elementary and middle school students on weekends or vacations.
In the Orange Unified School District, trustee John Ortega grew concerned about the workload carried by his middle school daughter. “We would have a swim meet all weekend, and she would be worried about coming home and having to finish homework,” he said. “She was stressed about it.”
After speaking with other parents, Ortega raised the subject publicly in the fall, prompting a series of discussions in the district. It turned out that although the board had set limits on homework, they were not always followed, said Marsha Brown, assistant superintendent of educational services. She said teachers have now been informed about the policy and principals are working to clarify the purpose of homework.
Brown said children’s social growth must be nurtured alongside their academic development. “We don’t want just academic children. We want them involved in sports and music and art and family time and downtime,” she said. “We want well-rounded citizens. I think we will always be struggling with that balance.”
seema.mehta@latimes.com
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Alfonso Ponce, 13, of Lathrop Intermediate School in Santa Ana helps to place pennies in a grid pattern that will simulate laying the pennies end to end. Santa Ana based Think Together organized the event at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Students set record for lining up pennies
O.C. kids help set world record for longest continuous chain of cents.
By EUGENE W. FIELDS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Children in an after-school program hoped to earn a spot Wednesday in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest continuous chain of pennies.
And on a track at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, they fulfilled their wish.
The 2,000 elementary and middle school students involved with THINK Together, a program with locations at more than 200 school sites in Southern California and 23 sites in Orange County, managed to lay 65 miles of pennies, or 5,491,720 pennies, in a chain on the race track before the sunset ended their efforts.
Nadia Flores, a spokeswoman for THINK Together, said the children collected more than 14 million pennies, the equivalent of about $146,000, or 173 miles. Flores said the goal was to lay 8,448,800 pennies, or 100 miles, to honor the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s image being featured on the coin.
Amy Nanney, a quality assurance coach with THINK Together, said the group began laying pennies at 10 a.m. but just ran out of time.
“It’s a heck of a lot of pennies,” Nanney said. “But people tried hard.”
The mark of 65 miles still bests the previous mark of 40 miles, held by a youth group in Fort Scott, Kan. Flores said a submission to Guinness has been made.
“You have to fill out an affidavit with two witnesses and submit video or still footage,” Flores said.
Flores said the penny drive began in February as an educational activity of the after-school program, which includes more than 500 children and 20 schools in Orange County. The drive was a way to honor the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and the 100th anniversary of his image on the coin.
Even though the group missed its goal of laying 100 miles of pennies, Nanney said the collection drive was a success.
“Everyone is so excited,” Nanney said. “They all did a great job.”
Flores said the pennies will be donated back to the program.
Southern California school children line the racetrack Wednesday at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana to lay pennies that will cover 100 miles of area. Several Santa Ana schools participated in the collection of the pennies and brought students to help lay out the coins. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Students from Madison Elementary School in Santa Ana line up along the side of the racetrack at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana as they get ready to lay pennies in an effort to break the Guinness Book of World Records of pennies laid end to end. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Students from Sierra Intermediate School in Santa Ana race to get a spot to start laying pennies Wednesday at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. The event was organized by Think Together to break the world record for pennies laid end to end. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Students from Santa Ana begin the task of laying pennies in an effort to break the world record of pennies laid end to end. The pennies are arranged in a grid pattern within boxes that are joined at the corners by a single penny. In this way the pennies cover an area that corresponds with 100 linear miles. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Stephanie Velasquez, 12, of Sierra Intermediate School in Santa Ana, gets a up close look as she helps place pennies at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana for the Think Together project to break the world record for pennies laid end to end. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SAUSD Board Member, John Palacio’s email blast from 3/25/2009. To subscribe to John’s email notification of news and events related to education and SAUSD, please contact him directly with your request: jpalacio@pacbell.net
Education: Title I Funding – Frequently Asked Questions
Economic Recovery and Reinvestment
Title I Funding – Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Will all districts get additional Title I Part A funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)?
A. No. To be eligible for additional Title I Part A funds under ARRA, a district must have 5% poverty.
Q. How is the district poverty rate calculated? Who calculates it?
A. The calculation is based on an annual adjustment (2007) of the most recent census (2000) plus non-census data such as the number of children in neglected or delinquent institutions, children in foster homes, and children in families receiving TANF assistance. The poverty rate is calculated by the United States Education Department (USDE).
Q. When will our district be notified that it will receive additional Title I Part A funds under ARRA?
A. No firm date for final state and district allocations has been announced by the USDE. The USDE has posted preliminary allocations but the final allocations could vary significantly from any projections currently available.
Q. How can my district avoid supplanting when allocating Title I funds?
A. To determine if your district is in danger of supplanting when allocating Title I funds, ask the following questions:
Does the district use Title I funds to provide services that the LEA is required to make available under state, local or other federal law?
Does the district use Title I funds to provide services that it provided in the prior year with non-federal funds?
Does the district use Title I funds to provide services for children participating in a Title I program or in a Title I school that it provides with non-federal funds to children in non-Title I schools?
If you answer yes to any of these questions your district is at risk of supplanting. Consult with your assigned DPI Title I consultant before proceeding.
Q. May Title I Funds be used to hire Pupil Services personnel such as school counselors and social workers?
A. Yes, with conditions.
Title I schoolwide schools must conduct an annual needs assessment to determine the greatest needs of low achieving students. Based on the needs assessment a schoolwide plan is developed, implemented and evaluated annually. The needs assessment results in the identification of schoolwide reform strategies that 1) provide opportunities for all children to meet the State’s proficient and advanced levels of student academic achievement, 2) use effective methods and instructional strategies that are based on scientifically based research and, 3) include strategies to address the needs of all children in the school, but particularly the needs of low-achieving children and those at risk of not meeting the State student academic achievement standards. If pupil services personnel are employed to meet one or more of these objectives, they may be funded by Title I funds so long as those funds do not supplant state or local dollars.
In a targeted assistance school, pupil services personnel may be considered only under the following conditions:
The school is implementing programs that provide supplemental services only to eligible children identified as having the greatest need for special assistance;
The school provides opportunities for professional development with Title I funds and, to the extent practicable, from other sources, for teachers, principals, and paraprofessionals, including, if appropriate, pupil services personnel, parents, and other staff, who work with participating children in programs;
The school provides strategies to increase parental involvement such as family literacy services;
The pupil services personnel paid with Title I funds work only with students receiving Title I services and;
Title I funds do not supplant state or local dollars.
District requests to use Title I funds for pupil services staff are reviewed on a case by case basis. For further information, contact your DPI Title I consultant.
Q. How may Title I funds be used to support Response to Intervention (RtI) in a targeted assistance school?
A. Title I funds in a targeted assistance school must be used to provide supplemental education services to a select group of students determined eligible through multiple measures of achievement. These parameters on Title I funding still exist in targeted assistance schools even if the school is implementing RtI. Title I funds must still be used to provide additional educational support to a select group of eligible students and may not be used to provide the basic, core instruction available to all students.
Q. In a targeted assistance school, can the Title I teacher participate in RtI?
A. Absolutely. Title I services are one piece of the continuum of services available to students. Title I teachers should still be providing supplemental educational support to a select group of students determined as Title I eligible by a review of multiple measures of academic progress. The school should have explicit criteria for when students enter the Title I program and explicit criteria for when students exit the Title I program. Title I teachers collaborate with regular classroom teachers in identifying Title I students. Title I teachers may consult with regular classroom teachers to design classroom interventions that the teacher would implement before a student is identified as Title I eligible. However, the Title I teacher should not be delivering those interventions as they are designed for non-Title I students. Title I teachers should never be used to deliver the core instruction provided to all students even if that instruction is differentiated. Title I teachers deliver education services over and above the core instruction. Title I services should never reduce a student’s access to the core instruction.
Q. How may Title I funds be used to support RtI in a schoolwide school?
A. Schoolwide programs, allowable in buildings with at least 40% poverty, are designed to serve the educational needs of all students within the school. Therefore, Title I funds, pooled with other resources may be used to fund any aspect of RtI in a schoolwide school.
Q. Is RTI subject to the comparability and supplement, not supplant provisions of the Title I law?
A. Yes.
Q. Can Title I funds be used to purchase instructional materials for RtI?
A. If the district is purchasing particular materials for all schools in the district, those materials must be purchased with state or local funds in both Title I and non-Title I schools. In a targeted assistance school, Title I funds may only be used to purchase instructional materials for Title I students in the Title I program. In a schoolwide school, funds may be pooled and instructional materials may be purchased for all students in the school. Title I funds may never be used to purchase instructional materials in non-Title I schools.
Q. How does the three tiered system, common in many RtI models, work within the Title I targeted assistance programming? What parameters do we need to be aware of as we implement RtI?
A. When implementing RtI in a targeted assistance school, staff must ensure that the students served by Title I teachers and the services those teachers provide are consistent with Title I law. In a targeted assistance school, Title I teachers work only with Title I eligible students and the services they provide are supplemental to the core instructional program. This must be foremost in consideration when determining which “tier” Title I services should best be placed. While some districts choose to use a tiered model it is not required by the DPI.
For questions about this information, contact Mary P. Kleusch (608) 267-3163
Last updated on 3/16/2009 11:39:34 AM
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster
Department of Public Instruction, 125 S. Webster Street,
P.O. Box 7841, Madison, WI 53707-7841 (800) 441-4563
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Guiding Hands Find New Ways
Amid Tough Economic Times, School Counselors Are Adopting Fresh Ideas for Helping Students
By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 23, 2009; B02
They don’t just wait for students to come to their offices in search of college brochures, health pamphlets or other help. These days, counselors are scouring schools for at-risk kids to prevent personal or academic troubles before they arise. In tough economic times, students and families need the guidance more than ever.
“We really as a profession have gone from being reactive to being proactive,” said Rebekah Schlatter, director of guidance and counseling at Prince William County’s Woodbridge Senior High School. The old model, she said, “was putting out fires all day long.”
Counselors play a steadying role in schools as the economy weighs on families, college admissions becomes ever more competitive, immigration continues to reshape the population and high-stakes testing pressures many students. They use computers to sift through attendance data, grades and standardized test scores to create profiles of kids who might need extra help.
Schlatter has checked attendance records against grades and test results to start peer groups for students who are failing classes but not skipping them. That’s a separate problem from kids who fail because of chronic truancy, she said, though all failing students might once have been lumped together.
Group counseling is another way to reach more students, Schlatter said, though it can be difficult. “Kids really do start helping and sharing with each other,” she said.
The Woodbridge High counseling department is a small enclave off the administrative suite. On a campus with more than 2,500 students, there are 155 teachers and seven regular counselors. Each counselor has a caseload of 350 to 400 students. It’s difficult for school administrators to ease that load. With revenue tight, nearly every available extra dollar is flowing to classrooms and teacher salaries.
So counselors must find new ways to reach more students.
At Fairfax High School, counselors found through surveys that students who transferred to the school after ninth grade enjoyed school significantly less than those who had been there all four years. The counseling staff set up a special orientation program and group for new arrivals in response, said Marcy Miller, the school’s director of student services. Counseling staff members also have started small study groups for students to prepare for state Standards of Learning exams, which Miller said have helped raise test scores. She said that some of the newest counselors have had some of the freshest ideas.
Counselors at elementary and middle schools also are seeking to boost achievement, though their roles change as kids get older. Their offices don’t tend to be as well-staffed as those in high schools, meaning less one-on-one time with students. Elementary counselors often run early-intervention programs; those in middle school help students sort through normal hormonal tensions and get prepped for high school.
Good counseling doesn’t just come from new methods — it requires hard work, too. Diane Reese, counselor for a secondary education and training program at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, was named one of the top 10 counselors in the country this year by the American School Counselor Association. Like Schlatter and Miller, she uses the new data-driven methods. But she also spends a lot of time at school, making sure to talk to all of her 100 to 120 students at least twice a week. One of her tricks: She keeps a bucket of candy in her office to lure students in as often as possible.
“They’re not the children I gave birth to,” Reese said, “but they’re my other children.”
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dropout24-2009mar24,0,5140537.story
From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. district to end high-profile dropout-prevention program
The $10-million Diploma Project, which assigns counselors to schools to keep students on track, is a victim of budget cuts. Officials say it will be replaced.
By Howard Blume
9:15 PM PDT, March 23, 2009
A high-profile and lauded dropout-prevention program is falling victim to budget cuts — although top Los Angeles school officials insist that they’ll provide a more effective program in its place.
The precarious Diploma Project is emblematic of the financial crisis slowly working its way across the nation’s second-largest school system as ripples of a statewide budget shortfall touch counselors, teachers and other school employees whose work directly affects children enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Nearly 9,000 employees — about 10% of the full-time workforce — received notice of a possible layoff this month as the district seeks to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from its nearly $6-billion general fund. But there’s more going on than financial pain.
Reshaping system
After taking the helm in January, Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, one of the country’s most experienced educators, has attempted to reshape the school system. Cortines is seizing the moment to trim or gut some of the central bureaucracy, while also moving dollars and responsibility to schools. The superintendent wants schools to decide for themselves whether to pay for additional counselors, arts programs and librarians, among other things.
The new setup must save money, but it also should be more effective, he said.
“Everything I’m attempting to do is about improving the system,” Cortines said.
“Ray is confronting the budget challenge by furthering an agenda he believes in,” said David Rattray, a Cortines supporter and top official with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. The “current environment makes change more achievable and more difficult to retreat from.”
Some insiders, however, suggest that Cortines is slashing more than necessary given the impending arrival of federal stimulus funds. And for all its flaws, the central bureaucracy also is “the thin line of public accountability,” said former school board member David Tokofsky, a consultant with the administrators union. Backers of the dropout program plan to appeal today to the school board, which ultimately would have to approve Cortines’ budget plan.
The 3-year-old, $10-mil- lion Diploma Project, which assigns counselors to 49 high schools and 31 middle schools, was launched in the wake of bad publicity over alarming dropout rates and the district’s determination to confront them. Schools with the highest dropout rates, according to state figures, include Jefferson High in South Los Angeles, listed at 52.1%, and Belmont High, west of downtown, at 51%.
Diploma Project counselors work with students derailed by such issues as failed classes, behavior problems, poor attendance and failing the state exit exam, which is required for graduation. The advisors also help students who have left school to return or transfer elsewhere, as with 16-year-old Juan Troncoso.
Juan had been kicked out of three middle schools for tagging and failing classes, among other problems. After being involved in a student fight during his first semester at Wilson High in El Sereno, Juan said an administrator suggested that he might be safer at another school. “I never ended up going,” Juan said.
Last week, Juan resumed his studies at a charter school that will allow him to work independently. He credits Nancy Chavez, Wilson’s Diploma Project advisor, for helping him find school options.
While praising such success stories, Cortines characterized the district’s overall counseling services as disjointed and wasteful, with various counselors reporting to different central-office administrators.
At Wilson High, for example, there are numerous counselors, including those for attendance, college and academics. Chavez said the group works well together, dividing up tasks and collaborating to help students.
Lack of resources
Several counselors argued that their real stumbling block is not poor organization, but lack of resources. This year, high school academic counselors had to handle as many as 500 students each; next year the number could increase to 650.
The success of the Diploma Project, and other related initiatives, is difficult to nail down because of inconclusive dropout statistics. The district’s official graduation rate has increased slightly to 67.1%.
School principals will face hard choices in exchange for autonomy. All secondary schools, for example, will have one librarian, but a high school that wants more — or an elementary school that wants anything — would have to purchase library services at the expense of something else. Meanwhile, central library services will be reduced. Arts programs, for example, and other services also would compete for limited dollars — although with the arts, the superintendent wants to redistribute resources more fairly to benefit underserved elementary schools, so there is some gain along with the pain.
“I’m dealing with a budget deficit over three years and five years. Not everybody will be saved, and,” Cortines said, “everybody shouldn’t be saved.”
howard.blume@latimes.com
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Secretary Duncan eyes ‘new era’ in science education
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday he wants to launch a “new era” of science education in the United States that keeps research from “being held hostage to a political agenda.”
Duncan told the National Science Teachers Association during a visit to New Orleans that the U.S. needs more science and math teachers, and — in a veiled criticism of the Bush administration — rejected political influence on scientific research.
“Whether it’s global warming, evolution or stem cell research, science will be honored. It will be respected and supported by this administration,” he said.
Many scientists and environmental activists complained that the Bush administration had censored and marginalized science, for instance limiting the use of taxpayer money allowed for stem cell research and lauding the teaching of “intelligent design” alongside evolution.
Intelligent design is the view that life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation.
President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill to revive the U.S. economy includes more than $100 billion in new education funding, with $650 million set aside for technology grants, he said. Duncan couldn’t say how much money would go specifically into science but pledged funds would be available to modernize labs.
He also said many of the teaching jobs saved with stimulus dollars would be in science labs. But the money must be used wisely, he said, not just on saving jobs but also on driving strong reforms.
Duncan also cited a $5-billion “race to the top fund” to provide incentives to states already doing innovative, reform-minded work. He said there’s been a “dumbing down of standards for political reasons” under the current system of states with their own benchmarks and standards. That system doesn’t make much sense, he said, drawing applause, and it isn’t doing students any favors in the global economy.
He said there’s a need for common, high standards that prepare students for college and the work force and for international benchmarks to compare U.S. students with their counterparts around the world.
“I think in far too many states, meeting standards means you are at best barely qualified to graduate from high school, and you are woefully unprepared to go to college,” he said. “We have been lying to children, and we are setting them up for long-term failure. That has to stop.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Thorpe Fundamental Elementary Scool students Venezia Brisenio (l) and Maite Saldarriaga count and organize pennies for the Miles of Change drive. The drive is part of the THINK Together afterschool program. The program is attempting to lay 100 miles of pennies at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana to set a world record.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Kids hope to set world record at racetrack
Santa Ana children to attempt world record for longest continuous chain of pennies.
By EUGENE W. FIELDS
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SANTA ANA – Children in an after-school program at Thorpe Fundamental Elementary are joining with 35,000 other children throughout Southern California to set a world record – with pennies.
The push for the world record and a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records began as another educational activity of the after-school program, THINK Together, said group spokeswoman Nadia Flores.
Flores said THINK Together, based in Santa Ana, has programs at more than 200 elementary and middle school sites in Southern California and 23 sites in Orange County.
The penny drive began in February as a way to honor the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s image being featured on the one-cent coin.
Flores said the students, collectively, are attempting to gather 100 miles of pennies, which would amount to 8,448,800 pennies. The pennies will be laid in a chain on Wednesday at the race track at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, hopefully enough to circle the 2-mile track 50 times.
The 100 miles of pennies would best the current record of 40 miles, held by a youth group in Fort Scott, Kansas.
Monique Lopez, the site coordinator at Thorpe Fundamental, said the 115 students at Thorpe alone have collected more than a mile of pennies.
“Our goal was to raise $1,000, and so far we’ve raised $1,266.76,” Lopez said. “And a mile of pennies is about $845.”
The students used different approaches to collect the pennies.
Viridiana Hernandez, 8, said her family helped her.
“My dad and my mom have pennies in a baby bottle,” Hernandez said. “And my mom saved pennies.”
Jocelyn Garcia, 9, said her mother used school as a motivation.
“My mom told me each time I did my homework, she would give me 20 pennies,” Garcia said. “It helped me to do my homework faster.”
David Rojas, 9, said his mother paid him.
“I was helping my mom a little bit by making her bed,” Rojas said. “I like it.”
Flores said children will begin lining the coins up at 1:30 p.m., with the entire process expected to last almost four hours. Afterward, the pennies will be donated back to the program, she said.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3704 or efields@ocregister.com
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In tough times, private schools take innovative approaches to fundraising
Independent schools in L.A. are using videos, auctions and home parties to emphasize the message that in these challenging economic times, giving is more important than ever.
By Carla Rivera
March 23, 2009
Los Angeles Times
Most solicitations don’t begin with the words “don’t give,” but that’s the approach being used this year by the private Oakwood School in a clever, celebrity-packed appeal timed to its annual fundraising drive.
In the 3 1/2-minute video, Danny DeVito, Jason Alexander, Steve Carell and other Hollywood stars voice such sentiments as “The economy is in the toilet, so don’t give” and “You’d be stupid to give” before getting to the real point: “Unless you care about your children and their future,” and “Unless you care about families who had a hard year and need some help with tuition.”
Created by parent volunteers, the video is an example of the inventive methods private schools are using this spring to generate giving at a time when traditional benefactors may be hard-pressed themselves.
Oakwood’s “Don’t Give” campaign was a precursor to its major fundraiser, a star-studded event Saturday at The Lot in West Hollywood, featuring comedy, music and an auction. The video was meant to be an internal communication but was distributed on YouTube, said James Astman, Oakwood’s head of school.
“The purpose was to communicate to our constituents a vital but easily misunderstood message: that in these challenging times, giving is more important than ever,” Astman said. “In the short run to support financial aid and in the long run to build our endowment.”
Pricey tuition
Many independent schools in Los Angeles are sending the same message as they deal with a faltering economy that is forcing middle- and even upper-income families to think twice about whether they can afford to pay annual tuitions that top $25,000 at some campuses.
As a result, the proceeds of many fundraising appeals this year are earmarked for financial aid budgets, and more schools say they will use the money to help families who may not have needed assistance in the past but are now struggling. Other schools are taking a more direct route, asking donors to fund tuition scholarships for a year or more.
And though schools are still holding gala fundraising dinners, many are cutting back on extravagances and trying to ensure that most of the proceeds are used to support student programs. Loyola High School’s annual auction next weekend is being coordinated by two parents with backgrounds in accounting.
This year, a committee at the boys Catholic school was tasked with finding free auction items and merchandise and avoiding the past practice of purchasing such supplementary luxury items as trips, said event co-chair Barbara Collins.
Decorations and food are being scaled back (although the French-themed menu prepared by the campus chef still includes an elegant selection of hors d’oeuvres and entrees). Instead of hiring bartenders, 17 members of the school’s Father’s Guild have volunteered for duty.
“Especially this year, if people are going to come to an event and bid, they need to see that everything possible is done to see funds go back to the school and student body,” said event co-chair Lorylle Ketterer.
Proceeds will support financial aid. This year, 30% of the freshman class received some assistance, compared with 18% two years ago, said Loyola’s president, Father Gregory Goethals.
Other schools looking to expand their fundraising efforts are casting wider nets. The Webb Schools in Claremont are mounting a fundraising campaign that mirrors the international makeup of the institution’s student body. Fundraising events were recently held in Seoul and Hong Kong to help attract donations from alumni and parents in those cities, said Joe Woodward, Webb’s director of development.
The school’s main fundraising event — this year titled “Disco Fever” — was held Saturday at South Hills Country Club and included live and silent auctions.
Going off campus
Brentwood School is holding its annual auction at the Hollywood and Highland complex in May, featuring a disc jockey and food by Wolfgang Puck. The school estimates it will save about one-third of the costs by moving the event off campus and avoiding rent for lighting and heaters and kitchen facilities, said Mary Sidell, Brentwood’s director of institutional advancement.
Proceeds this year will go toward financial aid.
“We’re assuming not only will there be a need for new families, but we also want to try as best we can to address current families who may not have needed help before,” Sidell said. “If a family has been here for four or five years, they are our first loyalty.”
The Windward School in West Los Angeles is staging a Caribbean Casino-themed event on May 2 at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. Tickets are $150, but this year families have the option of paying a reduced price. The event will include the ubiquitous auction, with bids beginning at $50 so that more families can participate.
Bringing it home
For the first time this year, the school will hold 12 individual parties, most of them hosted by parents at their homes. Each will focus on a different activity, such as learning to play mah-jongg, making the perfect pie crust, arranging flowers, tasting at the Rosenthal Winery in Malibu and privately touring the Autry Museum.
The proceeds from these parties will also be used for financial aid, said Lach Reed, Windward’s director of institutional advancement. “The school community,” Reed said, “recognizes the need to support our efforts. There’s a philosophical commitment to what the school stands for, and financial aid is a part of that.”
A growing practice at many schools is to solicit direct donations to cover student tuition. Loyola, for example, has more than 200 scholarships that are permanently endowed, adding nearly 20 just in the last year, Goethals said.
Orange County’s Sage Hill School created a scholarship program with the Tiger Woods Foundation that provides $100,000 ($25,000 annually for four years of tuition) for a needy student. Tuition at the campus this year is $27,000.
“The core of our foundation is to provide educational support for disadvantaged kids and give them an opportunity at a high caliber education,” said foundation President Greg McLaughlin. “Especially now, support for financial aid scholarships is very important for most private schools.”
carla.rivera@latimes.com
Latest emailed articles by SAUSD board member, John Palacio. In his latest email blast he also included a large pdf file named, Fed Stimulus Estimated Funds by CA School District. Unfortunately the file is quite lengthy and is not post-able on this blog. If you would like to routinely receive John’s email blast (that sometimes includes timely, but large files) please contact his email directly to be added to his list of subscribers at: jpalacio@pacbell.net
Articles in Saturday’s distribution:
Estimated Stimulus Funds for Orange County School Districts
The following reflects how much Orange County school districts are estimated to receive in additional Title I and Special Education funds (document attached).
LEA NAME TITLE I-Aa IDEA, TOTAL
PART Bb
ANAHEIM ELEMENTARY $ 3,976,000 $ 4,983,000 $ 8,958,000
ANAHEIM UNION HIGH $ 3,415,000 $ 5,380,000 $ 8,795,000
BUENA PARK ELEM $ 589,000 $ 1,310,000 $ 1,899,000
CAPISTRANO UNIFIED $ 2,139,000 $ 9,287,000 $ 11,426,000
CENTRALIA ELEM $ 276,000 $ 1,142,000 $ 1,418,000
CYPRESS ELEM $ 141,000 $ 860,000 $ 1,000,000
FOUNTAIN VALLEY ELEM $ 180,000 $ 1,185,000 $ 1,365,000
FULLERTON ELEM $ 970,000 $ 2,641,000 $ 3,611,000
FULLERTON JT UN HIGH $ 788,000 $ 2,046,000 $ 2,834,000
GARDEN GROVE UNIFIED $ 8,341,000 $ 9,880,000 $ 18,221,000
HUNT BEACH CITY ELEM $ 228,000 $ 1,421,000 $ 1,649,000
HUNT BEACH UN HIGH $ 843,000 $ 2,343,000 $ 3,186,000
IRVINE UNIFIED $ 896,000 $ 4,189,000 $ 5,086,000
LA HABRA CITY ELEM $ 716,000 $ 1,398,000 $ 2,113,000
LAGUNA BEACH UNIFIED $ 102,000 $ 563,000 $ 665,000
LOS ALAMITOS UNIFIED $ – $ 1,226,000 $ 1,226,000
LOWELL JOINT ELEM $ 165,000 $ 828,000 $ 993,000
MAGNOLIA ELEM $ 855,000 $ 1,459,000 $ 2,314,000
NEWPORT-MESA $ 1,753,000 $ 4,617,000 $ 6,369,000
OCEAN VIEW ELEM $ 610,000 $ 2,003,000 $ 2,613,000
ORANGE UNIFIED $ 2,616,000 $ 6,824,000 $ 9,440,000
PLAC-YORBA LINDA $ 1,311,000 $ 5,135,000 $ 6,447,000
SADDLEBACK VALLEY $ – $6,479,000 $6,479,000
SANTA ANA UNIFIED $ 11,818,000 $ 11,703,000 $ 23,522,000
SAVANNA ELEMENTARY $ 174,000 $ 581,000 $ 755,000
TUSTIN UNIFIED $ 1,034,000 $ 3,325,000 $ 4,359,000
WESTMINSTER ELEM $ 1,246,000 $ 2,231,000 $ 3,477,000
Notes: These are estimated grants only.
These estimates are provided solely to assist in comparisons of the relative impact of alternative formulas and funding levels in the legislative process. It is ultimately the responsibility of the Department of Education and states to subgrant funds to LEAs. These estimates are not intended to predict specific amounts LEAs will receive. Details may not add to totals due to rounding.
a. Title I-A: H.R. 1 provides an appropriation of $10 billion in addition to amounts that would be provided under a separate FY2009 appropriations measure. Of this amount, 1% is set aside for the outlying areas and BIA. The remaining funds are split evenly between the targeted grant and education finance incentive grant (EFIG) formulas. Estimates grants to LEAs were prepared using using the underlying factors used to calculate FY2008 Title I-A grants. Actual data used to grant funds to LEAs will differ.
b. IDEA: H.R. 1 provides an appropriation of $11.3 billion for sec. 611 in addition to amounts that would be provided under a separate FY2009 appropriations measure. For these estimates, it is assumed that amounts reserved for state administration and state-level activities; and amounts required for LEA base payments come from the amount separately appropriated for FY2009. It is also assumed that no LEAs would be subject to allocations below the amounts they received for FY2008. Estimated grants were prepared using LEA population and poverty data used to calculate FY2008 Title I-A grants as a proxy for population
and poverty data specified in sec. 611(f). Actual data used to subgrant funds to LEAs will differ.
Source: CRS analysis, February 13, 2009.
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Santa Ana Unified School District
Special Study Session – Budget
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education will be having a Special Study Session on Thursday, April 9, 2009, at
4:00 p.m. in the District’s Board Room.
At the Special Study Session the Board will be discussing the District’s budget for Fiscal Years 2008-2009 and 2009-2010, including proposed budget reductions.
The meeting will be held in the Board Room, SAUSD District Administration Offices, 1601 East Chestnut Avenue, Santa Ana.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
John Palacio
jpalacio@pacbell.net
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget28-2009mar28,0,7945879.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Federal stimulus funds won’t save state from tax hikes, spending cuts
California finance officials announce that the state won’t receive enough federal dollars to prevent a $1.8-billion personal income tax increase and almost $1 billion in reduced services.
By Eric Bailey
March 28, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento — As the state’s budget continued swirling into the red, top finance officials said Friday that California won’t get enough federal stimulus money to avoid all of the tax hikes and service cuts lawmakers approved last month.
The announcement by state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Finance Director Mike Genest reaffirms that California residents will be hit with a $1.8-billion personal income tax boost and nearly $1 billion in slashed spending.
After weeks of number crunching, the pair determined that about $8.17 billion of the hoped-for $10 billion in federal revenue for budget relief would be available through 2010.
California’s personal income tax rate will rise by a quarter percentage point, effective with the 2009 tax year. The current maximum of 9.3% for the highest wage earners will rise to 9.55%.
The increase would have been half that if enough federal stimulus money had been available to completely offset the state’s budget problems.
Meanwhile, $948 million in spending reductions will affect higher education, healthcare, welfare and in-home care programs for the disabled and elderly. Those cuts would not have been made if enough stimulus money had been available.
“This is a shameful day for California,” said Doug Moore, executive director of the 65,000-member United Domestic Workers Homecare Providers Union. “Our governor and our legislative leaders have played a game of Russian roulette with the lives of nearly a half-million of California’s most vulnerable citizens and the people who care for them.”
Lockyer expressed regret about Friday’s announcement in a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders, saying he was “deeply concerned about all these consequences, both fiscal and human.”
He also recommended that the Legislature reconsider two spending cuts — the decision to slice $200 million in optional Medi-Cal dental benefits and pay increases for in-home care providers. Lockyer said the harmful consequences of those cuts “greatly outweigh any savings.”
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), one of the state leaders who negotiated the budget, embraced such a reappraisal.
“I wish those cuts weren’t there at all,” Bass said, adding that many of the most painful decisions to trim spending were necessary to win over enough Republican lawmakers to end the three-month budget stalemate.
As part of the budget deal, lawmakers empowered Lockyer and Genest to roll back some of the income taxes and restore some of the cut funds if adequate federal funds arrived.
The news came as state tax revenue continued to plunge. Five weeks after Schwarzenegger signed the budget, lawmakers face the prospect of a new $8-billion shortfall.
That sum could grow if the state economy slumps further — and if voters reject a half-dozen budget-related ballot measures in a special election May 19. Those proposals would raise $6 billion to help balance the budget beginning in July.
California is receiving about $31 billion in federal stimulus funds through 2011. Most of the money is earmarked for education, transportation and other needs, with less than a third available to address budget woes.
eric.bailey@latimes.com
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California’s state work force grew despite budget woes and cut promises
By Jon Ortiz and Phillip Reese
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Mar. 16, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 16A
California state government’s full-time work force continues to grow despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s order to freeze hiring amid a historic budget shortfall.
From June 2008 to February 2009, most state agencies either increased or kept the same number of full-time employees, according to a Bee analysis of personnel data. The state also failed to lay off as many part-time employees during the crisis as promised by the governor.
While legislators and Schwarzenegger debated how to close a $40 billion budget deficit, 66 state agencies saw a net gain of full-time employees, 35 kept the same number of employees and 55 lost employees, data from the state controller’s office show.
The overall number of full-time state employees increased by roughly 2,000, or 1 percent, excluding the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, which always shrinks sharply outside of fire season, the figures show.
While the increase is modest compared with other years, it clashes with the belief that the state work force must shrink to meet the current economic downturn and resulting drop in state revenue.
Last month, the two leading Republican candidates for governor criticized the budget deal because it relied, in part, on tax increases and not on substantially reducing the state work force.
Ted Costa of People’s Advocate, a government watchdog group, said slowing bureaucratic growth isn’t good enough.
“Government needs to be cut, squeezed and streamlined. It needs to get smaller,” Costa said. “Instead, the governor is doing stylistic things, like getting rid of lower-paid part-time help, instead of doing something substantial.”
But Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the trend shows the governor successfully tamped down government growth, especially since the recession has increased demand for services such as unemployment assistance and state-sponsored health care.
The Employment Development Department, which handles unemployment claims, added 101 full-time employees, a 1.3 percent increase, during the eight months analyzed by The Bee. Its part-time pool shrank 12 percent, down 110 positions, the data show.
“The fact that we’ve been able to maintain the overall size of state government while demand on state services has increased, demonstrates that the governor has been able to make cuts where we can,” McLear said.
Some of those cuts came last summer after Schwarzenegger ordered layoffs of what were then estimated to be 10,000 part-time and temporary employees to ease the state’s general fund budget woes. In fact, the net loss of part-time employees during the crisis was 6,300 – less than two-thirds the amount predicted by the governor.
And increases in full-time state employment – again, excluding Cal Fire – progressed steadily throughout the budget crisis. Most months between June and February saw net gains of a few hundred employees.
At any given time, roughly 1 percent of the state’s work force is on leave. That number fluctuates only slightly from month to month or year to year, according to a Bee analysis of several years’ worth of data from the controller’s office.
Some individual agency employment figures may be affected slightly by transfers. Over the course of a year, about 5 percent of the state’s work force transfers from one department to another, the Bee’s analysis found.
It’s hard to shrink government bureaucracies quickly, so it’s no surprise that California’s full-time work force continued to grow slightly during rough times, said Guy Peters professor of American government at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of “The Politics of Bureaucracy.”
“One person’s fat is another person’s program,” said Peters, adding that most state workers are tied to particular services, so policymakers often can’t shrink payroll without reducing programs.
Some government services are mandated, Peters said, making them especially tough to cut. Also, Peters noted, state worker unions in California are strong and crossing them isn’t easy.
The California Highway Patrol added roughly 275 full-time employees between June and February, state figures show. That’s a growth rate of roughly 3 percent.
CHP officials had long ago obtained funding for new officers, and three new officer academy classes graduated during that period.
“We hadn’t seen an increase in staffing in 30-plus years,” said CHP spokeswoman Jaime Coffee. “California has grown. There are more registered vehicles, so we were understaffed on patrol.”
“The bigger the (CHP) presence out there, people tend to slow down,” she added.
Another CHP officer academy class will graduate in May, Coffee said, predicting further growth in the CHP’s ranks. Most of the CHP’s budget comes from vehicle registration and driver’s license fees, instead of the general fund.
Cal Fire dropped more than 2,400 employees from June through January, but just a couple hundred of those job cuts were related to the budget, fire officials said.
“We have approximately 2,200 seasonal firefighters,” said Daniel Berlant, a Cal Fire spokesman, adding that the department’s ranks will likely increase again during the summer wildfire season.
ShareThis
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Call The Bee’s Jon Ortiz, (916) 321-1043.
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Higher taxes, deeper cuts ahead, state officials decide
ShareThis
By Kevin Yamamura
kyamamura@sacbee.com
Sacramento Bee
Published: Friday, Mar. 27, 2009 – 10:16 am
Last Modified: Friday, Mar. 27, 2009 – 10:30 am
California will sustain $948 million in spending cuts and $1.8 billion in higher taxes after fiscal leaders announced Friday that the state will not receive enough federal budget relief to avoid those measures.
As part of a $40 billion deficit solution, state lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Department of Finance Director Mike Genest to determine by April 1 whether California will receive $10 billion in federal budgetary aid through June 2010.
Genest’s office issued a statement this morning saying that he and Lockyer believe California will receive only $8.17 billion that qualifies under the criteria in the budget agreement.
“After a legal and fiscal review of recently enacted federal legislation, and in coordination with the State Treasurer and his staff, the Director has determined that the amount of additional federal funds available to offset General Fund expenditures through June of 2010 is $8.17 billion,” said Ana Matosantos, Department of Finance chief deputy director. “This amount is below the $10 billion established in (budget language) as the amount required to eliminate a portion of the personal income tax surcharge and specific spending reductions previously enacted by the Legislature.”
Lockyer, in a letter to Schwarzenegger, concurred that the $10 billion threshold would not be reached.
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Friday, March 20, 2009
Editorial: Belt-tightening? State workforce still growing
In midst of historic budget squeeze, the state adds about 2,000 full-time workers
The Orange County Register
Do you ever get the feeling that the public works for the government, rather than the other way around? That’s the sense we get, especially during tough economic times. The private sector is slashing jobs, and taxes are going up, thanks to the recently enacted state budget plan. But the government isn’t tightening its belt. In fact, a Sacramento Bee analysis of the state government found that its “full-time workforce continues to grow despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s order to freeze hiring amid a historic budget shortfall.”
Over an eight-month period, most state agencies expanded their workforce or kept the same number of employees. A fewer-than-promised number of part-time employees were laid off. “The overall number of full-time state employees increased by roughly 2,000, or 1 percent, excluding the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, which always shrinks sharply outside of fire season, the figures show,” according to the Bee.
“While the increase is modest compared with other years, it clashes with the belief that the state workforce must shrink to meet the current economic downturn and resulting drop in state revenue.”
So once again we see that Gov. Schwarzenegger’s promises are not to be believed. That should surprise no one given that this supposedly anti-tax governor championed a huge tax increase. The same governor who promised to blow up the boxes of government is doing his best to make those boxes bigger. And now his promises to cut the part-time workforce are empty. The permanent bureaucracy seems to rule things in Sacramento, so even as the rest of the state contracts, its ranks expand.
The California Highway Patrol has expanded its workforce by an astounding 3 percent. At the local level, cities are still pushing for expanded pay and benefits for their workers. USA Today reported last year that “State and local government workers are enjoying major gains in compensation, pushing the value of their average wages and benefits far ahead of private workers.” It’s a nationwide trend, although no other state has the fiscal mess faced in California.
If the rolls of government workers can’t be cut during these times, then there’s little hope of ever controlling the growth of government. Government is supposed to perform a few limited functions, but now it attempts to do just about everything. The Schwarzenegger administration excuses the growth-while-Sacramento-burns by explaining that the recession has increased the demand for “services” such as health care and unemployment. But there is something particularly galling about California agencies that are still hiring given the deficits and tax hikes.
At the very least, state government should tighten its belt just like the rest of us.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nepotism27-2009mar27,0,1567133.story?track=rss
From the Los Angeles Times
California jobs go to those with connections
Lawmakers can hire anyone they choose. Often, that means friends and family.
By Patrick McGreevy
6:21 PM PDT, March 26, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento — Unemployment in California may be at its highest since 1983, but there are jobs with the state Legislature for the well-connected.
Yolie Flores Aguilar, a longtime friend and political ally of some powerful California Democrats, last year supplemented her income as vice president of the Los Angeles school board with more than $32,000 as a consultant assigned to a state Senate committee that, during her tenure, did not meet or release any reports.
State Sen. Rod Wright (D- Inglewood) was paid at least $27,900 by the state Senate last year for miscellaneous tasks as he was campaigning for his current job. And Californians pay Marisela Villar, daughter of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, $68,000 annually as a field representative for Democrats.
Lawmakers have broad powers to hire whomever they wish, and those they employ need not go through the Civil Service exam process that requires applicants to compete for jobs on merit. Some are paid as consultants, with vague responsibilities or assignments. Others have titles that bear little relationship to what they actually do.
At least a dozen political allies, relatives and friends of legislators, including political candidates in need of a salaried landing or launch pad between elections, were on the legislative roster last year at a cost of $754,000.
“It looks like nepotism,” said Tracy Westen, chief executive of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. “It’s the kind of thing the public doesn’t like: people using their power and influence to provide cushy jobs to friends and family.”
Aguilar was given a $7,252-per-month salary for more than four months as a consultant to the Senate Select Committee on Urban Economies by Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who has been an ally on school reform efforts in Los Angeles.
One lawmaker on the committee questioned the benefit to taxpayers.
“If we’re not meeting, why do we need a consultant?” asked Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria). Maldonado, a member of the committee, said he did not recall working with Aguilar.
Aguilar, whose school board pay is $2,195 per month, had been consulting for Romero on education issues. Romero is a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction and recently took over as chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee.
Aguilar “was there to advise me and prepare me for assuming the role of chair,” Romero said.
Aguilar said the consulting job disappeared when Romero lost the post of Senate majority leader in December.
“That was one of the casualties,” she said.
Aguilar said she preferred the consulting work to her former post as head of Los Angeles County Children’s Planning Council, which she said took too much of her time away from school board business. But the school board post is considered part time, she said, and “unless you are independently wealthy, you have to have a job.”
Wright, a former assemblyman, was not just well-connected when he took a consulting job with former state Senate Leader Don Perata. He later ran successfully for a seat in Perata’s legislative house. Wright said the consulting consumed considerable time and energy. He was called on to represent Perata in L.A. at community meetings, vet Southern Californians for state appointments and review proposals for the region’s ports.
While on the public payroll, Wright also ran a business as a private consultant, with clients including Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. and Duke Power of Charlotte, N.C.
He said the state job was part time.
“The state got the use of my time and I learned a lot,” he said.
Fabian Wesson is also well- connected, running for office and getting paid to be a legislative consultant. She landed on the Assembly payroll a few years after her husband, Los Angeles City Councilman Herb Wesson, a former Assembly speaker, was criticized for providing legislative consulting jobs to political allies.
Fabian Wesson was hired by former Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, a Los Angeles Democrat, as her husband was forced from the Assembly by term limits in 2004. She is now running for the Los Angeles Assembly seat that Speaker Karen Bass holds until 2010.
Bass, who endorsed a Wesson competitor, dropped her from the Assembly staff this month, and Wesson becamea consultant for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) instead, doing liaison work with the public.
Bass said she inherited a staff of consultants that included Wesson and Villar.
“Everybody’s working. I don’t believe in make-work,” Bass said.
Wesson did not return multiple calls for comment. Nor did Villar, whose father, Villaraigosa, is a former Assembly speaker.
Villar was hired by one of her father’s friends, then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, in 2006 to arrange community meetings and handle constituents’ calls in Southern California. She does similar work for Bass from a state office in Santa Ana.
Voice-mail messages left at that office over several days were not answered.
Gil Cedillo Jr., the son of state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), makes $80,900 as a district coordinator for state Sen. Ron Calderon (D- Montebello). Barry Nestande, brother of Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R- Palm Desert) and the son of former Assemblyman Bruce Nestande, is paid $104,000 annually as chief of staff for Sen. John Benoit (R-Palm Desert).
Robert Brulte, the brother of former Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte, works for the Senate radio broadcasting studio, making recordings of lawmakers’ comments for distribution to radio stations. He touts a long career in the radio industry.
He got the job just before his brother left the Senate in 2004. But he denied any link between his $95,700-a-year state job and his brother’s former position.
“It was coincidental,” Brulte said, before adding “I’m sure he gave me a good recommendation.”
patrick.mcgreevy
@latimes.com
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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
UC spends $1 million for top brass while cutting classrooms
Campuses get news of cuts the same day that regents approve new jobs.
By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register
UC Irvine next year will admit 550 fewer freshmen and likely charge 9 percent more tuition under a plan to help the system cope with a $450 million shortfall over the next two years.
Other UC campuses are making similar reductions, with pay cuts and furloughs likely to follow, according to a memo issued Thursday by the UC Office of the President.
That same day, the office issued a second announcement that sparked anger among some: The UC regents had approved filling three executive positions worth a total of more than $1 million.
State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who has been a frequent critic of UC salary and benefits packages, criticized the move. He said UC should have “saved the money” and found another way to fill the jobs.
“They are continuing to live in their ivory tower and don’t have a clue as to what’s going on in the rest of the country,” Yee said.
The three appointments and salaries:
Gary Falle, UC associate vice president for federal governmental relations: $270,000
Peter Taylor, UC executive vice president and chief financial officer: $400,000
Daniel Dooley, UC senior vice president for external relations: $370,000
The San Francisco Chronicle also reported that, during the same session, regents offered two former chancellors each a year’s paid leave worth a total $717,000.
UC Davis former Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef will earn $315,000 for the coming year to retool his laboratory, talk to the public and start writing a book, according to minutes of the regents’ compensation committee. He will also receive $7,500 to move his things from his free university residence to a private home.
He will also have use of a secretary who earns $91,000 plus benefits, and an office budget of $39,000 during his year off to include international travel to Asia and Iran.
J Michael Bishop, M.D., the former chancellor for UC San Francisco, will receive a year’s leave at $402,200, his base pay as chancellor. He will also receive $10,000 toward the cost of moving from his free university home into private housing.
President Mark Yudof, who himself earns more than $1 million a year in salary, free housing, pension benefits and auto allowance, did not return phone calls or e-mails for this story. (Click here to see a database of all UC salaries in 2007.)
UC spokesman Paul Schwartz provided a written statement saying two of the positions were existing jobs that were vacant.
Also, Dooley will save money by holding down two executive jobs now, instead of one, he said.
The new chief financial officer job was created to bring more financial accountability to UC, the statement reads. The newly hired CFO has a base salary of $400,000, plus an $8,916 annual auto allowance, $64,000 as a relocation allowance, plus the actual cost of moving, $15,000 in temporary relocation living expenses, mortgage loan assistance and entertainment allowance, among other benefits.
Two of the jobs involve the important task of bringing federal funding to UC, according to the UC statement.
“These are positions that are needed to provide the level of management effectiveness and accountability expected of the university, and in one case we’ve asked an individual to take on two vice presidential jobs for the salary of just one – a salary savings of $320,000,” according to the statement.
“These appointments also are within the context of major cuts in the budget of the Office of the President, a pay freeze for existing senior staff, restrictions on travel and a host of other cost-cutting measures here and on every UC campus.”
Julio Posadas, executive vice president for UAW Local 3299, which had a long contract struggle with UC, said $1 million could have filled many vacant staffing positions for patient care and student care workers.
“Our workers are facing short-staffing issues and their quality of work is going down,” Posadas said. “Students are facing cutbacks in their services. It’s shameful they are only focusing on the top executives, which seems like they’re going back to their old ways.”
In the past, University of California has come under sharp criticism for lack of accountability for money quietly paid to executives in extra bonuses, stipends and other perks.
A 2005 independent regents’ review on university pay found “inappropriate compensation, benefits and perquisites” for system executives and failure to use “fundamental, common-sense business and management practices.” In some instances, the true amount of pay, including benefits and bonuses, was hidden from regents and public view, according to the report.
UCI student leader Andres Gonzales said he is “kind of angry” about the hirings, especially when his class sizes are getting bigger, although officially the UC Student Association is not opposed.
“There is some frustration students have that they’re putting money into their own staff, not the students,” Gonzales said. “But these were positions that have been vacant and were budgeted for already.”
Student regent D’Artagnan Scorza, who represents students on the board, said he can see” how the timing of the hires appears to be poor.”
“It would concern me if I were a person on campus and I didn’t understand what was going on,” Scorza said. “But these are positions that have been vacant for quite some time and they just happened to be filled at this moment.”
Scorza said the positions that were filled are “functional positions that it’s not possible to leave vacant. We need these governmental relations people to be our federal liaisons.”
The university needed more help with its finances, especially now that budget cuts are under way, he said.
“It’s more difficult to figure out ways to cut your budget when the positions responsible for that are not filled,” Scorza said.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
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Sadly, UC bosses won’t be getting their bonuses
March 20th, 2009, 11:46 am posted by Marla Jo Fisher, Staff Writer
Orange County Register
Okay, this is making me feel really bad to write this, but senior management at the University of California who earn over $100,000 a year won’t be getting the bonuses they had been promised. Unlike AIG.
All because those pesky people at the state treasurer’s office can’t find any more money for UC. The 9-campus system is reporting a $450 million budget cut over two years. Students, of course, are already (expletive deleted) in this equation, with course
reductions. You notice no one’s cutting the tuition.
Now, other state employees have already been forced to take unpaid furloughs, except not at UC.
At least not yet.
My friend who works at a local City Hall is figuring out how she’s going to support her disabled mom and son, with the pay cut from the furlough she’s been told to expect.
And, here at the Orange County Register, we recently got told we all have to take a week off without pay between April and June.
Yet, no furloughs at UC. It’s only now that the UC president has asked his underlings to develop a way to administer furloughs “should they become necessary,” according to a press release.
Still, I feel pretty bad that these UC managers are going to have to forgo their bonuses, maybe they’ll have to cancel their trips to Hawaii, which will also hurt the islanders who depend on tourism. Or maybe they can’t put a down payment on that new Lincoln Navigator, which will hurt the U.S. car industry.
Incidentally, it doesn’t cover doctors, who will continue to rake it in from their clinical
practices.
Here’s the notice from this week’s agenda for the UC Regents, who were meeting at UC Riverside:
Further restrictions on senior-level bonuses: The Regents this week approved more restrictions on the payout of bonuses and incentive pay, on top of the senior-level salary freeze and bonus restrictions adopted in January. With the expanded controls adopted this week, 2008-09 bonuses for senior managers and non-senior managers making more than $100,000 are canceled; pending bonuses from 2007-08 for senior managers and non-senior managers making more than $205,000 are canceled; and payouts of incentive compensation that may be pending from 2007-08 and may be earned in 2008-09 are deferred to the end of 2009-10. These actions do not affect clinical incentive plans or the incentive plan for personnel in the Treasurer’s Office.
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Monday, March 23, 2009
OCTA slashes bus service by one-fourth, cuts 400 jobs
Video: Cuts driven by revenue shortfall are deepest yet.
By MICHAEL MELLO and ERIN WELCH
The Orange County Register
ORANGE – Riders on Orange County Transportation Authority’s buses are already feeling the effects of service cuts.
With action taken Monday by the OCTA, riders are likely to feel that pinch more over the next year. In planning next year’s budget, the board voted Monday afternoon to cut bus trips by about a quarter and lay off nearly 400 bus drivers, supervisors and maintenance workers.
The action helps the agency deal with an expected $272 million drop in revenue projected over the next five years.
Riders may not know or see the effects of such changes until September, because the reductions could be adjusted based on changes in the economy, OCTA executives said.
“They say we’re going to see changes, but we see them now. When I go to the bus depot to check the schedule, there are no times because they keep changing,” said Francisco Bravo, 25, Tustin, who has been riding the bus system for 10 years. “I don’t know when my bus is coming or if it will ever come.”
Since June 2008, OCTA has ordered 133,000 hours cut from bus service annually – which will affect 26 routes this coming June.
Monday’s decision to eliminate 400,000 hours is in addition to hours previously cut. Exactly how those changes will affect routes has not yet been determined.
Riders and bus drivers asked the board not to make the cuts or to consider part-time hours and furloughs instead of layoffs.
“We’re asking that you take a little more time in your decision, instead of making them right now,” said Marvin Cotton, bus driver of seven years and currently one of OCTA’s employees of the month.
Cotton drives route 64, which starts in Westminster and heads through downtown Santa Ana into Tustin.
Cotton has heard concerns from customers, saying “they’ll be able to get where they want to go, but they’ll have a harder time getting there.”
Some directors expressed a desire to work with the union to change existing contracts to forgo raises.
The union contract calls for a 4 percent wage increase in May. OCTA officials say eliminating those raises could save 45 jobs.
Union officials said there are no immediate plans to open negotiations.
“Thirty or 40 jobs, that’s not enough to motivate anybody,” said Patrick Kelly, secretary-treasurer and principal officer of Teamsters Local 952, which represents OCTA bus drivers. “We’re going to work with our (Washington) lobbyists to get some stimulus money.”
Kelly also said: “We think there needs to be a fresh look at how transportation is funded. Something’s not right.”
OCTA directors said they made the cuts to save agency reserves in case the economic picture doesn’t get any better, but hoped they could start to restore services in a year’s time.
“There will be people waiting on sidewalks for buses,” said agency director and Orange Mayor Carolyn Cavecche. “We realize that.”
In other action, the OCTA board named Jim Kenan, executive director of finance and administration, to be interim chief executive officer.
Kenan will take over as the board begins searching for a permanent replacement for Art Leahy, who leaves on Friday, March 27, after eight years, to head the Los County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Contact the writer: ewelch@ocregister.com or 714-704-3719
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States could lose billions in taxes to stimulus
by Gary D. Robertson – Mar. 25, 2009 11:26 AM
Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. – President Barack Obama told the nation’s governors in February that the states’ $229 billion share of the federal stimulus package “will ensure that you don’t need to make cuts to essential services that Americans rely on now more than ever.”
But while one hand of the federal government is offering Medicaid, education and other direct assistance to the states, the other hand could reduce state tax revenues by billions of dollars. That’s because many states copy adjustments in the federal tax code into their own to make things less confusing for taxpayers – and the $787 billion stimulus package is heavily laden with federal tax breaks and incentives.
The changes could dwindle revenues at a time when states are facing their own fiscal
crises.
“We have to balance our budget and the federal government doesn’t,” said Sen. David Hoyle, a co-chairman of the North Carolina Senate’s Finance Committee. “So they can spend at length what they want and print more money. We can’t.”
The total potential losses are hard to calculate nationwide, because many states are still figuring out how to spend their money from the recovery plan and haven’t closely studied the fine print of the tax provisions. But 17 states performing essentially back-of-the-napkin calculations told The Associated Press they could lose at least a cumulative $1 billion in revenues through 2011 if their tax codes imitate the federal changes.
Across all 50 states, it’s could be much higher: Tax experts interviewed by AP estimated the total losses anywhere from $4 billion to $60 billion over the next two years.
Even at the high end, that’s well short of the estimated $244 billion in budget gaps facing states through next year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But it comes at a time when every bit counts and could force some states into cuts they’d hoped the stimulus money would avert.
“There will be both economic and political judgments being made,” said Jim Eads, executive director of the Federation of Tax Administrators, representing local taxing authorities and revenue departments.
The states that should feel the biggest hit are those with individual and corporate income taxes that adopt changes to the federal code. Among these are about 35 states that use a taxpayer’s federal gross income or adjusted income as the basis for determining state tax payments.
By contrast, a handful of states with no income tax or corporate tax – such as Nevada, Washington or Wyoming – shouldn’t be harmed much.
Legislative analysts in North Carolina report the greatest potential loss, about $320 million. Kansas officials said they could face $90 million in loss revenues and Michigan $89 million.
“It’s one more piece to this growing, complicated puzzle,” said Glenn Coffee, leader of the state Senate in Oklahoma, which faces a $900 million shortfall and could lose $65 million in state funds due to the tax code changes.
Revenue officials and lawmakers in other states contacted by the AP – including California, Pennsylvania and New York – said they didn’t yet know the full impact of the federal tax provisions. Others said they don’t expect a significant loss or are still studying the stimulus.
“We’re still peeling back that onion,” said Florida state Sen. Thad Altman, the chamber’s tax and finance committee chairman.
The tax-reducing measures in the stimulus package passed by Congress and signed by Obama include:
– The exemption from federal taxes of the first $2,400 of a person’s unemployment benefits;
– Deducting from federal taxes the state and local sales taxes on new car purchases;
– A provision allowing businesses to deduct more of their expenses and to defer some taxable income they would otherwise have to report;
– A refundable federal tax credit of up to $800 over the next two years;
– The temporary expansion of the federal earned income tax credit;
– And an increase in the first-time home-buyer credit.
To avoid losing millions in revenue, states that automatically adopt federal tax changes will have to override those rules. Oregon’s legislature has already done that, saving the state $135 million.
“We’ve decoupled in the past,” said Hoyle, the North Carolina lawmaker, adding that it would be impossible to conform with the federal rules this year given the state’s $3.4 billion budget gap. “It’s a real issue. Are we going to take people’s unemployment benefits? Those kinds of things have got to be addressed.”
States that stick with the tax breaks can take some solace in the Obama administration’s promise that the stimulus will create or save 3.5 million jobs. Those workers would have to pay taxes and could make up for some of the losses.
There’s also the fact that some lost revenues will be restored when temporary tax changes in the stimulus law expire in a few years. State leaders thrilled with the extra funds from Washington are just now looking at the short-term tax consequences.
“Virtually all of the states with an income tax are going to have address these on a line-by-line item,” said Roby Sawyers, an accounting professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. “The federal government didn’t do the states any service by reducing the taxes this way
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Q&A on reaching unemployment office, benefits
Kathleen Pender
Thursday, March 26, 2009
With the state unemployment rate at 10.5 percent, I continue to get questions about jobless benefits.
Here are some answers.
Q: I can’t get through to a live person at the California Employment Development Department. Do you have any suggestions?
A: To handle a deluge of calls, the department’s unemployment insurance call center will now be open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., in addition to its regular weekday hours. Not all services will be available, but staff will be available to file claims or help people submit questions online for response. The number is (800) 300-5616 or (800) 326-8937 for Spanish. The fastest way to file a claim is still online.
Q: Can a person receive unemployment benefits if fired from a job in California?
A: In California, you can file for benefits, but you might not get them if you leave your job voluntarily or you are “discharged for misconduct connecting with your most recent work.”
What constitutes misconduct? The EDD goes into great detail on this hairy subject at links.sfgate.com/ZGOC.
Q: How many weeks of benefits can I get?
A: That depends on your individual employment history.
Today, the most you can get is 26 weeks of regular benefits plus 20 weeks of extended benefits paid for by the federal government. In high unemployment states including California, you can get a second federal extension up to 13 weeks, for a total of 59 weeks.
To qualify for the second extension, you must run out of your first extension by Dec. 26, 2009. For details, see links.sfgate.com/ZGOD.
Q: Is there a chance I could get more than 59 weeks?
A: Yes. It’s likely that before long, the unemployment rate in California – measured in a particular way known as the Insured Unemployment Rate or IUR – will reach a level that will trigger yet another round of extended benefits that will run for up to 13 additional weeks, bringing the maximum in California to 72 weeks. This round of extended benefits, known as FED-ED, would be payable once someone exhausts the first and second federal extensions now available. It would be available as long as the IUR remains high enough.
It’s also possible that this FED-ED extension could run for a maximum of 20 weeks instead of 13. For that to happen, the state Legislature must pass a bill, ABX3 23. The Assembly voted unanimously in favor of the bill on Monday, and it is now in the Senate. It would provide benefits retroactively back to Feb. 22, 2009. Federal funding would run out at the end of this year, unless Congress extends it.
The rules for FED-ED are more stringent than the rules for earlier rounds of benefits.
To qualify, you must document your job search for each week of benefits and be willing to accept a relatively low-paying job if it comes along.
“Someone getting the maximum weekly benefit would have to accept a job paying as little as $11.25 per hour,” says EDD spokeswoman Loree Levy.
Net Worth runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail Kathleen Pender at kpender@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/26/BU8Q16N0GC.DTL
This article appeared on page C – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle-
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-assistance-denied26-2009mar26,0,3416012.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Some jobless aren’t down and out enough to qualify for aid
A growing number of middle-class families reeling from layoffs find their unemployment benefits are too high for them to get food stamps, general relief and other assistance.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
March 26, 2009
Earlier this month Caroline Sabey crossed a threshold she never imagined she would see: the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services.
The single mother had been laid off in February from her $55,000-a-year job as an executive assistant. Almost immediately, Sabey, 42, struggled to make ends meet. She went to the county hoping to get money to buy food for her two young sons.
By asking for help, Sabey joined a growing number of middle-class families applying for government aid only to discover that their safety nets — savings, severance packages, unemployment payments — put them at a disadvantage in a system designed to serve the very poor.
At the crowded Chatsworth Social Services office, Sabey waited hours. Caseworkers had her apply for food stamps and CalWorks, which offers cash benefits for families.
Late last week she was told her application was denied. Her monthly unemployment payments of $1,943 put her $36 over the federal income limit for food stamps. The monthly income limit for a family of three for CalWorks was even lower.
“What happens to us middle-class families who were making good money and then boom, something like this happens, and we have to meet these guidelines?” she said, adding that her unemployment check barely covers her rent and basic bills. “I don’t think America was prepared for us to fall under this.”
County officials say Sabey’s story is increasingly common. At a meeting earlier this month of the county’s Commission for Children and Families, participants were startled when Miguel Santana, a deputy to the county’s chief executive, told them caseworkers are turning away those who are not already “living in their cars.”
Santana later said that he had exaggerated a bit, but only to underscore how stressed the system is. He called the system for determining benefit eligibility “a very ineffective way of helping people” that “doesn’t consider this very unique circumstance we are in.”
“A lot of these folks, once the economy picks up again, are going to be able to land on their feet,” Santana said. “But it’s going to take a while. What’s going to happen in between?”
In February, the county denied 6,605 applications for CalWorks — which saw a substantial increase in requests from two-parent families — about 18% more than the same month last year. Among those who applied for and received CalWorks were 674 two-parent families, 37% more than the same month last year.
Food stamp denials were up 14%, general relief denials were up 10%, and Medi-Cal denials were up 7%.
Philip L. Browning, the county’s director of social services, said the increased denials reflect an overall surge in applications for assistance in recent months. Although the largest spikes in demand for aid were in working-class and low-income communities, middle-class areas also saw significant increases.
But to qualify for CalWorks, a family of four cannot earn more than $1,218 a month or have more than $2,000 in cash or property, not including their home. If they have a car worth more than $4,650, the added value counts as property. To qualify for food stamps, an application that takes into account monthly living expenses such as rent and utilities, the same family cannot earn more than $2,297.
Although the county has earmarked more than $195 million in stimulus money for CalWorks, and $12.5 million for homeless services, that is not likely to reach middle-class families, Santana said. He estimated that it will cost hundreds of millions more to expand such help. “The funding we’re getting from the stimulus is barely going to cover the increase in demand,” he said. “Now we have to find money for those who are on the cusp of becoming eligible.”
The new demand and changing clientele are apparent in busy Social Services offices countywide. Food stamp applications at the Chatsworth office increased 20% this February over last, with CalWorks applications up 23% for the same period.
Browning said he visited the office a few weeks ago on a Friday afternoon, expecting it to be nearly empty. Instead, he entered a waiting room crowded with people dressed professionally, briefcases in tow.
“All the seats were full, and you could really tell the difference in the people, people who had not been to a public welfare office before,” Browning said. “Some of the intake staff will tell you they are seeing many more people like themselves and are saying, ‘There but by the grace of God go I.’ ”
Caseworkers at the Panorama City office say they have seen applications double during the last six months, with up to 800 on a busy day. The office, which covers the eastern San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita, has seen food stamp applications increase 45% this February over last, with CalWorks applications up 38%. “We have people who have been in the banking and mortgage industry, mothers with two kids, married couples where the husband got laid off and the wife had her hours cut back,” Browning said. “They never had to apply for assistance before. It’s a difficult thing.”
Most middle-class applicants are not interested in Medi-Cal, Social Services staff said — they need food stamps and cash to pay the mortgage.
“They come in because they’re at their wits’ end. They’re already beginning to lose things, and they want to make sure they can feed their children. This is really a last stop for them,” said Carlos Perez-Carrillo, an eligibility supervisor in the Panaroma City office. “These are career people. You can tell by the way they dress. They have been working all their lives, and they’re coming in here broadsided, just really confused.”
Perez-Carrillo said caseworkers also are seeing more couples with children, workers from real estate brokerages and Circuit City trying to pay mortgages and avoid foreclosure in places like Sherman Oaks. Most of the middle-class families Perez-Carrillo has seen turned away are receiving more than $500 a week in unemployment benefits. When they get denied, they get upset.
” ‘I’ve paid my dues.’ That’s what they say, ‘and you don’t want to help me,’ ” Perez-Carillo said. “I’ve been doing this for about 18 years, and this is the most difficult I’ve seen it.”
If someone is denied benefits, caseworkers refer them to food pantries, homeless shelters and private charities and advise them to return in a month if their situation worsens. Often, they return and qualify, Perez-Carrillo said.
At her two-bedroom apartment in Oak Park, Sabey — who until last month was a minivan-driving suburban mother with a good job — said she’s not sure what she should do next.
She has registered with five temp agencies, is studying for a bachelor’s degree in psychology and has applied for everything from call center operator to restaurant hostess. No one’s hiring for jobs that pay more than $25,000 — too little to support her family.
She refuses to ask her elderly father, who has stomach cancer, for help. She said she is still seeking support from her estranged husband in court.
It was hard — and humiliating — for her to go to the government for help. She said she felt like a criminal as a Social Service worker took her fingerprints. As she waited for her name to be shouted like everyone else’s, she wished they would just use those little buzzers like the restaurants she used to frequent. She cannot imagine standing in line at a food pantry.
“You start to question yourself and how you got here. I’m in this age group where I should be at the peak of my career, looking forward to retirement,” she said.
Why, she said, can’t Social Services be more flexible with people like her who almost qualify?
She has cut back on everything she can — got her grocery bill down to $65 a week, her utilities down to about $40 by dimming the lights and taking fewer baths. Although she qualifies for federal assistance for her heat and gas, it will not start until April and won’t pay if she gets cut off before then.
Sabey, who had a sheltered childhood and never before experienced financial distress, was surprised that the referral list she got from Social Services included a homeless shelter for single mothers. She had no idea such places existed.
“Why are we allowing single mothers to get to that point?” she said. “Why aren’t we doing something?”
molly.hennessy-fiske
@latimes.com
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-poll26-2009mar26,0,3460616.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Ballot measures on California budget in trouble, poll finds
Five proposals are falling short of the support needed to pass. Only a plan to block pay raises for elected officials when the state is running a deficit has strong support.
By Michael Finnegan
10:05 PM PDT, March 25, 2009
Five state ballot measures aimed at solving California’s budget crisis are falling short of the support needed to pass in the May special election, a sign that voters may force lawmakers into another fierce clash over tax hikes and spending cuts, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The state’s dismal economy has already partly unraveled the budget deal that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature reached last month, with a drop in tax collections leaving a new $8-billion shortfall. Rejection of the ballot measures would widen the gap to nearly $14 billion.
The least popular measure, Proposition 1C, is also the one that state leaders are counting on most for immediate fiscal relief: It would let the state borrow $5 billion against future lottery revenues. The cost, to be paid over decades, would be billions in new interest obligations, and less lottery money to meet future spending needs.
The poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that Proposition 1C would lose in a rout if the May 19 election were held today, with 37% of likely voters in favor and 50% opposed.
Faring slightly better, but still decisively rejected, would be Proposition 1A. It would cap state spending while extending billions in temporary tax hikes for an extra two years. The survey found 39% of likely voters for the measure and 46% against it.
So far, Proposition 1A is the measure that has drawn the most attention. Conservatives on talk radio, enraged by the extension of the tax hikes, have made its defeat a top priority. Some labor unions are weighing whether to campaign against the spending cap.
The dynamics of the special election are volatile, and public opinion could swing dramatically once campaign advertising begins. The poll found more than 10% of likely voters are undecided on most of the ballot measures. Also, voter turnout is likely to be low, and it is unclear what mix of Californians will wind up casting ballots in the oddly timed election.
Passage of each ballot measure requires at least one vote above 50%. Three measures were winning a plurality of support in the poll, but still falling short of the 50% threshold. The poll has a margin of sampling error of three percentage points among likely voters.
The poll found likely voters lukewarm on twin measures to loosen restrictions on money that Californians have dedicated solely to children’s health and mental health programs under previous initiatives.
Both measures, Propositions 1D and 1E, fall a few points short of 50%, but more voters backed them than opposed them.
Voter sentiment was split on Proposition 1B, which puts money into schools in future years to make up for cuts this year, with 44% in favor and 41% opposed. Lawmakers made it part of the ballot package in part to dissuade the state’s potent teachers unions from joining the opposition campaign.
All in all, “the supporters of the propositions have their work cut out for them,” said pollster Mark Baldassare, president of the policy institute.
Schwarzenegger and Democrats who lead the Legislature have joined forces to raise money for mail and television ads promoting the ballot measures. The Republican governor, state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) and Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) also have pushed the measures in joint meetings with opinion writers at major newspapers in the state.
On Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said failure to pass the measures would be “disastrous” for California.
“We are going to work very hard, both parties, to go up and down the state and educate the people to make sure that they win,” he told reporters in Sacramento.
But the poll raises new doubts about Schwarzenegger’s effectiveness as a messenger in the campaign. His popularity matches the record low he set in December 2005, with 33% of likely voters approving of his job performance and 57% disapproving. For the first time, even a majority of Republicans questioned by the Public Policy Institute pollsters give Schwarzenegger negative job ratings.
The Legislature, too, is at a record low, with an 11% job approval rating and 80% disapproval.
Also revealing: 81% of likely voters back Proposition 1F, which would block pay raises for state elected officials when the state is running a deficit.
“I think that tells you a lot about the anger and frustration that’s out there,” Baldassare said.
Tony Quinn, a nonpartisan election analyst who specializes in California politics, said voters seem to be so turned off by Sacramento’s dysfunction that they have not focused on the gravity of the budget measures on the May ballot.
If voters reject them, he said, lawmakers will “finally have to do some things that the public notices.”
“What about early release of low-risk prisoners? That might not be very popular, but they may be forced to,” he said. “What about reducing Highway Patrol hours? Or not having as many cops on the beat?”
Although the poll offered nothing but bad news for state officials, it found a sharp rise in popularity for Congress: 43% of Californians approve of the job Congress is doing, up 20 points from October.
Approval ratings also have risen for Democratic U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (56%) and Barbara Boxer (52%), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) (49%).
President Obama also remains highly popular among Californians, with a 71% approval rating.
michael.finnegan @latimes.com
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-stimulus-jobs21-2009mar21,0,6923950.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Local governments’ stimulus money may not stay local
In one example, Santa Monica plans to spend most of its allotment on hybrid buses built in Riverside, but city officials expect some of it to filter back
By Alexandra Zavis and Steve Hymon
March 21, 2009
Even as local officials scramble for federal stimulus dollars to help their communities — with early word of hundreds of millions for road improvements and transportation projects — they acknowledge that money spent by individual cities may end up generating jobs elsewhere.
Take Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus service, which plans to spend $7 million of its expected stimulus money on 10 new gasoline-electric hybrid buses.
The buses will give residents a quieter, more environmentally friendly ride than the old diesel-fueled fleet. But the purchase will not create new jobs in Santa Monica. The millions spent on the buses will instead help businesses in Riverside and Poway.
Santa Monica officials say they are taking a broader view as they make stimulus spending choices. “Essentially we are all in this together in the Los Angeles region and very much interconnected in terms of how we do economically,” said Kate Vernez, an assistant to the Santa Monica city manager.
Crews coming into the city to work on road repairs and other projects will bring dollars to buy lunch, Vernez said. And jobs created in other cities could mean more visitors coming to Santa Monica to spend money in restaurants, shops and hotels.
At ElDorado National in Riverside, which makes the hybrid buses Santa Monica plans to buy, the city’s order alone would provide work for about five existing employees. Those jobs, said Tony Wayne, who heads the operation there, could have been in jeopardy had the firm failed to drum up sufficient business between now and October.
His company, which builds heavy-duty buses in Riverside and smaller commercial vehicles in Kansas, is vying for federal stimulus orders nationwide. ElDorado has remade its website to highlight the stimulus package. “Important Information” flashes in red letters at the top of its homepage, and a link promotes the company’s products as American-made, with local, state and federal contracts “available now.”
Orders for ElDorado’s buses and vans also mean money for its suppliers. ElDorado would buy the hybrid propulsion system used to make Santa Monica’s buses from ISE Corp. in Poway, near S
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-target-library-2346805-makeover-elementary
Santa Ana school among 16 nationwide to get library makeover
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Santa Ana school among 16 nationwide to get library makeover
Target and the Heart of America Foundation selected Adams Elementary for renovation.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Comments 2| Recommend 0
SANTA ANA Adams Elementary in Santa Ana Unified has been selected for a library school makeover, one of 16 campuses nationwide chosen by Target and The Heart of American Foundation, officials announced today.
The school’s library will be transformed through construction, new design elements, furniture, shelves, fresh paint and a new selection of books and computers. Construction will begin this summer, and should be completed in October, officials said.
Target staff and other volunteers arrived at Adams Elementary, on Raitt Street near Warner Avenue, to make the announcement to students, teachers and administrators.
The Target school library makeover project is a collaborative between Target and The Heart of America Foundation. In the program, schools across the country are selected based on need to receive a library makeover. The effort is led by local Target volunteers, who contribute their time and talent toward making the program a success. Adams Elementary was the only Orange County school chosen for the makeover.
Volunteers and school officials will hold a library unveiling in mid October.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
Some comments that followed:
1. None of the elementary schools in Santa Ana have librarians. A librarian is a credentialed teacher who is also credentialed to run a library. There are about 75 credentialed librarians in the 600 schools in Orange County, a ratio worse than California’s, which is the worst in the nation. Houston, for example has 300 schools and 300 credentialed school librarians. Target’s work, though generous, is putting lipstick on a pig.
2. That’s very nice, but with all the budget cuts, the Santa Ana Elementary school where I teach doesn’t have a librarian to work in the library; therefore, the kids can’t take out books. I hope the ballot propositions pass in May so that Adams and the other schools will get libarians again.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/high-kids-drugs-2351456-parents-drug
1 in 5 teens used prescription drugs illegally
Local groups warn against danger and talk about consequences.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
1 in 5 teens used prescription drugs illegally
Local groups warn against danger and talk about consequences.
By JENNIFER MUIR
The Orange County Register
Comments 20| Recommend 5
ANAHEIM – The mother with sad eyes walked across the high school stage, took off her glasses and wiped them on her black blouse.
She didn’t want to come tonight, didn’t want to discuss the death of her beautiful 16-year-old daughter, didn’t want to recount to a room full of nearly 200 strangers how her baby – a popular soccer player from tight-knit family with no history of drug abuse – overdosed after taking cough medicine to get high.
It was the first time she had spoken about her little girl’s death. She found the strength to walk across this stage, to face these “beautiful kids” and their parents, because she was hoping it might help heal the hole in her heart, might prevent another parent from having to bear the burden of losing a child to over-the-counter drugs.
“She was laying down on the hospital bed and I kissed her head and her face, her nose, her arms, her fingers, her feet,” the mother, Agatha Martino, told the crowd sitting on folding chairs inside Canyon High School’s cafeteria last week. “It was surreal. … We all became numb with the reality that she wasn’t coming back.”
This was the first of three events scheduled with high school PTAs across Orange County to address the growing problem of kids increasingly abusing prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Partnership for a Drug Free America research shows that as many as one in five teens say they have taken a prescription drug without having a prescription for it themselves in their lifetime, and as many as one in 10 have done so in the past year.
That includes everything from amphetamines commonly prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder, such as Ritalin and Adderral, to pain killers like Xanex, Vicodin and OxyCotin.
Additionally, about 7 percent of teens have reported using over-the-counter cough medicine to get high during the past year, the Partnership for a Drug Free America says. The cold remedies are valued for an ingredient called dextromethorphan, which can cause hallucinations.
The high school meetings come after the county commissioned a report from two nonprofit agencies to assess the level of abuse among the Orange County’s youth. While the report is not yet available, some of the initial findings were alarming, said Dan Gleason, the director of Community Service Program’s Project PATH, which looked at such abuse in north and central Orange County.
For example, more Orange County youths died from overdosing on over-the-counter and prescription drugs from 2005 to 2007 than they did on street drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin, Gleason said. Project Path looked at Orange County Coroner data, which shows that among youths ages 12 to 25, 42 died from overdosing on prescription or over-the-counter drugs during the three-year period, while 38 died from overdosing on street drugs, he said.
LUCIA’S STORY
Lucia Martino was not the type of person anyone expected to die from a drug overdose.
She was an athlete and came from a large Italian family that was very close. She was a junior at Canyon High School.
One night, while her parents were sleeping, she swallowed 20 Coricidin pills to get high – the second time she had experimented with the over-the-counter cough medicine. Her mother, Agatha, found her vomiting the next morning and took her to the hospital.
For four days, doctors, friends and family members asked Lucia if she had done anything that might have caused her illness. And for four days, she said nothing.
It wasn’t until after she fell into a coma that a friend asked a nurse whether the Coricidin pills could be to blame. By then her liver was destroyed. She died less than a day later in Sept. 2006. She was 16.
Ever since, her bedroom at home has remained exactly the same, papered with photos from formal dances, hanging out with friends and playing soccer.
“It’s the most God-awful feeling in the whole world not to have your little girl,” Agatha Martino said. “There’s a huge hole in the house, and it’s awful.”
At the funeral, her parents left open the casket so kids could see how the drugs caused Lucia’s 125-pound body to swell to 170 pounds, according to news reports. Still, Agatha Martino learned from friends that while some of the kids swore off drugs after Lucia’s death, others left the funeral and got high that night.
“You’re a really beautiful group of kids,” she told the crowd watching silently at Canyon High last week. “Please talk to your parents about everything. And parents, I don’t know if it will help, but communicate with your kids.”
FINDING SOLUTIONS
One roadblock in combatting over-the-counter and prescription drug abuse is that many parents don’t know it’s a problem, and kids and parents alike don’t realize these drugs can be as dangerous as their illegal counterparts.
After Lucia Martino’s death, the PTSA sent out warnings to parents about drug abuse and held meetings to discuss it. Still, abuse continues to be a problem at Canyon and many other high schools across the county.
A quarter of 11th graders from Anaheim Union School District have reported abusing over-the-counter cough and cold medicine, said Gleason, citing data his nonprofit analyzed from the California Healthy Kids Survey. Some 28 percent of 11th graders in Santa Ana Union School District report abusing pain killers, Gleason said.
So when CSP approached Canyon High’s PTSA about hosting a town hall meeting, they jumped at the chance.
The crowd in Canyon High’s auditorium was mixed: Nearly 200 PTSA volunteers, parents and students seeking resources, and kids who were getting extra credit in class.
They listened as Assistant Principal Frank Huerta, who’s in charge of student discipline, told them he’s still finding out about kids abusing these drugs. They heard Department of Justice agent Sara Marie Simpson tell them about common slang kids use to describe over-the-counter and prescription substances. They heard Frank Bohler, a retired director of Orange Unified School District’s office of child welfare and attendance, talk about approaching a problem that many parents don’t even know about.
And some wiped away tears while Agatha Martino recounted her story. Afterward, teens and parents split up to talk about strategies for curbing this type of drug abuse.
Parents learned to let their kids know that abusing prescription drugs and cough medicine is just as dangerous as using illegal drugs, that they should treat medicine like they do liquor around the house and consider locking it up or not keeping much of it around. And they learned about resources, such as drugfree.org, where they can go to find out more.
The students drew posters illustrating the dangers of prescription drug abuse, scrawling slogans such as “Eat Candy, Not Drugs” and “If you’re high and you know it, you’re stupid.”
One group listed methods of communication they thought would be best for getting these warnings to youth. Hearing personal stories from people like Agatha Marino topped their list, followed by getting info through text messages, Myspace.com, chain e-mails and talking to friends and family.
“The more people who hear this, the better,” said Ilene Duncan, the parent education chairwoman for Canyon’s PTSA. “We all think our kids are such angels, and we just want them to stay that way. We have to help them stay that way.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-7813 or jmuir@ocregister.com
Layoff notices for 535 teachers were rescinded b/c the city is using a “rainy day fund” to stave off the RIFs. Too bad Santa Ana doesn’t have that kind of financial savvy and planning to do the same:
http://www.kcbs.com/San-Francisco-School-District-Rescinds-Layoff-Noti/2145607
San Francisco School District Rescinds Layoff Notices
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — Layoff notices sent to 535 San Francisco teachers have been rescinded, announced school district officials Wednesday.
The mayor promised and the Board of Supervisors yesterday agreed to release about $20 million in rainy day funds to help the district maintain its programs in the face of state budget cuts. It was estimated that the district would lose $40 million in state funding.
“Our dedicated teachers and certified administrators in good standing can rest assured that they will have a job with SFUSD next year,” said Superintendent Carlos Garcia in a prepared statement.
The district is still likely to face a $13 million budget shortfall next year,which is why 50 layoff notices to teacher aides were not rescinded, Garcia added. Cuts in special education and physical education programs, as well as programs serving immigrant students, are also on the table, said district spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/students-report-santa-2359733-dropouts-year
Report: Santa Ana dropouts may cost community $105 million
Report: Santa Ana dropouts may cost community $105 million
UC Santa Barbara research group reviewed dropout data of the state’s largest cities to estimate loss of tax revenue, other factors.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Comments 18| Recommend 1
Students in the city of Santa Ana who dropped out in just one year will cost their local community about $105 million over their lifetimes, according to a new report.
The California Dropout Report, a research group from University of California, Santa Barbara, released the study today of dropouts in 17 of the state’s largest cities and their impact on local economies. Statewide, 123,651 dropouts during 2006-07 will cost the California $24 billion, the report estimates.
In Santa Ana, the only Orange County city cited in the report, 615 seventh- through twelfth-grade students dropped out during the 2006-07 school year. Those students will have higher rates of unemployment, lower earnings, poorer health and higher rates of mortality, higher rates of criminal behavior and incarceration, and increased dependence on public assistance, according to the report.
Researchers based their estimates on statistical differences for earnings and crime between dropouts and high school graduates statewide.
“These outcomes have a detrimental impact on the safety and overall well-being of our cities. They also generate significant economic losses to the local community, as well as to the state and the nation,” the report states.
The city’s high schools also graduated 2,848 students, which is more than four graduates for every dropout, according to the report.
In Santa Ana Unified, with 54,500 students, about 83 percent of students graduated from high school last year, the lowest rate of all local districts. Santa Ana schools have among the highest poverty rates and highest concentration of English learners – both key factors that many experts say contribute to the high number of dropouts.
The $105 million cost to the local community includes the loss of about $58 million in tax revenue because of lower-paying jobs of dropouts, and about $24.5 million in costs associated with crimes committed by dropouts, according to the report.
The report also estimates that the amount of dropouts in one year in Santa Ana may correlate to an additional 101 aggravated crimes committed per year.
“Economic losses from a single year’s dropouts are both substantial and borne largely by the local communities. Students drop out of school and drop into the cities,” said Russell Rumberger, director of the California Dropout Research Project. “We created these profiles to help cities identify the magnitude and impact of the dropout crisis and to create a sense of urgency in order to start working on solutions.”
Officials in Santa Ana Unified, which is not listed by name in the report, said they had not yet reviewed today’s report and could not comment specifically on the findings.
Deputy Superintendent Cathie Olsky said the district’s actual number of dropouts as reported by the state is 292 for 2006-07. Today’s study only lists citywide dropouts, not dropouts by district. Still, Olsky said wasn’t surprised with some of the report’s general conclusions.
“The more education a student has, the higher potential for their income,” she said. “The less education, the more someone tends to be reliant on assistance.”
Olsky said the dropout problem is not unique to districts in cities like Santa Ana. The district continues to work on programs and services to help all students graduate, she said.
“Dropping out of school before acquiring a high school diploma is a very serious and pressing issue that we all need to be aware of and take steps to decrease,” she said. “We are continually developing alternative programs and schedules, alternative high schools, independent study programs, partnerships with Santa Ana College, that allow students to continue with their studies regardless of their situation.”
Earlier this year, the district approved lowering the number of credits students needed to graduate from high school from 240 to 220. Officials said then that the new requirement will give students more flexibility in taking a wider variety of courses and help more students graduate.
To view the full report visit http://www.lmri.ucsb.edu/dropouts.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
Email Blast from Board member, John Palacio, 4/11/2009:
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Report: Santa Ana dropouts may cost community $105 million
UC Santa Barbara research group reviewed dropout data of the state’s largest cities to estimate loss of tax revenue, other factors.
Valley high schools in Santa Ana has among the worst dropout rates in Orange County. Valley high school students leave campus at the end of the school day in this photo taken last year.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Students in the city of Santa Ana who dropped out in just one year will cost their local community about $105 million over their lifetimes, according to a new report.
The California Dropout Report, a research group from University of California, Santa Barbara, released the study today of dropouts in 17 of the state’s largest cities and their impact on local economies. Statewide, 123,651 dropouts during 2006-07 will cost the California $24 billion, the report estimates.
In Santa Ana, the only Orange County city cited in the report, 615 seventh- through twelfth-grade students dropped out during the 2006-07 school year. Those students will have higher rates of unemployment, lower earnings, poorer health and higher rates of mortality, higher rates of criminal behavior and incarceration, and increased dependence on public assistance, according to the report.
Researchers based their estimates on statistical differences for earnings and crime between dropouts and high school graduates statewide.
“These outcomes have a detrimental impact on the safety and overall well-being of our cities. They also generate significant economic losses to the local community, as well as to the state and the nation,” the report states.
The city’s high schools also graduated 2,848 students, which is more than four graduates for every dropout, according to the report.
In Santa Ana Unified, with 54,500 students, about 83 percent of students graduated from high school last year, the lowest rate of all local districts. Santa Ana schools have among the highest poverty rates and highest concentration of English learners – both key factors that many experts say contribute to the high number of dropouts.
The $105 million cost to the local community includes the loss of about $58 million in tax revenue because of lower-paying jobs of dropouts, and about $24.5 million in costs associated with crimes committed by dropouts, according to the report.
The report also estimates that the amount of dropouts in one year in Santa Ana may correlate to an additional 101 aggravated crimes committed per year.
“Economic losses from a single year’s dropouts are both substantial and borne largely by the local communities. Students drop out of school and drop into the cities,” said Russell Rumberger, director of the California Dropout Research Project. “We created these profiles to help cities identify the magnitude and impact of the dropout crisis and to create a sense of urgency in order to start working on solutions.”
Officials in Santa Ana Unified, which is not listed by name in the report, said they had not yet reviewed today’s report and could not comment specifically on the findings.
Deputy Superintendent Cathie Olsky said the district’s actual number of dropouts as reported by the state is 292 for 2006-07. Today’s study only lists citywide dropouts, not dropouts by district. Still, Olsky said wasn’t surprised with some of the report’s general conclusions.
“The more education a student has, the higher potential for their income,” she said. “The less education, the more someone tends to be reliant on assistance.”
Olsky said the dropout problem is not unique to districts in cities like Santa Ana. The district continues to work on programs and services to help all students graduate, she said.
“Dropping out of school before acquiring a high school diploma is a very serious and pressing issue that we all need to be aware of and take steps to decrease,” she said. “We are continually developing alternative programs and schedules, alternative high schools, independent study programs, partnerships with Santa Ana College, that allow students to continue with their studies regardless of their situation.”
Earlier this year, the district approved lowering the number of credits students needed to graduate from high school from 240 to 220. Officials said then that the new requirement will give students more flexibility in taking a wider variety of courses and help more students graduate.
To view the full report visit http://www.lmri.ucsb.edu/dropouts.
Contact the writer: 714-445-6687 or fleal@ocregister.com
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How California’s Dropout Crisis Affects Communities Economic Losses for The City of Santa Ana
A total of 615 students dropped out of middle and high schools located within the city of Santa Ana in 2006-071. The city’s high schools also graduated 2,848 students, which is more than four graduates for every dropout.
Statewide, the public schools produced three graduates for every dropout.
Dropouts are everybody’s business. Compared to high school graduates,
dropouts have: higher rates of unemployment, lower earnings, poorer health and higher rates of mortality, higher rates of criminal behavior and incarceration increased dependence on public assistance.
These outcomes have a detrimental impact on the safety and overall well-being of our cities. They also generate significant economic losses to the local community, as well as to the state and the nation. Even if half of the city’s dropouts eventually complete high school, the remaining half will cost the Santa Ana community $105 million over their lifetimes2.
Reducing the number of dropouts by half would generate $53 million in economic benefits to the community. It would also result in 101 fewer murders and aggravated assaults each year.
City of Santa Ana California
Number of:
Graduates, 2006-07 2,848 356,641
Dropouts, grades 7-12, 2006-07 615 123,651
Violent crimes (homicides and 1,138 113,954
aggravated assaults), 2006
Lifetime economic losses from one
year’s dropouts 3 $105,432,525 $24,212,395,755
State and local government data not available $3,310,199,190
Health care costs $1,396,050 $1,823,142,555
Earnings (net of all taxes) $58,006,800 $11,654,273,520
Crime (victim costs) $24,566,175 $4,935,644,145
Other losses 4 $21,463,500 $4,312,278,900
Benefits of reducing dropouts by half:
Lifetime economic benefits $52,716,263 $12,106,197,878
Annual reductions in homicides and 101 14,661
aggravated assaults 5
Attached is a copy of the full report for the City of Santa Ana.
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Santa Ana & Anaheim, California Action Plan:
Helping More Young People Graduate High School Ready for College, Work & Life
On April 19, 2009 there was an Orange County Dropout Prevention Summit of which a report was prepared reflecting its findings and recommendations in addressing student dropout problems in both the City’s of Santa Ana and Anaheim.
Attached is a copy of the Orange County Dropout Prevention report.
The United Way of Orange County, The Orange County Business Council, City of Santa Ana, City of Anaheim, Los Amigos of Orange County, and other community & educational organizations participated.
Santa Ana Unified School District, Anaheim Union High School District and Anaheim City School District also were participants in the Summit.
Main Point of Contact: Susan Caumiant
(tel) 949.263.6150
(email) susanc@unitedwayoc.org.
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Published: 04.11.2009
Principals: Do schools need them full time?
TUSD’s crunch may result in administrative cutbacks
By Rhonda Bodfield
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Schools and principals go together like doctors and hospitals, peanut butter and chocolate, or spit and baseball.
Sure, there are days when principals stay home with the flu or occasionally take a leave of absence when life happens.
But there’s always an expectation they’ll be back.
That model could change, though, as site councils across the Tucson Unified School District try to figure out how they want to spend precious, shrinking resources at their schools.
Each one has until April 30 to decide how to adapt to budget cuts of up to 18 percent, whether it means shuttering libraries, losing counselors or cutting back on administrative positions.
Some are poised to scale back on vice principals. Others are looking at half-time principals.
But that freedom to choose also means choosing no principal, if they can come up with a way to ensure duties typically carried out by principals are still completed.
On the layoff list the Governing Board approved Tuesday were seven principals; their site councils are still analyzing their options.
Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen said there are schools across the country that have gone sans principal, but it would require a detailed plan here. Schools must explain how they’d evaluate teachers, provide professional development to staff, handle discipline and complete the necessary reporting.
“You can’t not do the things a principal does,” she said, “but I’m open to considering alternatives.”
Diana Tolton, whose daughter, Amanda, is an eighth-grader at Alice Vail Middle School, currently has the unenviable position of sitting on the site council and sifting through numbers to see what the school can afford.
But the leadership of Principal David Ross is non-negotiable, she said.
“The leadership sets the tone of the school,” she said, adding she also has a hard time figuring out who would end up watching the budget, complying with new education regulations and meeting with district officials.
“Teachers don’t have time for that. They just don’t.”
For all its rarity, the idea isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem.
Although TUSD in recent years has only gone as far as having principals split their time between two schools — an idea that was discarded after parental complaints but then began again a year later — it’s happening elsewhere.
Phi Delta Kappan, a professional education journal, has run research papers highlighting a growing debate in the country about reforming the top-down leadership structure at schools, indicating teacher-led school models are becoming more popular in some parts of the country.
There are at least 14 such schools in Minnesota, another dozen in Wisconsin and a few in California.
Granted, they’re almost all small charter schools. But the model could catch on, especially given that The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation just donated $1.2 million to EdVisions Schools — one of the front-runners of the teacher-ownership model — to strengthen its national network and to support the creation of another 100 innovative high schools.
Becky Yuzna, a 41-year-old special-education teacher, has been teaching in the teacher-led Avalon School in St. Paul, Minn., for two years. Avalon is among the most pure teacher-run models in the country. Its constitution even sets up a student congress that can weigh in on major school policies, which the teachers sitting as the executive branch can amend or veto.
It wouldn’t work for everyone, Yuzna concedes, predicting that trying to find consensus among 250 faculty members in a large school would be “brutal.” And she said there has to be staff buy-in because being in charge of everything doesn’t necessarily work with locking up at 4 p.m.
But her staff of 27 meets every week and the process works efficiently, rarely bogging down in democratic gridlock.
“I really like it,” she said. “Everybody’s part of the process and when it comes to any decision that gets made, from the budget to the curriculum, we all agree on how to move forward.”
Jon Schroeder, a senior associate with the non-partisan, non-profit Education/Evolving, a Minnesota-based think tank, said there’s a paucity of academic research on the results of such schools, given that they’re relatively recent start-ups that took off with the growing charter-school movement. Anecdotally, though, he said they seem to be successful, with the EdVisions schools that caught the Gateses’ attention solidly in the top quartile of the state charters.
Anecdotally, he said, teachers are willing to work harder and longer hours if they have a say in what happens at their school, and that translates into student buy-in, too. “If they see their teachers are in charge and are able to make changes in the school, then it seems like the students are more motivated themselves.”
Early results also show taxpayers get a good deal, he said.
“It seems counterintuitive, when you think about economies of scale and all that, but it seems like the closer the decision-making is to the classroom, the more cost-effective the operations of the school and the more money ends up getting spent in the classroom.”
Elizabeth Krause, an associate professor in the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s anthropology department, said that while she conducted ethnographic research in Italy in the mid-1990s, her daughter went to an elementary school with no principal on site. Under that model, she said, every classroom elected a parent representative to serve on the school council.
“The role was taken seriously,” she said, adding she was required to call every parent at least once a month to check in on any concerns and then take them to the full council for action.
There’s been little U.S. research on such models, she said, suggesting it’s a “taboo topic.”
And with good reason, said Mike Smith, the legislative consultant for the Arizona School Administrators. The primary responsibility of a principal, he said, is to ensure there’s continuity year to year, such as from fourth- to fifth-grade curriculum, as well as a connection between grade levels districtwide.
“That’s going to be done by committee?” he asked.
Site councils already exist to allow parents and teachers an advisory role, he said.
Sam Hughes Elementary Principal Roseanne DeCesari, who was on the layoff list, said she hasn’t seen a proposal for a wholesale eradication of her office, but she’s waiting to see if her site council is going to cut her position to half-time.
Principals have to juggle budget issues, facilitate communication between parents and teachers, address poverty, social needs and academic shortcomings while still meeting reporting mandates. On top of that, they have to be there when bees swarm or a student hides in the bathroom or if there’s a twisted ankle on the basketball court.
“If teachers are in classrooms with students all day long, and an emergency comes up, somebody has to handle that situation,” she said. “Those kinds of things don’t go away when there’s not a principal.”
If budget cuts really do reach 15 or 18 percent at Sam Hughes, early plans indicate that school won’t have a choice but to go to a half-time principal. She’s hopeful things will change.
“I feel like we need to take all the time we can take. We are trying desperately to keep our school at some level of service that kids recognize,” she said.
Principals keep things running, she said, usually without a lot of fanfare. She’s fearful of what could happen otherwise.
“If I’m doing my job right, kids won’t know all of the things I do. When they think of me, I’d rather that they think, ‘She taught me to jump rope.’ ”
On StarNet: Now you can review the employees given notice in Marana and Catalina Foothills in addition to TUSD. Go to azstarnet.com/special/ schoolcuts to see a list of all the laid-off employees, searchable by school.
Contact reporter Rhonda Bodfield at 806-7754 or at rbodfield@azstarnet.com.
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Stimulus Aid Being Doled Out, Slowly
Meeting Guidelines Is Taking Time
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 10, 2009; A01
Building repairs are underway on public housing in Imboden, Ark., and Cumberland, Ill., states across the country are receiving money to weatherize the homes of low-income residents, and the Silver Star Construction Co. is about to start work on two road-resurfacing projects in south-central Oklahoma with a total cost of $12 million.
“We were thrilled to get some work,” said Steve Shawn, president of the company. “Some of the work had started slowing down from the economy. The new work came in just around the right time.”
Slowly but surely, the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — better known as the economic stimulus package — is beginning to percolate nationwide, six weeks after President Obama signed the legislation.
Some of the money is arriving quickly, and in big chunks. The country’s 1,100 community health clinics have received $337 million to help them handle the surge of newly unemployed and uninsured people needing care. An additional $155 million went to a more select group of 126 of the clinics, including $1.3 million for the Loudoun Community Health Center, which, after opening in 2007, has been seeing an increase in demand even though it is in an affluent area of Northern Virginia.
In most cases, though, the money is working its way into the system far more gradually as officials strive to meet not only existing guidelines for programs receiving aid but also reporting requirements that have been added to make sure that stimulus funding is spent as intended and to account for the jobs it creates.
As a result, White House officials say the bulk of the money will start hitting the streets later this year and early next, with the goal of spending 70 percent of it by the summer of 2010. As of Tuesday, $54 billion from the package had been “obligated,” meaning that states, cities or other recipients could begin drawing from it, and $11.7 billion of that had been disbursed.
The $11.7 billion is not the full extent of the money in circulation, however. The Transportation Department, for instance, has distributed very little, but states have started on some highway work in anticipation of money they are slated to receive. Also, those figures do not include the boost that employees started seeing in their paychecks at the start of this month from the package’s Making Work Pay tax credit.
“We’ve been pretty pleased” by the pace of spending so far, said Robert Nabors, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. “I know people are anxious to get started, and the money has started to flow out the door. But we’re spending a lot of time planning . . . and trying to make sure we’ve put processes and a structure in place to be sure we’re spending on the right priorities.”
The balance between taking enough time to plan for the money and not unduly delaying actual spending goes to the central tension in the legislation, which sought to jump-start the economy and also to make progress on Obama’s long-term agenda. The package included $201 billion in tax cuts, $87 billion in Medicaid funding, $79 billion in education funding, $28 billion for highways, $21 billion for food stamps, $17 billion to computerize health records, $11 billion to modernize the electric grid, $17 billion for rail and public transit, and $20 billion to increase the energy efficiency of homes and public buildings.
With more than 100 funding streams contained in the package, many officials find themselves having to file applications for several programs at a time, helping explain why much of the money is still months away from being spent.
Take, for instance, what Oregon’s Housing and Community Services Department needs to do to secure its $82 million. It has already applied for $38 million to weatherize low-income residents’ homes, and just received the first 10 percent of that, but still needs approval from the state legislature to spend it. It is awaiting guidelines for applying for $27 million in tax credits for affordable housing development. It just received the guidelines for applying for $8 million to help prevent homelessness, and expects that it will not spend that money before July.
And Oregon will not apply until July for “neighborhood stabilization” funding that will be
distributed on a competitive basis for states to renovate or demolish abandoned homes. In fact, it is still getting ready to spend $19.6 million that it received for a similar purpose from a housing recovery bill President George W. Bush signed in late July.
It is a lot of hoops to jump through, but officials say it is worth it. “This is a huge investment for us,” said Rick Crager, Oregon’s deputy housing director. The process “is not an issue for us. It’s important that we’re accountable.”
Peter Grace, a special assistant to the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said it takes time to develop rules for new programs. “We want to get this money out, we are committed to doing that, but we want to do it in a thoughtful way,” he said.
Likewise, the Energy Department is releasing only a fraction of the $6 billion that states and cities are receiving to increase energy efficiency, and is requiring that they submit detailed plans for using the money before they get the bulk of it.
There is little immediate spending going on even in departments that are using money on their own, instead of parceling it out to states. The Interior Department is still deciding how to spend its $3 billion, as its Bureau and Land Management and its National Park Service scour the hundreds of possible renovation projects for those that are far enough along in the permit process to merit receiving money. It hopes to have a list ready by May 1.
“What you’ve got is an unprecedented operational process combined with an unprecedented — and appropriate — level of review, and that’s taking time,” said Chris Henderson, the department’s stimulus expert.
Among those getting money out relatively fast is the Transportation Department, which was able to rely on its existing formulas to divvy up $48 billion among states. Lana Hurdle, a deputy assistant transportation secretary, said the department has so far obligated $6.3 billion, with more to come soon — states must obligate half their money within 120 days or risk having to return some of it. Leading the pack was Oklahoma, which obligated half its $460 million in 28 days.
Still, much of the actual road work will take time to ramp up. Missouri was fast out of the gate, saying that a bridge rebuilding contract awarded in February was the country’s first stimulus project. But some of the 37 contracts it has awarded will not break ground anytime soon. The overhaul of the Interstate 70 and 435 interchange in Kansas City still needs environmental and public approvals, and probably will wait until early next year for the gap between the football and baseball seasons, because the interchange is near the sports stadium.
The delays extend even to one of the smallest stimulus projects in Missouri, $167,000 for sidewalks on the main road through Cleveland, a town of 650 on the Kansas line south of Kansas City. The town may not have the paperwork in place for work to begin until late this year, said its volunteer mayor, Patricia Masterson.
Still, the project has boosted spirits.
“We were very surprised and very pleased. It will connect our city a little bit more. Right now, we mostly walk around in our own neighborhood rather than getting out,” she said. “It helps to show that everyone is going to get something. It shows, yes, this will get down to the grass roots and it is not all going to stay in the big cities.”
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The latest on California politics and government
April 9, 2009
Teachers union adds $2.2 milllion more to ballot war chest
The California Teachers Association has deposited another $2.2 million into the campaign to pass Propositions 1A and 1B, bringing the group’s total spending to nearly $5 million.
The union also donated $350,000 to the umbrella campaign for all six measures on the May 19 special election ballot.
Proposition 1B would ensure repayment to schools of $9.3 billion starting in 2011. But it only goes into effect if Proposition 1A also passes. Hence the dual campaign.
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Science is failing to inspire some
Prominent editor calls for overhaul of how disciplines are taught
By ERIC BERGER HOUSTON CHRONICLE
April 9, 2009, 10:25PM
Across the land, students in science class diligently memorize human cell components like DNA, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum. They learn to rigidly order the natural world, from kingdom down to species.
And — most disturbingly, say a growing number of scientists — they learn to hate science.
Advocates cite many problems with science education, such as teachers lacking a science background. But perhaps the most critical issue, they say, is standardized testing that forces students to memorize and regurgitate.
“Students don’t need to know what an endoplasmic reticulum is,” said Bruce Alberts, editor of the journal Science and former president of the National Academies of Science, who has called for a “revolution” in science education.
“Bad tests are forcing a trivialization of science education and drive most students away from science. Real science is exciting. It’s completely different from these textbooks.”
Yet change may be afoot in Texas, with some legislators calling for a re-evaluation of the influence of TAKS testing. And some science educators see opportunities to change science class from a dull exercise in memorization to inquiry-based learning.
There’s no shortage of smart people tackling the issue, like Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, who argues that children should be taught physics first in high school in order to grasp the broad outlines of the natural world.
“I’ve been working at it for a long time,” he said. “We’re not doing well. Meaningless testing is a bad thing. If we want scientific literacy, then we want teachers to teach the beauty of science, the fun in it, the humor in it, and to bring examples of modern science into the classroom.”
U.S. falls behind
American students finish near dead last among developed countries in math and science testing, and they’re turned off at an early age. Foreign students now earn six out of every 10 engineering doctorates at U.S. universities. Just one-third of U.S. undergraduates earn a degree in science and engineering, while nearly two-thirds of Chinese and Japanese students do so.
A recent report on U.S. economic prospects in the 21st century, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, concluded that leadership in scientific endeavors was crucial to success. By extension, the report found it was necessary to “vastly improve” America’s talent pool through science, math and technology education.
Some schools are trying to do it differently.
At the Houston Independent School District’s Cornelius Elementary recently, groups of fifth-graders were seated around tables where one student wore a name tag that said, “principal investigator.”
Each table received a white coffee filter filled with mealworms, a type of beetle larvae. They examined the worms with magnifying glasses, and not a minute passed without the teacher asking a question. Hands shot up each time in response.
Given pieces of wet and dry paper, a stopwatch and a metric ruler, the students were then instructed to devise and conduct their own experiment. Their choices varied, such as whether mealworms traveled faster or slower over wet paper, or how far they could go in one minute.
This was science. It was fun and engaging.
“The science lab allows the student to have a hands-on opportunity,” said Sandra Antalis, HISD’s elementary science curriculum manager.
In 2004, HISD began spending $4 million to put science labs on all of its 189 elementary school campuses, and fifth-graders beat the statewide average in recent standardized testing, she said.
Problems with TAKS
But the system’s still not ideal. At magnet schools like Cornelius, there’s a lab teacher for each grade providing specialized, interactive instruction. At most schools, there’s just one lab teacher for all grades.
Additionally, educators remain concerned there’s only so much inquiry-based learning that can be done in a system that rewards high test scores.
One issue is the timing and subject matter of tests, said Michael Baldwin, a biology teacher at Hanna High School in Brownsville and president of the Science Teachers Association of Texas. The 11th-grade science test, which students must pass to graduate, covers a disparate amount of material, from biology to Earth sciences. Yet students often are taking physics during that year.
“So maybe a month before the test, or even as early as December, instead of teaching physics class, the teachers are reviewing biology and chemistry,” Baldwin said. “It puts huge pressure on teachers to abandon their curriculum. The students pass the TAKS test, but then don’t have enough physics for a proper foundation in college.”
eric.berger@chron.com
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Thursday, April 9, 2009
Teachers underpaid or overpaid? Economists can’t agree
Debate rages on; experts can’t offer definitive answers.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
Teachers say they make paltry wages doing a thankless job that requires dedication, focus and heart; critics say the compensation is adequate – or too high.
Teachers point out they make less money than they would doing comparable jobs; detractors argue that the profession requires only 10 months of work a year and offers lucrative benefit and retirement packages.
Teachers contend their profession has been ambushed in the debate over how to balance school budgets during tough economic times; cynics complain that teachers should feel lucky that they have influential unions that protect their jobs and pay scales.
As communities across Orange County and the nation debate whether teachers should take a pay cut this year to soften the blow of school funding shortfalls, the question that inevitably arises is whether they are overpaid or underpaid for what they do, and whether they are compensated less or more than other professions that require similar skill levels and credentials.
“It’s misplaced frustration at what’s going on in the economy right now and what’s been going on to our education system in California,” said Frank Wells, spokesman for the California Teachers Association union. “Teachers need to be paid at a level that is going to allow the state to continue to recruit and retain quality teachers.”
The issue of relative teacher pay is so complex and can be studied in so many different ways that even economists who study teacher labor markets are divided.
“There’s nothing conclusive,” said economist Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an expert on school finance and policy. “Some people always say teachers should be paid like accountants and lawyers, but it’s not obvious that’s the right comparison. The debate reflects the reality of education – people want schools to be good and to be better, and they recognize that teachers are very important.”
A 2005 report by economists at the University of Missouri at Columbia concluded teachers are not underpaid, but rather their salaries “compare favorably to those in many other professions,” based on weekly earnings. The fact that teaching as a whole continues to attract sufficient numbers of qualified individuals also suggests they are not underpaid, the report notes.
But a contradictory report last year by the nonpartisan think tank Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., found that K-12 public school teachers earned on average 15 percent less per week than comparable workers in 2006. Even after adjusting for their non-wage benefits, they still faced a 12 percent disadvantage, according to the report.
“We have to eke out every dollar we can to put it into salaries,” Orange County schools Superintendent Bill Habermehl said. “That’s the only way we can keep teachers. It is truly a demanding, taxing job and only the ones who love it do it.”
At the core of the conflicting analyses of teacher pay is the difficulty of accurately assessing salary information itself. Economists generally agree that salary must be considered on a weekly basis because unlike in most professions, teachers are contracted to work for less than a full year.
Economists also agree that teachers on average work “at least” as many hours a day as other comparable college graduates, according to published information.
But weekly salary information, as reported by the federal government, can be skewed depending on how teachers and their employers report earnings. If teachers’ annual salary is divided by 52 weeks, it will be lower per week than if it’s divided by the portion of the school year teachers are contracted to work.
Thus, economists don’t even see eye-to-eye about how to analyze raw salary figures – and that leads to continued public debate and frustration.
“These teachers complain about their pay, but they only work nine or 10 months a year, and they get a month off for vacation during the year,” said Rodney Kimura, 71, of Westminster, a retired medical technologist who has two siblings who are retired teachers.
“For my job, I needed to have a bachelor’s degree in life science plus a year of internship, and I was making $65,000 a year when I retired,” Kimura added. “My brother and sister both made more money than I did.”
Teachers say that while they may only work six or seven hours a day at school, they spend time at home grading papers, corresponding with students and parents by e-mail and preparing lesson plans.
“There are perks to teaching – you get off at 3 in the afternoon, but then you go back to work at 6 at home,” said Paul Cook, a fifth-grade teacher at Madison Elementary School and a 25-year educator. “I think teachers could teach longer if they had a longer break. It’s no different than your own kids at home. If you spend all day with them, that’s hard work. Try making it 35 kids, and try being their parent, big brother and teacher.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.co
Opposite conclusions
Two recent competing studies by economists have attempted to answer the question of whether teachers are underpaid, especially in relation to comparable professions.
“Are Public School Teachers ‘Underpaid’? Some Evidence and Conjecture”
Details: By Michael Podgursky and Ruttaya Tongrut, Department of Economics, University of Missouri at Columbia, March 2005
Conclusions: Teacher pay compares “favorably” to other professions and is not “inadequate.” Teaching remains a popular profession, so higher salaries aren’t justified.
“The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground”
Details: By Sylvia Allegretto, Sean Corcoran and Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute, Washington, D.C., March 2008
Conclusions: Teachers earn on average 15 percent less per week than comparable workers, according to 2006 data. Even after adjusting for non-wage benefits, they still face a 12 percent disadvantage.
Teacher facts
Here are some quick facts about the profession of teaching in California, according to the California Teachers Association.
184 days per year in a typical teacher’s contract (180 instructional days + 4 staff development days)
10 months in a typical teachers contract (mid-August to mid-June)
10 days of personal/sick time per year (unused days are applied as service credit at retirement, which boosts retirement pay)
0 days of vacation time per year (vacations expected to be taken during winter and spring breaks, or during summer)
5 years of college on average to become a teacher (bachelor’s degree + teaching credential)
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Boston students struggle with English-only rule
Many nonnatives quit the system
By James Vaznis, Globe Staff | April 7, 2009
Students not fluent in English have floundered in Boston schools since voters approved a law change six years ago requiring school districts to teach them all subjects in English rather than their native tongue, according to a report being released tomorrow.
In one of the most striking findings, the study found that the high school dropout rate nearly doubled for students still learning to speak and write in English, according to the report by the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and the Center for Collaborative Education.
The report – considered the most comprehensive look at the law’s impact on any school district in the state – paints a picture of a system ill-prepared to serve nonnative English speakers, who make up about 38 percent of the district’s 56,000students.
In many cases, the district is failing to evaluate properly and subsequently identify hundreds of students for special language instruction, while also failing to provide parents with enough information to make sound decisions about program choices, according to the report, which analyzed data between 2003 and 2006.
Overall, the statistics show that the law – hailed as a quicker way to teach students English – has not helped them gain ground on their English-speaking peers, and in many cases may have left them even further behind.
In an interview yesterday, Carol R. Johnson, superintendent of Boston schools, acknowledged shortcomings in the district’s programs but emphasized that she is committed to improving the performance of English language learners. She said the district intends to revamp the way it tests students for those services, provide more comprehensive information to parents about services, and is expanding programs for those students.
“I think everybody recognizes we need to move with a sense of urgency,” said Johnson, who received a briefing from the report’s authors yesterday afternoon and was reviewing the findings. “Children need help and we need to help them now.”
The report, which included a review of standardized test scores, attendance data, and suspension rates, steered clear of the contentious issue of whether the change in law was appropriate, and instead highlighted solutions that Boston should adopt to conform with the law.
The findings could also provide insight into what is happening in other school districts statewide. Boston, the state’s largest school district, represents 29 percent of students who require English language learning support in the state. The report looks specifically at languages most often spoken by them: Spanish, Chinese dialects, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, and Cape Verdean Creole.
“It’s always a crime when the potential of any kid is wasted away because a school system didn’t provide the services they should be,” said Jane E. Lopez, a staff attorney with Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy Inc., a national probilingual education group with offices in Massachusetts. “It’s a huge problem and it should be an embarrassment to Boston public schools.”
Ron Unz, chairman of English for the Children, a California advocacy group that pushed for the change in Massachusetts law, said yesterday that he had not seen a copy of the report but noted that probilingual groups in California have released similar reports about that state. He said he was skeptical of the findings.
“It could be a case that Boston is not doing a good job of implementing the program,” Unz said.
Voters approved the law change in fall 2002 against the backdrop of a contentious national debate over immigration; school districts had nine months to implement the dramatic change. The ballot question ended the state’s three-decade-old transitional bilingual education program, which promoted the practice of teaching English language learners subjects in their native languages while they learned to speak English fluently.
Under the new law, districts must teach all subjects in English even as students learn the language. In most cases, students are taught as a group in a separate classroom, where a teacher uses more simplified English and pictures and graphics in teaching subjects such as science and geometry. The goal is to merge students into regular education classes within a year or two.
Students can still be taught academic subjects in their native languages under the new law, typically when a critical mass of students who speak that language exist and parents want the program. But many education advocates say school districts are unaware of that provision or do not generally let parents know of this right.
In one finding, the report found that a number of parents declined to enroll their children into English language learning programs, even though Boston officials had identified their children as needing extra help. According to the report, the high school dropout rate for students whose parents declined such services tripled over the period studied.
One parent advocate said yesterday that many parents, particularly those who do not speak English, do not understand the consequences of declining services because school staff has failed to explain program offerings and the law properly.
“There is a lot of misinformation and miscommunication,” said Myriam Ortiz, acting director of the Boston Parent Organizing Network, an advocacy group. “Parents go to the [district’s] family resource centers and feel lost. They don’t always know what the options are or what’s the best options for their children.”
The report follows a state review of the district’s program last year that found thousands of students identified as English language learners did not receive support for the past four years, and ordered the district to develop a remedy. Boston schools submitted their plan to the state this winter. Boston has been without a permanent director for English language learning programs for nearly a year.
The report, which will be the subject of a forum tomorrow, also urged the state to undertake a study examining progress in all the school districts across the state.
“Once it’s the law of the land, it has to be done well,” said Miren Uriarte, a senior research associate at the Gastón Institute and a coauthor of the report. “It’s a challenge for [Boston] and the state as a whole [to make the changes], but they have to realize these kids are here to stay and it behooves us to educate them well.”
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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OCTA: Transportation czars enjoy $300-a-night hotels while traveling
April 10th, 2009, 3:00 am · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
The Orange County Transportation Authority spent $95,802 on travel and conference expenses for its board members over the past three years, according to agency documents – including $300-a-night hotel rooms in The Big Apple and $975-per-person conference fees to join a posse of SoCal officials trying to grease the wheels for transportation spending in Washington, D.C.
OCTA’s most seasoned traveler was Art Brown, mayor pro-tem of Buena Park, who spent $24,017. Brown took 14 trips requiring air travel to places like New York, Miami, Washington D.C., Toronto, Portland and that most glamorous of all capitals – Sacramento. While in New York to do the annual OCTA’s–in-great-shape! song-and-dance for Wall Street rating agencies, Brown stayed at the chichi Le Parker Meridien hotel for $300 a night. (”Park Views? Further than the eye can see. Comfy Beds? Better than sleeping with the fishes. DVD/CD players? Oh yeah. Hi-Speed Web? What do you think? Humungous TV’s? Stole ‘em from Times Sq. Showers for Two? Even Two Sumo-Wrestlers,” says the hotel’s way-co oler-than-you web site.) Brown’s most charming expense: A 90-cent Snickerdoodle.
Up next was Peter Buffa, one of two public members on OCTA’s board of directors. He took seven trips requiring air travel – including Washington D.C. and New York – with bills totaling $16,575. On one of those rating-agency trips, Buffa stayed at the five-star, $300-a night New York Palace hotel (right), which bills itself thusly: “An icon of Manhattan splendor, The New York Palace seamlessly blends old world elegance with new world opulence…. known for its luxurious hotel accommodations, spectacular views, spacious rooms, and unparalleled service.” Buffa also traveled to our nation’s capital with the Orange County Business Council and “Mobility 21” to lobby for better transportation funding and planning; registration fees alone were $975 in 2007 and $700 in 2008.
Carolyn Cavecche, mayor of Orange, came in third, with 14 trips requiring air travel and expenses of $13,997. She too went on rating agency trips to New York and advocacy trips to Washington D.C., as well as many zips up to Sacramento for hearings and meetings with legislators.
The rest of OCTA’s board members – including county supervisors past and present – spent considerably less than the top three. You can see their totals below.
MONEY WELL-SPENT, OCTA SAYS
OCTA is the transportation czar for Orange County, overseeing billions in highway, road and rail projects. It recently increased bus fares and cut bus routes to deal with budget woes, and plans to cut its travel and conference budget by 10 percent next year.
But officials say travel pays big dividends.
“With an investment of $95,000, OCTA board members have helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars for transportation projects in Orange County. That’s a responsible use of taxpayer dollars and has resulted in a significant return on investment. I think it would be difficult to argue otherwise,” spokesman Joel Zlotnik wrote in an email.
Viewed another way, OCTA’s operating budgets totaled some $2.5 billion over the three years – and travel and conference expenses made up .004 percent of that.
Top traveler Art Brown (left) is on the Metrolink advisory board, and is the board’s go-to person on rail issues. It’s extremely important for him to stay current on the latest developments and update his colleagues, he said. “The board relies on me to give explanations on how it’s going to fit in the grand scheme for rail safety and better service,” Brown said. “It’s important to make decisions based on fact.”
When we asked what people actually do at these conferences, Brown dug out agendas addressing high speed rail, rail safety issues, rail car standardization… and when we asked if these sessions tempt one to stick pencils in one’s eyes, Brown laughed aloud and said, “I find them fascinating.” High-speed rail, he said, is the future.
TRAVEL SPENDING ROSE SHARPLY
Between 2007 and 2008, OCTA’s travel spending went from $24,523 to
$46,967. Why?
“The increase in travel in 2008 is because of stepped up efforts by board members in Sacramento and Washington D.C. for a few reasons, including ensuring Prop. 1B* funds for Orange County, fighting to protect transit dollars during the state’s budget crisis, meeting with lawmakers in D.C. as efforts get under way to reauthorize the federal transportation funding bill, working with Mobility 21 (Southern California transportation coalition) to fight for state and federal dollars to help offset impacts from the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles,” Zlotnik wrote.
*For the uninitiated, Prop. 1B is California’s $19.9 billion Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port Security Bond Act, approved by voters in 2006.
The proof, as they say, is in the pavement:
The trips to Washington D.C. and Sacramento helped secure all manners of manna for Orange County – including $383 million to improve the 405/605/22 carpool connectors; $217 million to separate railroad tracks from the road and improvements to the Riverside Freeway; and a bill making Anaheim the terminus for a high speed rail system that was originally going to end in Los Angeles. OCTA will get $212 million in federal stimulus funding, and hopes some of the $8 billion set aside for high speed rail will come here as well.
The New York trips ensure that OCTA gets the best possible rates when financing and issuing debt to fund projects, Zlotnik said. It was also able to secure a $400 million letter of credit allowing OCTA to start work on the renewed Measure M projects (three years before people actually start paying the renewed half-cent sales tax).
(See Zlotnik’s email in its entirety below.)
FAIR ENOUGH. BUT STILL.
Three-hundred-dollar-a-night hotel rooms?! (Note the Le Parker Meridien’s view over Central Park at right.)
Well, the average hotel room in New York was $312 in 2008, Zlotnik said, quoting the city’s official marketing agency. Which prompts us at The Watchdog to volunteer to book OCTA’s future accommodations; it took us seconds to find some perfectly pleasant three-star hotels in Midtown West for $159 a night on priceline.com and hotels.com.
Top traveler Art Brown said that they usually try to stay at the “host” hotel where a conference is headquartered; once you factor in taxi fare to and from a cheaper hotel, it can turn out to be a wash, he said.
But those rating-agency trips to New York aren’t conferences. And in New York and Washington D.C., there’s that old-time rail thing called the subway. Nothing like the smell of the underground in the morning!
ADDENDUM: The New York Palace, Zlotnik notes, is just blocks from the subway. “I just spoke to Carolyn Cavecche who said she can’t recall taking a cab once other than to or from the airport,” Zlotnik wrote. “They walked to meetings or took the subway. I can’t comment on the smell.”
OTHER BOARD MEMBER TOTALS
(Those no longer on the OCTA board are marked with an asterisk*)
Chris Norby, Orange County Supervisor: $8,561
Bill Campbell, Orange County Supervisor, $8,011
Thomas Wilson, former Orange County Supervisor, $4,259*
Paul Glaab, Laguna Niguel City Council, $3,192
Michael Duvall, former Yorba Linda councilman, $2,934*
Cathy Green, Huntington Beach mayor pro-tem, $2,735
Jerry Amante, Tustin mayor, $2,692
Janet Nguyen, Orange County Supervisor, $2,033
Pat Bates, Orange County Supervisor, $1,808
Gregory Winterbottom, public member, $1,678
Richard Dixon, Lake Forest City Council, $1,652
Mark Rosen, former Garden Grove councilman, $966*
Curt Pringle, Anaheim mayor, $936
Susan Ritschel, former San Clemente City Councilwoman, $477*
Lou Correa, former Orange County Supervisor, $252 *
ZLOTNIK’S EMAIL
The total OCTA operating budgets over the three years you’ve looked at
is approximately $2.5 billion. The total of $95,802 for board member
travel and conference is .004 percent of the $2.5 billion (four
thousandths of one percent).
With an investment of $95,000, OCTA board members have helped secure
hundreds of millions of dollars for transportation projects in Orange
County. That’s a responsible use of taxpayer dollars and has resulted in
a significant return on investment. I think it would be difficult to
argue otherwise.
NEW YORK
The purpose of OCTA’s annual trip to New York is to meet with the
investment and banking community and develop face-to-face relationships
that are extremely beneficial in ensuring OCTA receives the best
possible rates when financing and issuing debt for projects in Orange
County.
OCTA has issued $1.5 billion in notes and bonds over the past two
decades and has one of the highest ratings of any transit agency or
tolling entity in the country. The Measure M bonds have a AAA/AA ratings
and the 91 Express Lanes have a high A rating. Saving even one basis point would mean $150,000 savings for Orange County taxpayers.
Meeting with board members in person allows Wall Street to understand
OCTA’s services and programs and OCTA’s commitment to ensuring the
transportation programs are managed responsibly.
Because of the New York trip in December 2007, OCTA was able to secure a
$400 million letter of credit for a new commercial paper program to
begin work on Renewed Measure M projects, three years prior to M2 sales
tax kicking in. The rate was locked in at .27 percent. This was just
months before the credit collapse on Wall Street and the rates jumped to
1.5 percent to 2 percent.
SACRAMENTO and D.C.
Board members efforts and testimony in Sacramento and D.C. during the
past three years have resulted in numerous benefits to Orange County
taxpayers including securing a fair share of state funding for O.C.
projects as well as discretionary appropriations from the federal
government.
Here are just a few legislative highlights benefiting O.C.:
– $383 million in 2007 to improve the Riverside Freeway, Orange Freeway
and West County Connectors (405/605/22 carpool connectors)
– $217 million in 2008 for seven projects that separate the railroad
tracks from the road and improvement to the Riverside Freeway
– Nearly $56 million from the Prob. 1B transit security and safety fund
– Passed a bill that made Anaheim the terminus for the high speed rail
system. It was originally L.A.
– Killed a bill that would have prohibited freeway construction within
a quarter mile of a school that would have stopped virtually every
freeway project in Orange County
– Passed a bill removing a 4-foot buffer requirement on the Costa Mesa
Freeway that allowed for continuous-access carpool lanes to be
implemented.
– Protected Prop. 42 gas tax money to ensure it continues funding bus
operations.
– Federal appropriations totaled $51 million over the three years.
That’s money that is over and above any formula funding OCTA receives.
The increase in travel in 2008 is because of stepped up efforts by board
members in Sacramento and Washington D.C. for a few reasons including
ensuring Prop. 1B funds for Orange County, fighting to protect transit
dollars during the state’s budget crisis, meeting with lawmakers in D.C.
as efforts get under way to reauthorize the federal transportation
funding bill, working with Mobility 21 (Southern California
transportation coalition) to fight for state and federal dollars to help
offset impacts from the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
Joel Zlotnik
Manager, Media Relations
Orange County Transportation Authority
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Friday, April 10, 2009
CHP officers will join battle against Santa Ana gangs
A dozen highway officers join local gang detail detectives to patrol city streets.
By DENISSE SALAZAR
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA – High intensity gang areas in Santa Ana are getting a dozen California Highway Patrol officers to patrol streets along with local gang detail detectives, in an effort to curb gang violence through suppression, surveillance and probation checks.
The addition of 12 CHP officers to fight gang activity showed results on Thursday – the first night of joint patrols. Gang detail detectives, with the help of the CHP officers, nearly tripled the number of arrests they average per day.
“It was pretty successful,” said Santa Ana police Sgt. Lorenzo Carrillo of the 12 arrests that night, which included warrant, parole, weapon and drug violations. “We are going to try to keep the gangsters on their toes.”
Santa Ana is the first city in Orange County to receive CHP support to suppress gang activity through the California Gang Reduction Intervention and Prevention Program. CHP was awarded $6.9 million to support local law enforcement, and has already served 19 other communities from Los Angeles to Oakland.
“We believe it will be a tremendous impact to our community,” Santa Ana police Chief Paul Walters said during a news conference Friday.
The program is allowing a dozen CHP officers, including a K-9 unit, to spend the next 90 days working overtime shifts in Santa Ana to assist in the fight against gangs in hopes of allowing residents to live fear-free and enjoy their neighborhoods.
Officers concentrated their efforts in areas that have shown a recent spike in gang shootings and other gang activity, Carrillo said. One of those areas spans from Flower to Bristol streets and 1st Street to Edinger Avenue.
One of the first tasks was a probation check around 3:30 p.m. at a home in the 200 block of Flower Street, across from Santa Ana High School. No one was at the home occupied by two brothers who are on parole and another on probation.
“One had a coming out of jail party on Saturday, which violated his probation,” said deputy probation officer Juan Rodriguez.
The area is sort of melting pot of rival gangs mostly because families move around and end up living in areas where other gangs already exist, Carrillo said.
“It’s more about running into the wrong person than being in the wrong place,” Carrillo said about why some shootings or assaults occur.
A short time later, officers pulled over a green Ford Explorer that rolled through a stop sign at Chestnut Avenue and Broadway.
The Explorer, with three occupants, pulled into the parking lot of Lucky Guys Burgers where Daktor, a Belgium Tervuren, sniffed out marijuana hidden between the back seats and in a pocket behind the front passenger’s seat.
Daktor and his handler, CHP officer Carlo Marzocca, searched the vehicle and found buds of marijuana, a scale and packaging.
“We’ve got everything we need for sales,” Marzocca said.
The driver, Manuel Hernandez, 20, of Santa Ana, was cited for driving without a license and having an expired registration. His vehicle was impounded. Passenger Hector Hernandez, 22, of Santa Ana was cited for possession of marijuana found in his shoe.
A 17-year-old passenger, displaying a devil tattoo on his neck, was arrested for felony possession for sales of marijuana and released to his mother. “He admitted to sales,” said Santa Ana police detective Dan Park, who found $244 stuffed in the teen’s sock.
Two miles away, in the 1900 block of West Myrtle Street, near Daisy Avenue, a group of five documented gang members and a female gang associate were stopped by officers for loitering.
Nine CHP and Santa Ana police units rolled to the highly populated apartment area, where a crowd of residents, children among them, watched as officers questioned the gang members and arrested one of them for a parole violation.
Carrillo said the detectives have three main goals: 1) Stop the gang violence. “If no one got shot or no one got killed, it would be great,” he said; 2) Disrupt what the gangs do, such as robberies and drug sales; 3) Create a feeling of a safe environment for the community, allowing residents to enjoy the neighborhood.
“A crime is like a fire triangle. You need fuel, a spark and air,” Carrillo said at the end of the shift. “With crime, you need a suspect, a victim and a location. When we know one of the three, we focus on that,” he said.
Carrillo said Thursday was more focused on location, but it might change as activity changes.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3709 or desalazar@ocregister.com
Email blast from SAUSD Board Member, John Palacio on 4/13/2009
Governor says school money will go directly to districts
By J.M. BROWN and DONNA JONES
Posted: 04/11/2009 01:30:04 AM PDT
SANTA CRUZ — There was finally some good news this week for school districts that sent several hundred layoff notices to educators countywide last month.
Ending speculation that Sacramento lawmakers would sit on federal stimulus money earmarked for education, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Thursday he would release the cash as soon as it’s received. A combined $1.2 billion for special education and programs benefiting the poorest students could come as early as May 1. The impact and timeline of a larger pot of discretionary money — $3.1 billion in so-called stabilization funds — is still unclear, however.
“We don’t have an idea of what each district is going to be entitled to in any one of these three categories,” said Barney Finlay, chief business official for the county Office of Education. “At this point in time, we’re basically saying, until we know some numbers, we don’t know how you can act on vapor.”
Because the state is still determining its distribution formula for the money, Finlay is warning districts against rescinding all of the preliminary pink slips issued in March.
Barry Kirschen, president of Greater Santa Cruz Federation of Teachers, said, “We would want the opposite — that the district use this information to avoid having to issue final layoff notices.”
Districts have until its June 30 budget adoption deadline to restore jobs, but must let any certificated employee that could be permanently laid off know by May
15. The debate under way now among school board members will determine how many students are in each class, whether arts and music programs thrive, or if a librarian will be there to help kids pick out books.
But two other big questions factor into Finlay’s recommendation to “stay the course” on layoffs already issued. Those questions are: How hard will schools get hit again by a mounting state deficit? And will labor groups in at least four districts agree to furloughs to capture additional savings?
The state’s current $8 billion budget hole caused by shrinking property tax revenue could jump to $14 billion if revenue schemes fail at the ballot box May 19. Lawmakers have warned any solution at that point would involve only cuts, not new taxes or borrowing.
If districts reinstate most laid-off teachers before May 15, they will be stuck with fewer options if state cuts deepen. That would spell deeper slashing for clerks, custodians, classroom aides and other classified workers not protected by the same early layoff deadlines.
Finlay said the districts that hold on to the stimulus money may just break even. The funding for local schools — estimated at $25 million total, or 7 percent of the countywide education budget — could essentially equal what districts will have to cut if the state’s bottom falls out next month.
Still, employee unions are pressuring trustees to reinstate jobs now. The debate is especially heating up in the county’s largest district, Pajaro Valley Unified, which issued preliminary layoff notices for 450 jobs.
A growing number of PVSUD trustees wants to consider spending an anticipated $18 million in total stimulus funds to keep people employed.
“It goes against what Barney Finlay is advising us to do, and just the general principle against using one-time money for ongoing expenses,” said Trustee Doug Keegan, who voted with the 5-2 majority last month to make $14 million in layoffs and other cuts.
“At the same time, we’re in a very critical period, and my feeling was, well, the purpose of those funds is to try to preserve jobs,” he said Friday. “So we should be looking at some way to maintain as many jobs as possible — even if we accept that those same jobs, unless the economy rebounds, may be lost in the next round of budget cuts.”
Bobby Salazar, president of the district’s classified union, said if jobs could be saved now, maybe Sacramento will devise a budget next year that won’t hit schools so hard.
“We have people who have been with the district for 28 years and all of the sudden they are looking at not having a job next year,” Salazar said. “That’s the hard part, the heartbreaking part.”
Lawmakers have long said they would disperse the stimulus package’s special education and Title I funds quickly. But a finance aide for the governor and key lawmakers said last month that the state might hold on to the unrestricted stabilization funds. Congressional officials sent a stern response demanding the cash be distributed directly to schools.
Then, on Thursday, as he officially applied for the stabilization funds, the governor said, “We’ve taken steps to protect our schools from the full brunt of our economic situation, and this funding will restore many of the difficult cuts that had to be made to education.”
Ken Wagman, president of the Santa Cruz City Schools board, said the federal windfall helps offset state revenue cuts, but too much is unknown to justify immediately rescinding layoff notices sent to 65 certificated employees in March.
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Labor organizes against budget ballot measure
ShareThis
By Kevin Yamamura
kyamamura@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Apr. 13, 2009 – 1:03 pm
Last Modified: Monday, Apr. 13, 2009 – 1:36 pm
A powerful California public employee union formed a campaign committee Monday with two other labor groups to oppose Proposition 1A, a May 19 ballot measure that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have said will solve future budget problems.
Service Employees International Union’s California State Council, which says it represents 700,000 workers, has teamed up with the California Faculty Association and the California Federation of Teachers to form a committee opposing Proposition 1A. The ballot measure would limit state spending in good fiscal years, diverting money to a “rainy-day fund.” But it also would extend $16 billion worth of temporary tax increases on sales, income and vehicles to 2013.
“Prop 1A won’t be able to do what its supporters claim,” said Marty Hittleman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, in a statement. “This constitutional amendment, supported by the governor and legislators was developed with no public scrutiny and won’t stop the budget chaos. Once voters read this proposal with their own eyes, they will see that it is flawed and overly complicated, and will give extraordinary new and unrestricted power to the governor and his political appointees, with no checks and balances.”
State leaders included the temporary tax hike extensions in Proposition 1A in part to discourage groups like SEIU from fighting the measure at the ballot. By restraining public spending, the measure could limit the expansion of the public-sector jobs that the labor unions forming the committee represent.
The unions, in their Monday announcement, twice mentioned the $16 billion in tax hikes, which are considered to be the measure’s greatest vulnerability among voters. Such labor groups find themselves unusual allies with anti-tax groups who typically fight union causes.
“This is disappointing since those who we hurt the most should Propositions 1A thru 1F not pass will be teachers, schools and the hard-working families of SEIU,” said Julie Soderlund, spokeswoman for Budget Reform Now, proponents of the six budget-related ballot measures. “During these tough economic times, it is unfair to do anything that will likely cost many people their jobs.”
It remains unclear how much SEIU plans to spend on the opposition effort, which will be a better indicator of whether they will succeed in defeating the ballot proposal. Proponents, including Schwarzenegger and the California Teachers Association, are raising millions of dollars in an effort to pass Proposition 1A and five other budget-related measures on the special election ballot.
Proposition 1A is tied to Proposition 1B, a separate proposal that requires the state to give schools additional total payments of $9.3 billion starting in 2011-12.
The California Federation of Teachers is a smaller union than CTA and represents 120,000 education employees. CFT supports Proposition 1B, despite the fact that it will fail unless Proposition 1A passes.
Schwarzenegger, during a press conference in Fresno to promote a health-care job training program, said he pays no attention to the opposition and believes “momentum is going our way.”
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Education programs on the chopping block
By Dana Hull
Mercury News
Posted: 04/08/2009 12:00:00 AM PDT
Updated: 04/08/2009 08:14:24 AM PDT
Alyssa Lopez, 18, attends Del Mar High School in San Jose in the morning. Every afternoon, she rides the bus to take Jeff Schmidt’s three-hour video class at the Central County Occupational Center, a vocational center in San Jose. She’s creating a short documentary about animal rights and learning how to edit the images with the latest computer software.
“I was going to drop out of school until I found out about this class,” said Lopez, who does not have a computer at home. “This is all hands-on learning. I love movies, and I want to learn everything that I can about how they make them. I would cry if they shut this program down.”
But the future of her course, and other vocational classes across the state, are in question.
For decades, programs like regional occupational centers, high school counseling, or gifted and talented education got dedicated education funds. So-called “categorical” programs made sure there were services to properly educate California’s diverse student body, from teaching migrant students to training principals on how to use technology.
But under the state budget deal crafted this spring, legislators broke such “categorical” programs into three tiers, giving strong protection to two groups but lumping more than 40 programs into a so-called “Tier III” that allows their funds to be raided, or the programs to be eliminated completely. The idea was to give superintendents flexibility in balancing shrinking budgets.
“We wanted to knock down the walls,” said H.D. Palmer of the California Department of Finance. “School districts said, ‘If you’re not giving us money, at least give us maximum flexibility.’ ”
Now supporters for programs as disparate as adult education, music and California Indians are pushing Sacramento to get them out of Tier III. And as local school districts begin crafting next year’s budget, groups are urging their superintendents to spare their programs instead of using the money to pay for, say, class size reduction.
“This was a major shock to the bureaucratic structure that’s been in place for 30 years,” said Brett McFadden of the Association of California School Administrators. “Each program has its own constituency and its own followers in the education community, and now everyone is like ‘Oh My God, we’re going to be cut.’ Everyone is lobbying for their program to be spared.”
Push for flexibility
School districts had been pushing Sacramento for more categorical “flexibility.” With state education dollars shrinking, school officials argued, it made less and less sense for the state to be in charge of chopping up the money. Let local people make the hard decisions instead.
“One district may say our biggest need is staff development,” said Dennis Meyers of the California Association of School Business Officials. “Another district might say our priority is technology. We finally have a funding system that sends money to the local level without too many strings attached. The problem is that we got it in a really bad budget year.”
Originally, every program was supposed to be on the table. But certain issues, like class size reduction, had enormous support from teachers and parents, who immediately began a campaign to save it. Other programs like special education came with federal mandates that helped to protect them. Educators associated with the vast majority of the programs in Tier III, however, are deeply worried. And while everyone is grumpy, advocates for adult education, regional occupational centers and gifted and talented education are complaining the loudest.
“Basically everyone who is in Tier III wants out,” said Rick Pratt of the California School Boards Association, a keen observer of the months-long budget wrangling. “We pushed for there to be no sacred cows — for basically everything to be Tier III. But there was a lot of horse-trading that went on, and the outcome is a compromise driven by politics instead of sound public policy.”
Teri Burns, a Sacramento lobbyist with School Innovations and Advocacy, is concerned that GATE, or gifted education, now finds itself in Tier III. Children who usually have large vocabularies, ask numerous questions and learn at a swift pace are often identified by teachers and standardized tests as “gifted” when they are in the third grade.
GATE could be gone
Such students attend GATE classes where the work is usually more challenging, requiring different textbooks, specially trained teachers and field trips. The new tier system means school districts could decide to use money that used to go toward GATE for something else entirely.
Nora Ho, principal of Ruskin Elementary in San Jose’s Berryessa Union School District, also worries that GATE is in the cross hairs.
“Being in Tier III means they don’t have to give us anything,” said Ho. “GATE is vulnerable to cuts because people think that gifted children will make it no matter what.”
Ho said nothing is further from the truth: Bright children often get bored and act out in class when they are not challenged.
“There’s a lot of training on how to work with kids who are not doing well. But there’s very little training on how to work with the advanced kids,” said Ho. “Leave me enough money so that I can continue training my teachers.”
It’s unlikely, however, that the tiers will go away.
“My sense is that there’s not much political will to move from the structure that was created,” said Jennifer Kuhn, director of K-12 education with the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. “It’s a Pandora’s box.”
Contact Dana Hull at dhull@mercurynews.com or 408-920-2706.
Educational tiers
TIER I
The programs in Tier I will receive no funding cuts, but there is no flexibility in how the funds are used. Programs in Tier I include: child development, child nutrition, K-3 class size reduction, Prop. 49 after-school programs, special education, home-to-school transportation.
Tier ii
Programs in Tier II will receive a 15 percent funding cut in the current year, but there is no program flexibility. Tier II includes: Charter School Facilities grants, foster youth, state testing, English Language Acquisition Program
Tier III
Programs in Tier III will receive a 15 percent reduction in the current year and for four additional years, and schools have maximum flexibility to use the funding as they wish. Tier III includes: regional occupational centers, high school counseling, GATE, principal training, California Indian education centers, adult education, education technology, community day schools, bilingual teacher training, arts and music block grant, class size reduction in 9th grade
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap13-2009apr13,0,3757188.column
From the Los Angeles Times
CAPITOL JOURNAL
Sharing the state’s fiscal pain
California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg is learning that every precious public dollar has too many jobs to do.
George Skelton
Capitol Journal
April 13, 2009
From Sacramento — State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg is in an awkward position: He’s the leading advocate of a ballot measure that would whack a government program he fought to create.
“I feel a little conflicted about it,” the Sacramento Democrat concedes.
Proposition 1E on the May 19 ballot would transfer roughly $230 million during each of the next two fiscal years from a mental healthcare account to the state general fund to help balance the budget.
The community mental health program — aimed at getting the mentally ill into treatment and keeping them off the street — was created in 2004 by Prop. 63, ramrodded by Steinberg. It’s funded by a 1% surcharge on taxable income exceeding $1 million. The annual take has ranged from $900 million to $1.5 billion.
“The last thing I wanted to do is take money from the proposition that I worked my heart and soul to pass,” Steinberg says. “But as a leader, I have to set an example. I’ve talked consistently throughout this budget crisis about shared sacrifice. . . . I protected it as much as I could.
“There’s way too much of ‘My way or the highway’ in the recent history of California government.”
Another program was not as well protected during the budget negotiations in February that culminated in passage of a $42-billion deficit-closing package.
Prop. 1D would transfer $608 million during the next fiscal year — and $268 million each year for four more — from the First 5 program serving children under 5. All that money, nearly $1.7 billion, also would be used to help balance the budget.
The First 5 program was created in 1998 by filmmaker Rob Reiner’s Prop. 10. It’s funded by a 50-cents-per-pack tobacco tax taking in about $500 million annually.
Both the mental health and First 5 programs were fat targets in budget negotiations because they were hoarding large surpluses of money they didn’t immediately need.
The mental program had a $2.5-billion reserve, according to Rusty Selix, executive director of the California Council of Community Mental Health Agencies, and a coauthor of Prop. 63. The First 5 program was sitting on $2.1 billion last summer, says Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor.
Both groups deny they really had spare money. Much had been committed to future programs. Some was being salted away for bad times.
“Money’s coming in and we’re doing multiyear planning,” says Sherry Novick, executive director of the First 5 Assn. “This is what state government should be doing. We’re creating a model.”
Sorry, the government way is more like use it or lose it.
While these groups were stashing tax dollars, the governor and Legislature were reducing grants for welfare moms and the elderly poor, blind and disabled, eliminating dental care for the impoverished on Medi-Cal, reducing wages for workers who provide in-home services for the infirm and cutting money for regional centers that serve people with developmental disabilities.
Plus a lot of other stuff, including temporarily raising income, sales and vehicle taxes.
So when opponents of Props. 1D and 1E argue that the measures “take away voter-approved funding for programs for our most vulnerable citizens,” it’s a weak claim. Voter approval doesn’t preclude voters changing their minds. Ask Gray Davis. And millions of vulnerable citizens already have lost government benefits and services and stand to lose more unless all the budget measures pass on May 19.
“This is necessary in order to avoid deeper cuts to other health and human service programs that don’t have any reserves,” Steinberg says.
Actually, this whole tussle over pots of money illustrates the problem with ballot box budgeting. A given interest will bypass Sacramento and head directly to the people with an irresistible idea. If the initiative passes, the hands of the governor and Legislature are tied even tighter in trying to set spending priorities. To change a voter-approved program, it must be sent back to the electorate. That’s why 1D and 1E are on the ballot.
Selix and Steinberg were close allies in fighting for Prop. 63. Now they’re on opposite sides.
“He’s doing what he has to do,” Selix says. “He did as good a job on our behalf as he could. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
“There’s no money to be saved by denying anyone mental healthcare,” he adds, citing costs of emergency room care and jail time for the homeless. “This is illusionary savings.”
He estimates the Prop. 63 program has served more than 200,000 mentally ill people. And he concedes that even if Prop. 1E passes, there’ll be enough money to get through the next fiscal year without cutting services. But after that, significant cuts would be needed.
Opponents of Prop. 1D say it would especially jeopardize efforts to prevent child abuse. Currently about $200 million in First 5 money goes to that cause, says Sheila Boxley, president of the Child Abuse Prevention Center. She asserts 1D “would be devastating.”
Polls show voter skepticism about the measures.
But if they’re rejected, the electorate had better be prepared for sharper cuts in other social services, as well as schools. There’s already a projected $8-billion deficit for the next fiscal year. If Props. 1D and 1E fail, the hole will get nearly $1 billion deeper.
Most likely to be rejected is Prop. 1C, which would allow the state to borrow $5 billion against future lottery winnings. If the three props go down, the hole grows to $14 billion.
Another tax hike seems improbable.
“If the measures pass,” Steinberg says, “we can triage through the rest” of the deficit.
There are many casualties already on the budget battlefield. Unfortunately, they probably should be joined by mental health and children’s programs. Shared sacrifice.
george.skelton@latimes.com
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A Teacher’s View:
Student responsibility needs to be nurtured
Cathy Estes
Wed, Apr 8, 2009 (1:10 p.m.)
Las Vegas Sun
Whose responsibility is education? Some days it seems that our students view responsibility as a burden, some horrendous task that they are forced to take on. So often, responsibility for just about everything is projected by our students onto someone else.
I’m reminded of a colleague’s classroom rules posted on her bulletin board that reads, “You will not blame your mother when you don’t have your homework.” Even though this is meant to bring humor to her classroom, the message to me is clear: Students need to take more responsibility for their own education.
Student responsibility doesn’t just happen. Teachers and parents must expect it, model it and nurture it. An optimal educational outcome depends on collaboration between teachers, parents and students.
It comes as no surprise to me that parents have a tremendous amount of impact on their kids. The best way to teach responsibility is to demonstrate it. Let kids know that being responsible doesn’t mean that you don’t make mistakes. It means you accept the consequences for them.
Parents have the privilege of teaching good manners, self control and that there is a time for school work and a time for play.
Teachers also have a great deal of responsibility for education. It is not just our job to know and understand the curriculum, but we must keep updated on the best practices for delivering the curriculum to our students. People learn in so many different ways, and it is up to the teacher to teach the objective in a way that can be understood and mastered by the students.
The ultimate responsibility for education must come from the student. To be successful, students have to invest their time and effort into their own education.
The reality is that many students have all the support and encouragement they can expect from their parents and teachers, yet still don’t take responsibility for their own education.
The key to learning is that outcome is tied into effort.
Even though schools play a critical role, they are not solely responsible for the outcomes of their students. Education is everyone’s business and depends on collaboration between us all.
Cathy Estes is a fourth and fifth grade teacher at Vanderburg Elementary School. She can be reached c/o the Home News, 2360 Corporate Circle, Third Floor, Henderson, NV 89074 or editor@hbcpub.com.
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Pre-K enrollment, funding up; worry about economy
By JENNIFER C. KERR – 4 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The recession could spell trouble for the nation’s youngest schoolchildren, despite positive trends in spending and enrollment for state pre-K programs, according to a report released Wednesday.
At least nine states are likely to make cuts to pre-kindergarten programs including some of the biggest — California, Florida and New York, said Steve Barnett, one of the authors of the annual report on state-funded preschool.
Barnett, director at the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, said enrollment cuts, fewer dollars per pupil, and delaying expansion plans are some of the steps that states are considering. A spokesman for New York Governor David Paterson says the state’s 2010 budget maintains spending on pre-K programs at current levels, but doesn’t have additional money to expand them.
The institute is urging the federal government to match state spending with up to $2,500 for every additional child enrolled in state pre-K programs as a way to grow preschool so that all of the nation’s 4-year-olds can have access by 2020.
Barnett said a good preschool program helps children acquire rich vocabularies and learn about numbers and shapes.
“They also learn how to take responsibility for their actions and to get along with other children,” he said. “These things are the foundation for success in school and in life.”
Currently, more than 80 percent of all 4-year-olds attend some kind of preschool program, according to the report. About half of those go to a public program, either state pre-K, Head Start or special education. The other half attend private programs.
Thirty-three of the 38 states with state pre-K programs increased enrollment for the 2007-2008 school year, the report said.
Oklahoma has nearly 90 percent of its 4-year-olds in a public education program, the best enrollment ranking in the study.
At least seven other states — Florida, Georgia, Vermont, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and New York — have more than half of 4-year-olds attending some type of a public preschool program.
Spending on state pre-K programs increased from $4.2 billion to $5.2 billion last year, said Barnett.
The researchers also ranked the quality of the programs, looking at 10 benchmarks such as class size, teacher-to-child ratios and whether the teacher has a bachelor’s degree.
North Carolina and Alabama were the only two states that met all 10 benchmarks. Louisiana, Maryland, Arkansas, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Washington met nine of the 10 standards, said the report.
On the Net:
National Institute for Early Education Research: http://nieer.org
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gov-ballot-measures13-2009apr13,0,5014204.story
From the Los Angeles Times
CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: BALLOT MEASURES
Schwarzenegger campaigns quietly for ballot measures
Propositions 1A through 1F are crucial for the governor’s legacy and California’s finances, but with his approval ratings down, he’s staying out of the spotlight.
By Michael Rothfeld
April 13, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento — With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s popularity at a low ebb and a slate of ballot measures he is championing trailing in the polls, the onetime master of Hollywood marketing is stepping back from the spotlight, campaigning as part of a broad coalition rather than the star player he has often been in the past.
The strategy is a reversal of the governor’s last effort in a special election for a set of initiatives that would have transformed state government. He served as the public face of that ill-fated campaign four years ago, ultimately pulling commercials featuring himself off the air.
This time, the governor will raise money and appear at news conferences with other leaders — such as one Friday with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce — who are endorsing six initiatives on the May 19 ballot that he says will help fix the state’s budget system.
“You can’t use a sitting governor whose job approval ratings have plummeted into the 30s as an effective salesperson,” said Garry South, a Democratic strategist who is not working for either side. “People understand it was the politicians who brought about this perilous fiscal state of affairs, and . . . who slapped these things on the ballot to help get the state out of the mess they created.”
Though the initiatives are crucial for the state’s finances and his own legacy, political analysts say Schwarzenegger will surely leave the most personal appeals, especially on television ads during the heat of the campaign, to sympathetic figures such as teachers, firefighters and paramedics. They can talk with credibility, the thinking goes, about the dire consequences for average Californians if the initiatives fail.
The challenge for supporters is significant: They must persuade people who are disenchanted with government to go out in the middle of May and vote for a set of complicated ballot measures that will raise their taxes. A large infusion of cash by opponents could prove insurmountable.
With less than six weeks to go, Schwarzenegger and his advisors have been working behind the scenes to raise at least $15 million for the short campaign and to persuade unions holding big war chests not to fund the opposition. The governor has made the rounds with legislative leaders at newspaper editorial boards.
‘Bigger than me’
Schwarzenegger, who recently took five days off for a family vacation in Hawaii and left California again this weekend, says he will campaign “up and down” the state in the coming weeks as part of a bipartisan coalition. But the election, he maintains, is not about him.
“It’s about the state of California,” Schwarzenegger said. “We’ll be asking all the local leaders to help us sell and communicate to the people of California the importance of making those initiatives pass: Democrats and Republicans, the legislators, business leaders, community leaders, law enforcement, education leaders. . . . It’s all about the future of California. California is much bigger than me.”
The initiatives, Propositions 1A through 1F, were hashed out by Schwarzenegger and lawmakers during the budget deal in February, which closed a projected $42-billion deficit after three months of stalemate. Their failure in May would add $6 billion to the deficit this year and plunge state government into chaos again.
The measures would increase the size of the state’s rainy day fund and try to keep future spending in check, extend by two years the temporary tax hikes recently signed into law, boost education funding down the road to compensate for current cuts, borrow $5 billion against the lottery and reduce voter-approved funds for early child education and mental health.
“It’s a very difficult package of bills to sell,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and a leading opponent. “All we have to say is 1A means $16 billion in higher taxes.”
A poll taken last month by the Public Policy Institute of California found that only Proposition 1F, which would freeze state elected officials’ pay when a budget is late, had a majority of voter support, at 81%. Relatively few voters were even paying attention, the poll said. It also found that only 33% of voters approved of the Republican governor’s performance and that for the first time, even most Republicans gave him negative reviews.
Mark Baldassare, the policy institute president, said that given those ratings, Schwarzenegger “has to have a supporting cast around him to be successful.” The key, Baldassare said, is bringing along labor and business leaders and signaling to voters “that there is broad-based support and that opposition is more around the edges.”
Courting unions
So far, the California Teachers Assn. has backed the initiatives, one of which would grant future education funding to offset current budget cuts, and donated heavily.
The governor and his team will also be trying to recruit other powerful unions, or at least persuade them to stay neutral.
Leaders of the Service Employees International Union, which represents state employees and home healthcare workers, voted to oppose the measures but have not yet signaled how much, if any, they might donate to defeat them. Nor has the state prison guards union, which has fought with Schwarzenegger in recent years over an expired contract, indicated whether it will use its dues-funded arsenal in the campaign.
“We’re having conversations with just about every organization up and down California to help them understand how critical it is that these pass,” said Adam Mendelsohn, a Schwarzenegger campaign advisor.
Likewise, Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman both oppose the measures and could supply ample funding to defeat it, but so far have not.
If these big players stay on the sidelines, it will mark another difference from the 2005 special election, when unions for teachers, nurses, firefighters and others spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat ballot measures backed by Schwarzenegger to curb state spending and to change the way legislative districts were drawn and the way teachers received tenure.
“He just said, ‘Trust me, they’re good,’ and he could never explain what they did, and it became all about him,” recalled Tony Quinn, a former Republican consultant. “They had well-funded opposition that made it a referendum on the governor.”
michael.rothfeld@latimes.com
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ucadmit8-2009apr08,0,5821180.story
From the Los Angeles Times
UC makes it official: Fewer freshmen get in for fall
The system turned away 27.5% of applicants this year, with Santa Cruz, Davis and Irvine experiencing the greatest jumps in selectivity. A record number had applied to UC schools.
By Larry Gordon
9:37 PM PDT, April 7, 2009
The University of California confirmed today what applicants and guidance counselors already knew firsthand: It was harder to gain admission to many of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses this year.
Mainly in response to budget-related enrollment cutbacks for the fall, the percentage of California applicants offered freshman admission by at least one UC campus dropped from 75.4% last year to 72.5% this year, a decline of 3.85%, according to data released Tuesday. Officials estimated that it was the lowest acceptance rate for the university since 2000.
The biggest declines were at UC campuses in Santa Cruz, where the rate of acceptance dropped from 74.3% last year to 63.7%; Davis, where it fell from 52.4% to 46.2%; and Irvine, which went from 49% to 42.8%.
“Admission to the university was very competitive this year,” said Susan Wilbur, the UC system’s director of undergraduate admissions. In addition to the enrollment cut, a record number of California students — 80,820 — applied to at least one UC campus for this year, up about 1.4%. In-staters usually make up about 90% of UC undergraduates.
But Wilbur emphasized that all students who were academically qualified for the university would find a UC spot, although not necessarily at campuses they preferred. About 10,000 eligible students who were rejected by all campuses to which they applied will be offered admission to Riverside and Merced this month, she said.
Even before those so-called referral offers, it was somewhat easier this year to get into UC Riverside, which accepted 79.8% of its applicants, and UC Merced, which took 79.1%. The system’s newest campus, Merced is trying to grow from its current 2,700 enrollment to 25,000 over the next two decades or so.
Wilbur said all UC campuses had taken into account projections that the recession could result in more students than last year attending a UC instead of higher-cost private colleges.
However, she said some others now might choose to live at home and attend a Cal State or community college instead of an out-of-town UC. So she said planners are uncertain how many students will commit to UC campuses by the May 1 deadline.
“We are very curious about that ourselves,” she said.
In January, the UC regents reduced freshman fall enrollment by 2,300 students, or about 6%, because of what they described as insufficient state funding. UC officials now hope to enroll about 33,000 California freshmen for the coming school year, while increasing transfer students from community colleges by 500, about 4%.
Monica Ward DePriest, a college counselor at Marlborough School, a private Los Angeles school for girls, said she noticed the tighter admissions most dramatically at UC Davis and UC Irvine. Some students she felt certain would have been admitted to those campuses if they had been seniors last year were denied entrance last month, she said.
“I’ve been using the word ‘perplexed’ a lot this year,” DePriest said. But she said that her students still have good offers from which to choose despite their disappointment about UC rejections.
Statewide, the percentage of Latinos among the UC pool of accepted applicants rose from 20.7% to 22.2%; of African Americans from 3.8% to 4%; and of Asian Americans from 33.6% to 34.9%. The percentage of white students admitted dropped slightly from last year, from 34.4% to 33.1%.
The average weighted grade-point average for all California students admitted to a UC campus this year was 3.82, which includes bonuses for honors and Advanced Placement courses. Last year, that figure was 3.79. The average SAT total was 1,790, out of a 2,400 perfect score on the three-part test, up from 1,777 last year.
The data showed that UCLA had the most applicants and the toughest admission rate, just 21.4% for in-state students. The average high school GPA for California students admitted to UCLA was 4.17 (with honors points) and the average SAT total was 1,992.
Morgan Currier, a senior at the humanities magnet at Cleveland High School in Reseda, was accepted by UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara but turned down by some other UCs, including Davis, San Diego and Berkeley. She said she too noticed that some UC campuses accepted friends last year and denied her classmates with similar grades last month.
“This year was a lot more of a downer and a very touchy subject for a lot of people,” she said.
Morgan is being philosophical: “You don’t want to hear ‘We don’t want you,’ but at the same time I got into other places and have options.” She said she will forgo a UC and attend the University of Washington in Seattle because she likes its location, big-time sports and a special major there in social justice.
larry.gordon@latimes.com
Email blast from SAUSD Board Member, John Palacio, sent 4/15/2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd15-2009apr15,0,4362057.story
From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. Unified moves to cut 5,000 teachers and others
The board’s 4-3 vote closes most of a $596.1-million deficit for next year and will lead to larger classes. But the battle over funding will rage on for weeks.
By Howard Blume
April 15, 2009
Los Angeles school district officials moved forward Tuesday with plans to lay off more than 5,000 teachers, counselors, custodians, clerks and other employees, but the battle over funding will rage on for weeks — affecting who goes, who stays and what schools and classrooms will look like for students next year.
The Board of Education’s 4-3 vote, after more than four hours of pleading and debate, closed most of a $596.1-million deficit for next year in the nation’s second-largest school system.
“Anger is appropriate and outrage is appropriate,” said school board President Monica Garcia, who voted with the majority. “Nobody wants to do these layoffs.”
No one expects every employee with a layoff notice in the Los Angeles Unified School District to be out of work, and most observers believe the current budget plan will evolve, perhaps considerably.
The board action affects about 3,500 newer teachers who have yet to earn tenure protections as well as administrators, nursing staff, library aides, computer programmers and others.
The teachers will lose positions as a result of larger classes, which could rise from 20 to 24 students in the early grades. Sixth-grade classes would rise to 35 students. The average high school class would be larger still.
Much of the contention centers on how much money will be available from the federal stimulus package and how that money could and should be used. Opponents of the cuts have added up federal dollars and come up with figures that surpass the current deficit.
District officials insist that their math is wishful thinking.
But there’s also a strategic disagreement. Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has decided to spread the federal money over the next two budget years. Even with the cuts, the district faces an additional deficit in 2010-11. Using most of the federal money now, Cortines said, would create an untenable funding cliff when the dollars ran out.
His top advisors have also yet to factor in some additional funding that they fear could be poached by other government agencies. And some of the money has restrictions that limit the district’s flexibility in saving jobs and programs.
Initially, the budget proposal deadlocked on the seven-member board at 3 to 3, with Richard Vladovic suddenly becoming the swing vote. He missed the first roll call, explaining when he returned that recent food poisoning had forced him to leave for several minutes.
He then asked for a legal opinion on whether the district could spend more restricted money to save jobs. The district’s top lawyer warned against it, and Vladovic tipped the scale for the Cortines plan.
Vladovic had recused himself from some recent budget votes because his son, a teacher, had received a layoff notice. But that conflict evaporated earlier Tuesday when Cortines recommended rescinding notices of possible layoff that had been sent to nearly 2,000 tenured teachers, including Vladovic’s son.
Those still at risk include all teachers without tenure: 1,605 at the elementary level and 1,872 at middle and high schools. The notices also went to 498 other employees with teaching credentials and to 2,875 administrators. Most of those administrators will keep their jobs, but some small campuses will lose a full-time principal.
At one point, a group of Spanish-speaking parents cited security fears and other concerns should their children’s campus lack a principal at all times.
Some principals are likely to be replaced by administrators with more seniority.
The “bumping” process, officials acknowledged, could become a nightmare, because more than 1,200 positions will be cut from central and regional offices.
These cuts are not just to save money, but also about decentralizing operations, which is a key Cortines goal and a longtime demand of the teachers union. In the short run, at least, this approach could bump teachers out of their jobs.
Some campuses could be especially hard hit, among them Del Olmo Elementary in Koreatown, where test scores surged in 2008.
At Del Olmo, nearly two-thirds of teachers received notice that they could be laid off. About half of these, however, were spared when permanent teachers got their reprieve.
“I’m glad to hear some teachers’ jobs will be saved,” Del Olmo second-grade teacher Regina Ramos said, “but it’s not enough. . . . What type of reform is it if quality teachers are being let go?”
There was little solace for middle schools and high schools, especially those with less-experienced teachers.
Marla Mattenson, 38, who teaches at Bernstein High in Hollywood, changed careers to become one of the district’s new and badly needed math teachers. “But I got a little letter in the mail,” she said referring to her layoff notice.
Board member Tamar Galatzan lined up with the budget plan skeptics and financial optimists, as did most of the parents who spoke before the board.
“I don’t think the stimulus money should be saved for a rainy day,” Galatzan said. “I think we should look outside and see a storm brewing.”
Several district officials, including some board members, have alluded to “shared sacrifice,” the same words used by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday when he discussed the district’s budget crisis. The term has become de facto code for the idea that employee unions need to accept lower wages to save jobs.
The United Teachers Los Angeles leadership has maintained that there is no need to lay off teachers or reduce their pay. Other unions have signaled a willingness to discuss unpaid furlough days.
The board vote could put additional pressure on the unions to discuss furloughs or other wage concessions that the mayor and Cortines have suggested.
The superintendent’s push to decentralize includes millions of dollars for schools to “buy back” some lost staff. That process will unfold in the coming weeks, as will the debate over the federal money. Cortines insisted that he would entertain all options.
“We should continue the conversation,” he said. “We need to exhaust every avenue.”
howard.blume@latimes.com
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Monday, April 13, 2009
Capistrano district’s $25.5 million in cuts will increase class size
Tentative 2009-10 budget includes 5 days of unpaid leave for school administrators.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – The Capistrano Unified school board approved a tentative budget plan Monday that would wipe out the popular 20-to-1 student-teacher ratio in the primary grades next fall and increase class sizes across all other grades.
The $376 million budget, approved in a 4-3 vote by the school board, also calls for the loss of the elementary-level Teaming for the Learning of All Children intervention program, more than half the school district’s guidance counselors and 11 assistant principals districtwide.
Likewise, funding for the Gifted And Talented Education program and an autodialer phone system that can leave mass voice mail messages for parents also would be eliminated.
In all, the cuts total $25.5 million.
“We have looked at this budget inside out, upside down and backwards,” Deputy Superintendent Ron Lebs said. “Short of some sort of negotiated settlement, I don’t know where we would find the money to make this work.”
Capistrano Unified trustees last month proposed a 10 percent across-the-board pay cut for all employees, but the plan requires approval from the district’s employee unions.
The school district’s final budget for the 2009-10 school year will be approved in June.
Capistrano Unified’s professional management association, which represents school and district administrators, on Monday offered to take five days of unpaid leave next year at a cost savings of about $500,000. That was rolled into Monday’s budget plan.
“It is entirely possible and everyone must be aware that there may be many more cuts coming after these cuts down the road,” Trustee Anna Bryson said. “This is not going to be the last round of cuts we will experience.”
The three dissenting trustees – Ken Maddox, Larry Christensen and Mike Winsten – appeared to favor an alternate budget proposal by Winsten calling for partial preservation of the class-size reduction program in the first through third grades. Instead of increasing class sizes to an average of 31.5 children, class sizes would go up to just 24.5 children.
But under Winsten’s plan, smaller class sizes would be preserved at the expense of the fourth- and fifth-grade music program, the adult education program and all administrators taking a 10 percent pay cut, which the board could have authorized because administrators are not unionized.
Under the plan approved Monday, all but about 65 first- through third-grade classes districtwide would go up to an average of 31.5 children. The other 65 classrooms, which are spread out across nine of the district’s newer elementary campuses, were constructed physically smaller and would only be able to accommodate about 25 students each.
Parents said they were upset not all class sizes in the primary grades would be equal as a result.
“Winsten’s proposal is legal and acceptable given our current economic crisis,” said parent Kim Price of Mission Viejo, who has two kids. “Allowing some kids to have better educational opportunities is not acceptable.”
Also under the plan, class sizes in the fourth through 12th grades would go up by an average of 0.5 students each.
Some parents said the board should hire an interim superintendent as quickly as possible. The district has not had anyone in the top administrative spot since Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter was fired March 9.
“We need leadership in finance, negotiations, and someone who has fought these budgetary battles,” said longtime San Juan Capistrano resident Nancy Lavigne, who does not have kids in the district. “We need you to take action and appoint someone with the ability to assist and lead you and us.”
Spared from the chopping block under Monday’s tentative budget plan were the Advancement Via Individual Determination intervention program and the music program in the fourth and fifth grades.
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
District budget cuts
The Capistrano Unified school board has approved a tentative budget plan for the 2009-10 school year calling for $25.5 million in cuts.
$8.7 million: Eliminate class-size reduction in grades 1-3 (202 positions)
$2.17 million: Eliminate 21.4 district-level positions (Cut 18.4 positions and leave 3 others unfilled)
$1.56 million: Eliminate 17.4 guidance counselors (0.5 counselors would remain at each middle school; 2 at each high school)
$1.5 million: Reduce funding earmarked for textbook purchases
$1.4 million: Increase average class sizes in kindergarten and grades 4-12 by 0.5 students each (37 positions)
$1.28 million: Scale back summer school and after-school programs
$1.24 million: Eliminate 11 assistant principals in elementary and middle schools
$1.22 million: Reduce funding for supplemental instructional materials
$1.2 million: Transfer funds from a facilities maintenance account to the general fund
$1 million: Eliminate professional development program for teachers
$0.9 million: Scale back adult education program
$0.6 million: Reduce funding for arts and music programs (8.2 positions)
$0.5 million: Impose 5 days of unpaid leave for all administrators
$0.42 million: Reduce funding for high school sports
$0.38 million: Eliminate Teaching for the Education of All Children (TLC) intervention program (5 positions)
$0.25 million: Scale back Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program (1.1 positions)
$0.21 million: Scale back teacher credentialing support programs (3 positions)
$0.2 million: Transfer funds from CalSafe safety program to general fund (Pay for CalSafe programs using alternate funds)
$0.14 million: Eliminate adult English language instruction program (1.4 positions)
$0.13 million: Eliminate funding for ConnectEd auto-dialer system for mass voicemail communication with parents
$0.11 million: Reduce funding for teacher peer mentoring program
$0.11 million: Eliminate 1.5 special education positions
$0.1 million: Eliminate PE teacher incentive program
$0.1 million: Eliminate employee monetary awards and put more district publications online
$0.1 million: Eliminate Handwriting without Tears elementary-level program
$0.09 million: Reduce funding for substitutes for non-classroom employees
$0.08 million: Eliminate 6.2 resident substitute positions
$0.05 million: Decrease frequency of bus inspections
$0.05 million: Reduce special education busing costs
$0.02 million: Eliminate coaching program for new principals
$0.01 million: Eliminate math and reading curriculum training program
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Monday, April 13, 2009
Orange Unified Board to eliminate 136 Staff support positions, plus reduce hours and pay
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
a news service of Orange Net News /O/N/N/
Independent insight into OUSD
Orange Unified Board to eliminate 136 Staff support positions-
plus reduce hours and pay
At the Thursday April 16th, 2009 Orange Unified School Board meeting the OUSD Trustees will vote to eliminate 136 staff support (Classified) positions in Agenda Action Item 12 C (Agenda page 25-28). The Agenda item’s Fiscal Impact section states that the cuts will save OUSD $ 4,998,000 annually.
Among the 136 Classified positions cut in 37 job categories (all listed on page 26 of the Agenda) are: 33 Technology Assistances; 15 Regular Instructional Aides; 15 Community Based English Tutoring (CBET) Aides and Instructors; 8 Senior School/Staff Clerks; 7 Bus Drivers; 5 Custodians; 5 secretaries and 4 Food Service Assistances. Also included in the 136 eliminated positions are 10 Management/Supervisory positions: 5 Executive Secretaries; 1 Bus Driver Trainer; 1 CWA Coordinator; 1 Director of Purchasing; 1 Nutrition Services Operation Supervisor; and the Nutrition Network Project Coordinator.
The reduction in hours will affect fifty three employees in 9 support staff job classifications. Five high school and middle school Kitchen Managers will have their hours cut and 51 employees in 19 job categories will have their yearly work calendar cut (Agenda page 27). Eight job categories were reclassified with reductions in pay (five are Classified/Supervisory positions).
OUSD Board to approve current 2008-2009 contract
and call for pay cuts next year
Agenda Action Item 12 A (Agenda page 7) approves the 2008-2009 agreement between OUSD and the teachers association, the Orange Unified Education Association, at the April 16th OUSD Board meeting. Agenda Action Item 12 B (Agenda page 23) is the public “sun shining” and holding of a Public Hearing for input on the OUSD Board’s 2009-2010 contract proposals that include a 3.75% pay cut, cuts in the work calendar, and cuts to Certificated contractual positions. All of the proposals with the teachers association are subject to negotiation.
Early political polls (conducted before the recent political advertisements in support started) showed the May 19th 2009 Special Election Budget Propositions being defeated by voters. A defeat of the budget measures would create a whole new budget crisis for the state and school districts. The local watch dog group the Greater Orange Communities Organization has called for OUSD Administrators to lead the way on a 3.75% pay cut immediately and to close OUSD’s remaining small schools; Panorama (214 students in 2007-2008*); Riverdale (196 students in 2007-2008*); and Imperial (258 students in 2007-2008*). OUSD Trustee Melissa Smith again brought up her proposal for the second time at the March 26th, 2009 OUSD Board meeting, that the OUSD Trustees cut their own per-meeting honorarium. Board President Rick Ledesma assured Smith that her proposal would appear as an Agenda item.
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Monday, April 13, 2009
Huntington Beach Union High School District reconsiders cuts
Huntington Beach Union High School District considers cuts to police force, librarians, special education aids and health clerks.
By ANNIE BURRIS
The Orange County Register
HUNTINGTON BEACH – The city’s high school district leaders will consider cutting their police force, librarians, special education aids and health clerks during a trustee meeting Tuesday night, officials said.
Huntington Beach Union High School District board members are considering these cuts in order to make $6.5 million in reductions for next year’s budget.
In March, the superintendent recommended eliminating all the school’s health clerks, librarian positions and special education aids.
Superintendent Van Riley also recommended the board consider reducing the police force from eight officers to one. The Huntington Beach high school district and Santa Ana Unified are the only Orange County school districts with their own sworn police force and Surf City campus cops do not wear guns.
New paperwork submitted for the trustee’s Tuesday meeting recommends the district pursue a grant to keep all of the district’s police officers for at least four more years and reduce the hours of the health clerks.
It is also recommended that one of the three librarian positions be cut and all ten special education aids positions eliminated.
The meeting, which is open to the public, will begin at 7:30 p.m., at the district offices,
5832 Bolsa Avenue.
Contact the writer: aburris@ocregister.com or 714-445-6696
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Monday, April 13, 2009
Irvine Unified releases names of 164 temps losing jobs
These temporary teachers were told in March they may not be rehired because ongoing budget cuts.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Irvine Unified School District has released the names of 164 temporary teachers who were told their contracts won’t be renewed next school year because of ongoing budget cuts.
The teachers, who were notified in March, are to continue working through the end of this school year.
District spokesman Ian Hanigan said officials still hope to eventually rehire nearly all these teachers this summer. Most years, the majority of the temporary teachers end up having their year-to-year contracts renewed after district officials have a better understanding of state financial forecasts, he said.
District officials are anticipating a $9 million shortfall in for the 2009-10 school year. The education board has already voted to reduce ongoing expenses by more than $2.3 million. The remaining shortfall will be filled with nearly $6.7 million in onetime dollars that were saved by freezing expenditures in 2008 and 2009.
Below are the names and job assignments of the temporary teachers. The list was provided to the Register by Irvine Unified through a California Public Records Act request.
Last Name First Name Position Location
Adamson Jeremy Sci: Physics Woodbridge High School
Ahearn Maureen Nurse Health Services
Alix Peter Eng: General University High School
Antonopoulos Brian SocSci/Elective Sierra Vista MS
Atkins Diana Counselor Northwood High School
August Michelle 2nd Grade Turtle Rock
Bagwell April Kindergarten Westpark
Bailey Christopher 1st Grade Woodbury (ECR)
Balandran Lourdes FL: Spanish Irvine High School
Baldwin Suzanne SocSci: History/Elective South Lake MS
Baran Joseph 3rd Grade Westwood Basics Plus
Bautista Julie 2nd Grade Alderwood Basics Plus
Beamer Brittany 2nd Grade Greentree
Biel Kristiana 2nd Grade Alderwood Basics Plus
Brown Carra Math: General University High School
Browning Melissa 2nd Grade Deerfield
Carbone Cassandra Eng: General Woodbridge High School
Carrington Jennifer Counselor Northwood High School
Carter Christine Eng: General Irvine High School
Chaldu Summer Resource Specialist Vista Verde MS
Chaney Michael Eng: General Irvine High School
Chang Paul Math: General Irvine High School
Chen Jennifer 4th Grade Oak Creek
Cline Megan 5th Grade College Park
Conferti Maria 6th Grade Deerfield
Connolly Tracy 1st Grade Greentree
Covelman Rhonda 6th Grade Stone Creek
Coven Debra Eng: General Creekside – Harvard/Barranca
Cowles Sandra Math: General Northwood High School
Cox Danette 2nd Grade Brywood
Cummins Daley Molly TOSA: Elementary Inter. Brywood
Demontesquiou Nicolle 4th Grade Canyon View
Doan Ann Math: General Northwood High School
Dorse Julie Sci Resource Specialist Science Resources
Dzurik Colleen Music: K-3 Fine Arts
Edmunds Abigail Music: K-3 Fine Arts
Evans Cheryl 3rd Grade Alderwood Basics Plus
Frueh Sally 3rd Grade & 5th Grade Culverdale
Furness Ramona Kindergarten Westpark
Garbarini Joann Eng: General Irvine High School
Garcia Erin Counselor Venado MS
Garrett Nathan 3rd Grade College Park
Georgino Michael SocSci: History University High School
Geronsin Kristina 1st Grade Oak Creek
Gillespie Julie 2nd Grade College Park
Gohn Jennifer Music: Instrumental University High School
Golji Michelle 2nd Grade Meadowpark
Gray Jennifer DHH Itinerant Teacher Special Ed Preschool
Greely Natalie Counselor Woodbridge High School
Hager Harmony 5th Grade Turtle Rock
Hammoud Zynab SDC Special Programs
Hanigan Angela Eng: General Northwood High School
Hanna Ashley Music: K-3 Fine Arts
Hayward Lorin 4th Grade Woodbury (ECR)
Held Holly Music: K-3/4-6 Vocal Fine Arts
Herman Jennifer Kindergarten Alderwood Basics Plus
Ho Alan Math: General Woodbridge High School
Hoffman Jenny Counselor Woodbridge High School
Honeycutt Alyssa 1-3 Combo: ELD College Park
Hood Larisa Eng: General Creekside – Harvard/Barranca
Horton Jacqueline 1st Grade College Park
Hoshizaki Julie Counselor Woodbridge High School
Hovis Darryl Eng: Drama University High School
Huff Tiffany Art: Ceramics University High School
Hughes Tiffany Resource Specialist University High School
Humboldt Jennifer 5-6 Combo Greentree
Hunter Julie 1st Grade Westpark
Jackson Kristen 6th Grade Meadowpark
Jacobs Phylis 3rd Grade University Park
Jacobson Ann Counselor University High School
Jo Tiffany SocSci University High School
Kasper Kevin Sci: Coord University High School
Keifer Lisa Kindergarten Stone Creek
Keith Lauren K-1 Combo: ELD Culverdale
Kellar Janelle 5th Grade Bonita Canyon
Kennedy Heather Eng: General University High School
Kresser Joanne 3rd Grade Meadowpark
Lack Donna Counselor Lakeside MS
Lackie Debra TOSA: Elementary Inter. College Park
Lam Anna TOSA: Elementary Inter. College Park
Lamb Jean Eng: General Vista Verde MS
Lambert Jennifer 2nd Grade Woodbury (ECR)
Lanphier Julia 1st Grade Alderwood Basics Plus
LaPlante Meredith Eng/Journalism/Latin Woodbridge High School
Larsen Adrienne Music: Chorus/ K-6 Music Fine Arts
Leavey Kathleen Humanities: SocSci Rancho San Joaquin MS
Lee Andrea 3rd Grade Culverdale
Lee Wendy Kindergarten: ELD Northwood
Lopez Jennifer Counselor Rancho San Joaquin MS
Luke Karen Counselor Irvine High School
Lutz Samantha Nurse Health Services
Mabe Amy 2nd Grade Culverdale
Mac Donald Lucy PE: Dance Irvine High School
Machesky Alissa 2nd Grade Alderwood Basics Plus
Martin Whitney 2nd Grade Northwood
Mc Cullagh Elizabeth 2nd Grade Westwood Basics Plus
Mc Kenzie Mark TOSA Guidance Resources
McGehee Andrea Speech/Lang Therapist Northwood High School
McNatt Christopher 5th Grade Westpark
Medak James Counselor University High School
Meloni Jennifer 6th Grade Culverdale
Michel Marybeth Eng: General Woodbridge High School
Misserville Nicholas Elec-ROP University High School
Moorehead Megan 4th Grade Westpark
Morrison II Michael Humanities: SocSci Rancho San Joaquin MS
Mudge Irma Sci Resource Specialist Science Resources
Mullen Matthew SocSci: History University High School
Nguyen Lynn 4th Grade: APAAS Brywood
Niederland Lisa FL: Spanish Northwood High School
Nishimori Kerri 4th Grade Santiago Hills
O’Connell Jessica Kindergarten Oak Creek
Oh Rachel Sci: General Irvine High School
Olpin Jay Math: General Lakeside MS
Ornelas Sara SocSci/PE Irvine High School
Packard Karen 5th Grade Culverdale
Parker Taylor 4th Grade Canyon View
Peck Serena Eng: General/Elective Sierra Vista MS
Porto Katie 3rd Grade College Park
Quigley Stephanie Resource Specialist Woodbridge High School
Quillin Cindy 2nd Grade Springbrook
Reding Clare 3rd Grade Deerfield
Resendez Juan SocSci/Elec-ROP Irvine High School
Robinson Steven 5th Grade University Park
Rosenwald Lauren 2-3 Combo Oak Creek
Ryan Marianne Resource Specialist Northwood High School
Ryan Tristen K-1 Combo University Park
Samura Christin 1st Grade Woodbury (ECR)
Sawyer Alison Music: Instrumental Northwood High School
Schaal Sandra 5th Grade: APAAS Turtle Rock
Schandler Tracy SocSci Woodbridge High School
Schick Katherine 5th Grade Westpark
Schneider Lisa Math: General Northwood High School
Sears Shari Counselor Creekside – Harvard/Barranca
Segalla Margaret Eng: General University High School
Sellers Andriana 2nd Grade University Park
Shahabi Parastoo 1st Grade Northwood
Shoemaker Suzanne Sci Resource Specialist Science Resources
Skroch Cheryl Counselor/TOSA Plaza Vista MS
Smith Amanda Eng: General South Lake MS
Sodorff Scott Elec-Tutorial Woodbridge High School
Spencer Linda Counselor University High School
Sweeney Kevin Counselor Northwood High School
Thomas Casey 3rd Grade Westwood Basics Plus
Thompson Karen Math: General University High School
Thornton Cecily 4th Grade Alderwood Basics Plus
Torres Angela Resource Specialist Bonita Canyon
Toth Amberlee 4th Grade Eastshore
Trigueros Christina Humanities: Eng Rancho San Joaquin MS
Tucker Todd PE: Boys Rancho San Joaquin MS
Vanek Margret Sci Resource Specialist Science Resources
Vose Kimberly 1st Grade Northwood
Vreeland Barbara Humanities: Eng/SocSci Sierra Vista MS
Vyn Andrea Kindergarten Greentree
Walker John FL: Spanish University High School
Walsh Colleen 6th Grade Northwood
Walton Anne Math: Algebra/Elec-ROP Woodbridge High School
Waterman Samantha 1st Grade Plaza Vista
Watson Kenneth 6th Grade Meadowpark
Webster Samantha 5th Grade Meadowpark
Wieske Elizabeth 3rd Grade Westwood Basics Plus
Wong Raymond Math: General/PE Irvine High School
Wroblicky Janet Counselor Vista Verde MS
Yates Jenna Kindergarten Eastshore
Yu Su Young FL: Korean Irvine High School
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd-cuts14-2009apr14,0,3430901.story
From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. Unified to rescind layoff notices to about 2,000 teachers
Supt. Ramon C. Cortines hopes the move, which affects permanent elementary staffers, will allow schools to build on last year’s improvement on test scores.
By Howard Blume
April 14, 2009
Los Angeles school officials plan to rescind layoff notices to nearly 2,000 teachers, but thousands of less-experienced instructors and other employees still could lose their jobs in the nation’s second-largest school system.
The decision, announced Monday, affects permanent elementary teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. They could have been displaced because of a projected 25% increase to class sizes in the lower grades. Supt. Ramon C. Cortines emphasized the need for stability that would allow schools to build on last year’s upward progress in test scores.
Cortines said that rescinding the notices nonetheless embodied risk: He said he was assuming, based on the newest and best information available, that he would have hoped-for access to additional dollars from the federal stimulus package as well as increased flexibility in using the money. He also will direct schools, especially academically struggling ones, to use their own budget discretion to restore teachers.
“I’m insisting that schools not performing will have to buy back elementary teachers,” Cortines said.
Permanent teachers are entitled to a hearing before being laid off, a process that could have disrupted the current school year, and could cost the district an estimated $9.5 million. And if mistakes were uncovered, an administrative law judge could invalidate layoffs.
No hearing process protects teachers without tenure, and about 3,500 of them have received notice that they could be laid off. The school board is scheduled to vote today on measures to slash $596.1 million from a nearly $6-billion general fund, a proposal that would also result in fewer counselors, custodians, library aides, administrators and clerks.
Cortines said he’s heard from unhappy employees and parents: “There are a lot of tears, a lot of swear words. They emotionally feel it, and I feel it.” At the same time, he added, “there is not enough stimulus money to fill the gap.”
Schools with a high percentage of new teachers will be especially hard hit. More than half the staff at John H. Liechty Middle School, west of downtown, are less experienced teachers who lack tenured protections.
At Liechty, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa led a forum Monday with teachers and parents, stressing the need for “shared sacrifice” and “creative solutions” to save jobs and preserve campus reform efforts.
Echoing austerity measures he’s proposed for the city, Villaraigosa noted that the district could save $65 million and about 1,100 school jobs if employees gave up automatic salary increases that are tied to years of experience and additional education. And an across-the-board 3% salary reduction could preserve an additional 2,280 campus positions, he said.
Among the schools hardest hit by proposed layoffs of new teachers would be the 10 schools that signed on to the reform effort overseen by the mayor and his staff. At Gompers Middle School in South Los Angeles, 42% of its staff are inexperienced teachers who received layoff notices. The number was 34% at Markham Middle School in Watts. Some of these schools also could lose their principals, simply because they are new to the school district and would be bumped by administrators with more seniority.
The teachers union leadership maintains that no layoffs are necessary.
“I appreciate the mayor’s voice in the discussion,” said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. “He should seek information from UTLA directly. We can help point him in a direction that will help his allies on the school board get accurate information.”
Duffy suggested using more federal money this year instead of spreading it out over two years: “You have a sick patient, and you want to get that patient well right away. You don’t want to take the penicillin capsule and take half of it out.”
howard.blume@latimes.com
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“Promoting Academic Success for Every Student” A Division of the American School Counseling Association http://www.schoolcounselor-ca.org ###
February 6, 2009 Contact: Pam Bachilla (916) 996-1329
More School Counselors Needed in California Groundbreaking career-path study calls for more school counselors to help students connect with careers
Sacramento, CA: A recent study evaluating the barriers that prevent students from connecting education with careers has identified a lack of school counseling staff as the biggest impediment to providing career development services to students1.
The study, commissioned by the California Legislature and published by the California Research Bureau (CRB), recognizes an additional investment in school counselors as a top policy goal among efforts to increase student access to career education.
“This groundbreaking study confirms the critical role of the school counselor in helping students identify career technical education and postsecondary pathways that lead to sustainable careers,” said Loretta Whitson, Executive Director for the California Association of School Counselors.
The release of the CRB study follows legislation enacted in 2006 that significantly increased the number of school counselors in California to about 2,500 statewide. Prior to the enactment of the Middle and High School Supplemental Counseling Program (MHSSCP), the student-to-counselor ratio in California was 960-to-1 and it was not uncommon for students to matriculate without ever discussing academic and career options with a trained school counselor. Research conducted by the Center for Student Support Systems at the University of San Diego demonstrated measurable gains in student outcomes following the first year of program implementation, including a 10% increase in students applying to post-secondary institutions2. Despite these gains, California’s student-to-counselor ratio still ranks among the highest in the nation. The CRB study underscores the need for additional state investments in school counseling programs.
Speaking amongst a panel of educators who were called together to respond to the study, Whitson identified its potential to re-focus education policy discussions: “We thank all of the State Senators and Assembly Members for their support of this study as well as lead investigator Patricia de Cos. Ms. de Cos reminds us that the ultimate goal of education is to prepare students to find careers that help them build successful lives. The study also shows how school counselors are critical in that effort and that although we still have a long way to go, we are marching in the right direction with recent investments to increase school counseling services throughout the state. Her research shows we must keep up the momentum!”
1 de Cos, Patricia and Julie Chan. 2009. The Careers Project: School Survey of Middle and High School Principals in California.. California Research Bureau. 2 Rowell, Lonnie, L. Whitson, and S. Thomas. 2008. The Middle and High School Supplemental Counseling Program: Increased Support for Student Success in California Schools. University of San Diego Center for Student
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April 13, 2009
More students allowed to skip physical education
Athletes, cheerleaders, band members may opt out
By Denise Smith Amos
damos@enquirer.com
Next school year dozens of Taylor High students will skip gym class – but they won’t get into trouble for it.
The Three Rivers school board in northwest Hamilton County recently voted to let high school athletes, cheerleaders and band members who have been involved in those activities for at least two years forgo gym class. This opens their schedules to take other courses while their peers sweat out state-mandated physical education classes.
About a dozen other districts in Cincinnati’s suburbs and several area private high schools are waiving PE for certain students, taking advantage of a 2-year-old state law. Southwest’s school board, for instance, will decide April 23 whether to make gym optional for such students.
“If our kids are involved in an activity over a long period of time, whatever sport they’re in, they’ve already learned or shown a commitment to fitness over a lifetime,” said Chris Brown, Southwest’s superintendent.
But some educators say this isn’t good for teenagers.
Nationwide, health and education groups are pushing for stronger phys ed classes and requirements at a time when school districts need to cut costs and pay attention to student test scores on academic subjects.
A solid PE class – more than sports, cheerleading or band – can teach students about remaining active beyond high school, said Steve Mitchell, a Kent State physical education professor who also coaches high school soccer.
“Consider the high school football player,” he said. “The offensive or defensive linemen have very specific roles in a football team. And football is not a lifetime activity. The majority of those kids will stop playing after high school.
“Unless we educate students in other activities they can pursue across their lifespan, this (waiver) does increase the likelihood that they’ll become sedentary adults.”
Too many high schoolers are already sedentary.
According to national statistics, 12.4 percent of Ohio’s high school students and 15.6 percent of Kentucky’s were considered obese in 2007. A separate survey of Ohio students showed that 55 percent of school-age teens reported being physically inactive – 11 percentage points higher than the national average.
About half of all states allow schools to make some exceptions to PE rules, including Kentucky, which lets JROTC students skip gym. But only a few let high school students opt out.
James Wagner hopes he’ll be one of them.
The 14-year-old eighth-grader from North Bend will attend Taylor High next year and plans to apply for a waiver. He has played baritone and trombone at middle school for two years, marching 1½ to 2 miles a day during summers and through football seasons, sometimes practicing until 8 p.m. “Each time somebody makes a mistake we’ve got to do it all over again,” he said. “It’s tiring, especially at night. You just want to go home and do your homework and go to bed.”
He plans to stay in band in high school. A waiver, he said, would let him take a study hall period to do homework.
The waiver also would relieve some crowded gym classes and create opportunities for more specialized PE instruction, said Rhonda Bohannon, superintendent at Three Rivers. For instance, Taylor High would create an advanced PE course for students who want to delve deeper into fitness.
Other districts say gym classes would shrink enough to offer body sculpting, weight lifting or other activities such as bowling and archery. But the issue of fairness still comes up.
A Cincinnati Public school board committee recently decided against PE waivers because they would help only the students who were accomplished enough to make their high school teams or band. That gives another leg up to students whose parents can afford such things as private lessons and summer band or sports camps and further disenfranchises low-income kids, said Melanie Bates, a board member.
Additional Facts
Waiving gym class
A sample of high schools waiving physical education requirements for some athletes, cheerleaders and band members:
Finneytown
Lebanon
Clermont Northeastern
Kings
Ross
West Clermont
St. Bernard-Elmwood Place
Loveland
Three Rivers (next year)
Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy
Elder
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email blast from SAUSD Board Member, John Palacio. Sent 4/17/09
Published Online: April 7, 2009
Education: Duncan Spells Out Preferred Uses of Stimulus Aid
By Michele McNeil
After delivering a stern warning that states and school districts must use their federal stimulus money smartly or risk losing billions more, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his staff are starting to spell out exactly what they mean by “smartly.”
Career coaches for graduating special education students. Summer programs to get students ready for algebra coursework. Smartboards and other interactive technologies to improve instruction. The list of the department’s suggestions, first unveiled at a meeting with 150 or so education organizations last Friday in Washington, goes on.
Now that the Department of Education has laid out technical guidance on how to apply and account for funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, officials are ramping up the next part of their communications strategy: how states and districts should spend the money. What they’re revealing is essentially a blueprint for states and districts to follow if they want a good shot at the billions of dollars still sitting in the department’s coffers, waiting to be disbursed.
“Our job is now to move the money from the state level to the local district level,” Marshall S. Smith, a senior adviser to Mr. Duncan, told education groups at the meeting on April 3. “We will be, over the next two or three weeks, working with a lot of you to think about what does it mean to spend this money smartly.”
Beginning on April 1, $11 billion total in special education aid and Title I aid for disadvantaged students started making its way to states through existing formulas. And $32.5 billion from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which is designed to prop up states’ education budgets, will be available as soon as states turn in their applications.
President’s ‘Vision’
The ramped-up communications strategy started with Friday’s meeting, to which the department invited representatives from 200 education-related organizations, encompassing teachers’ unions, preschool advocates, higher education groups, and such areas as educational technology. About 150 people attended. A big part of the message from Mr. Duncan and his senior staff was how to spend the money.
Spending Priorities
The U.S. Department of Education has outlined ways school districts should use their shares of the federal stimulus package, which could provide up to $100 billion for K-12 education over two years. The main chunks of money flowing to districts come from several pots, and many of the suggestions below can be funded through multiple sources.
Title I
• Identify and use effective teachers as coaches and mentors.
• Create summer programs for algebra and other college-prep courses.
• Partner with colleges and nonprofit groups to create early-college programs.
• Close low-performing schools and reopen them with new staffs, new programs, and additional learning time.
State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
• Create new, fair, reliable teacher-evaluation systems based on objective measures of student progress and multiple classroom observations.
• Train educators to use data to improve instruction.
• Purchase instructional software, digital whiteboards, and other interactive technologies and train teachers in how to use them.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
• Offer training and dual certification for teachers of English-language learners and students in special education.
• Implement online individualized education programs (IEPs) aligned with state academic standards.
• Hire transition coaches to help graduating high school seniors find employment or get postsecondary training.
Source: U.S. Department of Education
They will continue spreading their message through weekly or biweekly webinars and conference calls.
“It was about message,” Karen Stratman-Krusemark, the Education Department’s liaison to education associations, said in an interview. “We’re recruiting them to make sure that we are about saving jobs, but that in doing that, we’re promoting good reform.”
Department officials are also making clear that the ideas for spending the money aren’t just coming from the department, or even Secretary Duncan.
“This is a vision of the president’s,” Mr. Smith told the group.
What’s at stake for districts and states is a second round of stimulus money. Part of it is the 33 percent of the $48.5 billion state stabilization fund that the department is holding back to make sure states use the money on education, and to make progress on key improvement efforts spelled out in the stimulus law. The department expects to start awarding that money beginning July 1.
Mr. Duncan is dangling another $5 billion in incentive and innovation grants that will go to states and districts—the so-called “Race to the Top” money that will be awarded solely at the department’s discretion. That aid will be awarded in two rounds—late fall of 2009, and the summer of 2010.
Avoiding the ‘Cliff’
Referring to the application for those competitive grants, Mr. Duncan said: “The first question, … I promise you, will be what did you do with the stabilization money to drive reform and improve achievement? If there’s isn’t a good answer to that, they might as well just tear up the form.”
The Education Department’s suggestions for how to use the money balance the need to spend billions of dollars quickly with the need to avoid a “funding cliff” that will occur as early as 2011, when the stimulus money disappears.
The agency’s spending suggestions center on the four areas of reform that are highlighted in the stimulus legislation’s four “assurances” that states must make progress on as a condition of accepting state stabilization money. They are: progress on increasing teacher quality and effectiveness, establishment of data systems linking information from preschool to higher education, turnarounds of low-performing schools, and creation of better and higher academic standards.
Those areas will also be central to awards from the Race to the Top fund, department officials said.
Mr. Smith told school groups they should ask themselves five questions before spending the stimulus money: Will the money drive results for students? Increase long-term capacity for teachers, schools, and districts? Accelerate reform? Avoid the funding “cliff”? And allow for results to be tracked?
Secretary Duncan also said that by April 17, the department will highlight the kinds of existing improvement efforts and programs in states and districts that should serve as models for the use of stimulus money.
“This is the starting point on the communications agenda,” Mr. Duncan said.
Vol. 28, Issue 29
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Education: Stimulus money isn’t coming easy
Nevada is among states struggling to satisfy conditions for funding
By Emily Richmond
Mon, Apr 13, 2009 (2 a.m.)
Las Vegas Sun
Nevada isn’t the only state struggling with how to qualify for hundreds of millions of federal stimulus dollars for education.
“It’s so much, so fast that people are feeling overwhelmed,” said Amy Wilkins, vice president for government affairs and communications at the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “My big concern is that people not feel so overwhelmed that they don’t grab this opportunity with both hands.”
At issue for Nevada: To receive $325 million in “state stabilization funds,” which must be used for education, the state must show that education funding at least meets 2006 levels, or that the percentage going to schools won’t change over the next two years.
For the purposes of the stimulus program, K-12 and higher ed are being treated as one entity, even though they are funded separately. Officials say the threshold will be met for K-12, but the higher education budget is posing difficulties. If the requirements for the higher ed budget can’t be met, K-12 will lose out as well.
Viewing public education as a single pipeline — starting with pre-school and continuing through college — “is right, good and long overdue,” Wilkins said.
Even if students opt out of higher education, the rigors of a college prep track still help them succeed, Wilkins said. Studies have shown “the skills you need to be successful as a college freshmen are the same skills you need to be successful in an entry-level, family-supporting job,” she said.
In spending the stimulus dollars, states must embrace innovative approaches to improving teacher quality, retaining the best workers and raising achievement, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent conference call with reporters.
That means considering pay for performance for teachers, expanding opportunities for charter schools and “absolute and complete transparency” when it comes to accountability, Duncan said.
Progress will be closely monitored by the feds. States that fall short will be ineligible to share in a second round of education funding, totaling $5 billion.
“We have some significant carrots,” Duncan said. “We also have some sticks.”
The $5 billion will be allocated in a competitive process Duncan has nicknamed the “Race to the Top.” Innovation and creativity will earn high marks, Duncan said.
Other states are ahead of Nevada in testing new programs and approaches. When asked by the Sun whether a slow start might work against Nevada when the time comes to evaluate progress, Duncan said there’s plenty of time to catch up.
“I don’t think we’re grading on a curve,” Duncan said. “What we’re looking at is real commitment.”
April is teacher transfer season, when educators are allowed to shop for new assignments within the district.
Principals have until the end of April to identify vacancies and notify teachers they intend to “surplus.” In May, the district will begin reassigning surplus staff according to seniority and qualifications.
Based on preliminary budget and enrollment projections, it looks as if there will be enough elementary school teaching jobs to go around, said Martha Tittle, human resources chief for the district. She was less certain about the middle and high school levels, where staffing is more complex.
All elementary teachers are licensed for K-5 instruction, which means an individual can be moved to fill a vacancy in a different grade. But at the secondary level, teachers are grouped by subject area. A math teacher can’t be reassigned to teach English without the appropriate license.
Another problem — the high schools are still “pre-enrolling” students for the fall, gauging their interest in elective classes. Those surveys help determine staffing.
Given that district funding won’t be solidified until the Legislature concludes its work in June, Tittle didn’t want to estimate how many teachers might be left over — and laid off — at the end of the surplus process. But based on the $120 million in cuts that have been outlined for the 2009-10 academic year, the district expects to shed 500 to 600 support employee positions. Many of the support jobs are classroom aides, clerks and facilities staff assigned to projects funded by the capital improvement plan, which is ramping down.
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Published Online: April 10, 2009
Includes correction(s): April 14, 2009
Stimulus Offers Support for School Construction
By Katie Ash
Some two months after enactment of the federal economic-stimulus package, school facilities directors are still trying to piece together how much money will be available under the measure for school construction projects, what it can be used for, and when it can be accessed.
“Nobody really knows what’s going to happen, and what kind of money is going to be available,” said Sue Robertson, the president of the Council of Educational Facility Planners International, or CEFPI, which is based Scottsdale, Ariz.
“But the people who are wise and experienced in this field,” she said, “are doing their best to be ready in a position with a good master plan, … so that when there is money available they’ll be able to take advantage of that opportunity.”
Before President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law on Feb. 17, the U.S. House of Representatives had passed a version of the bill that included $14 billion specifically for school construction, renovation, and modernization. Likewise, the U.S. Senate had included $16 billion for school facilities in a version of the legislation, but the provision was taken out to obtain the support the stimulus package needed from key Republican senators.
When the bill went to a House-Senate conference, the construction money remained stripped from the legislation, although language was added that allows states to use money from the law’s State Fiscal Stabilization Fund—$48.6 billion total —for public school renovation and modernization. (That stabilization fund also includes an additional $5 billion in “Race to the Top” grants that the U.S. Department of Education will administer, but those grants won’t involve school renovation or modernization.)
Federal Stimulus Aid for School Construction
FUNDING
State Fiscal Stabilization Fund—This $48.6 billion pot of money can be used by public schools, including charters, for a variety of needs, including school modernization, renovation, repair, and construction. It can also go towards preventing teacher layoffs and program cuts, which is where the majority of the money is expected to be spent.
Impact Aid Construction—This $100 million is reserved for emergency repairs and school modernization projects in public school districts with students who live on American Indian lands and military bases, with $40 million available through a funding formula, and the other $60 million to be distributed through discretionary grants.
Energy Efficiency Grants—Public and private nonprofit schools or districts may receive money from the $3.2 billion Energy Efficiency Block Grants Program and/or the $3.1 billion State Energy Program to make school buildings more energy-efficient and to utilize renewable sources of energy.
BONDS
Qualified School Construction Bonds—This program provides $22 billion over two years for the construction, rehabilitation, or repair of public school facilities, or for the acquisition of land for public schools to be built on. The money goes toward giving bondholders tax breaks on the bonds so that they are able to offer those to schools interest-free.
Qualified Zone Academy Bonds—Under this program, known as QZAB, public schools or school districts with 35 percent or more of their students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, or schools or school districts located in federal enterprise or empowerment zones, are allowed to take out non-interest-bearing loans for rehabilitation or repair of school facilities. The loans must be paid back over a period of up to 12 years. The bond requires a 10 percent match from a business or nonprofit partner. The pre-existing program’s funding has been increased from $400 million to $1.4 billion for fiscal 2009 and $1.4 billion for fiscal 2010.
Build America Bonds—States may apply to use these tax-credit bonds for a wide range of projects, including public school construction and modernization.
Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds—Through this $3.2 billion program, public and private nonprofit schools or school districts can apply for tax credits for capital expenditures that reduce energy consumption by at least 20 percent.
SOURCE: National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities
Sixty-seven percent of that money—or $32.5 billion—is available for states as soon as they submit their applications. States will be eligible for the remaining $16.1 billion as early as July 1, after the U.S. Department of Education has determined that states are making progress in key areas with the first round of stimulus money.
But facilities experts say that although states have the option of using some of that money for school facilities projects, the funds will most likely go toward preventing teacher layoffs and backfilling other budget shortfalls, leaving little, if any, for renovation, modernization, or construction projects.
Funding from the stimulus package is available for public schools, including charter schools. Private schools are not eligible for the aid.
“A good number of states are in such dire straits that they’re probably going to use most of this for just the most basic backfilling [of budget gaps],” said Judy Marks, the associate director of the Washington-based National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, or NCEF.
Part of the money from the fiscal-stabilization fund—18.2 percent—will be distributed through state governors’ offices, and the rest will be distributed through funding models that vary from state to state.
Guidance on how the federal money could be used, released April 3 by the Education Department, provides more flexibility on facilities spending than both legislators and facilities experts had anticipated. The guidance allows for money from the stabilization fund to be used for new school construction projects. (“First Education Stimulus Aid Flows to States,” April 1, 2009.)
However, few observers believe that there will be much money left over from the stabilization fund for such undertakings.
‘Very Pessimistic’
“In our state, the education budget has been cut by almost 40 percent,” said Gaylaird Christopher, the president of Architecture for Education Inc., a Pasadena, Calif.-based company that designs educational facilities. “The facilities people that I talk with are very pessimistic about whether or not that money is really going to get down to the facilities side of things.”
“Unfortunately, it looks like that money is going to backfill programs that are already there,” he said. “There isn’t going to be much money out there on the construction side to put people back to work.”
Some of the school districts his company are working with were considering using federal stimulus money to update and expand science labs and invest in career and technical education programs, Mr. Christopher said.
“That would be a great opportunity for this stimulus money, to build those types of environments that would also allow those citizens to pick up skills,” he said. “Unfortunately, it looks like the funding won’t be there initially.”
In addition to the fiscal-stabilization funding, the stimulus measure created the Qualified School Construction Bond program, which will receive $11 billion for fiscal 2009 and another $11 billion for fiscal 2010. In addition, the law expanded the Qualified Zone Academy Bond, or QZAB, program by increasing its funding from $400 million to $1.4 billion for fiscal 2009, and provided another $1.4 billion for fiscal 2010.
“A lot of us are counting on the bond money that’s in there to really be the most helpful thing in terms of school construction,” said Ms. Robertson of CEFPI, who is also the director of the New Orleans-based educational facility planning and development company Planning Alliance. “The fact that they’ve increased the dollars for QZAB is a big deal.”
Evaluating Bond Opportunities
As with any facilities aid under the stabilization fund, only public schools, including charter schools, are eligible for such bonds.
John K. Ramsey, the executive director and chief executive officer of CEFPI, said he was particularly energized by the new Qualified School Construction Bond program.
“We believe it could pave the path for future federal involvement in capital initiatives for school construction at the local level,” he said.
The Qualified School Construction Bonds may be used for construction, rehabilitation, or repair of school facilities, or for the acquisition of land on which to build a school. Forty percent of the funding will be distributed to the 100 districts with the largest populations of school-age students in poverty, as well as to an additional 25 districts to be designated by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The remaining 60 percent will go directly to the states to be distributed to districts or schools.
The money will go toward providing tax breaks for the bondholders, who in turn agree to provide the bonds to schools interest-free.
To participate in QZAB, the previously created Qualified Zone Academy Bond initiative, a school or school district must have 35 percent or more of its students qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches, or the school or district must be located in a federal enterprise or empowerment zone. Applicants must also provide at least a 10 percent match of the net total present value of the bond from a business or nonprofit partner.
But persuading districts to take on the bonds, which most likely would need to be paid back out of general-fund money that is also used to pay teachers, will be a hard sell if those districts are facing layoffs, some education experts said.
“School boards may not want to borrow money when they have a deficit, especially if they’re trying to cut teacher salaries,” said Appu Kuttan, the chairman of the National Education Foundation, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit group that aims to bridge the digital divide between less well-off and better-off students.
Mr. Kuttan and Laurence Peters, a vice president of the National Education Foundation and a former director of QZAB for the U.S. Department of Education, provide guidance to states on how to apply for QZAB.
One way to make it easier for schools to take advantage of the bond programs, said Mr. Kuttan, would be to do away with the limits on the amount of money that can be borrowed by schools or districts in the places that have those in place. He also suggested that schools or districts that are applying for the bonds create a payment plan to show how they would eventually pay off the debt.
Energy-Efficiency Dollars
Another area where schools may be able to scrape together funds for renovation and modernization projects is the energy-efficiency funding and bonds established by the stimulus bill.
Both public and private nonprofit schools are eligible for grants to increase energy efficiency and make use of renewable resources through the $3.1 billion State Energy Program and the $3.2 billion Energy Efficiency Block Grants Program.
A $3.2 billion Qualified Energy Conservation Bond program has also been set up to provide tax credits for capital expenditures on public buildings, including schools, that have plans to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent.
In addition, districts with students who live on military bases or American Indian lands may qualify for money in a $100 million fund set aside for emergency repairs and school modernization through the impact-aid construction program. And schools and districts may be able to apply for Build America Bonds, which are tax-credit bonds that can be used to finance a variety of projects, including construction and modernization of school facilities.
A complete list of funding sources and bond programs that could be used for K-12 and higher education construction, modernization, and renovation projects is available at http://www.ncef.org/school-modernization.
Although many facilities experts were disappointed by the lack of money specifically set aside for school facility projects in the recovery act, “anything is certainly better than nothing,” said Ms. Robertson, from CEFPI.
“We just have to be smart,” she said, “about figuring out how to access it.”
Vol. 28, Issue 29
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The latest on California politics and government
April 15, 2009
Teachers launch first TV ads in campaign
The California Teachers Association launched a television ad Wednesday backing Propositions 1A and 1B, the first television spot of the special election campaign.
The ads will run starting Wednesday for a week in the Los Angeles-area media market before launching statewide, according to CTA consultant Gale Kaufman. Its committee previously launched two radio ads statewide. CTA has contributed $5 million toward the Yes on 1A &1B committee so far.
Proposition 1B would guarantee that the state would pay education an additional total of $9.3 billion starting in 2011-12. It cannot take effect, however, unless Proposition 1A passes.
Proposition 1A has become the special election’s lightning rod. Several labor unions formed a committee Monday to oppose the measure because of its cap on future state spending, joining anti-tax groups who have criticized its $16 billion in temporary tax-hike provisions.
The CTA ad promotes the measures as a way to control state spending, avoid $16 billion in new cuts to public services and provide money to education. It does not say that the $16 billion comes from higher taxes in 2011-13.
Kaufman said it remains difficult to tell how serious the new No on Proposition 1A committee is, but she said proponents are taking it seriously “given that the parties involved have a lot of interest in the budget.”
The Service Employees International Union contributed $100,000 toward the No on 1A committee late Tuesday, matching similar contributions from the California Faculty Association (CSU employees) and the California Federation of Teachers.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Saddleback Valley Unified School District response to City of Mission Viejo letter in works
City officials had suggested trustees cut teacher pay to save O’Neill Elementary.
By LINDSEY BAGUIO
The Orange County Register
MISSION VIEJO — An answer is in the works for city officials who asked Saddleback Valley Unified School trustees to consider temporarily cutting back on teacher salaries by 4 percent.
City officials suggested the idea to save O’Neill Elementary School after trustees voted 4-1 to close the school in June as part of a cost-saving plan to bridge a $10 million shortfall in the district’s 2009-10 budget.
Board members say the pay cut cannot be a unilateral decision and it has to be negotiated with the teacher’s union.
Board president Ginny Fay Aitkens said she will let trustees know at an upcoming meeting that she plans to respond to the letter. If trustees would like to have a hand in the response it will be agendized for the next meeting, she said in an interview.
The city’s letter, dated March 17, said trustees “must reopen the closure issue and thoroughly address the fiscal and operational concepts the parents, teachers, and City Council may propose, including restructuring the labor relationship presently in place.”
Trustee Suzie Swartz and Aitkens said they have no interest in re-opening the school closure issue.
“I’m moving forward,” Swartz said. “This is a place that has been a home away from home for these kids and I believe it’s a bit of a grieving process.”
Swartz called the letter misguided and disturbing, referring to a portion that outlines the city’s contribution of school crossing guards and school resource officers to the district. The letter states, “The city has, and will continue to voluntarily fund the crossing guards and School Resource Officers, for a combined value of over One Million Dollars (1,000,000.00)”
“It’s fine for them to express concern over a closure of a school in their city, but to make that part of a quid pro quo proposal that outlines what the district must do and in return this is what the city will do,” she said. “Sounds like a quid pro quo to me.”
President Aitken said the idea of cutting salaries is nothing new for the district.
“It’s a unique suggestion coming from a city,” she said. “But it’s been raised on many fronts by all different kinds of stakeholders and members of the community to save jobs.”
Contact the writer: lbaguio@ocregister.com 949-454-7363
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April 15, 2009
Education Standards Likely to See Toughening
By SAM DILLON
WASHINGTON — President Obama and his team have alternated praise for the goals of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law with criticism of its weaknesses, all the while keeping their own plans for the law a bit of a mystery.
But clues are now emerging, and they suggest that the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. The law’s testing requirements may evolve but will certainly not disappear. And the federal role in education policy, once a state and local matter, is likely to grow.
The administration appears to be preparing important fixes to what many see as some of the law’s most serious defects. But its emerging plans are a disappointment to some critics of the No Child Left Behind law, who hoped Mr. Obama’s campaign promises of change would mean a sharper break with the Bush-era law.
“Obama’s fundamental strategy is the same as George Bush’s: standardized tests, numbers-crunching; it’s the N.C.L.B. approach with lots of money attached,” Diane Ravitch, an education historian often critical of the education law, said in an interview.
In a recent blog Ms. Ravitch wrote, “Obama has given Bush a third term in education policy.”
The clues emerge from the fine print of the economic stimulus law that Mr. Obama signed in February, which channels billions of dollars to public education. The key education provisions in the stimulus take the form of four “assurances” that governors must sign to receive billions in emergency education aid.
In one, governors must pledge to improve the quality of standardized tests and raise standards. In another, they promise to enforce a requirement of the education law that their state’s most effective teachers will be assigned equitably to all students, rich and poor. A separate provision gives Education Secretary Arne Duncan control over $5 billion, which Mr. Duncan calls a “Race to the Top Fund,” to reward states that make good on their pledges.
“With these assurances and the Race to the Top Fund, we are laying the foundation for where we want to go with N.C.L.B. reauthorization,” Mr. Duncan said in an interview. “This will help us to get states lining up behind this agenda.”
One fix the administration is preparing focuses on failing schools.
Currently 6,000 of the nation’s 95,000 schools are labeled as needing corrective action or restructuring because they have fallen short of testing targets under the federal law, which nonetheless provided little financing to help them. Most states have let the targets languish. The stimulus law, in contrast, provides $3 billion for school turnarounds, and requires governors to pledge vigorous action.
The No Child Left Behind law allowed each state to set its own academic standards, with the result that many have dumbed down curriculums and tests. Colorado even opted to use its “partially proficient” level of academic performance as “proficient” for reporting purposes.
The stimulus requires governors to raise standards to a new benchmark: the point at which high school graduates can succeed — without remedial classes — in college, the workplace or the military. Mr. Duncan has gone further, saying he wants to be a catalyst for the development of national academic standards.
Cynthia Brown, vice president for education policy at the Center for American Progress, said she believed that Mr. Duncan was the first top federal official to make such a call.
“They’re putting money and ideas behind what they think are the changes needed in public education,” Ms. Brown said. “That signals their seriousness about major reform.”
So far, the administration has not described its plans for the education law’s 2014 deadline for schools to bring 100 percent of American students to math and reading proficiency, which experts have likened to a certain date by which the police are to end all crime.
The teachers unions, which in 2007 fought a bare-knuckle lobbying battle that scuttled Congress’s last effort to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law, are voicing muted concern over a couple of provisions in the stimulus.
In one of the stimulus assurances, for instance, governors must pledge that their states are building sophisticated data systems. Among other functions, such systems would link teachers to students and test scores and thus, in theory, enable the authorities to distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers. In a March 10 speech, President Obama endorsed using such data systems “to tell us which students had which teachers so we can assess what’s working and what’s not.”
In an interview, Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, said he did not like that part of the president’s speech.
“When he equates teachers with test scores, that’s when we part company,” Mr. Van Roekel said. But he added: “Over all, I just really support Obama’s vision to strengthen public education.”
Randi Weingarten, presi
dent of the American Federation of Teachers, said that her union also had concerns about the president’s enthusiasm for data systems, which she said could be misused, but that she would give the new administration the benefit of the doubt.
“They have been consistent,” Ms. Weingarten said. “They’re trying to do reform with teachers, not to them.”
Including education reform ideas in an economic stimulus bill was a policy improvisation made on the fly during the December transition, when Democratic governors were pleading for federal help to prevent government layoffs amid the economic crisis, aides to Mr. Duncan said.
In a Jan. 7 meeting with senior Democratic lawmakers, Mr. Duncan announced the administration’s intention to channel billions of dollars to the states in exchange for governors’ pledges to double down on education reform.
Representatives David R. Obey of Wisconsin and George Miller of California, the Democratic chairmen of the House appropriations and education committees, immediately saw the importance of extracting reform promises from the states, said a Democratic House staff member who attended the meeting but is barred from speaking on the record about committee business.
Rachel Racusen, a spokeswoman for the House education committee, said, “Chairman Miller said this couldn’t just be free money, that we had to get something in return.”
The administration’s reform initiatives have thrust governors into an unusually prominent role in education policy, more often the province of state school chiefs and big-city mayors. Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland and several other governors met with Mr. Duncan during a National Governors Association meeting in February.
“In a nutshell,” Mr. O’Malley said in an interview, “Arne Duncan’s pitch was, ‘I w
ant to partner with governors; I know you can be drivers for education reform.’ He wants us to step up.”
Mr. Duncan says that governors in Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and other states have also responded favorably.
“They are happy that we are pushing them to where they know they need to go,” Mr. Duncan said.
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Huntington Beach City School District releases names of 65 tagged for layoffs
Huntington Beach City School District notified these employees in March they may lose their jobs.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
As part of a plan to reduce spending by about $2.2 million through the 2009-10 school year, Huntington Beach City School District announced in March that dozens of teachers and other staff could lose their jobs next school year.
Below is a list of 65 permanent, probationary and temporary certificated staff who were notified in March that they may lose their jobs because of ongoing budget cuts.
The list was provided to the Register by Huntington Beach City through a California Public Records Act request.
Last Name First name Status Seniority Date Grade/ assignment Site
Adams Lindsey Temporary 9/2/2008 Kindergarten Perry
Africano Michelle Temporary 9/2/2008 4th Peterson
Ajamian Diane Temporary 1/20/2009 Title I Spec. Peterson
Andersen Tracy permanent/probation 9/4/2007 4th. GATE Peterson
Arkinstall Lisa Temporary 9/2/2008 7th, Core Sowers
Arneson Melissa permanent/probation 9/4/2007 1st Moffett
Arriola Ashley permanent/probation 9/2/2008 2nd Smith
Baker Michelle permanent/probation 1/26/2006 4th, GATE Seacliff
Baleno Constance Temporary 3/23/2009 6th-8th, Core Dwyer
Barsh Judith Temporary 9/2/2008 3rd Hawes
Beattie Tara Temporary 9/2/2008 2nd Moffett
Bergman Meagan Temporary 9/22/2008 6th-7th, math Sowers
Bhagat Rachana permanent/probation 9/2/2008 7th Algebra Dwyer
Blake Elizabeth permanent/probation 9/4/2007 8th Sowers
Britton Stacy permanent/probation 9/15/2008 Kindergarten Eader
Broussard Devon permanent/probation 9/2/2008 5th Smith
Casalegno Kirsten permanent/probation 9/1/2005 1st Seacliff
Cirac Lisa permanent/probation 2/6/2006 3rd, GATE Hawes
D’Abusco Jennifer permanent/probation 9/4/2007 2nd Seacliff
D’Innocente Cynthia permanent/probation 1/24/2008 3rd Eader
Doherty Michelle permanent/probation 9/2/2008 7th, Math Sowers
Edwards Susan Temporary 9/2/2008 Elementary Eader
Eibling Caroline Temporary 9/2/2008 5th Eader
Eisenrod Melissa permanent/probation 9/1/2005 4th Smith
Espalin-Castillo Jennifer permanent/probation 9/1/2005 5th, GATE Seacliff
Finnell Annie permanent/probation 9/2/2008 Kindergarten Moffett
Fowler Katie Temporary 9/9/2008 Counselor DO
Gissler Karen Temporary 10/22/2007 School Nurse Perry
Greenwald Jennifer permanent/probation 9/6/2006 Kindergarten Eader
Hardy Brett permanent/probation 2/28/2008 4th Seacliff
Hart Amanda Temporary 9/2/2008 1st Seacliff
Hart Tracy Temporary 10/24/2007 Reading Inter. Seacliff
Hepburn Kimberly Temporary 9/2/2008 4th Peterson
Hiltbrand Lori permanent/probation 9/1/2005 4th Smith
Horn Laura permanent/probation 9/5/2006 4th-5th, GATE Seacliff
Jacobs Angela permanent/probation 9/2/2008 RSP Seacliff
Jeon Julie Temporary 9/3/2008 4th Hawes
Kiefer Ashley Temporary 9/2/2008 7th, core Sowers
Kovely Tricia Temporary 9/2/2008 1st Perry
Kroeter Karen permanent/probation 9/5/2006 5th Seacliff
Krol Kylene Temporary 9/9/2008 Counselor DO
Lin Manna permanent/probation 9/29/2008 Psychologist DO
Linares Marissa permanent/probation 9/4/2007 2nd Moffett
Lopez Merry Temporary 9/2/2008 SDC Perry
Lowder Molly Temporary 9/15/2008 Title I Spec. Smith
MacFarland Steven Temporary 9/2/2008 SDC Eader
Marble Julie Temporary 9/9/2008 Counselor DO
Martella Theresa permanent/probation 9/27/2007 7th, Core Sowers
Mauro Alyssa permanent/probation 9/28/2005 2nd-3rd Seacliff
McDonald David Temporary 9/2/2008 4th Eader
Monaghan Nicolle permanent/probation 10/4/2005 7th, GATE Sowers
Rasmussen Amy permanent/probation 9/20/2005 2nd Smith
Rifsdal Ashley Temporary 9/9/2008 Counselor DO
Rocha Gail permanent/probation 10/31/2005 1st Hawes
Roquemore Jenny permanent/probation 9/5/2006 Kindergarten Hawes
Ruppert Christy permanent/probation 1/26/2006 Preppy K Perry
Rutherford Linda Temporary 9/2/2008 Speech Smith
Shim Jennifer Temporary 9/2/2008 5th Moffett
Snow Stacy permanent/probation 9/5/2006 Kindergarten Smith
Sovern Shannon permanent/probation 9/4/2007 1st Hawes
Stucken Danielle Temporary 1/29/2009 Kinder Perry
Stumm Susan Temporary 9/2/2008 7th-8th, PE Dwyer
Ward Teresa Temporary 9/3/2008 6th-7th, Core Sowers
White Paul-Andre permanent/probation 9/4/2007 TSS Dwyer
Zankich Danielle permanent/probation 9/6/2005 5th Hawes
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Sacramento County will seek furloughs and benefit cuts for managers
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By Robert Lewis
rlewis@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2009 – 9:48 am
The Sacramento County Executive’s office today announced it will propose furlough days and benefit cuts to management employees in an effort to begin closing the projected $187 million general fund shortfall in the fiscal year starting July 1.
About 1,200 employees — unrepresented management and civil service exempt employees — would be affected by changes, which County Executive Terry Schutten will recommend to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
If approved, the affected managers would take one unpaid furlough day a month, give up their cost-of-living salary adjustment in fiscal year 2009-10 and stop receiving a payout for excess vacation time. The move could save the county as much as $20 million, a county news release states.
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Call The Bee’s Robert Lewis, (916) 321-1061.
The Public Eye: Deficit prompts City of Sacramento agencies to cut overtime
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By Ryan Lillis
rlillis@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Apr. 16, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 1B
As Sacramento’s budget woes reached historic levels late last year, departments were told to slash expenses, including overtime.
Overall, the city cut back on its overtime use by 15.4 percent over the final five months of 2008, according to employee salary data obtained by The Bee through a Public Records Act request.
Both the finance and parks department cut their average monthly overtime by more than 50 percent over the year’s final five months. A handful of other departments had double-digit declines.
The Police Department – historically the largest generator of overtime – cut its extra pay by a third and wound up with roughly half the overtime in 2008 than it had the previous year.
Two departments, however, didn’t fare as well.
Human resources, which implements two citywide computer programs, reported its overtime spending increased by $1,517 a month.
The biggest overtime spender in 2008 was the Fire Department.
According to an analysis of the salary data, the Fire Department spent an average of $305,016.92 in overtime per month over the first seven months of 2008.
Over the final five months, the department’s average monthly overtime rose to $324,436.65.
The department’s explanation: It was low on captains at the end of the year as it waited for a captain’s test to refill those ranks. Other captains were called on to work overtime to cover supervisory gaps.
“We didn’t have as many people who we considered qualified and so instead of upgrading a firefighter to do a captain’s work, we had to call back a captain,” Fire Chief Ray Jones said.
Jones said the overtime will level out because the captain’s test was given in February.
Another large chunk of the 2008 overtime was generated by captains being deployed on “strike teams” to Hurricanes Ike and Gustav, which struck after Aug. 1, 2008. Those rescue efforts involved around-the-clock work, but the department will be reimbursed by the federal government, the chief said.
Records show the average overtime for a fire captain rose 24 percent over the year’s final five months, driving the department’s overall figures higher. Other Fire Department ranks saw their overtime decrease.
Still, while overtime increased during the later part of the year, fire captains earned less overtime in 2008 than they did in 2007. According to the salary figures, captains took home an average of $20,044 in overtime in 2007; that number fell to $15,561 last year.
The average salary for a fire captain, including overtime, was $105,739.41.
Meanwhile, rescue workers at the rank of firefighter saw their overtime fall 11 percent during the final five months of 2008, and their overall overtime was 22 percent less than it was in 2007.
Jones said his agency’s overtime declined from 2007. “We’ve really made a big effort to cut those costs down,” he said.
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Send tips about government spending, neighborhood concerns or consumer scams to publiceye@sacbee.com or moneytrail@sacbee.com.
Sacramento flood agency considers huge salary hikes
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By Charles Piller
cpiller@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Apr. 16, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
Despite the economic crisis that has spurred drastic cuts in state and local government spending, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency plans to boost salaries for professional employees by up to 127 percent in the coming fiscal year.
Executive Director Stein M. Buer called his proposed changes essential to fair treatment of employees and to future recruitment. The salary scales must be approved by the agency’s board. Buer’s proposal appears on the board consent calendar for today’s meeting. Consent items normally are approved with little discussion, although the board is familiar with the proposal, he said. Buer’s new annual salary, already approved, will be $210,000 – $56,746 above his current $153,254, a 36 percent increase.
In most cases under the proposal, employees would change job titles but retain the same duties.
According to an internal e-mail obtained by The Bee, John Bassett, a civil engineer at SAFCA, was offered a new job title, director of engineering. He would get a raise of $38,854, to $160,000, pending board approval of the salary scales and other negotiations. Buer declined to confirm the authenticity of the e-mail.
Base pay for the agency’s director of planning, Tim Washburn, could rise as much as 67 percent, to $186,175. To reduce what Buer called an excessive workload, Washburn’s job recently was split in two.
The new salary ranges were derived from a survey of similar employers commissioned by SAFCA and conducted late last year, after the economic meltdown began. The goal, Buer said, was to set more realistic, competitive salary levels.
However, Buer acknowledged that none of his employees has threatened to leave, nor has anyone been lured away by competitors. Instead, he said, the changes primarily would ease recruitment when present employees retire.
“As I contemplate my eventual retirement,” said Buer, who is 60, “I find very few people who would consider taking this job” at the current salary.
Buer said he was mindful of the challenging economic conditions.
The city is facing possible layoffs of nearly 400 employees in the coming fiscal year, and non-safety department budgets could be cut by as much as 35 percent. The police union has agreed to freeze salaries to avoid layoffs.
But Buer said large raises are needed urgently at his agency to ensure that superior staffing is available for its crucial public-safety role.
“Obviously, the timing is unfortunate. A lot of government agencies and private concerns are standing down, they are cutting staff,” he said. “We don’t have that luxury. … We have to be able to sustain this effort, year after year, until the job gets done.”
The board has discussed salary corrections for years, said Roger Dickinson, a county supervisor and SAFCA board member.
“Everyone wishes that we were doing this in the midst of a much brighter economic time. But we can’t take the risk,” Dickinson said, “when we are carrying out a multibillion-dollar effort to prevent catastrophic flooding.”
The state, which is funding nearly three-quarters of SAFCA’s $245 million budget this fiscal year, also uses salary surveys as one factor when considering compensation. But given the budget crunch, most state employees have seen their incomes reduced by furloughs.
No state salaries have risen due to salary surveys this fiscal year, said Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for the Department of Personnel Administration, with the exception of engineers and Highway Patrol officers, who received raises July 1 because of contractual or legal mandates tied to the surveys.
SAFCA’s salary-comparison study was conducted by private consultants, at a cost of about $17,000. It did not evaluate benefits, often a key consideration for job-seekers, but noted that public benefit programs, particularly retirement benefits, are often richer than those offered by the private sector. Buer said “base salary is the most influential factor in recruitment and retention.” It would be difficult to compare the relative value of benefits, including bonuses and stock options sometimes offered by private firms, he added.
SAFCA was created after a 1986 storm swelled rivers to within inches of levee tops – raising fears of a Sacramento flood of biblical proportions. The hybrid city-county agency was meant to oversee dam and levee improvements temporarily, said former Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo, who served on the flood agency’s board for 19 years, until she lost her bid for re-election in November.
Agency employees work under either the Sacramento county or the city civil service systems. Buer has proposed that all employees be moved into the city system and receive city benefits.
SAFCA took on a sense of permanence as it gained responsibility over gigantic projects and coordinated among all levels of government. Among its many efforts is a massive improvement of the Natomas levee, a project that gained prominence after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
Although it has only 16 budgeted jobs, SAFCA manages hundreds of millions of dollars in project funds.
Given the dire financial pressures on government agencies, Fargo suggested that the board could postpone large salary increases or approve new salary ranges but cap raises. But it should not put the issue on the back burner, she said.
“This is such critical work to both the public safety and economic stability of the region that we absolutely have to have the best people and to be fair to the people we hire,” Fargo said. “It’s the most important public safety issue that faces Sacramento. … I’m not saying police and fire protection are not important. But we have 400,000 people living behind levees.”
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Call The Bee’s Charles Piller, (916) 321-1113. The Bee’s Matt Weiser contributed to this report.
According to the Mercury News, out of 17,655 employees with the City of San Jose:
– 108 employees make over $200,000 per year
– 654 employees make over $150,000 per year
– 5,250 employees make over $100,000 per year.
Results: City of San Jose government salaries
Mercury News
Posted: 04/10/2009 12:33:45 PM PDT
Updated: 04/11/2009 05:46:13 PM PDT
Return to the search form by by clicking here.
Last Name First Name City/County Title Department Total Compensation Year
Carter James City of San Jose Deputy Fire Chief U Fire $433,489.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Mc Gehee Stewart City of San Jose Battalion Chief Fire $284,245.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Figone Debra City of San Jose City Manager U City Manager $282,316.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Lee Ivan City of San Jose Battalion Chief $270,366.69 Calendar 2007 View Details
Mavrogenes Harry City of San Jose Redevelopment Manager U City Manager $265,547.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Sapien Robert City of San Jose Battalion Chief Fire $264,393.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Winer Katherine City of San Jose Temp Employee Retiree U $262,222.69 Calendar 2007 View Details
Jacksteit Kenneth City of San Jose Police Sergeant Police $261,212.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Murphy Randall City of San Jose Temp Employee U Mb $261,208.89 Calendar 2007 View Details
Mavrogenes Harry City of San Jose Redevelopment Manager U $259,264.73 Calendar 2007 View Details
Afflixio Thomas City of San Jose Battalion Chief Fire $255,041.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Diaz Juan City of San Jose Battalion Chief Fire $254,965.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Doyle John City of San Jose City Attorney U Attorney $251,481.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Shippey Christine City of San Jose Assist City Manager U City Manager $251,354.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Davis Robert City of San Jose Chief Of Police U Police $249,976.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Lisenbee Larry City of San Jose Temp Employee Retiree U $249,189.02 Calendar 2007 View Details
Doyle John City of San Jose City Attorney U $247,643.76 Calendar 2007 View Details
Bernardo Gaetano City of San Jose Police Lieutenant Police $247,363.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Sapien Robert City of San Jose Battalion Chief $244,847.33 Calendar 2007 View Details
Sterner Michael City of San Jose Police Captain Police $244,525.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Lee Ivan City of San Jose Battalion Chief Fire $244,083.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Younis Charles City of San Jose Assist Police Chief U Police $244,073.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Hemingway Greg City of San Jose Fire Captain Fire $242,460.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Anderson Alan City of San Jose Battalion Chief Fire $242,254.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
Newman Dave City of San Jose Police Sergeant Police $242,154.00 Calendar 2008 View Details
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Records 1-25 of 17655
Click here to load this Caspio Bridge DataPage.
Notes:
Figures are for actual payments made during the 2007 and 2008 calendar years and do not reflect the full annual pay rate for workers who started after Jan. 1 or left their city job before Dec. 31 and thus did not work the entire year.
For City of San Jose workers outside the Redevelopment Agency, Total Compensation includes Base Pay, which includes wages and paid time off; Overtime, which includes overtime, stand-by, call-back and compensatory time payouts; Lump Sum includes vacation payoffs and sellbacks and sick leave payouts upon retirement; Other Compensation which includes premium, certification, higher class and retroactive payments, plus taxable reimbursements, benefits “in-lieu” payments and supplemental pay.
The 2007 compensation figure includes substantial retroactive raises for sworn Fire Department employees due to an arbitration award.
For San Jose Redevelopment Agency workers, Total Compensation includes Base Pay, which includes regular time, paid time off and retroactive, jury duty, bereavement, holidy, executive leave and extended sick pay. Other Compensation includes auto allowance, paid time off sell back, severance and medical in lieu and dental in lieu benefits payments.
Source: City of San Jose
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Email Blast from John Palacio. Also introducing newest blog writer, Jill Puich:
4/19/2009
The OC Teachers Unite! A Blog for Local Teachers in OC!
Posted by: Jill Puich
I created a blog that includes many links for Educators to refer to. It has many useful links from how to contact your local lawmaker to all of the Unions in California. Also, I have included RSS feeds with up to the minute Education news. Please visit if you’re a teacher or even if you are just interested in EDUCATION.
Click on this banner to visit the site.
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The IEP Process for the Young Child
Monday, April 20th and 27th
2 sessions – you will want to attend both sessions)
6:30pm to 8:30pm – Down Syndrome Association of Orange County Center
This workshop will walk participants through the critical steps that need to be followed to ensure a quality IEP, with a focus on how parents can feel confident as an equal and active member of their child’s IEP team.
This is an excellent workshop for parents whose children are getting ready to begin pre-school through early elementary school.
RSVP TODAY!
Location
Down Syndrome Association of Orange County Center
151 Kalmus Drive, Suite M-5
Costa Mesa, California 92626
(714) 540-5794
http://www.dsaoc.org/contactUs/contactUs.asp
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JUSTICE IN EDUCATION
SPRING DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS SERIES
Thursday, April 23, 2009
6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M.
JANIS WHITE
INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
REGIONAL CENTER of ORANGE COUNTY
RCOC:
ITS RESOURCES
ITS FUTURE and IMPACT OF STATE BUDGET CRISIS
and
ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS
Session is free, seating is limited, sign up now!
2101 N. TUSTIN AVE.
SANTA ANA , CA
714 542-1707
“Mike Clements” mclements@justiceineducation.org
CLINICS SPONSORED BY LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF O.C.
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Orange County SAT scores on the rise
More than 16,000 seniors from the Class of 2008 took the age-old college-entrance exam.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Orange County’s high school class of 2008 scored slightly higher on the SAT than the previous year’s seniors, while more students than ever took the college entrance exam, according to figures released today.
Seniors from the class of 2008 scored an average of 1,598 on the three-part test, which includes verbal, math and writing sections. Students from the class of 2007 earned an average score of 1,590.
To see scores for all Orange County high schools click here.
About 42 percent, or 16,177, of all seniors from 2008 took the test last year. The previous year, 15,557 seniors took the age-old exam.
Local seniors also outperformed their peers statewide, who earned an average score of 1,500. About 36 percent of seniors statewide took the test.
The class of 2008 is the third to take the revamped SAT, which is longer, has more math, includes an essay section and has no analogies. The top score is now 2,400 instead of 1,600.
“The SAT is still a pretty big deal for students heading to college,” said Sara Krause, who scored a 1,901 last year as a senior at Oxford Academy in Cypress.
“It’s the most stressful test I’ve ever taken. A lot of your future goals can depend on getting a good score on the SAT,” said Krause, a freshman at Cal State Long Beach.
Students at Oxford earned an average score of 1,919 on the SAT, the highest of all high schools in the county. Troy High was second with an average score of 1,884, while University High in Irvine students earned an average score of 1,836, third best countywide
About 99 percent of test takers at Oxford achieved a mark of 1,500 or higher, the benchmark score that college admissions offices look at.
Administrators at Oxford, a public school in the Anaheim Union High School District with an entrance exam, said students are required to take honors and advanced-placement courses, which leads to success on the SAT.
Priscilla Cheney, the magnet program director at Troy High, credits the school’s teachers and rigorous curriculum for students’ achievement on the test.
“Teachers do exceptional job in the classroom. They focus to improve scores on not just the SAT, but also on AP and IB exams,” she said. “Higher level thinking throughout the curriculum also contributes to students’ success.”
Nationally, about 1.5 million students from the class of 2008 took the SAT, a sight increase from the previous year. College Board officials have said the number of minority test takers has grown dramatically in recent years.
Twenty-four percent of test-takers nationally had a first language other than English, up from 17 percent a decade ago, according to the publisher.
Thirty-five percent of this year’s SAT-takers would be the first in their families to attend college.
Local demographic data is not yet available.
Educators credit the rise in the number of students taking the test to the high competition in recent years to earn a spot in colleges.
University of California admissions officials have said the number of applicants have steadily grown over the past few years. This year, applications for University of California campuses were up 6 percent. That makes it more challenging for prospective students to win a spot, say officials.
Still, admissions officials caution students against thinking that a strong SAT score alone will get them into college. Students also need strong grades, honors courses and service in the community to improve their changes for admission into college, they say.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com
Thursday, April 16, 2009
See how well your school did on the SAT
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register
Here are SAT scores for all Orange County comprehensive high schools for the Class of 2008.
The Class of 2008 is the third to take the revamped SAT, which is longer, has more math, includes an essay section and has no analogies. The top score is now 2,400 instead of 1,600.
District School % Tested Verbal Math Writing SAT average
Anaheim Union Anaheim High 19 452 480 446 1,378
Anaheim Union Cypress High 52 491 555 500 1,546
Anaheim Union John F. Kennedy High 47 495 536 498 1,529
Anaheim Union Katella High 25 449 479 448 1,376
Anaheim Union Loara High 34 459 482 462 1,403
Anaheim Union Magnolia High 28 463 469 459 1,391
Anaheim Union Oxford Academy 102 634 649 636 1,919
Anaheim Union Savanna High 25 468 485 463 1,416
Anaheim Union Western High 28 460 484 469 1,413
Brea-Olinda Unified Brea-Olinda High 58 527 569 530 1,626
Capistrano Unified Aliso Niguel High 52 538 567 539 1,644
Capistrano Unified Capistrano Valley High 46 544 559 541 1,644
Capistrano Unified Dana Hills High 57 541 561 542 1,644
Capistrano Unified San Clemente High 49 529 539 527 1,595
Capistrano Unified Tesoro High 63 543 555 541 1,639
Fullerton Joint Union Buena Park High 40 444 474 449 1,367
Fullerton Joint Union Fullerton Union High 44 497 505 491 1,493
Fullerton Joint Union La Habra High 44 491 505 487 1,483
Fullerton Joint Union Sonora High 50 507 517 510 1,534
Fullerton Joint Union Sunny Hills High 73 540 599 549 1,688
Fullerton Joint Union Troy High 68 613 658 613 1,884
Garden Grove Unified Bolsa Grande High 30 479 538 494 1,511
Garden Grove Unified Garden Grove High 40 489 525 482 1,496
Garden Grove Unified La Quinta High 52 486 547 488 1,521
Garden Grove Unified Los Amigos High 31 462 502 466 1,430
Garden Grove Unified Pacifica High 44 510 553 508 1,571
Garden Grove Unified Rancho Alamitos High 30 476 504 469 1,449
Garden Grove Unified Santiago High 36 440 463 456 1,359
H.B. Union Edison High 49 528 559 537 1,624
H.B. Union Fountain Valley High 51 537 584 532 1,653
H.B. Union Huntington Beach High 44 529 549 529 1,607
H.B. Union Marina High 42 528 565 515 1,608
H.B. Union Ocean View High 33 515 533 508 1,556
H.B. Union Westminster High 30 472 515 465 1,452
Irvine Unified Northwood High 76 573 630 583 1,786
Irvine Unified Irvine High 63 559 607 572 1,738
Irvine Unified University High 81 591 650 595 1,836
Irvine Unified Woodbridge High 68 555 616 555 1,726
Laguna Beach Unified Laguna Beach High 72 556 566 563 1,685
Los Alamitos Unified Los Alamitos High 64 537 557 546 1,640
Newport-Mesa Unified Corona Del Mar High 89 562 586 571 1,719
Newport-Mesa Unified Costa Mesa High 37 484 505 472 1,461
Newport-Mesa Unified Estancia High 40 463 481 455 1,399
Newport-Mesa Unified Newport Harbor High 58 533 551 538 1,622
Newport-Mesa Unified Middle College High 50 566 534 530 1,630
Orange Unified Canyon High 59 521 541 519 1,581
Orange Unified El Modena High 37 527 557 525 1,609
Orange Unified Orange High 24 462 463 462 1,387
Orange Unified Villa Park High 54 519 554 526 1,599
Placentia-Yorba Linda El Dorado High 49 527 559 519 1,605
Placentia-Yorba Linda Esperanza High 60 538 581 540 1,659
Placentia-Yorba Linda Valencia High 40 530 571 526 1,627
Placentia-Yorba Linda El Toro High 49 539 569 528 1,636
Placentia-Yorba Linda Laguna Hills High 57 539 579 536 1,654
Placentia-Yorba Linda Mission Viejo High 52 549 565 540 1,654
Placentia-Yorba Linda Trabuco Hills High 52 545 564 529 1,638
Santa Ana Unified Century High 25 394 416 397 1,207
Santa Ana Unified Middle College High 57 485 491 474 1,450
Santa Ana Unified OCHSA 70 561 538 557 1,656
Santa Ana Unified Saddleback High 33 415 439 412 1,266
Santa Ana Unified Santa Ana High 29 413 433 416 1,262
Santa Ana Unified Segerstrom High 63 454 471 454 1,379
Santa Ana Unified Valley High 24 408 444 419 1,271
Tustin Unified Beckman High 62 541 574 548 1,663
Tustin Unified Foothill High 65 547 560 561 1,668
Tustin Unified Tustin High 28 490 489 490 1,469
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-schools18-2009apr18,0,6394914.story
From the Los Angeles Times
$3.1-billion economic stimulus windfall offers a chance to reform California schools, top education official says
State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell calls on teachers and administrators to work together.
By Seema Mehta and Howard Blume
9:09 PM PDT, April 17, 2009
As California received billions of dollars Friday to stave off widespread teacher layoffs, the state’s highest elected education official pledged to reform schools, aligning academic standards with other states, rewarding teachers who work in the most challenging classrooms and improving student assessments.
“If we are going to do right by our kids and take advantage of this wave of change, then everything must be on the table, and we need to bring both teachers and management to that table to come up with creative solutions that benefit all students,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said in a speech at an education conference in Irvine.
O’Connell’s proposals came the same day the federal government announced it was releasing $3.1 billion in economic stimulus funding earmarked for education to California, money that could help save the jobs of some of the more than 30,000 teachers, administrators and others who have received preliminary layoff warnings in the state’s school districts.
California was the first state in the nation to receive the funding.
O’Connell said the funding provides a watershed opportunity to create dynamic transformations in the state’s schools.
Obtaining billions more in stimulus money will depend on the state embracing calls for education reform by President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
O’Connell walked a fine line, echoing some of their ideas but with less strident language that avoided directly mentioning those issues that are most deeply opposed by teachers’ unions and others.
“If you come at this in people’s faces, you turn people off,” said Rick Miller, O’Connell’s deputy superintendent for policy and public affairs. “It’s about being collaborative.”
Paying teachers based on their performance has been among the most controversial aspect of the administration’s education agenda.
O’Connell called for ensuring that teachers are receiving appropriate training and mentoring, and for rewarding teachers who work in the state’s most challenging schools.
The state could use stimulus money to create pilot programs in selected districts.
“What he’s alluding to is the need to put differential pay on the table: to pay teachers more money if they’re willing to take assignments that are deemed more challenging,” said Ken Futernick, an expert on teacher retention and school redesign who works for the San Francisco-based nonprofit WestEd.
Duncan has gone further, alluding to “pay for performance,” which, Futernick said, O’Connell elected neither to mention specifically nor to rule out: “Maybe it is some signal to the feds that he is willing to play along with their agenda to promote pay for performance,” a positioning that could result in California receiving additional federal funding.
Los Angeles teachers union President A.J. Duffy said filling jobs at schools that are hard to staff is not about pay.
“The primary issues are a safe, clean, healthy environment, administrative backup and support, and student discipline,” he said. “You get those four elements in any school and you will get people to go to those schools.”
O’Connell also spoke about a push to create national standards, which he said are inevitable and ought to be “state-driven” and voluntary.
“We can either be a leader in the conversation and work to ensure the results closely align to our current standards or we can stand on the sidelines and watch it happen to us,” he said, noting that the state’s existing standards, though rigorous, must be strengthened to keep up with global competition.
Miller said many states have already begun to have discussions about forming alliances. Possible partners for California would be Massachusetts, which has equally rigorous standards, or states such as Florida and Texas that also have a high number of English learners.
These students are a key concern for O’Connell, who said California must show leadership in ensuring that new standards take their language development needs into account.
Educators and others worried that a move away from state-based standards could lead to loss of local control.
“The very next step would be a national test and that’s something we’re very wary about in California,” said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Assn.
Williamson Evers, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who helped write the state’s math standards, said he fears rewriting the standards could weaken them.
“California already has international benchmarked standards,” he said. “There is no need to be tweaking or modifying or rewriting California standards.”
Evers did agree with O’Connell’s call to improve use of assessments to help struggling schools and students.
“We cannot let them fail, hit them with sanctions, and sit on the sidelines,” O’Connell said.
But the state has never used some of the sanctions at its disposal under the federal No Child Left Behind reform law, such as restructuring or taking over a failing school.
Miller said there has been little point in “blowing up” a school without having a thoughtful, systemic plan for what to do afterward.
Economic stimulus money, he said, could be used to develop such plans.
One tool that would be useful for all these proposals — measuring school, student and teacher achievement — would be an improved data system. Creating a top-line version for California schools would cost up to $60 million, which could be partly funded through competitive grants in the stimulus package, state officials said.
Analysts said the policies and efforts O’Connell puts behind his words will be key to the reform proposals’ success.
Some said Friday’s speech was short on specifics, while others praised O’Connell for thinking beyond short-term goals.
“It is encouraging that Mr. O’Connell is sketching a bold reform agenda, not simply using Obama stimulus dollars to reinforce the status quo,” said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at UC Berkeley.
seema.mehta@latimes.com
howard.blume@latimes.com
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-schools19-2009apr19,0,7181348.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Education stimulus funds to aid Cal State, UC systems
More than $500 million of the $3.1 billion released for California schools will go to the state colleges and universities, which are facing deep budget cutbacks.
By Carla Rivera
April 19, 2009
California’s education leaders on Saturday lauded the release of $3.1 billion in federal economic stimulus funds for education, which includes more than half a billion dollars for hard-pressed colleges and universities.
The state’s universities are facing budget-related enrollment cutbacks, higher fees and class reductions in the fall, and officials said they hoped some of the most painful cuts could be avoided. But lawmakers and educators who attended a morning news conference in Long Beach emphasized that the state’s education system — both K-12 and higher education programs — still faces formidable challenges.
“You can almost compare this to a blood transfusion to a very sickly patient,” said state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). “But this is triage and only addresses a portion of the problems we face.”
Cal State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed and UC President Mark G. Yudof spoke at the news conference and applauded the arrival of the stimulus funds, which will total about $537 million for colleges and universities. But they provided few details of how the money will be used, and it is uncertain whether the funding will help stave off deep cuts already ordered to meet state-imposed budget cutbacks.
The Cal State system, for example, is $600 million below its operational needs for its 2009-2010 budget, noted spokeswoman Clara Potes-Fellow. Even with the stimulus funds, the system will have to reduce student enrollment by about 10,000 next year and cut classes. And next month, the Board of Trustees will consider whether to increase student fees by as much as 10%, she said.
But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who addressed the gathering at Long Beach’s Cabrillo High School, said he was hopeful that the funding will help prevent layoffs and protect reform efforts.
“We all know that schools are hurting, teachers are receiving pink slips and universities are turning students away,” Schwarzenegger said. “My mission is to shield our kids from the full brunt of the economic crisis.”
School districts and the state college and university systems can begin applying for the funds immediately through the state Department of Education website. The state will be able to apply for additional stimulus money in fall, but that is contingent on potentially revising state education standards and improving outcomes in areas such as dropout and graduation rates and student and teacher attendance, said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.
About $2.6 billion of the stimulus funding is slated for K-12 schools.
carla.rivera@latimes.com
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Education: A mother’s persistence pays off
Newport-Mesa Unified School District board approves new health education curriculum
Yvette Cabrera
Columnist
The Orange County Register
ycabrera@ocregister.com
It was quiet at the Tuesday night meeting of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board of Education. No protestors, no news cameras, no buzz in the audience – nothing to signal the meaningful step that was about to be taken.
But change was in the air. Particularly when parent Theresa Chase stepped to the microphone to offer her comment during the community input portion of the meeting.
First, a flashback is in order.
Last September, I wrote a column on the dismal state of sex education in Orange County, featuring Chase and her quest to bring comprehensive sex education to her district.
At the time, I cited a May 2008 report by the Community Action Fund of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties. That report found Orange County schools “almost universally” omit information in their health education courses about how to prevent pregnancy, and that nearly half don’t provide complete instruction on the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
The report also found that just one local school district (Irvine Unified) completely complies with the requirement in the state education code that says students should be told about all federally approved methods for preventing unintended pregnancies.
Chase can cite the studies that show a majority of parents here in California support comprehensive sex education, something that her district didn’t offer. She also knows the statistics that show an increase in teen pregnancy, statewide, and in the rise of sexually transmitted diseases among teens in Orange County and nationally.
So last year, Chase not only spoke up – by writing a letter to the district asking for change – she also took action.
The result came on Tuesday when the Board of Education voted unanimously to adopt a new high school health curriculum that meets state education codes and provides students with comprehensive sex education.
The curriculum was recommended by a committee of parents (including Chase), teachers, school nurses, and district administrators. The committee spent 10 months researching the issue.
“This is a very exciting development and really encouraging that a school district is setting this example of re-evaluating their curriculum and establishing it in all of their high schools,” says Stephanie F. Kight, senior vice president of community affairs for Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties.
Chase is likewise pleased with the new curriculum, but says the battle is only half over. Although the committee also created a middle school health curriculum, the district said it needs more time to determine if and how it would fit the curriculum into the current class schedule.
“This is a huge step forward. I understand that, and I appreciate that, and I know this is really important,” says Chase.
“But it’s very clear to everyone that middle school is such a critical time for this information to get into the minds of these kids.”
Once, Newport-Mesa’s middle school students were taught health education. But about four or five years ago, the course was eliminated, says Thomas R. Antal, the district’s director of secondary curriculum and instruction.
“With the increase in academic standards, some things got kind of crowded (out). So, as a full course, it’s not offered at this time,” says Antal, who noted that middle school students do receive state-mandated HIV/AIDS education along with drug, alcohol and tobacco prevention.
Chase points out that by creating a middle school health class, the district could tackle two issues at once. Sex education could hit students at a critical time in their development, and it wouldn’t be put off until late in high school, when some busy, college-prep minded students tend to take the course now.
“(Middle school) is when we want them to learn about growth and development and puberty,” says Chase, whose three sons are 13, 18, and 21. “Even if you’ve got a great curriculum, (late in high school) is just way too late to be presenting that information for the first time.”
The sobering statistics put out last year by the Centers for Disease Control – that at least one in four teenage girls in the United States has a sexually transmitted disease – should give us an indication of how critical this education is. It makes sense to teach students how to protect themselves sooner rather than later.
“We’re so bent on having them (students)… get into a good college and be successful, yet if you don’t have your health all of that is irrelevant,” says Chase. “If you get pregnant when you’re 15, bye future. It just changes everything.”
So on Tuesday Chase used her comment time to praise the district for its efforts, even as she urged the board to reinstate the middle school health class as soon as possible. In response, district officials said they would have the health curriculum committee explore the issue and report back to the board.
As for Chase, who was praised by one board member for “bulldogging” the curriculum through, she says she plans to keep plugging away at the issue.
“Especially with the increase in STDs in Orange County and across the nation,” she says. “How can we not make this a priority?”
Contact the writer: Contact the writer at ycabrera@ocregister.com or 714-796-3649
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
She’s offering $100,000 for best student essay
MORNING READ: Yup, says Sherry Chin Heijkoop, money can buy happiness.
By GREG HARDESTY
The Orange County Register
Sherry Chin Heijkoop grew up poor. Her dad womanized his way out of her life when she was 2, leaving behind his Chinese wife and nine kids in a Malaysian shack, a place with a dirt floor, no electricity or running water.
The family meal usually was little more than white rice. Shoes were rare. They had no mattresses.
But living with little, Heijkoop says, gave her a singular thought as a child: “I want to grow up, travel the world and become a successful millionaire.”
So she did. And, today, Heijkoop has achieved a financial life that’s beyond most people’s dreams. Money, she says, is no longer an issue.
Still, until recently, Heijkoop felt like she lacked direction, that at age 50 she still was seeking a purpose.
Heijkoop now believes she has found her calling.
The multilingual, self-made millionaire wants to teach young adults how to succeed in life – financially and otherwise.
Choosing Orange County as her launching pad, Heijkoop is starting a contest that figures to change the lives of a few deserving students.
The stakes?
A potentially life-changing $100,000.
While Oprah has had her “Big Give” TV contest, Heijkoop calls her non-TV contest simply the “Big Idea.”
The contest — which starts today and ends July 16 — works like this: Students must write a biographical essay on why they deserve the money. Their life story should be compelling, and they need to outline clear goals for their education and long-term life strategy.
Heijkoop will select 10 winners. First-prize gets the $100,000, and all the mentoring (from Heijkoop) he or she needs to become a millionaire. The nine others get $2,000 each, plus free mentoring.
Heijkoop has set up an organization, Mentor Unlimited USA, to make sure the money will be used for tuition and living expenses. The Orange County-based nonprofit is aimed at helping students who are at a crossroads — students seeking a sanctuary to build their self-esteem and self-confidence in a competitive world.
Heijkoop’s goal is to get the winning student through school, and to give him or her the tools to succeed on his or her own terms.
Interestingly, these days, Heijkoop’s notion of success seems less centered on money itself than on what money can — and can’t — buy.
“I could go out and buy a Ferrari, bigger diamond rings or more designer handbags, but that wouldn’t be fulfilling,” Heijkoop says.
“I’d rather spend over $100,000 to do something I have always wanted, from the bottom of my heart – to make a positive impact on someone’s life.”
VIBRANT
Heijkoop is a difficult person to contain.
With a big smile, a strong, articulate voice, and long black hair that flows over feminine outfits, she exudes energy and self-confidence. She is also refreshingly blunt about money and success.
“Does money buy happiness?” Heijkoop says. “Sure it does! Absolutely!”
Money, she believes, buys her the time and the freedom to pursue the things she enjoys. She also believes that her contest will allow a winning student to eventually not stress about their finances either — something that will let them pursue their passions.
For Heijkoop, those passions have been varied. Money has allowed her to shop freely and travel the world. But it’s also meant days volunteering at soup kitchens and doing other philanthropic work, as well as mentoring young adults.
The idea for the contest, she says, came to her as she audited a class in communications at Cal State Fullerton.
Looking around the room, she saw young adults who were hungering for knowledge and the tools for success — but who were not necessarily at an ideal place in their lives, financially or otherwise.
She saw young people who, in many cases, lacked role models or supportive adults.
“I know I can make a tremendous impact on people that age,” Heijkoop says. “I didn’t want to spend my money or energy on someone who has given up on life.
“I also didn’t want to adopt a child, because changing diapers is not my strength,” she adds, laughing.
“College students are old enough that many of them don’t need their mom or dad. But they are young enough to mold.
“…I will be able to motivate students and help mold their futures.”
QUICK LEARNER
For Heijkoop, who has residences on three continents — including one in south Orange County — the road from Asia to Europe to America, from poverty to a life of fine dining, designer clothes and luxury vehicles, was long.
But she was a quick study.
After excelling at elementary and high school, Heijkoop, 19 and still in a Malaysian college, started selling magazine subscriptions. She was good enough at it that her Australian boss soon sent her to sell magazines throughout Asia.
A super-saleswoman was born.
Heijkoop says a key to successful sales is to be direct and honest. Another is to serve people’s needs and be a solutions provider — not to strong-arm them into coughing up money for a quick sale.
Heijkoop came to the United States in 1980. In the decades since, she says she’s made a tidy nest egg, mostly from sales and marketing, real estate and investing.
She says the timing for her $100,000 Big Idea/essay contest is perfect.
“I’m retired,” Heijkoop says. “I have the resources, the time and the mental clarity to do this 100 percent.
“Also, there are a lot of people confused and lost in this bad economy,” she adds. “People are scared. They all feel like they’re facing a bleak future.
“Well, I’m here to help.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7356 or ghardesty@ocregister.com
SHERRY’S BIG IDEA
Sherry Chin Heijkoop is soliciting essays from students, with $100,000 going to the first-prize winner for educational and living expenses.
About the essay: Students must be at least 18 years old to enter. High school students are OK. Students should explain, in 1,000 words or less, why they deserve the money. Their life story must be compelling. Entrants should outline their educational, career goals and ambitions. Provide your full name, address and phone number. All information provided will be subject to full verification.
When to enter:The contest starts today and runs through July 16, 2009.
About the contest: Heijkoop will select the top 10 winners. The first-prize winner will receive a total prize of $100,000. You will immediately receive a $2,000 check, the balance of which will be gradually disbursed by Mentor Unlimited USA directly toward tuition, rent, purchase of books, educational materials and reasonable living expenses, plus all the mentoring the student needs to become a millionaire. There will be a $2,000 consolation prize for each of the nine remaining students to be paid out immediately by Mentor Unlimited USA, plus free, unlimited mentoring.
E-Mail essays to: mentorunlimitedusa@yahoo.com; or
U.S. Mail essays to: Mentor Unlimited USA, 1339 E. Katella Avenue, Suite 288, Orange, CA 92867
Note:Sherry Chin Heijkoop reserves the right to change the rules of this contest as she sees fit, and/or reserves the exclusive right to withdraw this contest at any time if she deems the entrants to be unqualified, unconvincing or undeserving. Only the top 10 winners will be duly notified.
A check of web site 990 Finder (click here to see it) found no records for Mentor Unlimited USA, though that’s not unusual for a recently created nonprofit.
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Friday, April 17, 2009, 12:50pm PDT
Chiang: Three State agencies fail to collect $80 Million
Los Angeles Business from bizjournals – by Celia Lamb of the Sacramento Business Journal
A two-year audit of three state agencies found that they have not collected $80 million in fines, penalties and license fees.
The audit looked into the collections efforts at the California Highway Patrol, the Public Utilities Commission and the Department of Industrial Relations. It concluded that “none adequately prioritize their debt collection responsibilities, fully document the amount owed or collected and do not make sufficient efforts to collect the owed amounts,” according to a news release from state Controller John Chiang.
“The audits show these agencies do not place a high priority on collecting million of dollars owed to cash-starved California, even though it is their legal responsibility,” Chiang said in a news release. “As a result, substandard accounting practices have left taxpayers to pick up the tab for drunk drivers and unscrupulous businesses and employers.”
The poor collection efforts are probably a systemic problem in the state’s 170 departments, boards and commissions, Chiang added in the news release.
For more than a year, CHP failed to record $9.6 million in delinquent billings for driving under the influence investigations and delayed implementing a state law that increased the maximum amount it can recover from convicted drunk drivers for those investigations from $1,000 to $12,000, according to the news release.
The audit also found that the Public Utilities Commission did not collect $20.6 million in fines levied over 10 years against telecommunications providers that defrauded customers. And the Department of Industrial Relations ignored $54 million in fines against businesses that it said violated workers’ rights.
The controller will forward the report to the state Department of Finance’s Accounts Receivable Workgroup, the state Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee and the state Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes for review and possible oversight hearings, the news release said.
The controller recommended those panels consider legislation to beef up collections systems and impose budget penalties on agencies that don’t meet collections targets.
All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.
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Ad Watch: CTA spot backs Props. 1A and 1B
Published: Saturday, Apr. 18, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
The California Teachers Association has launched a 30-second television ad supporting Propositions 1A and 1B, two of the budget-related measures up for a vote in the May 19 special election. The ad is airing in Southern California and will appear statewide next week.
Following is the text of the ad and an analysis by Kevin Yamamura of The Bee’s Capitol Bureau:
Text
Voice-over: The California budget. A total mess. And we all know it.
But we can start doing something about it by voting yes on Propositions 1A and 1B. Because Prop. 1A finally controls overall state spending and prevents $16 billion in deeper cuts to education, police and health care.
And when the economy starts to improve, Prop. 1B begins paying back some of the cuts our schools have suffered. Protect the priorities that matter most. Vote Yes on Props. 1A and 1B.
Analysis
Proposition 1A would limit future state spending in good fiscal years to an amount determined by a 10-year spending trend line. Revenues above that limit would go toward schools, a “rainy-day” reserve and paying off debt. In bad fiscal times, state leaders could use reserve funds to shore up the budget.
Proponents believe Proposition 1A will control overall state spending, but the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office notes that the “fiscal effects of Proposition 1A are particularly difficult to assess.” Still, the LAO says “this measure could help limit the ups and downs of state spending.”
The ad is correct that Proposition 1A would prevent $16 billion in deeper cuts, but it has a glaring omission: The $16 billion would come from temporary tax hikes on sales, income and vehicles between 2011 and 2013. The increases kick in only if the measure passes.
Under Proposition 1B, the state would be required to pay K-14 schools an additional $9.3 billion starting in fiscal year 2011-12. Proposition 1B cannot take effect unless Proposition 1A passes.
Proposition 1A requires the state to set aside 1.5 percent of general fund revenues for schools starting in 2011-12 and ending whenever the $9.3 billion is paid off. While the ad says the state will pay back money to schools “when the economy starts to improve,” the repayment schedule isn’t based on the state of the economy.
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From the Los Angeles Times
CAPITOL JOURNAL
There’s nothing sneaky about Proposition 1A
The May 19 ballot measure would create a spending cap and rainy day reserve to slow the growth of California government. It isn’t ‘a cynical trick’ to raise taxes, columnist George Skelton writes.
George Skelton
Capitol Journal
April 16, 2009
From Sacramento — A crazy myth has been spreading about the core measure on the May 19 state ballot, Proposition 1A.
The myth is that Prop. 1A is a sneaky trick to raise taxes.
Truth is, it’s a measure to create a spending cap and rainy day reserve — to slow the growth of state government.
That’s why many liberal groups oppose it.
Republican negotiators fought for the spending control in the Legislature. Democrats demanded a permanent tax increase in trade. Republicans would accept only a temporary two-year extension of an already-agreed-to two-year tax hike. And if voters didn’t approve the spending limit, there’d be no tax extension. In 2011, rates would revert to their old levels.
“The only way to structurally change California’s financial situation is to have a cap and rainy day” fund, asserts Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines (R-Clovis), who helped negotiate a $42-billion deficit-reduction package that included a $12.5-billion tax hike. “And if voters aren’t going to say ‘yes’ to that, there should be no temporary extension of those taxes.
“So that’s it. We’re not trying to trick anybody. This never has been an attempt to be sneaky.”
The measure’s explanation got truncated by simplistic talk-radio entertainers and two ambitious Republican candidates for governor, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former EBay chief Meg Whitman.
Poizner calls it “a cynical trick” that “seeks to fool the voters into approving a two-year extension” of tax hikes on income, sales and cars. Whitman asserts it’s “a sustained tax increase masquerading as reform.”
“Pandering is what they’re doing,” Republican Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto recently told me. “They’re pandering to the more conservative elements of the party in order to win the Republican primary. That’s the way it works. Everybody sees that.”
Cogdill, who nevertheless has endorsed Poizner for governor, was one of the budget negotiators — a role that led colleagues to oust him as Senate minority leader. Republican lawmakers were reacting to the anti-tax furor of conservative party activists.
Voter anger at the economy and disgust with dysfunctional Sacramento provide fertile ground for anti-tax demagoguery.
As one reader, Stuart, e-mailed: The budget package on the ballot “sounds good. Sounds noble. Sounds courageous. The problem is trust. Do I trust Sacramento to establish a rainy day fund and to faithfully adhere to a spending cap?
“The answer is, of course not. I trust Sacramento as much as I trust an arsonist putting out the fire.
“And a temporary tax? . . . A temporary tax is not in the politician’s dictionary.”
Stuart is wrong about the last point, at least concerning Sacramento.
“When they say a tax is temporary, it generally is — contrary to what you hear on the street,” says Dave Doerr, a tax historian and principal advisor to the California Taxpayers Assn., which supports 1A.
Doerr could think of only one example in modern times when a temporary state tax became permanent — in 1993 when voters chose overwhelmingly to convert a temporary sales tax into a permanent local levy to help finance police and fire services.
Adam Mendelsohn, a strategist for the campaign promoting all six ballot propositions, says: “If people go in with a conspiratorial mind-set, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
He’d better hope there is. A lot of conspiracy theorists seem to be out there, believing — or at least shouting — that 1A is a tax plot.
But the people sprouting the biggest smiles and sighs of relief if 1A fails will be pro-tax legislators and interests, especially some public employee unions. They abhor the notion of spending controls.
“All the screaming libs are against it,” Villines says.
On Monday, a liberal coalition announced its opposition. It includes the California Federation of Teachers, the Service Employees International Union, the California Faculty Assn., the California Nurses Assn. and the League of Women Voters.
The California Teachers Assn., however, supports 1A. That’s because if Props. 1A and 1B both pass, schools ultimately will be repaid $9.3 billion they’ve lost from budget cuts.
But another union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, seems more typical. “Prop. 1A is the worst thing that can happen to a so-called civilized society,” says Willie L. Pelote Sr., the union’s chief Sacramento lobbyist. “It’s going to be devastating.”
Two of the happiest people if 1A passes, I suspect, will be Poizner and Whitman, despite their public postures.
Privately, they must hope the tax hikes remain on the books two additional years so — in the unlikely event one becomes governor — they can avoid publicly unacceptable spending cuts or raising taxes themselves.
And as potential GOP governors confronting a Democratic Legislature, they must savor the prospect of a constitutionally required spending cap and rainy day reserve.
Both candidates claim they would impose their own spending controls as governor. That’s pretty naive, based on history.
“Outside of Adam and Eve being the first legislative body,” Villines says, “I don’t think there’s ever been a legislature that lives within its means. This is our chance to finally do it. This is a real chance.”
Probably the last chance, at least for a very long time. Taxes, by comparison, will be easy to raise.
george.skelton@latimes.com
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Saddleback Valley Unified School District ordered to pay $1.4 million to contractor
Mepco Services of Downey was hired three years ago to renovate a Mission Viejo special education school.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
MISSION VIEJO – The Saddleback Valley Unified School District has been ordered to pay about $1.4 million to a construction company and its attorneys for a troubled renovation project at a special education school, the culmination of a two-year legal battle that the victorious party called an “unfortunate waste” of precious school funds.
Mepco Services, a Downey-based general contractor hired to renovate Esperanza Special Education School in Mission Viejo, was awarded about $765,000 in legal fees today by San Diego County Superior Court Judge Frederic Link. The exact amount will be determined at a subsequent date because the judge struck some attorney photocopying fees today.
The settlement comes on top of a jury verdict in February that found Saddleback liable for $681,087 in back pay and damages to Mepco owner Elie Abinader.
“It’s a rip-off of our tax dollars and a needless attempt to adversely affect an honest businessman,” Mepco attorney Andrew Carlton said. “The school district literally forced Mepco to go to trial for something that should have been resolved even before lawyers got involved.”
The $1.4 million will be paid out of Saddleback’s facilities improvement fund, money that cannot be used to pay for things like teacher salaries or classroom supplies, said Stephen McMahon, assistant superintendent for business services.
Saddleback has not yet paid any of the money and is considering an appeal, he added.
“We just don’t believe it was a just verdict given the facts of the case,” McMahon said. “We feel that the facts of the case were manipulated by the other side and they made a very emotional appeal of the big bad school district taking on the poor little contractor.”
Saddleback Valley Unified officials characterized Mepco’s owner as a sloppy, scheming contractor who sought to bilk the school district for thousands of dollars in additional construction expenses.
The renovation project, which included gutting much of the interior of the school, was supposed to have taken place over a three-month period in summer 2006 at a cost of $1.64 million, but Mepco’s owner filed 43 change orders, insisting additional work needed to be performed. Then, Abinader asked for a five-month extension around the time the project was supposed to be wrapping up, McMahon said.
Saddleback approved 19 of Mepco’s 43 change orders, but as friction began building over the remaining disputed work, McMahon said Mepco walked off the job in early 2007, leaving an estimated $378,000 in uncompleted work – allegations Mepco denied.
“He asked for more time on the job than he did on the original work for the whole project,” McMahon said. “This contractor was looking for things he could use to his advantage. The plans weren’t perfect, but they were definitely buildable. There’s never a perfect set of plans.”
Mepco maintained it completed the project and offered to settle the case with Saddleback for $474,000, which represented the cost of the disputed change orders and the portion of the original $1.64 million contract Saddleback hadn’t yet paid.
But district officials rejected the offer and instead filed a countersuit against Mepco for not finishing the project on time as Mepco was contractually obligated to do, McMahon said.
The case was moved to San Diego to ensure an impartial jury. At trial, Saddleback argued Mepco submitted frivolous change order requests, such as requesting more compensation to demolish a ceiling when the original architectural plan only called for installing a new one.
But Mepco’s attorneys successfully countered that the architect’s plans were flawed, causing delays and the need for additional work.
The attorneys said Mepco had budgeted for the $1.64 million project based on just what was in the plans, not additional work such as demolishing a ceiling.
The jury rejected Saddleback’s arguments in full and sided completely with Mepco, awarding the company everything it asked for after a three-week trial – back pay, damages, legal fees, expert fees and interest.
“The district wasted a lot of money trying to defend this case,” Mepco attorney Anna Carno said. “I don’t believe many people understand how a school district makes its decisions. They just assume they’re being made by people who have experience and are being advised by the right people. Clearly this case showed that this is not reality.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-college-gap-17-2009apr17,0,7457322.story
From the Los Angeles Times
California faces shortage of college graduates for workforce, study finds
A report says that in 2025, 35% of the state’s working-age adults will hold a four-year degree, while a college education will be required for at least 41% of job-holders.
By Gale Holland
10:16 PM PDT, April 16, 2009
With college enrollment rates among the lowest in the nation, California will face a shortage of 1 million college graduates needed for the state’s workforce in 2025, a report released Thursday warned.
Unless policy changes are made, only 35% of the state’s working-age adults will hold a four-year degree that year, even as a college education will be required for at least 41% of job-holders, the study by the Public Policy Institute of California found.
The state’s three public college systems — the California Community Colleges, California State University and the University of California — educate 2.3 million students annually, and an additional 360,000 students attend private colleges and universities. But the numbers mask a huge gap between the state’s youth population and its college-going and graduation rates, the report found.
Only 56% of California’s high school graduates, as opposed to 62% nationwide, proceed directly to college. The state also ranked comparatively low in other measures, including its share of 25- to 34-year-olds with at least a bachelor’s degree and the number of college students who graduated within five years.
Many of the state’s college students begin at two-year community colleges, but most do not make the transition to four-year institutions, the study found. Although some are seeking certificates, remedial learning or other skills, just 20% to 30% of those with a demonstrated drive to get a bachelor’s degree actually transfer to four-year colleges, it said.
And although graduation rates at UC are high, only about half of Cal State’s students earn a bachelor’s degree within six years, the report said. The state’s tuition rates and fees remain among the lowest in the nation, but living expenses and other costs force many Cal State students to work while in school, delaying graduation.
Cal State spokeswoman Claudia Keith said the system has launched several initiatives to improve transfer and graduation rates. Over the last 15 years, California community college transfers to Cal State campuses have risen 34% to 54,971 annually, and transfer applications for fall 2009 are up 13.7% from the same time a year ago, she said.
The report called on educators and politicians to address the enrollment, transfer and graduation issues to try to close the expected gap.
gale.holland@latimes.com
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Oregon dropout rates improve with efforts to aid at-risk teens
by Bill Graves, The Oregonian
Wednesday April 15, 2009, 8:24 PM
Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian Elfego Sanchez, 19, helps third-graders, including Gloria Martinez (right) at Gaffney Lane Elementary with reading as part of his senior project for Oregon City High. He returned to school this year after dropping out last spring and is on track to graduate. He now is considering going to college and becoming a teaching assistant. “The kids respond so well to him,” said teacher Karen Hankins.
Oregon’s dropout rate fell last year to an all-time low, in part because of better school options focused on kids in danger of quitting, state officials reported Wednesday.
A total 6,678 high school students – enough to fill three big schools — quit in 2007-08. That amounts to 3.7 percent of Oregon’s high school population, a decline from the previous year’s 4.2 percent dropout rate and the lowest level since the state started tracking dropouts nearly 20 years ago.
Dropout rates varied widely across the state. Portland’s rate remained the highest in the metro area, at 8.4 percent. By contrast, the West Linn-Wilsonville School District nearly eradicated its dropout rate, reducing it to 0.9 percent. Rates fell to 1.4 percent in Oregon City and 1.3 percent in Lake Oswego.
At 2,200-student Oregon City Senior High, educators have dramatically reduced the dropout rate to 25 students, or 1.1 percent, down from 5 percent three years ago. Elfego Sanchez, 19, was one of those dropouts, but he is back at Oregon City High and on track to graduate this spring. He left school as a junior a year ago to visit his ill grandmother in Mexico. He also “was confused with school and work,” he said.
Sanchez stayed for six months in Mexico, searched for a job and soon learned employers wanted to see a diploma. He returned to Oregon City High, where administrators were able to make room for him in their new Twilight School, a flexible program that allows students to attend school into the evening. At least four other dropouts from last year are in the school and on track to graduate.
As part of his senior project, Sanchez is helping tutor Karen Hankins’ third graders in reading at nearby Gaffney Lane Elementary. Sanchez is now thinking about becoming a teaching assistant and enrolling in community college. “I decided I needed school to be somebody in the future,” he said.
About half of last year’s improvement in dropout rates is due to better tracking of students by the state, said Tony Alpert, accountability director for the state education department. He credited schools for stepping up their efforts to target students who need help.
The dropout rate fell by 1.2 percentage points, to 6.4 percent for Latino students and by 0.7 to 5.8 percent for Native Americans. Asian Americans had the lowest dropout rate at 2.6 percent and African Americans had the highest at 7 percent.
The state’s graduation rate climbed last year by nearly 3 percentage points to 84 percent, largely because of gains among Latinos and Native Americans, officials said.
Dropout rates generally fall as the economy slides because fewer students are lured away from school by work. But it is unclear whether the economy declined enough last school year to affect dropouts, Alpert said.
Principal Nancy Bush-Lange attributes much of Oregon City’s progress to a commitment by her and her administrators to aggressively track students who quit and try to lure them back. “Mostly,” she said, it is being “diligent” and “then being persistent about calling their homes or any relative.”
Chelsea Wick, 19, quit last year because she lives on her own and needed to work to support herself. Ginger Redlinger, an administrator, spotted her working at a Fred Meyer store and invited her into the Twilight program. The school gives Wick the flexibility she needs to keep her job while earning her diploma.
Cleveland High School in Portland cut its dropout rate in half to 2 percent by programs that make school more personal, said Principal Paul Cook. The school organizes freshmen into groups for core classes called academies, and academy teachers are assigned as mentors to any student who appears to be struggling.
But some of Portland’s small high schools that are designed to be personal and nurturing continue to lose students. The dropout rates for three small schools contained in the former Marshall High, for example, were 11.5 percent at BizTech High, 9.1 percent at the Pauling Academy of Integrated Sciences and 7.1 percent at Renaissance Arts Academy.
More than half of Portland’s 1,161 dropouts came from private alternative schools that have contracts with the district. Overall, the district is improving its dropout and graduation rates and redesigning its high schools, said Superintendent Carole Smith.
While fewer Oregon students left school, more settled on earning a General Educational Development (GED) credential rather than a diploma. But studies show that students with GEDs don’t earn nearly as much as those with diplomas.
The number of students earning GED credentials in the 2007-08 school year climbed by 22 percent over the previous year to 2,153. The state does not count students who earn GED credentials as high school graduates.
— Bill Graves; billgraves@news.oregonian.com
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Santa Ana getting millions to promote healthy communities
April 16th, 2009, 6:00 am posted by Jennifer Muir
Orange County Register
Santa Ana is among 14 low-income neighborhoods across the state that will share hundreds of millions of dollars in grants over the next 10 years aimed at improving public health in poor communities.
The funding is part of the nonprofit California Endowment’s 10-year Building Healthy Communities Initiative, which will focus on improving a wide range of factors that affect health, including the economic, physical, social and service environments. For example, kids have a better shot at being healthy and performing well in school if their parents have a steady job that keeps them housed and well fed, they live in a safe neighborhood, have access to parks and grocery stores stocked with high-quality nutritious foods.
The Endowment is dumping money into these neighborhoods and encouraging other local philanthropists and community groups to do the same to attack the root causes of poor public health. Eventually, they hope to translate community-level successes into broader statewide policies.
It’s not clear yet just how much money each community will receive over 10 years. And also unclear is specifically how it will be spent. The Orange County Human Relations Commission is overseeing work from many local organizations and will present initial plans to the Endowment, which will offer $250,000 for help though a nine-month planning phase. Grants for specific services will be awarded in March, 2010, said California Endowment
senior program officer Gregory Hall.
The boundaries in Central Santa Ana, where this money will be spent, haven’t been solidified. At this point, the area consists of 12 high-density, low-income neighborhoods where health problems include high obesity and diabetes rates, asthma, heart disease and violence. They include Bella Vista, Casa Bonita, Central City, Cedar Evergreen Co-Op and Cornerstone Village.
Here’s a description of the neighborhoods from the Endowment’s web site:
Most of these neighborhoods’ residents work in the service industry, which are traditionally low-wage jobs that either do not offer health coverage or the coverage they offer is often unaffordable for workers. Housing is also a challenge for these neighborhoods as rents are high and landlords are not responsive to needed improvements which impact tenant health. Furthermore, there is a lack of parks and open space because of the high density within these neighborhoods. In addition, there are few options for residents to access affordable, healthy and nutritious food.
Despite these challenges, these neighborhoods are ripe for change. With their network of vibrant community-based organizations, much work is being done in the areas of health, education, job training and community organizing. Furthermore, many public agency leaders, school principals and elected officials are responsive to community input, and are open to and interested in the kinds of health initiatives that will help build these neighborhoods into healthy communities.
In addition to need, the area was selected because of those community-based organizations and cooperation from local leaders, Hall said.
Stay tuned. We’ll report back when we know more.
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Friday, April 17, 2009
Feds offer OC cities more than $25 million reasons to go green
Stimulus bill includes $3.2 billion nationwide for environmental programs.
By SEAN EMERY
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
IRVINE – Local cities have a new incentive to go green, with federal officials offering more than $25 million in environmentally friendly funding to Orange County communities looking to reduce harmful emissions.
Introduced as part of the recent economic stimulus bill, the local Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds are among $3.2 billion earmarked nationwide for environmental programs. But cities still have to decide exactly which green programs to submit for the funds.
To see the amount allocated to each OC city, click here.
There is about $26 million earmarked to Orange County cities, as well as $2.7 million for the county itself. All told, federal officials estimate that California will receive more than $350 million.
Locally, the funds range from a couple of million dollars for each of the county’s largest city’s, to a couple of hundred thousand dollars for smaller communities.
Federal officials say the allotment is based on the number of residents as well as the commuter population in each city. As a result, about 70 percent of the grant funds nationwide will go to cities with populations of 50,000 or more and counties with 200,000 or more, according to federal estimates.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees the grant funding, say the money will go to programs that “reduce fossil fuel emissions, total energy use, and improve energy efficiency,” particularly those that can be implemented quickly, produce long-term results, and generate the highest number of “green” jobs.
Local leaders predicted that the federal money will help boost environmental efforts in cash-strapped communities struggling through a rocky economy.
“Safe to say the grant money we receive will be well-spent and leveraged in our goal of environmental stewardship,” Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang said. “That money will create job opportunities in Orange County as cities utilize the grant.”
Exactly which programs will be funded, and how many jobs they will create, is unknown.
Cities have until the end of June to apply for the funds, so local leaders are expected to begin narrowing down their environmental focus in the coming months.
Even for relatively well-funded cities such as Irvine, officials say the economic funds could make long-hoped for plans a reality.
Irvine leaders are working on inventorying the city’s greenhouse gas emissions, with plans to eventually reduce energy use by overhauling city facilities, although city officials were quick to note that they also have not decided which programs will receive the funds.
Contact the writer: 949-553-2911 or semery@ocregister.com
Friday, April 17, 2009
How much in federal energy grant funds has your city been allocated?
By SEAN EMERY
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Here are the amounts allocated to Orange County cities through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program.
The cities have until June 25 to submit their applications for the funds, which were allocated as part of the recent economic stimulus bill.
Aliso Viejo:$167,900
Anaheim:$3,254,800
Brea:$191,000
Buena Park:$738,700
Costa Mesa:$1,123,500
Cypress:$202,000
Dana Point:$145,900
Fullerton:$1,246,100
Garden Grove:$1,517,000
Huntington Beach:$1,767,800
Irvine:$2,288,000
Laguna Niguel:$572,900
Lake Forest:$712,400
Mission Viejo:$876,000
Newport Beach:$853,300
Orange:$1,358,500
Placentia:$201,500
Rancho Santa Margarita:$199,500
San Clemente:$566,500
Santa Ana: $3,267,500
Stanton:$148,700
Tustin:$677,300
Westminster:$801,300
Yorba Linda:$586,800
Orange:$2,761,600
For the full list of Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant allocations, go to eecbg.energy.gov/GrantAlloc.html.
Contact the writer: 949-553-2911 o
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/cameras-district-high-2368725-schools-school
Security cameras going up at Santa Ana schools
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Security cameras going up at Santa Ana schools
The district joins others in O.C. that use surveillance systems to improve campus safety.
The Orange County Register
Comments 28| Recommend 5
SANTA ANA – Orange County’s largest school district is getting ready to install security cameras at several campuses in an effort to improve students’ safety and security and prevent vandalism and thefts.
Santa Ana Unified will begin placing cameras in hallways, stairwells, parking lots, entrances and other areas at most high schools throughout the district beginning this fall.
“This will help us better monitor what’s happening in our schools,” said school board member Audrey Yamagata-Noji. “It’s a good practice to use more surveillance if it’s available to us. It will help us protect our students, staff and property.”
Officials in the 54,000-student district say they are installing cameras as a proactive measure and say crime or misconduct at schools is not increasing. The school board last week approved regulations for where cameras can be installed.
Cameras will not be placed inside classrooms or in areas where students, staff and visitors have a reasonable expectation of privacy, including restrooms, locker rooms and offices, officials said.
“We are going to target areas that are not always supervised and can be problematic,” said district spokeswoman Angela Burrell.
The number of cameras will depend on how much funding the district will be able to secure from state and federal grants.
Some school districts across Orange County already have video surveillance systems at various spots on high school campuses. Capistrano Unified and Saddleback Valley Unified have motion-activated cameras at all of their high schools, plus some at elementary and middle schools.
“When vandalism happens, it answers a lot of questions about what happened and how it happened, although it doesn’t answer all questions,” Saddleback spokesman Tom Turner said about video surveillance. “It’s also kind of a deterrent.”
In Capistrano Unified, cameras are sometimes set up on a temporary basis to address a sudden spike in vandalism in a certain area, said district spokeswoman Julie Hatchel.
Anaheim Union High School District recently added cameras as part of construction of a new 49-classroom building at Anaheim High. Katella High also uses cameras in some isolated areas throughout the campus.
Anaheim Union’s surveillance system is Web-enabled, meaning administrators, principals and others can access recorded or live video feeds through computers with an Internet connection using a password, said Tim Holcomb, the district’s deputy superintendent.
Santa Ana’s system will be operated via closed-circuit television. The district already has some cameras at Godinez Fundamental High and Griset Academy, two schools that opened within the past three years. Cameras were integrated into the construction of those schools, Burrell said.
At Santa Ana High last week, some students said they worried the cameras will violate their privacy, while others said they won’t be bothered by added surveillance.
Senior Marie Villa said surveillance cameras have already become common at many public places.
“There are cameras on streets, in stores, in movie theaters and everywhere else. I don’t see why schools shouldn’t use them also,” she said.
Register staff writer Scott Martindale contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/help-society-maria-2365027-shriver-web
State’s first lady opens self-help center in Santa Ana
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
State’s first lady opens self-help center in Santa Ana
WE Connect Neighborhood Center brings people, programs together via Internet.
By THERESA CISNEROS
The Orange County Register
Comments 25| Recommend 4
SANTA ANA – Working families can now get information on hundreds of agencies that help with everything from landing jobs to saving on groceries, thanks to a self-help computer lab that’s opened through a partnership between California first lady Maria Shriver and the Legal Aid Society of Orange County.
The WE Connect Neighborhood Center is housed inside the society’s office and uses the Internet to help those facing economic, and other, challenges find groups and programs that can help them out.
Shriver and Sen. Lou Correa toured the grounds today as part of a grand opening celebration that also included free tax preparation and a community resource fair.
“We have to start developing centers that help the entire person,” Shriver said during a post-tour news conference. “(If we do that) the better off we’ll be as a society, as a state and as a nation.”
Patrons can use the computers to find links to a list compiled by the society of more than 300 assistance agencies, and to Shriver’s WE Connect Web site, which provides information on an array of public and private programs.
The WE Connect Web site also links to the WEb Connector, a site where users can fill in basic information, like annual income and family size, to determine if they’re eligible for tax credits and a range of low-cost services, including health insurance. Last week, Shriver and her husband, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, announced the launch of a Federal version of the WEb Connector tool.
Bob Cohen, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, said the neighborhood center is the culmination of a four-year partnership between his group and Shriver. He anticipates that it will help meet the needs of the 4,000 people who already call the society monthly seeking self-help services.
The WE Connect Neighborhood Center will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Volunteers will be on hand to assist users in navigating the site, said Cohen.
Organizers hope this will be the first of many centers to spring up nationwide.
Information: 714-571-5200
Contact the writer: tcisneros@ocregister.com or 714-704-3707
2009 Allocations to Large Local Educational Agencies of Volume Cap for Qualified School Construction Bonds
http://www.nsba.org/MainMenu/Advocacy/FederalLaws/FederalFunding/Stimulus/School-Bonds/LargeSDAllocations.aspx
2009 Allocations to Large Local Educational Agencies of Volume Cap for Qualified School Construction Bonds
State
Large Local Educational Agency
Allocation
Alabama
Birmingham City School District
15,683,000
Alabama
Mobile County School District
23,135,000
Alabama
Montgomery County School District
11,421,000
Arizona
Mesa Unified District
16,111,000
Arizona
Tucson Unified District
21,375,000
California
Bakersfield City Elementary
15,720,000
California
Compton Unified
18,559,000
California
Fresno Unified
41,398,000
California
Long Beach Unified
37,905,000
California
Los Angeles Unified
318,816,000
California
Oakland Unified
26,326,000
California
Sacramento City Unified
21,251,000
California
San Bernardino City Unified
27,790,000
California
San Diego City Unified
38,877,000
California
Santa Ana Unified
19,269,000
California
Stockton City Unified
16,055,000
Colorado
Denver County 1
24,022,000
District of Columbia
District of Columbia Public Schools
33,936,000
Florida
Broward County School District
49,913,000
Florida
Dade County School District
104,855,000
Florida
Duval County School District
27,220,000
Florida
Hillsborough County School District
40,633,000
Florida
Lee County School District
12,701,000
Florida
Orange County School District
35,824,000
Florida
Palm Beach County School District
33,643,000
Florida
Pasco County School District
11,028,000
Florida
Pinellas County School District
24,352,000
Florida
Polk County School District
20,543,000
Florida
Volusia County School District
11,941,000
Georgia
Atlanta City School District
37,934,000
Georgia
Clayton County School District
13,793,000
Georgia
Cobb County School District
12,732,000
Georgia
De Kalb County School District
27,832,000
Georgia
Fulton County School District
17,720,000
Georgia
Gwinnett County School District
18,985,000
Georgia
Richmond County School District
16,163,000
Hawaii
Hawaii
32,058,000
Illinois
City of Chicago School District 299
254,250,000
Indiana
Indianapolis Public Schools
31,181,000
Kentucky
Jefferson County School District
27,483,000
Louisiana
Caddo Parish School Board
17,359,000
Louisiana
East Baton Rouge Parish School Board
21,433,000
Louisiana
Jefferson Parish School Board
21,646,000
Louisiana
Orleans Parish School Board
39,607,000
Maryland
Baltimore City Public School System
58,096,000
Maryland
Baltimore County Public Schools
19,424,000
Maryland
Prince George’s County Public Schools
25,102,000
Massachusetts
Boston
37,567,000
Massachusetts
Springfield
17,864,000
Michigan
Detroit City School District
123,272,000
Minnesota
Minneapolis
21,739,000
Minnesota
St. Paul
16,119,000
Mississippi
Jackson Public School District
15,255,000
Missouri
Kansas City School District
17,880,000
Missouri
St Louis City
28,163,000
Nebraska
Omaha Public Schools
17,378,000
Nevada
Clark County School District
51,414,000
New Jersey
Newark City
27,258,000
New Mexico
Albuquerque Public Schools
21,968,000
New York
Buffalo City School District
34,374,000
New York
New York City
699,872,000
New York
Rochester City School District
29,535,000
North Carolina
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
25,962,000
North Carolina
Cumberland County Schools
15,948,000
North Carolina
Forsyth County Schools
12,244,000
North Carolina
Guilford County Schools
17,147,000
North Carolina
Wake County Schools
17,304,000
Ohio
Akron City School District
15,062,000
Ohio
Cincinnati City School District
25,632,000
Ohio
Cleveland Municipal School District
53,145,000
Ohio
Columbus City School District
36,372,000
Ohio
Toledo City School District
21,460,000
Oklahoma
Oklahoma City
17,844,000
Oklahoma
Tulsa
14,327,000
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia City School District
146,897,000
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
376,055,000
Rhode Island
Providence School District
22,338,000
South Carolina
Charleston County School District
13,517,000
South Carolina
Greenville County School District
15,060,000
Tennessee
Memphis City School District
41,736,000
Tennessee
Nashville-Davidson County School District
21,132,000
Texas
Aldine Independent School District
18,810,000
Texas
Alief Independent School District
16,297,000
Texas
Arlington Independent School District
12,805,000
Texas
Austin Independent School District
24,440,000
Texas
Brownsville Independent School District
25,612,000
Texas
Dallas Independent School District
73,741,000
Texas
Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District
13,810,000
Texas
El Paso Independent School District
29,067,000
Texas
Fort Worth Independent School District
31,602,000
Texas
Garland Independent School District
10,186,000
Texas
Houston Independent School District
94,303,000
Texas
La Joya Independent School District
13,392,000
Texas
Laredo Independent School District
13,639,000
Texas
Northside Independent School District
13,299,000
Texas
Pasadena Independent School District
14,445,000
Texas
Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District
13,302,000
Texas
San Antonio Independent School District
30,385,000
Texas
Ysleta Independent School District
16,807,000
Wisconsin
Milwaukee
72,118,000
Total
4,400,000,000
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/members-lowrider-school-2375427-shows-santa
Slideshow: Lowrider show raises money for school
Participants, patrons unite for benefit event.
By THERESA CISNEROS
The Orange County Register
Comments 2| Recommend 0
SANTA ANA – A lowrider car show benefiting Roosevelt Elementary School was held Friday night on the school’s field.
About 3,000 spectators and exhibitors flocked to the campus last year. And although attendance figures were not immediately available, organizers estimated that even more would show up this year, said Erik Rossman, the teacher who organized the event.
Drivers paid a $5 entrance donation, and food was sold to help raise money for Roosevelt, which like many schools is experiencing financial hardships.
Participants ranged from those flipping the switches on classic Impalas, to those putting a last-minute shine on chrome bikes. The contest, which included an award ceremony, ran from about 4 to 8 p.m.
Many said they were compelled to enter the show as a way to give back to the community, while at the same time challenging the public perception that many lowrider owners are gang members and trouble makers.
Juan Resendiz, 37, belongs to a car club called Swift, which encompasses more than 100 members in cities ranging from San Diego to Salinas. He said in addition to showcasing their cars in lowrider shows, members often participate in school fundraisers, charity events and blood drives.
The Mercado family of Santa Ana decided to participate to show off the fruits of their labor and to illustrate that sprucing up bikes can be a good way to keep kids from getting swept up in gang and street life.
They belong to a lowrider bike club called Sick Side that’s based in Santa Ana. Along with other club members, the Mercados often fix up salvaged bicycles and enter them in lowrider bike shows. Ten club members are children, who are required to keep their grades up in order to participate.
“It shows the kids to respect the value of a dollar in that they find ways to earn money to buy parts for the bike,” said Cindy Mercado, 35.
“It also shows them that it’s easy to start and finish a project,” added her husband, Chris “Tiny” Mercado, 37.
Those who attended the show said they were there to support the school in this time of financial difficulty.
“Anywhere that we can support our kids, we’re there,” said Santa Ana Unified School District parent Vivian Martinez.
Thanks for the heads up, Anonplus. I didn’t see that important story, even though I have google alerts set for the school district. Per your link:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/santa-teachers-employees-2375552-unified-benefits
Contract cuts back younger teacher retirement benefits
Educators with less than 10 years with Santa Ana Unified will lose five years of health benefits.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Contract cuts back younger teacher retirement benefits
Educators with less than 10 years with Santa Ana Unified will lose five years of health benefits.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register
Comments 3| Recommend 2
SANTA ANA – Younger teachers are always hit hard when public schools cut their budgets – they’re the first to get pink-slipped and the last to be rehired under seniority-based layoff systems.
In the Santa Ana Unified School District, where nearly 500 teachers face layoffs in June, those fortunate enough to keep their jobs this year will still face some setbacks.
The school district’s 2,700-member teachers union ratified a contract today that strips five years’ worth of retirement health insurance coverage from teachers with less than 10 years of Santa Ana Unified employment. It is expected to be approved Tuesday by the school board.
The new contract will end retirees’ full medical, dental and vision coverage at age 65; that coverage currently runs to age 70. An estimated 800 to 850 employees – all those hired after May 12, 1999 – will be affected, according to the teachers union.
“In this economic climate, it’s all about reducing our costs,” said Juan Lopez, Santa Ana Unified’s associate superintendent of human resources. “We have a very generous medical plan, and we needed to bring it back to something that’s reasonable.”
Affected employees won’t be left high and dry at age 65, however. The teachers, like all retirees nationwide, will qualify for federal Medicare insurance beginning at age 65. Santa Ana Unified expects to be able to offer them affordable supplemental insurance plans as well, Lopez said.
Union leaders said they agreed to the plan to ensure the district would be able to continue to provide some retirement benefits for all employees.
“The retiree plan is very expensive, and we need to have long-term stability with our benefits,” said Ron Shepherd, first vice president of the Santa Ana Educators Association union. “There’s no change to the benefits – the only difference is how long you get them until.”
Santa Ana Unified union leaders said they agreed to set the cut-off date at 10 years because that is when employees become “vested” in the district. Employees must work for Santa Ana Unified for 10 years before they can get full district benefits upon retirement.
“Bargaining teams often have to make tough choices,” said Frank Wells, spokesman for the California Teachers Association. “Some chapters agree to changes that affect one age group more than another because the impact might be much harder on someone who’s already been vested in the system for a long time and who may not be as mobile as a younger member.”
School districts run the gamut in terms of retirement benefits they’re able to offer employees, with the most generous plans offering lifetime coverage, he added.
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com