May 5, 2005 School Board Meeting
First let me make it clear that good teachers who go the extra mile to educate their students are the most important asset to a school and is where most of the money needs to be spent.
But, union hacks that discourage these quality teachers and have a single minded interest in taking every dollar regardless of the damage to the education of their students are the biggest liability to a school. Diane Baker, who has headed the union for many years, opposed the widespread community opposition to closing our only distinguished school (the Acton School)
. She then lectured the school board in a twelve minute tirade that she was allowed, as union president, to demand that the board not listen to community members as the union knew how to run a school and the community did not.
The community members, of course, were restricted to only 3 minute comments and strongly disagreed with her.
The facts are as follows:
1. The school district is in a continuing downward death spiral.
2. Over 30% of the students, according to the US Census data, who seek quality education are enrolled outside of the district.
3. Three bond issues have been strongly defeated in the polls, indicating the community's lack of confidence in the school district.
4. All the developer fees, which should be reserved to build new facilities at Vasquez High School, are being squandered to play “Musical Modulars”, renting modulars at Vasquez High School where we gain zero equity and to pay back the Certificate of Participation (COP) bonds which the prior board and superintendent placed against the district's revenue without voter approval.
5. Then we have the matter of the $1.4 million gym that we still owe $400,000 on, that can't be used by the school. Even though the architects and engineers employed by the school district stated the gym was lawful, they seem to be excused from any liability for their actions, which information is being withheld from the community.
6. We have 2 schools, Vasquez High and Meadowlark Elementary, which were never approved by the CA Department of State Architecture (DSA) and the gym, for which approval was never applied for and is a presumed felony under the 1933 Field Act.
7. Let me also add that the quality of the kids in Acton and Agua Dulce are exceptional, along with the level of education and caring of the parents. But, the results of state testing insult those students and parents.
8. The claim that educational quality is wonderful under the guidance of Baker and her union results in Vasquez High being rated “1” relative to similar high schools throughout the state. The bad news is that this is “1” on a scale of “10”, ten being the best and “1” the worst.
9. There are equally dismal results showing nearly uniform failure in testing science and math.
10. Our kids are better than this and this is probably one of the reasons why so many parents pull their children out of the district.
11. Now the union is demanding that the Acton School be kept closed, CRS in the third grade and full time kindergarten be permanently discontinued, and other class sizes increased to 35 or more students. They demand the district spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (of developer fees) on Meadowlark and High Desert to eliminate the overcrowding caused directly by closing the Acton School.
12. Closing the Acton School saved some funds by eliminating the principal, instructional aides, and custodians and maintenance workers, approximately $175,000.00 per year. The fact that class sizes increased and the district will have to spend down its developer fee account means nothing to the union, as they convinced the superintendent to grant them their usual longevity and educational achievement raises (called step and column) which is vehemently denied by the union as being a raise, along with another 1% raise. Who wants to guess where the $175,000 in savings and more went?
13. By keeping the Acton School closed, the union wants to eliminate all CSR, lay off as many aides and custodians as they can and raise class sizes to ask for another step and column increase of 2.1% along with a 2% raise this year. Its simply a shell game using developer fees to move modulars to crowd as many kids in as possible into the other schools, to create larger class sizes. This produces more revenue per classroom, which is then freed up to spend on raises. The school skimps on maintenance, supplies, books, and the necessary tools the classroom teachers and students need. Declining enrollment has been the result of declining quality education in the district.
14. This financial mess has been created by the philosophy of rent forever rather than buy or construct buildings, failing to follow the law in getting structures approved by the state for use, alienating the community, both parents and non-parents, with their prior antics, and most of all, throwing away $1.4 million on an unusable gym. They also waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants that produce bad advise and inferior reports and studies. This is best summed up by the architect who designed the urban nightmare high school, a direct transplant from Palmdale, when asked by a community member why it didn't conform with the Acton Standards District, he stated “we don't have to conform with the Community Standards, we are the school district” and another community member responded “and we don't have to vote for your bonds either”.
But recently, there has been a glimmer of hope coming from the school board They have established 3 citizens advisory committees on facilities, finance and education to meet in public in the community and offer advise to the school board. The board has started to listen to the community and are ignoring the union leader's strident demands that they not listen to the community. But, the superintendent, in concert with the union, is still going forward with their strident demands to keep the Acton School closed and spend all the developer fees in “dancing modulars”, leaving not a cent to even start a permanent high school. The superintendent's numbers are both junk and misleading to sell her and the union's agenda. The best example being the $2.2 million error she made in savings to be generated in closing the Acton School, by double counting the non-existent rental income her consultants falsely claimed would be generated by renting the Acton School buildings.