In last week’s board meeting, Mr. Sanchez asked for more dialogue from third grade teachers regarding this year’s increase in class size. He doesn’t seem to understand why the board is only hearing from kindergarten teachers even though both grade levels had class size averages increased from 21 to 33 students. When the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction, Maureen Latham, asked for direction from Mr. Sanchez about what kind of a forum he’d like her to put together to get him feedback, he was unable to provide direction. He said that his number was available and he would be happy to take calls. He again reminded us that kindergarten is not required and could be eliminated in the future.

Mr. Sanchez told us earlier this year he doesn’t have a child in kindergarten, and if he did he could see why some parents are concerned about kindergarten. I have a 2nd grader and a four year old; I think with some help from other parents and teachers, we can help Mr. Sanchez remember some of the differences between kindergartners and third graders. Here is a quick list I’ve put together:

• 3rd graders usually don’t need to be reminded to go to the bathroom
• 3rd graders have had three years of classroom experience and are not away from home for the first time
• 3rd graders are able to read to themselves when their work is done
• 3rd graders have a longer attention span
• 3rd graders are not as self centered as kindergartners
• 3rd graders have already learned how to be part of a group

I’d like to hear from any of you who’d like to add to this list. You can post a comment or email me your list to lwhite@ourfocusourkids.com and I will add your items to the above list .

Some kindergarten teachers from Tournament Hills Elementary told the board Tuesday night that the current situation isn’t working. They came to the meeting with a proposal for a solution that would work for them at Tournament Hills Elementary. Their solution was very similar to an option the board considered in May. The “Early Bird Late Bird” plan was first discussed at the May 26th meeting. The  plan came up for discussion when the administration was asking the board to approve the new start times for the 09-10 school year.

Several board members informed the audience Tuesday night that they had been in favor of the EBLB plan until they gave into the wishes of the kindergartner teachers. This wasn’t exactly how I remembered it so I went and reviewed my summaries for the May 26th and the June 9th meetings. I am embarrassed to say after reading my two summaries, I was completely confused. So I went to review the district’s official minutes for those two meetings and I no longer felt so embarrassed.

The minutes reminded me that this was the most confused and misunderstood issue discussed in  BUSD board meetings over the last two years. Here are the links to the minutes and the pages covering this issue:

May 26, 2009 Minutes  Item 13.1 pages 22 – 33

June 9th, 2009 Minutes  Item 13.1 pages 17 – 30

I think you will find, as I did, that the board members were as confused as I was. The only people who seemed to think they understood all the details was the administration. It was clear there had been no preliminary discussions involving teachers, parents, or even board members. With an issue as important as this, why would the trustees allow the cabinet to introduce these plans in board meetings weeks before they had to make a decision? This should have been unacceptable to the board.

Board president, Mrs. Lara, summarized the board’s position at the end of the discussion when she said, “I would prefer that the principals and the teachers made the decision on how they wanted to handle kindergarten… I mean to work with Instructional Support Services instead of having us 5 decide.” Mrs. Lara’s suggestion this week was, ”How about asking the parents to help?” I am all in favor of having the teachers, principals, and parents making the decisions and providing the solutions. So, why do we elect a board of trustees?

Before I am accused of being part of the problem and not wanting to be part of the solution, I have a suggestion. It’s not too late to bring parents, teachers and principals together to work with the administration to devise a strategy and a plan to do what’s right for our kindergartners. The school site councils are made up principals and elected representatives of the parents and teachers. How about bringing all the site councils together to provide the board some direction?

The Brookside PTA is sponsoring a Charity Golf Tournament to benefit all the PTAs and Booster organizations in Beaumont. The tournament will be held at East Valley Golf Course (formerly known as The SCGA of Beaumont) on Saturday, October 24th.The entry fee is $75. Each golfer will be asked to indicate which school’s organization will benefit from their contribution, about $25 per golfer. The entry deadline is October 16th. Brookside’s PTA will be completely responsible for the operation of the event and we are providing fliers and entry forms for anyone who requests them. I have received approval from the district for the distribution of the fliers at each school site.

This is a good opportunity for parent organizations to complement their fund raising efforts without having to do much work. A little promotion could result in huge benefits. I have tried to reach the district’s parent organizations by leaving messages at each school and asking principals to have their PTA board members contact me. So far, I have only heard from a couple schools. If you would like to help support this district wide fundraiser, please contact your PTA or Booster Club and ask them to contact me for more details. I would be happy to meet with your PTA board to address any concerns and provide more information. My email address is lwhite@ourfocusourkids.com and my cell phone number is 909-499-0489.

Tonight’s board meeting confirmed my belief that the parents in this district do care and are willing to make the effort to let our board know what direction they want them to lead the administration. It also confirmed my belief that the board, as a whole, is unable to provide the leadership our schools and students need.

Beaumont Unified School District Board President, Mrs. Lara, told us when she visited kindergarten classes she always saw two adults in every class. She asked, “How about asking parents to help?” Then she added, “It’s more about attitude than ability.” I can’t agree with her more which is why I ask, “How come the district won’t work with parents to develop a written parent involvement plan?” I have more details regarding the legally required parent involvement plan on ourfocusourkids.com website. Now she wants parents to help but all year I have been asking the board to develop a plan to increase parent involvement and my requests have fallen on deaf ears.

There were so many interesting comments from the board and the superintendent tonight that I am unable to address them all adequately in one post. Tonight I will address the sports complex, administrative offices and the flexibility of the surplus property proceeds from the sale of district property. I plan to take the next week to give you my thoughts regarding the other interesting moments.

More than 20 parents and teachers came tonight to show the board they want something done about the large kindergarten classes. Some came begging the board to make changes others came with suggestions and alternatives and a few came with demands. There were also four community members who came to show support for the new sports complex at the high school and encouraged the board to “stay the course”.

The sport complex and the administration offices can, and should be, financed by Measure Z money or other funds that are restricted to facilities projects. I understand the importance of each project and I think both are necessary. When I asked last week, “Do we really need a sports complex now?” I was objecting to using funds that could be used for additional teachers and transportation (non-Measure Z funds) on projects that were advertised as Measure Z projects; I wasn’t objecting to the projects.

I agree we need these projects but I want to caution the community members supporting the sports complex. Before I moved to Beaumont, I read all about the state of the art aquatic center being built at the high school and how it was going to be a benefit to the community. I heard about how it would be available for the community as well as the students. As far as I know, there has been no public swim sessions and the community groups who do use the pool are treated as second class citizens. The comments I heard last night about the “Community” sports complex sounded all too familiar.

If there are funds that the state has authorized small districts some flexibility in how they are spent and these funds can be used to reduce class sizes and provide transportation for all our students, why should they be used for facility construction? The voters already authorized $125,000,000 in new property taxes for facility construction. Not a single board member even suggested the administration should look into the flexibility of these surplus property funds. One speaker suggested the use of the old Chavez school site to temporarily house the administrative offices and not one board member had any comment to what appears to be a sound “out of the box” idea.
 

Topics to be covered in coming days:

• Teachers from Tournament Hills Elementary want to employ the early bird late bird plan the board originally supported last year until some kindergarten teachers spoke out against it and the board decided to follow the teachers’ suggestions. The board’s response was to remind us they thought the early bird late bird plan was a good idea but they decided against their own judgment and gave in to the wishes of some kindergarten teachers who had voiced their objections.
• Mr. Sanchez wants more dialogue from third grade teachers. He doesn’t seem to understand why they are only hearing from teachers and parents of kindergartners even though third grade class sizes also went from 21 to 33 students. He reminded us they had to make difficult decisions and there are more to come. He also reminded us there was a Budget Review Committee that addressed these difficult decisions. I was a member of this committee and I have some interesting observations to share.
• The superintendent and board were criticized tonight for renewing the $12,000 contract for the district’s press relations coordinator. The response we heard was that if good press could help bring a few additional students to our district or keep some others from leaving than it would pay for itself. I agree with the superintendent and I have some ideas about where else this logic could apply.
• Mrs. Lara said “We can’t only concentrate on the here and now, we have to look out for the future.” Tonight, we were presented a very positive report summarizing the district’s latest test scores. I found it interesting that the results seem to have a direct correlation to class sizes. Every chart seemed to peak at the fourth grade level. Until this year, grades K-3 had smaller class sizes. If we don’t concentrate on the “here and now”, what is going to happen to the future of our kids when they don’t have as strong a foundation as their older brothers and sisters had?

I received my agenda for next week’s board meeting (September 22, 2009). I noticed that on the only agenda item concerning the new Administrative Office Building there was no mention of the new sports complex. I also noticed the district is now indicating the office building is “funded partially by the sale proceeds of the Summit and current District Office properties.” There is no indication of where the remaining funds will be coming from; I don’t believe they still plan to use Measure Z bond proceeds. It has been brought to my attention that they may not be able to use the bond money for the administration offices. They may have just realized this and it might be why it has disappeared from their documentation. I know the district has other funds earmarked for facilities construction.

I found that what they used to refer to their funding source as “surplus property sale proceeds” they are now calling ”sale proceeds”. It appears the district got part of the message. I fear they may still be missing the bigger picture, the “surplus property sale proceeds” should be used to reduce class sizes and provide secondary school transportation.

Renaming the “surplus property sale proceeds” to “sale proceeds” doesn’t change the fact that the board and  administration are still putting their Administrative Office Building ahead of our kids. None of the money that the state legislature is authorizing for one time emergency general fund use should be used for construction of any facilities.  The voters have agreed to an increase in property taxes to finance $125,000,000  for facilities construction.

Many parents asked the district back in February to re-design Measure Z to include emergency funds for teachers and transportation. The district’s legal council indicated this was not possible. Now the state has made another solution possible but it requires some trustees and administrators to begin “thinking outside the box” in order to do what is right for our kids and to build their administrative offices.

It’s not too late to let your wishes be known. Tell the board that our kids should come before any new facilities and if funds can be used for smaller classes and transportation, they shouldn’t be used for projects that are eligible for other facilities funds.

If you haven’t already, here’s what you need to do

1. Open a new email message.
2. Put “Do we really need a new sports complex…now?” in the subject field. They will know what this is about.
3. Copy and paste the following into the “To” field: slara@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us, dsanchez@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us, bgreenwood@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us, lvaccarello@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us, morozco@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us
4. Add any additional comments you want to include and send it.
5. Forward these steps to as many parents and teachers you know.

Thank you.

My last post regarding the surplus property proceeds has generated a lot of discussion. There is a lot of hope that the $4.1 million dollars could provide a one time solution to our crowded kindergarten classes and transportation for the secondary students. It would seem there is enough money to provide the extra teachers and bus drivers to help our district through the next two years. Hopefully, by then the economy will have turned around and the administration will have found a way to operate within their means.

I’ve been asked how we can get the administration do the right thing for our kids and postpone the sports complex and new administrative offices until the Measure Z funds are available to finance these projects.  We could collect signatures on a petition or get a lot parents and teachers to attend the next board meeting. However, I believe this administration is going to ignore any number of signatures or parents and teachers attending a board meeting because they feel they know what is right.

I think our only hope is to see some leadership from the school board. One of the trustees needs to begin thinking outside the box (a term I’ve heard from this board many times over the last 2 years). It is time to take this directly to the board and demand they lead the administration in to the direction that is best for our kids.

I will be emailing my earlier post directly to each board member. If every concerned parent or teacher sends an email to each member and let them know how you feel, we may see some action.

Here’s what you need to do:
1. Put “Do we really need a new sports complex…now?” in the subject field. They will know what this is about since they would have received my email already.
2. Copy and paste the following into the “To” field: slara@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us, dsanchez@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us, bgreenwood@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us, lvaccarello@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us, morozco@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us
3. Add any additional comments you want to include and send it.
4. Forward these four steps to as many parents and teachers you know.

Here are the trustees’ individual email addresses:

Susie Lara

slara@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us

David Sanchez

dsanchez@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us

Bill Greenwood

bgreenwood@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us

Dr. Lin Vaccarello

lvaccarello@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us

Mark Orozco

morozco@beaumontusd.k12.ca.us

Please pass this along to anyone else who might be interested.

At last night’s board meeting, Beaumont Teacher’s Association President, Trina Brown, raised the issue of treating the proceeds from the recent sale of the district office to the city as surplus property. There was an item on the agenda addressing the new district office building and a new sports complex. The agenda item indicated the funds for the new projects would be a combination of Measure Z bonds proceeds and proceeds from the sale of the district’s property to the City of Beaumont. I went online this morning and searched for more information regarding surplus properties and school districts. I found the following article New Law Allows School Districts Increased Flexibility in Use of Surplus Property Proceeds.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Under existing law (Cal. Educ. Code §17462), school districts are limited in using funds from the sale of surplus property for capital outlay or costs of maintenance of school district property that the governing board determines will not recur within five years. Section 17462 does not allow school districts to deposit surplus property sale proceeds into their general funds unless they demonstrate to the State Allocation Board (SAB) that they have no anticipated need for the money over the next ten years.

Under the newly added section 17463.7, school districts may sell surplus property and use the proceeds for any one-time general fund purposes. Section 17463.7 applies to proceeds from property purchased with local funds, general obligation bond funds or income from developer fees.

The district should be very familiar with section 17463.7 of the Education Code; it was submitted as an ammendment by our assembly member, Mr Bogh, to the State Education Code in 2005. It was specifically requested by the Beaumont Unified School District. The above article refers to this section as a “newly added section”. I don’t know if the “Beaumont Bill” was approved in 2005 and the above article may be incorrect, but check out this link to the 2005 submitted version.

And for some more interesting reading see this article, click here.

If the property qualifies, the State of California has authorized school districts to use this money “for any one-time general fund purposes”. The district must demonstrate “that they have no anticipated need for the money over the next ten years”. When the assistant superintendent of business services, Mays Kakish, was asked about this she, acknowledge the recent change to the special BUSD law, but went on to explain they have to wait for escrow to close before they can do anything.

Before any of these funds are used for a new sports complex, or new district offices, parents should demand this board instructs the administration to use these funds to reduce the class sizes to at least the numbers the board authorized last year (21-1 for 1st-2nd grades and 33-1 for all other grades) and bring back some transportation for our kids who are miles away from the schools.

Last year the board discussed closing a school to cut the budget. If the Measure Z funds can’t completely finance the district’s new offices, they can share a school site until our budget is back in order. If this board won’t lead the administration to do what is best for our kids, each trustee must answer to parents and tell us why they are putting new offices and a new sports complex ahead of our children.

Thank you Dr. Kayrell!

This morning I went to the district’s site to see if the agenda for the next board meeting (Tuesday, September 8th), was posted, I was happy to see it was. Then I checked to see if the minutes had been brought current, they have been. To my pleasant surprise I found the minutes for the August 11th meeting were also available in the MP3 audio format. Click here to access the audio files. This is a huge step and I applaud Dr. Kayrell and his administration for making this move.

I tried to download the MP3 file and found it would take an hour to download it but I found if I opened the file directly from the website using QuickTime, I was able to start playing the file immediately without downloading it. Unfortunately, you are unable to fast forward until you’ve listened to or downloaded the file. The next step for the district would be to improve the district’s site’s download speed but making the minutes available in an audio format is a big improvement over having to go to the district’s office to listen to them. Thank you.

Hi,

Thank you for taking time to write to me with your thoughts about the district and what I am trying to do. I am sure there are many parents with similar concerns. I will take this opportunity to address some of the issues you and others may have regarding my methods and motives. I hope you don’t mind if I post this on my blog, I think it is important to encourage discussion.

It is important to me that you understand I have the highest respect for the teachers, classified employees and the principals in BUSD and I don’t question the character and efforts of the employees at the district office. If you review all my comments on my website and my blog, I don’t believe you will find anywhere that I have criticized or complained about anything other than the lack of leadership and direction provided by our board of trustees and the superintendent’s administration.

I don’t believe the people in the district don’t care or that they are incompetent and I know that parents are proud of our schools and everyone wants to support our kids. I also know not everyone has the time to volunteer during school hours because of work responsibilities and family realities but, as you have indicated, there are many ways to volunteer and show support for our district outside of the schools and outside of the regular school hours. I don’t think many parents are aware of all the ways they can volunteer. I have never said any parent “doesn’t care” because they “can’t attend School Site Council meetings”.

Federal law requires the district to develop written parent involvement plans for the district and each school site. The law requires parent involvement with developing, annually reviewing and updating these plans. The plan the district has posted on their website is a boiler plate template provided by the California School Boards Association and was last approved by the board in 2006. It is word for word what the CSBA recommends as a template. It hasn’t been customized for Beaumont and there is no evidence of parent input.

I agree with you that “No matter how pretty a policy is, it won’t make parents that don’t care [or just have life realities that keep them disconnected] get involved. “

I’ve heard the board of trustees and the superintendent express the importance of involving more parents but their actions don’t back up their words. The fact that they don’t have organized written plans about how they are going to work to increase parent involvement indicates to me that they don’t really believe how much parents can help. It is because of these difficult times that it is so important the district makes an effort to earn the support and work with parents to develop a plan together.

Not working with parents to develop a plan; not using the tools they have to communicate effectively about what is happening in the board meetings; and leaving it up to parents not attending board meetings to find out on their own about transportation cuts and increased class sizes, are all missed opportunities to involve parents. In my opinion these are examples of poor leadership and a lack of direction.

I agree with you that Beaumont Schools are doing a great job for my children and I know they will be fine. I am concerned about the kids whose parents are not as involved in their children’s education.

I think we all saw the budget crisis developing a long time ago. I know from my experience as a member of the district’s budget review committee, that almost two years ago the administration knew they were going to cut spending. Despite knowing cuts were going to be needed, they continued to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on technology and training.  Other districts facing the same budget crisis were proactive two years ago and didn’t have to cut the number of services BUSD has.

I too would like to hear more positive comments about dealing with the budget cuts but I think it comes back to leadership. If the board of trustees would direct the administration to eliminate all non-critical spending (I think we could do without new technology hardware and take off a year of training) and instruct them to find a way to restore transportation and limited class sizes, parents and teachers would have a more positive outlook. But what I hear in board meetings is talk about cutting elementary transportation and how kindergarten isn’t a mandated service and one day they may need to eliminate it all together. I have a 4 year old son and it is difficult to be positive hearing these comments.

I am happy to hear you are regularly attending board meetings; I thought I was alone. Next time, please say “hi”, it will be nice to have some company. My goal is to educate parents about the importance of becoming involved in their kid’s education and how their involvement increases the educational opportunities for their kids. I believe that a good education leads to a better life.  I want to thank you as well, for taking the time to do so much to help our kids.

Thank you,

Lloyd White

In the board meeting on August 11th, a couple parents addressed the BUSD’s board of trustees regarding the elimination of busing for secondary students. Click here for my summary of the meeting on my website. As one parent put it, the fact that the district didn’t notify parents about the state of busing in the district is “appalling”. Many parents didn’t find out until they contacted the district to buy their bus passes for this year.

The district held two public forums back in February. Eliminating busing and increasing class sizes were discussed as some of the solutions to the district’s budget crisis. After those meetings the district decided to eliminate busing for the middle schools and high school and to increase class sizes for kindergarten and third grade. But they failed to tell the parents. These topics, as well as many other budget reducing ideas, have been discussed many times in board meetings since and a number of parents have gone before the board of trustees to express their disappointment.

The administration must have assumed that all parents were aware of what was happening in their meetings. The problem with this assumption is that it assumes parents attended the meetings or read the minutes when the district got around to posting them on the website. Side note, the last minutes posted on their site as of tonight, August 30th, are from June 9th – almost three months ago. It would seem issues as important as these two should have generated at least a district wide automated phone call from the superintendent.

I am sure as parents experience the heavy traffic around the middle schools and high schools and as parents realize the challenge facing our kindergarten and third grade teachers with class sizes approaching 40 students, that more parents will find time on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month to come to the board meetings to complain to the trustees and the administration. It’s too late for that. Parents will be told by the board and the administration that they had to make tough decisions and that the public was aware of these decisions. These parents will go home feeling they wasted their time and probably won’t make an effort to attend another board meeting.

If parents want to make a difference, they need to coordinate and organize to provide solutions and strategies for the board to follow. A group of parents presenting alternative ideas and suggestions leading the board of trustees to instruct the administration how to reinstate district wide busing and reduce class sizes is much harder to dismiss than a couple parents complaining to the board in five minute speeches every two weeks. I am willing to organize a group effort if anyone is interested in being organized. I’d like to hear from you.

It is time to stop complaining and step up and get involved.