Here we are already in March, marching toward the end of the 07-08 school year. The high schools are buzzing with Winter Formals. Academically our schools in Capo Unified are doing great: We have three more Distinguished Schools of California bringing the total number to 40 of our 56 schools. There we go teachers and students! Keep it up please.
But we have two major challenges: Financials, and Infrastructures.
After Prop 13, I was a Trustee of a tri-city unified School District in Los Angeles County. I came to office in the midst of a financial crisis.
My leadership as a member of that board and ability to bring the board majority together led that district back on course to financial solvency.
Today I find Capo, located in an affluent area of South Orange County with a growing population, is in an even more difficult environment.
Financials:
I attended the January 15, 2008, special Board meeting and Town Hall meeting on the Budget; it showed the following:
l The District has been deficit spending since 2001, except last year.
l The Budget reserve is about 2.06 percent of the district budget. (If it drops below 2 percent, the State will take over control.)
l The projected deficit for 2008-09, with the current state budget and the enrollment projections, will be about $28 million for an annual budget of about $400 million. This is a moving target!!!
Superintendent Carter said the cuts will be achieved as per Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB).
Savings are expected to be achieved by increasing class sizes all over the District (saving approximately $7 million), laying off classified employees, including about 70 bus drivers and transportation staff, and cutting the district-level management staff positions. On February 25, the Board will vote on a tentative budget (after this issue has gone to press).
Accommodations:
This is another messy situation created by the former trustees. There is lots of press on this issue, and I attended one meeting on school boundaries.
The Board had formed a parents’ group, which was far too large. In fact, about 40 percent of the selected parents left the group.
The original proposal had been to ask Talega students to travel three miles from their home to attend school, completely unacceptable!
The latest plan is to keep all Talega students at their neighborhood schools.
Similarly, a proposal to have Mission Viejo students at Newhart Middle School transfer to Ladera Ranch Middle School has been scrapped. The students at Newhart School in Mission Viejo will stay there and attrition will happen naturally, as it already is – making that school smaller.
If I was a Trustee at CUSD, I would like to see a path to smaller class size now as Newhart students are suffering for a long time.
Recall of Benecke and Draper:
The three newly-elected Trustees have asked for the resignation of Benecke and Draper. I can imagine being on a board with a regular three to four situation. Coming out in the press was good. If I were one of the three reformers, I would call for a censorship of Draper and Benecke and show the constituents the real face of the Board.
On January 29, the CUSD Recall Group submitted 66,088 recall signatures to recall Sheila Benecke and Marlene Draper.
The Registrar of Voters will certify the signatures by the end of February, and the recall election will be held by June of this year.
I commend the proponents for their selfless effort to see that Capo School District is up on its own pedestal of superiority. For further information on the recall, go to the website www.cusdrecall.com.