A Temporary Reprieve?

At last week's board meeting, the Board approved the year-end close financial documents for 2009-2010. Due to good fiscal management and savings in areas such as energy use and supplies, the district's ending balance was higher than originally projected, resulting in a higher beginning balance for the next two years.

In August, the state legislature allocated the federal EdJobs Funding money. It turns out that the Berryessa Union School District will receive over $1.3 million from that allocation.

At the time this year's district budget was adopted in June, it looked like the district's deficit at the end of the 2011-2012 school year would be about $3 million. The higher ending balance and the addition of the EdJobs money (assuming the district doesn't spend any of it) brings down the deficit projection to $400,000.

You can view the presentation on the budget that was presented by Assistant Superintendent Pam Becker to the Board here.

However, there are 4 major considerations that will result in an increase in the deficit.

1. It is September 23 and there is still no state budget for this year. Therefore, we don't really know how much money the district will receive from the state. The conference committee budget provides $3 billion more in education funding than the May revise did. That is the good news. On the other hand, the latest word this week is that legislative leaders are close to a budget, and are about $2 billion short. Rumor is that in order to close that $2 billion, all of it will come through additional cuts to education, which may bring us back to the May level used in our adopted budget.


2. The Federal Ed Jobs bill requires that the money be used to pay for education jobs by June of 2012. One approach could be that the district uses the funds only for existing employee expenses. However, our district would benefit from spending some of that money now to enhance educational opportunities for our students. Therefore, some increase in spending is likely to result.


3. Last week, I posted a discussion of the unrealistic requirements of the Elemenatry and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind) that have resulted in schools in our district (and our district as a whole) being labeled "Program Improvement." Because of this categorization, there are some additional requirements that will cost the district money. The district will hold a special Board Meeting on October 5 to discuss PI and what it means for us.


4. The district continues to operate under deficit spending. Our ending balance is dropping every year because we are using up all of our reserves. The numbers are clear on slide 3 of the budget presentation. The expenses line for 2011-2012 is $4 million larger than the revenues line. This is largely due to the state of California underfunding education, but unless that problem is resolved, the district needs to eventually solve this structural deficit.

STAR Test Results - the Problem with NCLB

The Bush administration touted their educational legislation, called "No Child Left Behind." The plan had a laudable goal of ensuring that 100% of students will be proficient by 2014. This means that every student in every school, even those that are still learning English, such as new immigrants, or those who have special needs, must be proficient or a school is deemed failing.

In order to get there, California's standards for Adequate Yearly Progress require double digit gains every year. Today, Santa Clara County released county-wide STAR test results, showing continued growth by county students. Even during this trend, more schools are failing the federal Adequate Yearly Progress standard. The County Office of Education, in their press release, explained how unrealistic the goals are.

"Because the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 requires that 100 percent of students become proficient or better in math and English by the year 2014, schools now are expected to meet unprecedented double-digit improvement standards each year. A rapidly increasing number of schools and districts are unable to meet these growth marks, and therefore are placed in the Program Improvement category."

Charles Weis, the Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools explained that "the increase in the number of schools not making Adequate Yearly Progress this year might be misinterpreted as indicating that schools are performing worse. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, student scores are better than ever. However, we're at the stage now where unrealistic expectations for growth are outpacing our rate of improvement. Here's how unrealistic the national growth expectations are: There has never been an educational program that has resulted in double-digit growth each and every year. Not in this state, not in this country, not anywhere in the world."

More from SCCOE: "Weis cautioned that there could be unforeseen pitfalls to unrealistically high growth standards. "We don't want to misidentify schools as 'failing' when they have been improving," he said. "This might cause them to abandon successful methods, just because they haven't met unrealistic goals. Having high expectations is important. Having unrealistic expectations can be self-defeating." In the mass of detail that inevitably surrounds the release of the APR, Weis said it is important to remember some consistent trends: County students are doing better every year; all subgroups of students are improving, and the achievement gap is narrowing."

In Berryessa, overall district growth in the API this year was 6 points. 11 of 13 schools showed growth, 7 showed double digit growth, and 11 of 13 schools are above the state standard for exemplary. Of the remaining two, one is only 5 points shy and the other is 29 points short of exemplary status. Overall, what is even more impressive is that the district has shown this type of growth or more in each of the last six years!

Let's celebrate the achievements of Berryessa and all county schools over the past decade to make significant progress in student achievement. We will continue to focus on areas where we are still falling short. But let's not punish schools that are failing to meet unrealistic federal expectations.

Say Goodbye to Paper Packets

Today, the agenda for the September 14 board meeting was published, and a printed packet is being delivered to the house of each of the five board members. At the meeting next Tuesday, copies of the complete packet will be available for members of the public to pick up in order to follow along with the meeting business. All of this paper is both wasteful and expensive. The district spends over $300 per month copying board agendas.

Beginning in October, the Berryessa Union School district will go to an online agenda system, which will eliminate the need for all the copies. The complete agenda and all of the supporting documentation will be available online, where all members of the public will be able to review everything before the board meeting begins. The meeting agenda will be displayed on a big screen in the board room so everyone can follow along.

A more powerful feature is that all meeting agendas and minutes are fully searchable and are stored for 10 years on the server. It will be easy for members of the public to read about past discussions and find when certain actions were taken. Meeting meetings can be generated easily in the system, allowing them to be posted in a more timely manner after the meeting is done.

The Latest News from Sacramento

There was a lot going on during the summer that will affect the coming school year. While there has been no progress toward a state budget resolution, there have been other legislative actions of note. Most importantly, Congress stepped up and passed a new Jobs Act, which allocated billions of dollars to save education jobs. California will receive about $1.2 billion as a result of that action. It is unclear yet how much money the Berryessa School District will receive. Estimates range from $100,000 to nearly $1 million. Regardless of the amount, the extra revenue is welcome. Yesterday, California's legislature passed a bill to release the money quickly and allocate almost all of it to local education agencies. So we will find out soon how much it means for us. It is important to remember that once again, this federal money is one-time money that that can help us balance our budget this year and have a more positive beginning balance next year.

Another bill that passed the legislature yesterday is one that will gradually change the qualifying age for kindergarten. By the year 2015, children would have to turn 5 before September 1 to be eligible to start elementary school. A new Transitional Kindergarten would be established for children who miss the new cutoff, funded by the money that would have been spent on regular kindergarten. These changes would ensure that students are ready to succeed when they enter kindergarten.

When I last wrote about the district's budget, it looked like we had a deficit of nearly $3 million. As a result of the district's great work controlling expenses, when the books closed on 2009-2010, the deficit had dropped to $1.8 million. Once the Federal jobs money is received, that number will be even lower. All of the district's employees should be thanked for being fiscally responsible and keeping us in a position to retain as many services for our students as possible.

Of course, until California has a state budget, it is unclear exactly what our district's budget will look like. So we will continue to monitor the discussions going on in Sacramento and continue to be fiscally prudent while providing Berryessa's children with a quality education.