School Climate and Expulsions

A very important role of school districts is to make sure that schools maintain a safe environment for students. A couple years ago, the Board asked that all schools include programs promoting school climate in their Site Plans. All schools now have concrete goals around creating positive learning environments.

One of the most unpleasant duties of the Board of Trustees is to make decisions about students who are caught committing expellable offenses. These include the possession or consumption of alcohol or drugs on campus, the possession of a weapon, such as a knife or gun, gang activity, or getting into fights.

The Board discusses these cases in closed session and usually must decide whether to expel the student from the district or suspend the expulsion so that the student has the chance to remain in one of our schools. In either case, the Board attaches a rehabilitation plan that the student must follow in order to remove the expulsion from their record or be readmitted to the district. When an expulsion is suspended, the student is usually moved to another school in the district and any further discipline referral can result in complete expulsion without further review.

Expelled students are referred to Santa Clara County's alternative school, which for middle school students on the East Side of the County is Stonegate School. Today, I visited Stonegate and got a tour of their program. Stonegate is a small facility with 3 classrooms, a "multi-purpose" room, and an office, located on the edge of the Stonegate Elementary School campus. The school has 3 teachers, an aide, a resource specialist, and a part-time principal and secretary. In addition, there is always a San Jose Police Officer on site as well as a counselor from California Youth Outreach.

In addition to teaching material from California's standards, Stonegate helps students focus on making positive choices with the ultimate goal of reintegrating students back into their home school districts. The school does a good job for its students considering its low budget.

I have always felt that our role as a school district is to do all we can to keep students in our schools and find ways to help them be successful. That is why support services such as counselors, school psychologists, and social workers are an important part of the school community. If we intervene with children who have issues outside of school or are acting out on campus, we can help them make better choices and avoid having to deal with expellable behavior. Not only is it better for the students to remain in their local school, but it is financially better for the district. When a student is referred to Stonegate School, we must pay the County for their education out of our general fund.

The Board must strike a delicate balance between serving all our students and ensuring campus safety. I will continue to support services that address behavioral issues and find ways to minimize the number of students in our district that must be expelled.

How Bad Will It Get?

As we head into May, there are still many questions to be answered for the 2011-2012 budget. And we have the crazy possibility that schools will be closed at this time next year.

Currently, we are building our budget around funding cuts of $350/student. However, if the all-cuts budget is adopted in Sacramento, with no new revenues, schools may be facing cuts of $5 billion, which would translate to over $800 per student. It is hard to even figure out how districts like ours would survive with such a steep drop in revenue.

As it is, the lower level of cuts would require increasing class size, shortening the school year by a few more days, and cutting some other district programs. If the higher level of cuts is implemented, more drastic approaches will have to occur.

State Senator Joe Simitian, an expert on education issues said, "Just take a minute to revisit this question: What does that mean for your district? I understand you think it is beyond comprehension. It cannot be beyond comprehension." Despite that admonition, I am not able to comprehend what we would have to do to balance our budget under that scenario.

The Superintendent of Fresno Unified School District, Mike Hanson, put it best, by saying that he has pulled rabbits out of hats before, investing in supplies, libraries and summer school programs by cutting elsewhere. However, he "can't find the hat now. There's no more rabbit. Let alone the hat."

State Superintendent Tom Torlakson says that would bankrupt more than 100 school districts and called it "almost unfathomable. It would be chaotic. It would be very costly."

Several programs would probably be eliminated by the state legislature in that event. Most relevant to us is the K-3 class size reduction program. It would mean that 30 students per class would once again become the norm. It is also possible that the state would speed up the 3-year phase-in of the law that moves the date for kindergarten eligibility from December to September.

Back to the length of the school year, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer last month suggested the school year might have to be cut by two months to achieve all the anticipated savings should Gov. Brown's tax extension fail. Although nobody has formally proposed such a drastic change, nobody can figure out what programs are left to cut that would realize the required savings.

Superintendent Search Underway

The Berryessa School Board approved the timeline for our superintendent search last night and we plan on interviewing finalists in early June. The official job announcement will be hitting trade publications starting the week of April 18.

Next week, the district, with the help of search consultant ELS, will be developing our district's leadership profile, which describes the leadership qualities we will be looking for in our superintendent. Wendell Chun from ELS will be in the district next week to interview stakeholders, which includes parents, teachers, classified employees, students, and other community members. It is important to have a broad cross section of the community involved in order to get a good feel for the culture of the community and our schools.

Your participation in this process will help to ensure that our district finds the right superintendent. Each stakeholder will be offered a 15 minute interview time on Monday until 8 pm or Tuesday 9-5. If you are interested in participating in the process, please contact me. Or you can contact Michele Holscher at the district office directly. She will be organizing Dr. Chun's schedule for the two days.

Another way to provide input is to fill out a survey that asks questions about what characteristics and qualifications you want in a board member and your thoughts on the state of the district. The survey is available on the district website to print, complete, and send by mail.

Preparing for Significant Budget Cuts

It is looking less likely that Governor Brown will be able to get the tax extension measure on the ballot in June. Unfortunately for California schools, that means we will be forced to implement an all-cuts budget for 2011-2012. Projections are that we will have our state funding reduced by $349 per student. For Berryessa, that is about $2.8 million out of a budget that was already deficit spending by over $2 million.

Next Monday, March 28, the Board will be holding a workshop on the budget to discuss the cost-cutting options available to us. We encourage the public to provide input on the programs that are important to you or suggest ideas on how we can make these significant cuts. Please join us and speak up during the public comment portion of the meeting.

I have been proud of the fact that Berryessa has been able to keep K-3 classes at 24 students. Many districts have already increased classes to 30. For next year, we will need to find ways to reduce our budget. Further increases in class size, which result in greater burdens for our teachers and less personal attention for our students, provides the biggest dollar savings. If we were to go to 30:1 at the primary grades, that would save $1 million.

Other equally undesirable cuts include eliminating elementary school music, which would save about $300,000. Eliminating middle school counselors would save $400,000. Shortening the school year by furloughing employees would save $165,000 for each day. Other cuts on the table include eliminating the only district librarian, the only district nurse, and cutting middle school assistant principals.

To put things in perspective, each percentage cut in pay for all district employees would save $375,000. The entire $2.8 million reduction in state funding could be bridged through across the board salary reductions of 7.5%. While this would allow us to preserve all the programs we currently offer, this puts the entire burden of the state's economy on our district's hard-working employees, which is not fair to the people who work so hard to educate our children.

Note that many of the proposed cuts being discussed require negotiated settlements with our teachers' union. So besides discusions at board meetings, solutions will be derived from ongoing conversations with CTAB, as well as our two classified unions, CSEA and Teamsters.

As always, I will continue to keep you informed of these hard choices facing our district. Again, please consider attending our board meeting on Monday, March 28th to let your voice be heard on where our district should consider budget cuts. Know how much I appreciate your feedback; by email, through this blog, and by attending board meetings.

While none of the discussed budget choices are welcomed, I firmly believe that if we work together our children will benefit with a quality education.

Pink Tuesday

One of the most difficult votes I take as a boardmember is to cut services and issue layoff notices to the great teachers in our district. Just over a week ago, our Board had to face such a decision. Today is the statutory deadline to give out so-called "pink slips" informing teachers that they may not have a job next year. This year, to my dismay, is one of the worst our district has faced in terms of uncertainty and number of employees affected.

The Mercury News reported this morning that nearly every school district in our county, regardless of demographics or wealth, is affected by the state's poor fiscal situation and this year's high degree of uncertainty.

In Berryessa, 99 teachers, administrators, and other certificated employees received notices that they may not have a job next year or may have to change jobs. As I visit schools and talk with young teachers who may not be with us next year, it breaks my heart, both for their careers and for our children, who may not have the benefit of their skills when they return to school in August.

Because we have no idea if the state will eventually adopt Gov. Brown's budget proposal, which includes revenue solutions, school districts must be prepared to make drastic cuts. In order to maintain flexibility, many different services are on the current list. Possible cuts include our district nurse, our district librarian, elementary music teachers, middle school assistant principals, counselors, school psychologists, and classroom teachers.

As we move into April and May, the district will once again try to rescind pink slips as we know more about next year. As some of our senior teachers announce their retirements, openings will be created. In the meantime, some cost savings will be negotiated with our teachers' union (CTAB). Also, the board will begin to prioritize the cuts so that the district will have a better feel for the eventual choices we will make.

However, until the voters have spoken in June (assuming a tax measure get placed on the ballot by the legislature), the district will very likely have to keep many dedicated employees on the layoff list. That will make it a long spring for many of our teachers, administrators, and families.

Addressing Program Improvement Status

As a result of national Adequate Yearly Progress measures, 4 of our schools and our district as a whole have been placed in "Program Improvement" status. To be labeled a PI school, a school may miss just one of 46 possible measures. Learning where our schools are falling short is a key way to focus on improving achievement. That's the good news. As a result of work that has been done by our Education Services Department, corrective actions are being developed. Tonight at our Board meeting, we are being asked to approve a Language Arts Intervention program, which will be implemented for 4th and 5th grades at our 2 PI elementary schools (Summerdale, Vinci Park) and for 6-8 grades at all three middle schools.

To put the Program Improvement designation into perspective, I want to repost what I wrote last September. It is important to keep in mind that our district has been making significant gains in achievement over the past six years. Our reaction to PI will allow us to make even greater strides in the years ahead. Here is my previous explanation of PI:

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. In September, 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 last 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 also celebrate the achievements of our teachers, staff, and students in achieving tremendous growth during the past 6 years.

Searching for a New Superintendent

Last month, Dr. Marc Liebman announced his retirement as Superintendent of the Berryessa Union School District, after 6 years with the district. His retirement will be effective at the end of July.

The Board will be searching for a replacement Superintendent this spring and will be competing against several other local districts who have vacancies, including our neighbors in the Milpitas Unified School District.

In order to facilitate our search, the Board will contract with a search firm. The firm provides a whole host of services that districts need in order to conduct a state-wide search. First, the search firm meets with stakeholders in the community (parents, teachers, board members, etc) to craft a description of what qualifications are expected from applicants. The firm will then post the position and use their networks to find candidates locally, statewide, and nationally.

The search firm conducts all background and reference checks and makes sure the board follows appropriate interview procedures and assure confidentiality of the candidates that apply. Once the Board settles on a candidate, the firm will help negotiate the final contract. Some firms even follow up by facilitating a team-building session between the Board and new Superintendent.

For these services, the district will pay about $20,000. While we would prefer not to incur these costs during such tough budgetary times, hiring a Superintendent to run our $55 million organization at a cost of about $1 million over 5 years requires a thorough process.

A search firm guarantees that all viewpoints are incorporated into the process, enables casting as wide a search as possible, and makes sure that candidates are well vetted before they are hired. Making a bad hire would cost the district far more than the cost of the search firm.

Four search firms submitted proposals to the Board. We will be interviewing those firms on Sunday, March 13, in an open session.

Our district needs to hire an excellent Superintendent to keep us focused on academic achievement and moving in the right direction. We are committed to a thorough process to find the cream of the crop. Our students deserve no less.