Font ResizePaul Tichinin, Superintendent of Schools for the Mendocino County Office of Education, was the showcase speaker for this meeting. He brought both a sobering picture of the future of education funding and a vision of hope through cooperation.
”There’s a financial tsunami coming at us from Sacramento,” Tichinin said, referring to Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposal for mid-year cuts to all levels of education. “The economic crisis is going to hit all of us at some point and we may be under federal sanctions.”
Tichinin’s remarks sparked a discussion of the lack of the governor’s and the legislators’ lack of awareness of the difficulty of mid-year cuts for school districts, something SHUSD Superintendent Clif Anderson credited to the lack of institutional memory brought on by term limits. No one now serving in the legislature, either as a representative or staff, remembers that the rules governing school funding originated in the legislature, so no one is aware that school districts throughout California have to build their budgets around the governor’s budget proposal. Changing that budget mid-stream is complicated by the fact that school district’s have contractual obligations to their teachers and classified staff.
”We’re very responsible when we adopt our budget,” Anderson said later in the discussion, “but our governor and legislature signed a budget they knew wouldn’t work. They’ve really let us down.”
In response to a question from Trustee Paulette Thiele as to what would happen if the district ignored the demand for further cuts and kept to the existing budget until they ran out of money, Tichinin said that, while it sounds like a good idea, it’s just not possible to say “no” to the state. The State apparatus comes down hard on districts that have tried that approach, he said.
The governor is proposing a sales tax, something Tichinin didn’t think would pass. Sales taxes are regressive and fall most heavily on lower income families. Reinstating taxes on the wealthy don’t seem to be part of the current discussion. Tichinin said that simply reinstating the vehicle license fee that the governor did away with when he first came into office would bring in about six billion dollars annually but he didn’t see much hope of that happening either. Cutting the vehicle license fee was part of the governor’s campaign platform.
Superintendent Anderson said that he considered the vehicle license fee a good idea and more fair than the other proposals.
Trustee Jim Baker said that he hoped the funding picture for education would improve with the new administration in Washington and that the No Child Left Behind legislation would be either done away with or fixed. However, Tichinin said that it would take two to three years to change that law.
”It’s like a battleship in the bay,” he said. “It will take a long time to turn it around.”
What Tichinin did propose was more sharing and cooperation among the school districts on the North Coast. Tichinin said that combined with the financial problem is a personnel problem, in that all across the many districts, employees with years of experience and knowledge are retiring and there will be no one to provide the necessary services. He proposed better workforce planning to deal with the looming shortage of qualified superintendents, principals, business managers and so forth. He noted that districts from Del Norte to Sonoma are already cooperating across county lines in certain areas. An example of that is that Mendocino County Office of Education has extended its regional occupational training program (ROP) into the Southern Humboldt district at South Fork High School. In other areas as well, one district office manages a program for all the other districts, and this allows work to be accomplished with reduced staff.
In the Round Valley School District, he said, his office has supplied a manager to that district because it was in danger of being taken over by the State. At Laytonville, the high school has not been able to find a principal and so that district is sharing a principal with another district. Tichinin stressed that he was not proposing that it all become one large district, but that the individual districts work together to share resources and weather the economic storm. He used the term “differentiated staffing” to characterize his proposal and suggested that districts could share a business manager, for instance.
Trustee Dennis O’Sullivan expressed support for further discussions on cooperation, as did his fellow board members. It is expected that the conversation will continue at a future meeting with Tichinin.
The trustees also had a long discussion about the possibility of upgrading the district’s web technology. Trustee Mark Schaffner brought the idea of a video conferencing facility for distance learning. He said he favored putting resources in that direction. Baker agreed, as did Trustee Tom Mulder.
Associate Superintendent Susie Jennings said that, with the help of Transportation Supervisor Donna Anderson, the district office in Miranda had added a small video conferencing room that allows staff to participate in webinars.
South Fork teacher, and author of the district’s Carl Perkins’ Five Year Plan, Aletta Sauer, said that a community learning center would make it possible for more people in this area to take online classes.
Superintendent Anderson said that the district is hampered in going further with its technological advancement by lack of infrastructure. Their T-1 line, he said, is not sufficient for distance learning even though they are very close to the PacBell facility in Miranda. In response to a question from Baker as to whether or not a technology upgrade could be done incrementally, Anderson said that the “backbone” line that would enable such things as distance learning is very expensive, and the ongoing expense of that line is also very expensive.
As part of their agenda, the trustees reviewed their “Indicators of Success for Board Focus Goals” and at Trustee Mulder’s urging, they added a goal of coming up with an achievable technology plan that would bring about the capacity for distance learning.
Prior to the open session of the meeting, the trustees had met in closed session to receive a report from Superintendent Anderson on the progress of the sale of the district’s property on Sprowel Creek Road to Dottie Russell’s Artful Children organization.
No details of the discussion were made available, but the board did approve a 45-day extension of the escrow on the property purchase. During the discussion of the focus goals, Trustee Baker suggested adding successful completion of the sale of the district’s Sprowel Creek property as a good goal. Trustee O’Sullivan said they ought to add the Alderpoint property to that as well.
When originally proposed, the proceeds from the sale of the surplus properties constituted a significant amount of money for the district. At that time, Trustee Jeff Haas proposed using the proceeds to buy property and build a new junior/senior high school facility in the Garberville area. The board was very enthusiastic about the idea of building a “state of the art” high school and there was talk of a tax or bond measure to pay for it.
Trustee Baker had earlier proposed a “charette” on the issue of what to do with the proceeds from the sale of the properties, should the property sales be completed. This public meeting would test the community’s support for a new facility versus using any money realized from the sale for upgrading and improving existing facilities. The trustees agreed to add this to their list of focus goals.
Trustee Mulder, who has been doing his homework and studying board manuals and protocols, urged his fellow trustees to revisit the board’s mission and vision statement, calling them the foundation of all the board does.
”If you have a weak foundation, the bottom falls out,” he said. His comments were well received by his fellow trustees. The board will revisit its vision and mission statements in January.
The board also looked at a new way of accounting for the district’s cafeteria program, which includes the popular Culinary Arts class. Superintendent Anderson had taken cafeteria manager Tom Frazier’s suggestion and refigured the account to include the $113,000 contribution from the Mendocino ROP. Anderson said that $25,000 of that money is generated by Culinary Arts and goes into the general fund. Without Culinary Arts, the general fund wouldn’t get that money. Adding in the ROP money, the district’s contribution to the cafeteria program is reduced from 73 cents per meal to 39 cents per meal. This reduces the general fund contribution needed by the program from over $70,000 per year to $41,000 per year.
Trustee O’Sullivan raised the issue he’s raised before that the cafeteria program encroaches on the general fund at the expense of other programs, drawing a distinction between “educational” programs and the cafeteria.
Aletta Sauer came to the program’s defense by saying that, “Kids are learning work skills, and hungry kids are being fed.”
Cafeteria supervisor and chef Tom Frazier defended the benefits of his program. One of his Culinary Arts students, Jesse Eldridge, is about to graduate from the American Culinary Institute, one of the premiere cooking schools in the country, he said, but even if the students don’t go on to become chefs, they have learned valuable skills and work habits.
Frazier also spoke about the new rules regarding food served in schools. They no longer can serve things like croissants, but are making their own granola bars. He said that the co-operative buying among districts is happening now and will further reduce costs.
In other business, Superintendent Anderson said that he had been meeting with the College of the Redwoods board president and they had discussed expanding CR’s influence in Southern Humboldt. They had discussed classes that might be held at the high school after regular school has let out, or in the summer. These would be classes that lead to an AA degree. He said they also discussed having a CR counselor come down to meet with seniors one day a month.
Student trustees Zoe Wong-Weissman and Andrew Rogers reported on activities at South Fork.
Wong-Weissman said the school is conducting a canned food drive through the winter break. She said also that the Spanish Club is raising money for a trip to Peru to study the Inca civilization and archaeology. They will also be spending two days at an Amazon lodge to study rainforest ecology. Nine students are going on the trip and they have raised $3,000 of the $5,000 needed.
Rogers reported that college applications are going in now to the University of California system. Representatives of UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis were on campus to meet with students. He said he had high hopes for all the South Fork students.
Schools Foundation president Linda Brodersen presented her annual foundation report. Although general donations are down somewhat, the foundation has donated close to $103,000 to school programs. They are giving $35,000 to the South Fork High School library and computer room to get it open again. Brodersen said her board felt that the library was a top priority and were very concerned about the possible loss of accreditation for the high school because the library had closed.
Brodersen said also that her tireless group of board members and volunteers now includes a number of younger people, which bodes well for the future. She said that the energy put forth to raise money to keep the schools going shows how much the community cares about education.
The foundation gives out numerous scholarships to deserving students every year, gave over $7,000 to the South Fork Boosters and makes generous contributions to all the schools in the district.
Thanks to donated turkeys, Ettersburg and Casterlin will be having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at their respective schools on the Friday before the holiday break.
Redway principal Patrick Mayer reported that the Redway School Fun Fair was a big success. The theme was “Go Green” this year, he said, and he was most impressed with a bicycle-powered smoothie machine.
The Casterlin volleyball team is undefeated and their basketball team is also doing very well.
Principal Jim Stewart reported that the WASC accreditation is the focus at South Fork right now. Report cards have gone out and staff is doing benchmark assessments. The Southern Humboldt Garden Club school committee toured the campus and made suggestions on landscaping. The first Beautification Committee workday has been scheduled for Dec. 6, a Saturday.
Stewart said also that he appreciated that the school was a polling place on November 4. He said the trend is to keep elections away from schools because of the fear of people on campus, but he thought it was good to see people coming to vote.
Finally, Superintendent Anderson said that the Tuesday Veterans Day holiday had an impact on school attendance. He said it happens every year that some parents and students turn it into a four-day weekend and so there is low attendance on the Monday before Veteran’s Day.
This led to a discussion about attendance in general. Trustee Mulder suggested that more should be done to stress the importance of daily attendance at school, not just for its impact on Average Daily Attendance reimbursement for the schools, but also because of the impact on the student of missing important lessons. Superintendent Anderson agreed that the educational importance of regular school attendance needed to be stressed. Some parents feel that if they write a note, missing school is okay. The district’s budget is based on ADA. This year, so far, the cumulative daily attendance is running a little above last year’s attendance. However, attendance at South Fork is running behind last year’s figures and some Osprey Independent Study attendance is being directed to South Fork to keep it within the small schools funding formula.
