Capistrano Unified School District

June 24, 2015 Board of Trustees Meeting Agenda Item #3 - Information/Discussion (Exhibit 3 Page 23)

For Parents and the Public: Just because the District writes something in a Board Agenda does not mean that the Statement is true. In regards to Community Relations - Is the District Listening? To Parents? To Trustees? The truth is that there is a lot of Public concern about the Districts ability to listen & learn from the Community. The Public does not feel like there is collaboration between the District and the community. It is not possible to build trust when communities have ongoing and continuous conflicts over things like the mis-use/unfair taxation of our mello-roos districts, we have issues like the termination of Principal Halt in San Clemente, we have the District quietly re-organizing programs like ROP- Special Education - Adult Ed. Is the motivation to improve services or is the motivation to save money. Will the public be involved in decisions on how money will be spent? In underfunded Districts like CUSD there is always a struggle between increased employee compensation and student services. To date, employee compensation has always been CUSD’s number one priority - you can see that by the way the district chooses to spend its money.
Board Members:

Agenda Item #18 on the June 24, 2015 Board Meeting Agenda will limit the power of an individual Trustee to request that an item be placed on the Board Agenda. That does not sound like the District wants to listen to Trustees.
http://disclosurecusd.blogspot.com/2015/06/at-time-when-public-is-calling-for.html

CUSD Foundation

If CUSD were adequately funded- we would not need to fundraise for a basic education. The State of California intentionally withholds $200 million per year from CUSD.
http://disclosurecusd.blogspot.com/2015/02/basis-for-law-suit-in-federal-court.html
Fundraising is taking instructional time away from our students and needs to be removed from the education system.

CUCPTSA/Parent Leaders

The PTA is chartered as an advocacy organization. In fact they are a fundraising organization and should loose their not-for-profit status as well as their privilege of representing parents and the public on certain committees that are closed to the general public- like the Calendar Committee. They should not be allowed to send information home in students back packs especially political information. If the PTA really did its job- our students would not have seen class sizes increase every year for the last 10 years so that employees could receive compensation increase.http://disclosurecusd.blogspot.com/2012/10/april-26-2010-letter-of-resignation.html

Association Leadership

While the Public’s voice is limited to a 3 minute statement at a Board meeting, employee groups have 24/7 access to lobby for their positions. Believe it or not, CUSD pays the salaries of the CUEA president and the CSEA president who have been released from their duties and have an office at the District. They are in effect co-workers of the staff that negotiates employment contracts. This is not the normal practice anymore - we should not be using District money in that way, and now we know why employee compensation always takes precedence over student services in contract negotiations.

Remember - In 2012 CUSD was willing to give students 15 Furlough days if Prop 30 failed - Majority Trustees prevented minority Trustees from speaking at the Board meeting about the Budget and employment contracts.

Board Audio from the June 27, 2012
Board Meeting http://cusd.capousd.org/cusdweb/boardaudio/6-27-12/06-27-12RegBdMtg.mp3 17 minutes 31 seconds - 29 minutes 11 seconds

In 2013 CUSD intentionally delayed entering into new employment contracts so that contracts would not be based on a COLA only budget. By delaying the contracts the District included new LCFF money to the COLA and claimed that salary restoration language was triggered and they used $5.62 million of our $8,42 million in funds to restore salaries from the 2010 teachers strike. They then proceeded to cut $13,382 from our budget and paid for that with 3 furlough days and an increase in class size of 1.5 students across all grades. So in short CUSD employees stole $5.62 million from our students while our Trustees looked the other way.

http://capousd.ca.schoolloop.com/file/1343191429797/5667737573387975994.pdfsee chart on page 2

In 2014 CUSD passed a 2014-15 Budget that changed changed material terms of employment contracts - increased compensation - changed class sizes - changed the length of the school year etc but did not execute employment contracts till April 2015 - 9 months late. They are on track to do the same thing this year. How does a District pass a budget without knowing the cost of 92% of the budget unless there is a conspiracy behind closed doors to make employment contracts match the budget that has already been passed.

April 23, 2015 CUSD Press

Release:http://capousd.ca.schoolloop.com/file/1218998864154/9052821371431115267.pdfCUSD Board of Trustees Approve 2014-15 Tentative Agreement With Capistrano Unified Education Association

Superintendent Community Forums

For purposes of Public Disclosure, meetings between the Public and the Superintendent do not count. It is the Trustees- not the Superintendent or District staff who have a legal, fiduciary duty to represent the public.

http://disclosurecusd.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-election-of-school-board-trustees.html

In general- meetings between the Superintendent and groups like Mission Hospital- Saddleback Hospital - the League of Women Voters - Rotary Clubs - Coffee Chats are not really Public engagement unless Trustees are present.

In summary - there is corruption and a lack of transparency at CUSD that is detrimental to the education of the 50,000 students the District is suppose to serve.

The reality check that California Public Education needs is that there is no STEM education if you cannot master basic Math. The adoption of Common Core illustrates how far behind the State of California is in Math. We are not preparing students for a STEM education - we are preparing students for Community College with most students having to take remedial classes in math before they can begin college level work.

High School Graduation Requirements:

California’s State Standards before Common Core: 2 years of HS math the completion of Algebra I

Common Core State Standards: 3 years of HS math the completion of Algebra II

The “New” California Common Core State Standards: 2 years of HS math the completion of Algebra I

If California enforced the real Common Core State Standards most kids would not be able to graduate so the State has changed the standard back to the old standard in math.

see: http://disclosurecusd.blogspot.com/2015/05/california-graduation-requirements-do.html
The reality is that unless we find a way to get the $200 million per year that the State of California has stole from us - there is no “road to Recovery”. There is no money to fix our aging facilities - there is no money to restore programs - there is no money to implement LCAP -

In regards to prioritizing programs and investments - that has already been done. 92% of the Districts budget goes to employee compensation. The State is passing down the increased costs of CalSTRS and CalPERS to Districts- that cost will represent 10% of the Districts budget so we are at 102% of the budget and we have not even opened the school doors and turned on the lights.

CUSD currently receives $7,002 per student with that expected to climb to $8,500 per student by 2021. That compares to the current state average of $9,500 and the national average of $11,500. The State’s new LCFF is not designed to provide an education to EVERY student. It is intentionally designed to underfund students in wealthy areas so that money can be used for new entitlements and programs.
see: http://disclosurecusd.blogspot.com/2015/02/basis-for-law-suit-in-federal-court.html
Successful Negotiations with Associations? 9 months after the school year started and a budget was passed? Successful for employees at the expense of students. All employee related achievements- where are the highlights for student achievements?

We desperately need to improve Post Secondary options for all students. Community College should not be the only option for 3/4 of our students - See:http://disclosurecusd.blogspot.com/2014/11/re-research-brief-toward-grand-vision.html

We need to get the funding we are entitled to under the Free School Guarantee of the California Constitution and we need to build new schools to relieve our impaction issues and fix our aging facilities. We cannot accomplish this on funding levels of $8,500 by the year 2021.

So the District Says...