San Clemente Residents Learn Lessons In School District Governance

The Capistrano Unified School District recently fired San Clemente High School Principal Mike Halt; prior to the end of the school year, angering San Clemente Students, Parents and Teachers. Efforts by residents to have Mike Halt reinstated have been frustrated by what residents feel is a lack of Parent engagement and a lack of transparency at the Capistrano Unified School District.

The reality is, that the deck is stacked against parents and the public when it comes to having their voice heard. The system is designed to limit public in-put.

This is going to be the first of a series of articles that document a lack of parent engagement, lack of transparency and sometimes the intentional mis-representation of facts to the public within the Capistrano Unified School District.

With the passage of the State’s Local Control Funding Formula, the State is no longer going to be involved in the over site of how school districts spend their money. The goal of the new law is to put decision making back at the local level by requiring school districts to engage students and the public in school board policy and district spending. If there is a lack of public engagement and a lack of transparency the result, under the new law, will be no oversight of the District. So it is very important for the public to understand their role in how District policy decisions will be made going forward.

Trustees Represent The Public In All Matters Before The Board

Many Parents and the general public may not understand the relationship between Administrators, District Staff and the Board of Trustees. It is the Trustees that have a legal fiduciary duty to the public. The most important thing that Taxpayers and the Public must understand is that it is the Board of Trustees, who are elected by the public to represent students and taxpayers in all matters before the Board. If you want to influence decisions at the District make sure to communicate with the Trustees who have a legal fiduciary duty to represent you. That is why the elections of School Board Trustees is so important to the well being of students and the Community a school district serves.

However tedious the job may be, the public must take an active and educated role in the election of School Board Trustees if you want to provide the best education for students, and protect your local property values and level of taxation.

This will be particularly important going forward because it is the Governor’s intention to give local governments the power to tax so that they can pay for the quality and level of education the Community would like. However- keep in mind that these new taxes will be in addition to the State taxes we currently pay. Under the LCFF, CUSD is currently receiving $7,002 per student with that amount expected to climb to $8,500 by 2021. To put that number into perspective CUSD is receiving $2,499 per student less then California’s current average per pupil spending of $9,501 and $4,224 per student less than the current national average of $11,226. The funding formula is intentionally designed to underfund wealthy suburban school districts because the the State feels that Orange County residents are so wealthy that we can afford to tax ourselves again to make up the difference. The State plans to increase the percentage of tax cities and counties can levy, and the State plans to give local school districts the power to tax as well. So in short- Orange County Taxpayers will be paying 3 and 4 times for a service that the State of California is constitutionally obligated to provide. Public engagement is the only thing that will keep this in check.

Superintendent

The Superintendent has administrative oversight of students, public schools, and educational services. The Superintendent is hired by the Board of Trustees to run the District. The Superintendent works at the pleasure of the Board. The Board has the power to hire and fire the Superintendent.

District Employees:

The interest of employees are represented by their individual Unions.

• Certificated Staff - Teachers: “CUEA”- Capistrano Unified Education Association
• Classified Staff - Food Service, maintenance, office and clerical staff: “CSEA” -California School Employee Association
• Teamsters - Bus Drivers - Teamsters Local 952 represents School Custodians and Maintenance Workers, Cafeteria & Lunchroom Workers
• CUMA - Represents District Administration - District Staff

How Decisions Are MadeBoard Meeting Agendas

District Staff and the Superintendent determine what will be on the Board Agenda and what documentation the Board will be given to decide a specific issue. The public should think about that. If District staff would like the Board to vote in a particular way, the information provided in the agenda item may have only information favorable to the decision that District staff would like Trustees to make. That places the burden on the public to read the board agendas in advance of the meeting, and to attend a board meeting to present information they feel the Board may not be getting. If the public fails to do that, then the vote will be made on what was presented in the Board agenda. This places a very difficult and time consuming burden on the public.

Public Input

Public input is limited to a total of 20 minutes. Each speaker is limited to a 3 minute comment. See the “INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRESENTATIONS TO THE BOARD BY PARENTS AND CITIZENS PRESENT AT THIS MEETING” at the end of this article.

So it is the intent of this District to limit the public’s access to its representatives... Trustees.

What most people do not realize is that in the Capistrano Unified School District, the District pays part of the salaries of Sally White (CUEA President), and Rhonda Whalen (CSEA President). Both have an office at the District. Both have 24-7 access to District Staff, the Superintendent and Trustees. So they, in fact, can lobby for union positions all day, everyday. The District Staff member that negotiates employee contracts for CUSD is essentially a co-worker of these two women. So when they sit at the collective bargaining table to negotiate employee compensation and benefits, the negotiations are not really “arms length negotiations”. In effect, there is really no one sitting at the collective bargaining table that is representing the interests of students and taxpayers. The situation gets even worse when Trustee campaigns are financed by organizations like the Teachers Union. When a majority of the Board is beholden to the Union that helped to elect them, then there is no one in the District that is representing students or the public which is the case in CUSD. You only need to look at the past budgets to see what the Districts priorities are ... decisions to cut to student services in order to maintain maximum employee compensation has always been the driving force behind every budget decision except for 2010 when an impasse was filed and teachers went on strike.

Most school districts no longer engage in the practice of paying a Union reps salary, and giving them an office in the District building because it clearly gives the union an advantage in negotiations.

Example I - Misleading Information - Community Engagement

You will hear over and over how CUSD is engaging stakeholders. The LCFF Law requires school Districts to show evidence of how they are engaging stakeholders in the development of the Districts LCAP - Local Control Accountability Plan. CUSD states over and over again that they have engaged in 76 meetings with Stakeholders regarding up-dates to the LCAP. This gives the impression that the Public has been given ample opportunity to have a voice in setting LCAP goals. However; in reality, the public has had little if any opportunity to understand the new law and participate in the LCAP. Most of the meetings that the district held were not open to the public. The meetings that were open to the public were meetings with Principals or the Superintendent where Trustees did not attend. For Public Disclosure purposes, a meeting must be with a majority of Trustees present to qualify. Meetings with Principals, District Staff and or the Superintendent do not qualify because these meetings do not provide the public to express itself before Trustees - the publics elected representative.

If you go to the May 27th Board Meeting Agenda Item #5 Local Control Accountability Plan Presentation on page 14b it lists the 76 meetings that the District held to engage the public.

Please note that the only meetings open to the General Public were-

Site parent and staff meetings September - May. This would be the Principal of an individual school site making a presentation to parents of that school site. A majority of Trustees would not be present at this type of meeting, and this would represent one opportunity for a parent of that particular school. So 56 school site meetings is really one opportunity per parent.

and

The Community Forum on April 28, 2015 see:http://capousd.ca.schoolloop.com/file/1218998864154/8458275088731239781.pdf

“The forums are a part of the superintendent’s overall strategy to gather input from the various stakeholder groups in the Capistrano Unified School District.”

Again- these forums do not provide Trustees with an opportunity to gather in-put from stakeholders.

In reality, the only opportunity that Parents have had to express their opinion to a majority of Board members has been at a Board where their input is limited to a 3 minute comment to which Board members are not allowed to reply.

This article is to long for the Patch - to finish please go to:http://disclosurecusd.blogspot.com/2015/06/san-clemente-residents-learn-lessons-in.html