With continued decline in enrollments, the SB Elementary District “is in trouble,” and the secondary district “needs a plan before it reaches the elementary district’s situation.”
The Elementary District faces fiscal insolvency. The state’s Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT) should be brought in to conduct a “solvency audit.” Major program cuts have been suggested, as has the possibility of closing a school.
These warnings came from the District’s top financial officers: Assistant Superintendent for Business, Mary Stark, and Director of Fiscal Services, Robert Wolfe. Two months have passed, and Ms Stark’s recommendation has not even been discussed, let alone implemented.
Bob rejects any notion that the District should audit itself and calls for a fiscal solvency audit by FCMAT without further delay.
This planning process was heavily biased in favor of high-density development. The consulting firm (UniDev, LLC) is guaranteed “a fixed fee equal to 6% of the total development cost for the project(s).” More units mean more money for UniDev. Much of UniDev’s self-styled “objective analysis” is best understood as marketing.
The school district should respect existing densities. It should not force condos and “stacked flats” into neighborhoods of single-family homes.
The possibility of a land-swap with the City should be explored.
If funds are generated from these lands, they should be put into an irrevocable trust, the earnings from which are earmarked for direct instructional benefits to students.
New classrooms were promised to voters when they entrusted the High School District with $67,000,000 in Measure V bond funds. Yet, not one new high school classroom has been built. Today, nearly 30 teachers are without classrooms at our three high schools.
At the same time, millions in Measure V and state-matching funds were spent on luxury swimming pools, faculty parking lots, press boxes, etc.
There is a crying need to reform the system of special interest politics that encouraged this.
The cafeteria operation deficit-spent over $1,000,000 in five years, losses that had to be covered with funds that might have been used to enhance educational programs.
The bankrupt bureaucratic thinking that produced this failure now argues that what is needed to put the cafeteria operation in the black is a new $2 million centralized super-kitchen. If the District has $2 million in capital funds, it should build new high school classrooms, not pour it down the super-kitchen sink.
Food services should be decentralized, encouraging individual campus choice. At the high schools, alternative models should be piloted, e.g., UCSB’s food court and/or decentralized stands/carts.
An administrative committee has recommended prohibiting the granting of Physical Education credit for interscholastic sports, marching band, drill team, etc.
The move is part of a broader effort by PE hard-liners to impose new requirements, e.g., aquatics, gymnastics and tumbling, rhythm and dance and combatives as mandatory PE class content and passing a swim test in order to graduate from high school.
This prohibition would cripple programs that make school exciting for many kids. Parents, booster groups and others should unite to defeat these efforts. |
