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MARCH 7, 2010 Good Afternoon
At the MDUSD Board of Education meeting this Tuesday night many important issues will be discussed. We wanted to separate this information from Monday's Roadrunner (it's pretty full already) and present it on its own. Also enclosed is "Race to the Top" information and a letter from Paul Strange, MDUSD trustee, on education spending in California.
Please, stay informed of these actions that can directly impact our children. Next week, look for more information on how you can help get the message to Sacramento that education funding must increase.
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MDUSD Board of Education To Discuss More Cuts Tuesday
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Tuesday night the MDUSD Board of Education will meet once again to make more budget reductions in an attempt to make up for a projected deficit of $73 million. The meeting will be at Monte Gardens Elementary at 7:30pm. Click the link at the bottom of the page for the complete agenda.
The board will consider decreasing the number of certificated employees due to a reduction or elimination of particular kinds of services. 200 pink slips will be issued by March 15th.
Budget Items considered for reduction at this meeting include the following:
(3 year savings totals are for 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 unless noted)
* Reduce all Special Education services not mandated by law ($8,400,000)
* Cut additional funds from Tier 3 programs ($4,500,000)
* Reduce office support staff - ($3,600,000)
* Reduce Summer School and concurrent enrollment ($1,200,000)
* Eliminate employee assistance program ($327,000)
* Reduce health care benefits for some employees ($7,690,741)
* Reduce teacher calendar by 7 to 9 days ($18,868,173)
* Reduce 2009/2010 calendar by 3 or 4 instructional days ($2,652,690)
* Eliminate 1hr per week elementary prep in grades 4-5 ($1,834,170)
* Eliminate Vacation Buyout ($2,100,000)
There are also proposals such as eliminating remaining Librarians in middle and high school, eliminating all Instructional Media Assistants, reducing staffing and shifting to state maximum class sizes, reducing high school graduation requirements and getting a bond measure on the upcoming ballot.
Click the following links for more information:
Full agenda for the meeting
Complete list of budget items that can be considered for reduction.
Complete list of office support staff reductions
Complete list of certificated position reductions
To watch a webcast of Tuesday's meeting check the Mt. Diablo Blog just prior to 7:30. You can also listen to the meeting on radio station KVAS.
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California Not Selected for "Race to the Top"
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March 4, 2010: Today the Department of Education announced that 15 states and the
District of Columbia will advance as finalists for phase 1 of the Race
to the Top competition. Race to the Top is the Department's $4.35
billion effort to dramatically re-shape America's educational system to
better engage and prepare our students for success in a competitive
21st century economy and workplace.
States competing for Race to the Top funds were asked to document
past education reform successes, as well as outline plans to: extend
reforms using college and career-ready standards and assessments; build
a workforce of highly effective educators; create educational data
systems to support student achievement; and turn around their
lowest-performing schools. California was not on the list for phase 1 but was invited (along with the other remaining states) to apply for phase 2.
Read about the state's failure to make the first cut on MercuryNews.com by clicking here. Here is a portion of that article.
"The state's failure to even make the first cut seemed to validate those who pushed hardest to reform laws in order to submit a competitive application. Chief among those advocates was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "We need to be more aggressive and bolder in reforming our education system. While the reforms we passed did move our state forward, they did not go far enough because other states were more competitive," the governor said in a written statement. More information on the Race to the Top can be found on the U.S. Department of Education website or by clicking here.
If you really want to read the entire 136 page California application click here. It is a large document will take a while to load.
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In California, Education Is Not A Priority
By Paul Strange, MDUSD trustee
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It's been said many times that California ranks well below the national average in per pupil spending. But what does that mean to our school district? If you click here you can view the ranking by state and as you can see we are very close to the bottom. The numbers lag a few years behind, but in 2005-2006, Vermont was ranked #1 with $15,139 per student. Lets look at a few other states.
New York, $13, 064.00
Alaska, $12,090.00
Montana, $11,660.00
Arkansas, $9,756.00
The National Average is $9,963.00
California, $7,571.00 per student.
Keep in mind, these are 2005-2006 numbers. Once the final budget is voted on in Sacramento we may actually get less money for the 2010-2011 school year than we did in 2005-2006.
If the students in the MDUSD received the same funding as students in New York,
the MDUSD would have an additional $181 million dollars per year to spend on our
students...
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To read the rest of Paul's article please click here. The article is right below the school board meeting webcasts.
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