Left, Deputy Leo Vazquez with Captain Tim Hagel (right) review the benefits of the SRO during Tuesday night’s meeting.

On Tuesday, September 7, 2010 the Fillmore School Board of Trustees met for a regularly scheduled meeting at their Boardroom in Fillmore. All Board members were in attendance and it was a full agenda.

Board President Tony Prado began the meeting by introducing and welcoming the new student representative Sean Chandler, a senior at Fillmore High School who holds the position of Speaker of the House for the student body. Chandler gave a summary of the make up of the student body government and of the recent events kicking off the school year, including the recent Flashes football victory over Malibu with an impressive score of 53 to zero.

Public comment was short and uneventful as no one from the public chose to address the Board on any topic. Moving on Prado announced the ten-day notice being given of a Public Hearing for the “Sufficiency of Textbooks and Instructional Materials for the 2010-2011 School Year and the Provision of Standards Aligned Instructional Materials”. The public hearing will take place at the next regular Board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, September 21, 2010. The hearing will also cover the “Instructional Materials for the Structured English Immersion Program” for this year. This hearing allows the public to comment on the whether there are enough supplies and textbooks for each student, and whether they are aligned with the State standards.

As the Board reviewed written communication received, the first item discussed was a letter from the Ventura County Office of Education. Prado described the letter as saying, “We are OK.” Assistant Superintendent Mike Bush clarified that with the letter “they do caution that we are deficit spending”. Bush indicates that this was the plan of FUSD, but the VCOE is warning against “prolonged deficit spending”. Next item was a letter sent to all California School Districts from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Prado summarized the letter as pertaining to issues involving “meetings and being transparent in all aspects of our meetings”. In fact the letter, available online in a press release from the Governors Office states “there is still no transparent fiscal information easily available to parents who want to see how their school districts and schools are spending their tax dollars. We should be especially transparent in showing where districts spend their money: how much is spent on district administration and at each school site, and how much makes its way into the classroom. Parents deserve to know if the school district their child is attending shares their funding priorities.” the letter goes on “and this level of transparency will hopefully reinforce their confidence that their local school board is making the wisest decisions possible for their children’s education.”

During Board reports, Board Member John Garnica summarized his recent presentation to the Sunrise Rotary Group. He reported that he answered questions regarding test data, and school budgets. Garnica recounted his impression that it seemed “some people believe we get more money than we do.” He went on to state that “we are approximately in the bottom five … out of the fifty states, how much we get per pupil… we’re approximately $25 million in our budget and have approximately 3700 students… comes out to just under $7,000.00 [per pupil]”. When compared to this years annual budget that was obtained from the District last week, the numbers Garnica stated were very close to the actual numbers. This school years budget (general fund) is stated as $30.7 Million and with the current enrollment of 3731 students, that comes out to $8,228 and change for per pupil spending. This enrollment is down from the projected enrollment the District had planned on. Bush presented the Board with the most up to date enrollment numbers, which show that the District experienced a decline of 36 students this year. While not a huge number, Bush indicated with the budget crunch, every student counts.

The Board also heard from Captain Tim Hagel and Deputy Leo Vazguez (District SRO) of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office regarding the effects and benefits of the District “Zero Tolerance” policy. Hagel clarified recent statistics he provided to the press, in that while the FUSD SRO had the highest arrest rates of any other SRO in the County, Hagel emphasized that in his opinion this was due to active enforcement of the Zero Tolerance policy of the District. He also clarified how ‘arrest” is defined on campuses “This is children we are talking about… not being carted off… it is a legal technicality”. Hagel indicated that “ticket” would be a better way to describe it. He went on to commend the District on its use of the Zero Tolerance policy as a way to prevent crime on campus.

Regarding the budget, Bush began his report with “We have two pieces of good news and a challenge”. Bush reminded the Board about an increase in health insurance costs anticipated for January, and that “ We were afraid we would have to have midyear reductions to address that.” Bush recognized District Director of Budget and Accounting Janet Penanhoat in “work[ing] very hard with our various departments and site budgets and we were able to squeeze out the money to cover that this year.” He indicated that at this point the District has an “extra ending balance [of about] .5%” so the District “will not need midyear reductions this year but we will need to address it in a future budget”. Prado asked if by midyear reductions Bush meant “midyear reductions in monies or also and or personnel?” Bush responded, “Unfortunately that’s what’s left, personnel. We’ve squeezed everything so far down”. The Other good news, “education jobs funding” The District is expecting $698,000 once the allocation is paid in full. Bush commented that they expect to be able to use the money in different areas, although they will be getting all of the rules shortly, this will “kick the can down the road”. Sweeney did emphasize that the financial situation of some programs, namely Special Education are so “razor thin” and that “we don’t have control of the students who walk through our doors… we don’t have any stash of money that would allow us to fund [needed programs for additional special needs students with] a handicapping condition. If we face a circumstance similar to that then we might have to come to the Board for something”.
The challenge that Bush brought before the Board was the previously mentioned drop in enrollment.

All action items were approved unanimously, and the Board adjourned to closed session, with the next open public meeting on Tuesday, September 21 at 6pm.