What I'm Reading Today: VC Star Editorial

By Kimberly Rivers — Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

"Your childs education and the State budget" Michelle Kolbeck

Tonight FUSD School Board will meet and is slated to vote on graduation requirements. That is how they have listed the item on their agenda that has the potential to cut programs, reduce class requirements for graduation and combine programs. FUSD is grappling with the same budget issues as other districts although I think that FUSD has one large hurdle that it still has to overcome, a general lack of accountability and transparency. Over the past year the School Board has heard from several parents bringing issues ranging from concerns over special services, to the lack of parent involvement. School Board members have attended school site council meetings regarding issues of accountability and lack of clarity. If the District wants the community to understand the situation, they need to work harder and better at creating a welcoming environment for community members to be involved (you need not have a child in the District to be a stakeholder or to get involved) and for demonstrating accountability when mistakes are made.

Here is an editorial in the Ventura county Star written by a Santa Paula Elementary School Board member, it is brief, and doesn't go into much detail, but at least it is a school board member working at communicating with the Board and attempting to communicate with the public and Kolbeck openly encourages the public to volunteer and donate to schools. Districts must reach out, and the public is going to need to see a shift at FUSD to a system that is more welcoming and ready to work with the community.

An excerpt:

"At a recent elementary school board meeting it became apparent that the "state of the state" has finally come to roost in Santa Paula.

Even though the Santa Paula Elementary School District board had pink-slipped a quarter of the teacher staff in March (approximately 50 out of 200), the public had yet to feel the effects of the state of the California budget. This is because nothing really changed as their child still went to the same school, had the same teacher, had the same classmates, etc.

However, during the time allotted for public comments, the SPESD board listened to students, parents, community members and staff about their concerns for programs that may no longer be available to them next year.