Midyear budget cuts are coming down from the state and Assistant Superintendent Wael Elatar provided a doom and gloom report. He is still looking backward and lamented to the board about where we would have been if the per-student revenue from the state had continued its multi-decade upward trend. You can tell by how many times he mentions Governor Brown’s tax increase measure that educators are still in favor of taxing us into oblivion. He seems to have little hope the new taxes will be approved,.. let’s hope. I think it’s time our administrators stop looking backward and start looking forward and take a serious look at how they do business.

Board member Janelle Poulter asked the cabinet to see the Superintendent’s Budget Review Committee’s list of 65 plus items they are prioritizing before making a recommendation to the Superintendent for cuts. Even though two school board members sit on Dr. Kayrell’s rubber stamping committee, it seemed like Mrs. Poulter was pulling teeth to get the cabinet to commit to providing her the list. Listening was more painful than my last teeth cleaning.

Click here to listen to Mrs. Poulter's request

It seems the administration forgets who they work for. Mrs. Poulter, next time you want something from your employees, don’t ask for it, demand it. That’s what management does in the world outside the Government School Culture.

The board authorized the administration to move forward with the swimming pool solar heating project by approving a $13,000 design contract with their architects. This project, approved almost two years ago, is supposed to save the district $40,000 per year with a final cost of almost a half a million dollars. I know most of us facing serious cuts in our income would commit to a large home improvement that may pay for itself in 11 plus years… Really?

The administration asked for authorization from the school board to move about six million dollars from a non-restricted status to a restricted status by increasing the district’s reserves from the minimum required 3% to more than 9% of the annual budget. Beaumont Teachers Association President Jody Behrens told the board she feared this was a strategy by the administration to limit the teachers’ negotiating position right before a new round of budget cuts.

Click here to Listen to Ms. Behrens' comments

Mrs. Poulter and fellow board member, State Assembly Candidate Marc Orozco, questioned Mr. Elatar on the strategy. When it appeared Mr. Elatar’s political spin wasn’t working, Dr. Kayrell stepped in and told the board to approve the request. This ended discussion and the board approved the request unanimously.

Click here to listen to the Superintendent take control

Finally, during the board’s closing comments, President Lara questioned Mr. Orozco’s ethics and told Mr. Orozco that she “admonishes” him. She could have done this with a scheduled agenda item giving the other board members board members, including Mr. Orozco, an opportunity to comment. She could have done this during the closed session. But she chose to do this in public and after Mr. Orozco had made his closing remarks. When Mr. Orozco asked to be allowed to respond, Mrs. Lara asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Mrs. De Longchamp, on cue, made the motion and it was quickly seconded. Who was it that said the Board President doesn't have any more power than the other board members?

The show must go on...

Click here to listen to Mrs. Lara admonish Mr. Orozco

• Acknowledge a problem exists with traffic at Brookside
• Hold joint meetings with city representatives
• Hire an architect
• Hold meetings with a handful of handpicked parents, staff and archictect
• After a parent requests more widespread involvement, present design plan at a School Site Council Meeting
• Acknowledge the plan lacks a serious solution to the traffic issues and promise an evening meeting for more parental involvement
• Deny a plan exists and claim only a conceptual drawing has been made
• Officially deny any knowledge of future meetings with parents
• Indicate “The next step is take the final draft of the drawing to the Board and get their direction if they would like to move forward with full design based on the estimated costs of the project.”
• Drop the project from the board meeting’s Facilities Projects Update (agenda item #15.1) where it has appeared for months

There has been no direction provided to the administration from the school board, at least nothing publicly. The Tournament Hills Elementary parking lot design has also been dropped from the facilities project update.

Questions for class discussion:

1. Did the administration ever really intend to fix the problem?
2. How much of our kids’ resources were paid to the architect for the three parent meetings and a “conceptual drawing”?
3. Did the board provide private direction to the administration to remove the project from the agenda?
4. If yes to #3, was it because the majority was unwilling to go on the record for dropping a project with serious safety implications?
5. What is it going to take for our school board and administration to take the traffic concerns seriously?

When our families, or our businesses, experience a decrease in expected revenue, we don't have the ability to tax our family members, or customers. We adjust our budgets to fit our expected revenue. The GSC trains our administrators, and school board members, to believe there will always be more money in the future. They believe that instead of restructuring their budgeting process, they just have to make a few minor adjustments each year and wait for the state employee unions to put pressure on our legislature to raise more revenue through taxes.

At some point tax payers are going to say we've had enough. This already seems to be happening all over our country except in the State of California. It seems the politicians we keep sending back to Sacramento don't see a limit to the level of taxation they can impose on us. Our local candidate for state assembly is already telling us how he will focus on blocking cuts to the education budget. In my opinion it is going to take a complete collapse of our state economy before California voters wake up and start electing responsible people. Representatives who will make the difficult decisions required to turn our economy around and protect the future for our kids.

The GSC lives and thrives off of our local school district budget. If we want to eliminate the GSC in Beaumont and adopt a new culture that will benefit our kids, we have to start with the budgeting process. Each year, our administrators begin the process by starting with last year's budget and then finding ways to trim expenses inflicting as little pain as possible. Because the employee salaries are such a large percentage of our expenditures, this is where they begin to focus.

Usually, about this time of the year, the administration starts floating suggestions about teacher and classified staff layoffs. They threaten to eliminate crucial programs like transportation and they talk about eliminating established and popular programs like dual immersion. They will openly discuss which school could be closed to generate the largest savings. This is all part of the show.

You won't hear them talk about eliminating any assistant superintendent position; or scaling back their new district head quarters; or slowing down the adoption of the new government required standards. This is all about "The Show" and "Managing the Public" (see earlier GSC 101 posts). They are more concerned about being the first to adopt the new standards than putting our kids first.

When it is all over, I predict they will end up shortening the school year by 5 days and reducing the amount of instructional time our kids receive. If they are truly interested in putting our kids first, they will first look at their budgeting process. Board members, please educate yourself about Zero Based Budgeting, it's something we all do for our families and it is the process followed by most businesses. This is something parents should demand our school district implement before making any budget cuts. 

Here are some links to my previous posts on Zero Based Budgeting.

Zero-Based Budget Strategy, is it right for Beaumont?

What if? - A New Budget Strategy

Time for a New Budget Review Process 

Well it all starts Tuesday night. "The Show" begins a little earlier than usual, about 6:30 PM. The board of trustees will conduct a "budget and force reduction workshop". Hmmm, what do they mean by force reduction? Could they mean layoffs? Why don't they say that? They won’t because it's all about "managing the public".

There is no need for you to show up. I will listen to the full podcast so you don't have to.

In response to one of my recent posts, Beaumont City Councilwoman Nancy Gall wrote a comment that the Highland Academy Charter schools would have “required scarce District funds”.  I replied to her comment asking her to educate me how charter schools take money away from our schools. To me, it was counter-intuitive. If the money from the state follows the student to the charter school, the district is still receiving the same amount of money per student remaining in the district’s non-charter schools. The only way I see the district losing money is if the cost to educate the students moving to the charter school is less than the money the district was receiving from the state. Since the district is operating with multi-million dollar deficits, it is clear their cost per student is greater than what they are receiving. 

I haven’t heard a response from Councilwoman Gall, or any others with her position. I am very pro-school choice but I still don’t know enough about charter schools to commit. I think there are better ideas but we would need a majority of the school board willing to support ideas outside the Government School Culture, even if it goes against the GSC administration.

Many of us moved to Beaumont because we wanted a special place to raise our kids. Many have grown up here and lived their whole life in the pass. Many bought a home here with a plan to move on somewhere else in 5-10 years. The reality of the current housing market is that we will all be here together a long time. Award winning schools are nice but, I want to see our community build something special, not just award winning. I think if we build something special, more people will want to bring their families here. Regardless whether you are pro or anti-growth, demand for homes in Beaumont helps us all.

I am still interested in learning how charter schools take from our school district so I decided to find the answer on my own using Google. Below is what I found. I’ve displayed excerpts from articles and webpages that seem to address my quest for information, the link to the full articles follows each excerpt. I wasn’t able to find any documentation that supported the councilwoman’s position but I have an open mind and I am sincerely interested in hearing from the anti-school choice side.

However, I’m not convinced the charter school provides the best opportunity for our kids, I think a more unconventional approach will give us something special for all our kids, GATE students included. I think we need to create something special that the board, the administration, the teachers and the parents can get behind. Something special in our schools and our community that makes more families want to move here.  In an earlier post, I outlined an idea I had for a Palm Technology Academy patterned after a school in New York. (Click here to link to the post). I believe a district sponsored school choice option is thinking outside the box and will start to break down the existing Government School Culture.

Here are the results of my search...

Do charter schools take money away from public school districts?

Charter schools are funded by state, local and federal funds at the same level and in the same way that non-charter public schools are. In general, both revenues and expenses follow the student. When a student attends a charter school, the charter school is now responsible for providing that student’s education, and therefore incurs the expenses of the teacher, facility, textbooks and supplies. Funding for that student therefore goes to the entity that is providing the education: namely, the charter school rather than to the non-charter public school that student would otherwise have attended.

http://www.aspirepublicschools.org/?q=faq

Charters receive state funding, generally based on their enrollment.

Similar to regular public schools, this funding is based on a formula for each child enrolled in the charter school. However, such formulas vary from school to school and state to state.

In some states, such as Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota and New Jersey, charters receive less money than regular schools because states and districts withhold administrative fees. In other states, like California, additional funds are made available to charters to cover facilities and start-up costs.

Many charters have ambitious programs that are not fully funded by state or district formulas and therefore do their own fundraising to obtain grants and additional donations. There is also a limited amount of federal funding to help start new charter schools.

Funding for facilities can be a challenge for charter schools. In some cases, districts provide free space for charters or funding for charters to pay for facilities. But even with this support, charter schools often end up moving multiple times due to the difficulty of finding a permanent home. As you look at a charter school, be sure to ask about its facility status and whether it will need to move again in the future.

http://www.greatschools.org/find-a-school/defining-your-ideal/192-seven-facts-about-charter-schools.gs

MYTH: Charter public schools take money away from public schools. 
REALITY: In California, public school funding follows the student, with the funding going to the public school the parents choose, whether a charter school or a traditional district school. When charter public schools are funded, there is no overall loss of public school money because charter schools are public schools. However, even with the funding "following the student" charter schools receive less funding for each student than a school district would if it were to serve the same student.

MYTH: Charter public schools receive more money than district public schools. 
REALITY: In most cases, charter schools receive LESS federal and state money than district public schools, for a variety of reasons. For instance, charter schools do not have the same access to local parcel taxes and bonds as traditional districts and often have to pay to rent facilities out of their operating funds. Charter schools have also been particularly hard hit by the state budget crisis because they are not able to access low-cost financing as school districts can to help address state deferrals. Find out more.

http://www.calcharters.org/understanding/faqs/myths.html

A Parent's Guide to Charter School Funding Challenges

All of California's public schools have faced considerable budget challenges in recent years. Charter schools also face a number of unique, severe challenges around funding, which include:

On average, charter schools receive less funding per student than district schools.

California law is clear that charter schools should receive the same level of funding as all other public schools. In reality, charter schools generally receive less money per student, for a variety of reasons.

School districts receive much of their funding from the state in the form of "categorical funds," which must be used for specific programs. Charter schools have more flexibility, receiving much of their funding as a "block grant," which they can use for a range of purposes, instead of the more restrictive categorical funds. However, that grant provides at least $125 less per student than the statewide average spent on students that don't attend charters for the same programs.

Charter schools also don't usually have access to money traditional school districts can raise from school bonds or parcel taxes. The parents of charter school students pay their fair share of these taxes, but the charter schools their children attend don't benefit.

In addition to those challenges, newer charter schools have been impacted by changes in programs due to the state budget crisis that "freezes" funding levels at prior year levels. New charters do not have a "prior" year, so they may be losing more than $1,000 per student because of this.

Many charter schools are forced to spend a large percentage of their budgets on facilities.

By law, school districts are required to provide space for many charter schools, but that does not always happen. As a result, many charters pay to rent facilities-- money that would otherwise be spent in the classroom. Basically, charter schools in this situation have to take money from the classroom to pay for the classroom itself. This unfairness can widen the funding gap between a charter and non-charter schools by 15 to 20%, or as much as $800 per student.

Under the state's Charter School Facility Grant Program, charter schools located in areas where 70% of students are low-income can get up to $750 per student to pay for facility rental and lease costs. This funding is helpful, but a many charter schools cannot access these programs due to limited funding, eligibility restrictions or both.

State budget deferrals hit charter schools especially hard.

California is in such a severe budget crisis that the state is struggling to guarantee it has enough cash on hand to pay its expenses on time. One way that the state government has dealt with this crisis is through "deferrals" -delaying its required payments to public schools for operations. These deferrals have gotten worse every year since 2007. In 2012, some charter schools had 35% or more of their expected state payments delayed several months. Imagine your boss asks you to buy something for $100, but he only pays you back $65 on time, with the rest coming months later. Wouldn't that make it harder for you to pay your bills?

School districts can borrow money at very low interest rates, However, charter schools are often forced to pay more to borrow money, if they can find a bank to lend them money at all.

The Future of Charter Schools

and Teachers Unions

http://www.ncsrp.org/downloads/charter_unions.pdf

To an outsider, not familiar with the Government School Culture, this seems like a positive response and a step forward. This couldn't be farther from the truth. This is a clear example of how the Government School Culture influences decisions by the district administrators and the school boards and how to "Manage the Public". This has provided me a great teachable moment.

I've recorded some comments click here to listen if you are interested in learning more. I would prefer to present my comments in person to the board at the next board meeting but I don't believe I can fully address the issue in the 3 minutes. Here, on my terms, I am able to take the time necessary to present my response and position on such an important issue and I know the board members and the administration will be listening.

Mr. Elatar's response:

Mr. White
There are no plans. There is only conceptual drawing. This conceptual drawing was developed by the architect with feedback from parents and the school staff and administrators in a span of 3 different meetings. The architect also reviewed potential DSA requirements and provided rough estimates of construction and soft costs.
As you may are aware, the scope of this project would add staff parking lot in a seldom and rarely used field area leaving more flexibility to re-design the main parking area and allow more private vehicles to use the site parking lot instead of the streets.
Board members took a tour of district construction sites two weeks ago. They also toured Brookside Elementary potential parking expansion project and reviewed with the architect the conceptual drawing and estimated costs of such project.
It is not typical to post draft conceptual plans in the District’s facilities web site without approval for designs of projects by the Board and complete approved DSA designs.
I am not aware of having another parents meeting at this time with the archetict and facilities staff. Please check with the school principal about the meeting you are asking about.
The next step is take the final draft of the drawing to the Board and get their direction if they would like to move forward with full design based on the estimated costs of the project.
Thank you

Wael Elatar--
Assistant Superintendent of Business Services
Beaumont Unified School District

We have heard from board members and district administrators how the primary factor in the traffic mess is parents, either not paying attention to what they are doing or just ignoring the rules and doing whatever they want. This may be true in some cases, I've seen it myself. However, in my opinion, a good parking lot design should take away parents' ability to do the wrong thing. Parents following the rules, are at risk of being hit by those who are not. The district needs to make the process idiot proof. It is time to stop blaming parents and do something.

Brookside Ave is now closed, east of Beaumont Ave, through the end of the school year and there is still no plan to address the traffic concerns around Brookside Elementary. We were shown a preliminary plan at our last School Site Council meeting. The plan expanded the parking lot; added more spaces; and reduced the playground area but it did nothing to fix the traffic problems. We heard promises from the administration's representative to hold an evening meeting for more parent input but nothing has been scheduled yet. I asked the Assistant Superintendent responsible for the district's construction projects, Mr. Wael Elatar, to post the preliminary parking lot re-designs on the district's Current Projects web page but nothing has been posted. I understand plans and cost estimates for the parking lot redesigns for both Brookside and Tournament Hills have been provided to the school board members but, if no plans have been posted on the Current Projects Page, is anything is really in the works?

I've sent Mr. Elatar an inquiry to the status for the Brookside project and I will post his response once I receive it. I believe it is irresponsible at a minimum, and possibly criminally negligent, to build the stadium and the new district office across the street from an elementary school with serious traffic issues while doing nothing to make the school safer. I'm not familiar with the safety issues at Tournament Hills but if they are anything like Brookside, I hope someone is keeping an eye on what the district is planning.

Something needs to be done soon. It's only a matter of time until another accident happens and next time everyone may not be so fortunate.

I have been attending Beaumont Unified School District board meetings and listening to their podcasts, so you don’t have to, for quite some time now. I have learned something that most teachers and administrators in government schools learn in their first year of employment, the school board meeting is an orchestrated show for the board members and administrators, and it is their time to perform. They perform in front of a captive audience of their employees who are required to attend and, due to their employment relationship, must be willing participants in the production.

A typical board meeting consists of two parts, a closed session and an open session. The closed session is scheduled to begin at 5 pm and the opens session usually starts around 7 pm. If all the business that must be conducted in the closed session is not completed by 7 pm, the board will reconvene to a closed session after the open session. BUSD board meetings usually last 2 to 3 hours and often don’t end until after 10 pm.

Principals, district office staff, department managers, and others are required to stay through the end of the meeting. It probably isn’t a requirement written in their contracts but when you look at the audience halfway through the meeting it is obvious they all wish they were somewhere else. I know most of the principals are in their schools before 7 am and by the time 10 pm comes around, they are dead tired, I know I am. Parents also get an early start and we look forward to reading to our kids at bed time and wished the meetings would start, and end, earlier.

Board members don't seem to like these meetings running late into the night either but they could do something about it. They think limiting the amount of time parents have to give their opinions and provide input will solve the problem. This hasn’t work. As I told them when they reduced the public speaking time limits last year, very few parents and community members come to speak. Most of the time there are no public speakers. The regularly scheduled comments made at the end of the meeting by the board members, superintendent, union presidents, and the principals’ representative often run longer than 30 minutes. If you really want to shorten the meetings, this is where you need to have time limits. Just listen to my last podcast and you will see what I mean.

Many parents believe when they have a problem, they can come to the meeting and address the school board and they will be listened to. Most parents find out soon enough that the public comment is just part of “The Show”, very few parents make return visits. The administration and board really don’t want parents too involved in their show. David Sanchez, a former BUSD Board President, once told the audience the board meetings are not for the public, they are “our(the board’s) meetings”.  I had many disagreements with Mr. Sanchez over the years but one thing I admire about him is his honesty and he’s not afraid to call it like it is. Educators and administrators tell us they welcome parent involvement but parent involvement to those in the GSC is as welcomed as Kryptonite is to Superman.

I believe the school board has an obligation to provide the administration the leadership and direction to adopt a new culture. I know this is a difficult task, especially when many board members are current or former educators that already embrace the GSC. I have offered solutions to our school board many times as to how they can go about making a change in the culture. I’m going to do it here once again. The following ideas aren’t new to anyone who has followed my blog over the last four years but I think it helps to keep hammering away at the GSC. Maybe it will sink in one day.

The best place to start would be to change “The Show”.

Start by scheduling the open session to begin at 5pm, before the closed session. I am sure board members would be more interested in moving along the open session meeting when they know they still needed to take care of the closed session items. The audience (staff and the public) would be able to go home to their families at a more reasonable hour and more parents, and probably even some kids, would be able to attend. I have often considered bring my daughter with me but the late night meetings have made that prohibitive.

Schedule one meeting a month focusing on parents, family and the community. Hold those meetings at the High School Theater, offer child care and schedule committee meetings and parent workshops before or after the open session. The board could schedule special recognitions, science fair displays, and report presentations to take place at these meetings. The regular business could still be done and more of us would stay to contribute. If this was always the first meeting of the month, parents would start putting it on their calendar and make a habit of attending. Many parents, especially those who stay home all day with their kids, would welcome the opportunity to get out and be with other adults once a month.

In the last board meeting, we heard the teacher's union president, and some board members, tell us they understand that parents want to have more of a say about what happens in our schools. They talked about providing for parents what parents think a charter school will provide. They talked about a district dependent charter school, using district schools and district paid teachers. The reason charter schools are so appealing to parents is the control they believe they will have over the system and the input they will have in developing the culture. If the board and teachers really want to eliminate the parents' demand for a charter school, they have to start by changing the Government School Culture in Beaumont.

I've recorded an audio podcast review of the meeting in which I provide my analysis and clips from the district's podcast. Due to the file size limitations of my website, I've had to split my recording in two parts. The first part covers the workshop and GATE report the second part consist mostly of the closing reports from the President of the teachers' union, Jody Behrens, and the closing report from each of the five board members and my final analysis. 

I am experimenting with a new audio mixing program please bear with me while I learn to improve the quality of my podcasts. I hope you will benefit from my work.

Part 1 Charter School and GATE programs - Click Here (Length 6:14)

Part 2 Closing remarks - Click Here (Length 20:17)

The board, starting an hour early at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, will be holding a workshop on Highland Academy's charter school petition. They will also be recognizing students with perfect scores on last year's state tests; presenting a report on the district's GATE services; and reviewing the calendar for the 2012-2013 school year.

One other note: I noticed in the facilities report the administration has provided the board members with design plans and cost estimates for the parking lot redesign projects for Brookside and Tournament Hills elementary schools. I find this inconsistent with the message the district's representative gave us at the Brookside Site Council meeting earlier this month. They told us they were still in the early planning stages and still considering all their options. We were told they would schedule a meeting for parents at a time that would enable more parents to provide input. I'm not sure how they could present plans and cost estimates untill a design has been finalized. 

Look for my next report of this week's board meeting on Wednesday or Thursday. I hope to be able to include some clips from the district's podcast. It should be entertaining.

I am trying another vehichle for my reporting, audio podcasts. I haven't been comfortable with my video reports and I think audio makes more sense when I'm just trying to get my message out. Audio files are easier to distribute, easier to share and I don't have to worry about how uncomfortable I look. I still think video will provide value in some situations. Some time next week, look for a video report titled "Running the Gauntlet at Brookside Elementary'. I hope it will give a good representation of what parents experience everyday when they pick up their kids in the afternoon.

Jerry Pournell, one of my favorite science fiction writers, has developed his Iron Law of Bureaucracy which I believe is a very accurate description of government schools. Below is one of his earlier versions of the law.

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that...

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.