How About Looking at Some Other Options?

Imagine my surprise to find an Agenda with Action Items posted for Monday night's "Special" school board meeting! Feel free to go back and listen to the last board meeting, where they said they wanted to have a special meeting just to get feedback from the community re the 4-day week. "no agenda, no action items." http://cmsbears.podbean.com. One of the action items, by the way, is a vote on the 4-day week. Supposedly one of the school board members asked that an executive session regarding the removal of the superintendent be added to the agenda. It's not on the agenda.

To add insult to injury, they have also changed up the Resolution. (Here is the old resolution). While they cite a survey conducted by the school as showing 80% for and 20% against, a show of hands at the last school board meeting was not considered "representative" enough to even be taken, and the petition with 86 signatures was somehow left out of the wording of the resolution.

Teachers say they are supporting the 4-day week because they don't want to see another teacher fired. Is that something like blackmail? Why is it either a teacher or the 4-day week? Why isn't anyone looking at the quantifiable and more significant cost savings of reducing administrators? Don't forget, teachers are also saying that "over recent years the morale of the district seems to have suffered." My observations would support that statement.

The smoke and mirrors of moving Ms. Lane to Special Ed is insulting to our intelligence. Looking on the school's website, she still has the curriculum responsibilities in addition to special ed. She's just been stripped of the title of assistant superintendent. This is a wash in terms of budget savings and a sham in terms of "reducing" administration...and probably an insult to Ms. Lane, who has worked pretty long and hard for this school, and has pretty long and deep roots within this community.

I know other ideas were floated when budget cuts were discussed. One of them was to remove Hancock and give the title to Ms. Lane. (roughly $130K savings). Another was to have 2 principals and 1 Superintendent. Since Renteria was the last in he would be the one out ($88K savings plus benefits). We only have 400 children in the entire school, we could probably struggle by with 3 administrators, especially if we could line up administrators that could boost morale and respect the staff.

All of this started with a budget crisis, so don't forget that this is all about money now. It has nothing to do with anything else. The "savings" with a 4-day week are not quantifiable. The impact on the quality of education is not quantifiable. Removing Hancock or Renteria is quantifiable, and I doubt that the loss of either would be felt in the classroom. Nothing personal...it's all about the numbers now.

If everything is supposedly on the table, then the board needs to be considering ALL options. But until this Board steps up and starts writing their own Agendas, the "options" will continue to be those that are filtered through the Superintendent's office.