Children First: 'We Are Extremely Disappointed'

News Release From Capistrano Unified Children First:

Subject: Capistrano Unified Children First urges the Capistrano Unified School District’s Board of Trustees to immediately return to the negotiating table to reach a settlement that will resolve the dispute with the District’s education professionals.

Who: Capistrano Unified Children First is a non-partisan coalition of parents, business and community leaders, educators and concerned citizens dedicated to ensuring the highest quality education possible for all children in the Capistrano Unified School District now and in the years to come.

What: To achieve quality education children must be in classrooms with qualified, experienced,engaged, and motivated teachers. This is a critical time in the academic year for high school students who are preparing for tests that will impact their futures. Our youngest students must be continually challenged to reach the next level of achievement and success on upcoming tests. CUSD Trustees must work to insure that all students complete the school year without interruption.

We are extremely disappointed that the CUSD Trustees have prolonged the settlement of the current impasse. Other school districts in Orange County who are facing similar financial burdens have reached agreements with their teachers. The CUSD Trustees who were elected with the promise of open and transparent communications have chosen a path of undisclosed meetings to map out battle plans under the guise of disaster preparation. The lean and inexperienced District staff has been overburdened with devising alternative instruction and staffing provisions. Extraordinary expenses have been incurred that continue to drain desperately needed funds from our children’s classrooms.

Children First is, once again, asking the Trustees to do the right thing. CUSD leadership must return to the negotiating table to reach a settlement that will sustain the quality education that we expect for our children in this district. Our children need to be in school with outstanding teachers who will “assist them in realizing their full potential as responsible, productive, and contributing members of society”. That is the mission of the Capistrano Unified School District. It is time the Trustees accept this responsibility and make every possible effort to ensure that this mission is fulfilled for every child in this District. Put aside political expediency and put all CUSD children first.

For Immediate Release

Children First has wide-spread support throughout the district and is available at any time for interviews and press conferences. For more information, please visit www.capounifiedchildrenfirst.org

Comments

[Thanks Children First]

Thank you CHILDREN FIRST!

This organization continues to be a voice of reason, balance and sanity in an environment of insanity and arrogance. Unfortunately this Board is incapable of listening. Thank you for working to help make CUSD a better place.

[jilted teacher]

Our relationship with this school board is like being in a bad marriage. The fear of breaking away inhibits taking positive action. A strike will be messy, and the children are always caught in the middle, but in the end change is welcome.

[Done!]

Not as good as it looks! The "furlough" days being imposed by the board are not really furlough days at all, but a permanent reduction in the work year, unlike other districts that have given a "sunshine date" for when those days will be returned. Just another example of the way this board conducts itself, sneaky, underhanded, and in no way interested in working with teachers. The imposition, when read correctly, is all of the teachers' worst fears, permanent!

[Depressed and Demoralized Teacher]

Jilted Teacher. I love your simile. It's a perfect way to describe the current situation.

[Save CUSD]

This letter should be sent directly to each board member - multiple times. Thank you Cildren First!

[OC Sapper]

"Children First" is acting as an alter-ego for CUEA in the present labor dispute. Anyone who thinks that they have a constructive suggestion need only re-read this Press Release. You won't find it.

Teachers, in particular, need to stop and examine the situation and decide where their loyalties will be. To hear CUEA/Children First tell the story, there is no public interest in this matter other than that represented by CUEA. Obviously, the CUSD Board has another opinion. They have opted for a package of adjustments that preserve more jobs and classrooms -- but no bigger cut than CUEA has already agreed to in the FF report -- CUEA has conveniently rejects it in favor of preserving the privileges of its more senior members.

Children First/CUEA urge the District to "act quickly", and yet they condemn the Board for doing so by moving directly to imposition of a contract. The Board correctly recognizes that the CUEA leadership is hostile and they understand that a sure thing (imposition of a package) at an early date is preferable to a vague promise that the union will negotiate. And how long will that negotiation take? The last serious contact discussion with CUEA was in June of last year.

Parents, students, taxpayers, classified employees... everybody is seeking resolution at an early date so that plans can be made for next year. The CUEA and their mouth organ "Children First" seek to drag it out. And why not? There is nothing in their future but the certainty of concessions from their present "status quo" position.

Yesterday, Democrat State Controller John Chung, announced publicly that 2012 is projected to be the State's worst year in the current fiscal crisis. He didn't even mention next year -- 2011, except to project that it would be as bad as this year -- with little prospect of revenue recovery.

The present group of kids in our high schools will have spent all four years of their experience embroiled in a fiscal crisis and uncertainty at the hands of this union and their political friends. And none of it is about the quality of education.

Chung has also projected that California will run out of cash this summer and start withholding payments again. Never mind the budget -- it matters not. The revenue is not there to sustain the current level of spending -- statewide.

And yet CUEA fights on, encouraged by a band of morons at Children First.

[Community First]

OC Sapper's comments " The last serious contact discussion with CUEA was in June of last year." shows the total contempt that the BOT held for the true process of collective negotiations and the independent Fact Finders report. It underlies the BOT true intention of never actually respecting the negotiation process nor its teachers participating in the process to forestall this whole situation. Teachers, through their lawfull representatives at CUEA, have attended and actively participated in meetings and negotiations with the District for the past 9 months, yet the district has ignored, insulted and now imposed!

BOT, respect teachers, return to the negotiating table please! Teachers that would prefer to spend time with their students beg you!

[Meagain]

OC Sapper,

Why are you attacking Children First? This is a group or concerned parents fighting to protect our children. If you and your gang is so fiscally responsible why do you allow to waste millions of our dollars on lawyers, PR firm, and on fighting anything and anyone that oppose you. For you, the Union is an ideological target. You want to destroy the union on that basis instead of negotiating with teachers. Shame on you.

[Sapper is the real moron]

OC Sapper

Thank you very much for your idiotic and ludicrous comments. I often wonder what kind of fools advise and support these thieves and just when I can't find anyone that thinks they are doing a good job I get to read your post! Wow! I know there are people that think the world is flat but when I actually read something written by one of them I am amazed. I know the people in Children First and they are not speaking for CUEA but for our children and our schools. These trustees need to sit down and work it out with their employees just like every other district has done.

There are morons involved in this discussion but they aren't in Children First. The real morons are the eight fools sitting in front of the board meeting tonight and those that got them elected and still support them.

[Sadder But Wiser]

Thank you Children Fist for your articulate and accurate commentary on the current state of affairs in our District. I can assure OC Sapper and the other members of the BOT that the "sleeping giant" of the parent community is AWAKE, INFORMED and READY TO ACT. Even those of us that have tried to "keep our heads down" and focus on our own children or our individual schools have been roused from our slumber by the atrocities being committed by those we have "entrusted" with the care and education of our children. Your actions speak for themselves, and your attempts to cast these actions as being on behalf of our children don't come close to passing the "smell test" for even the most complacent parent among us.

This isn't about being pro-union or anti-union... we are parents and we care about the education of ALL the children of our District. And guess what... many of us mere "parents" have more financial acumen and knowledge than the entire BOT put together... YOU are the ones playing politics with our children, and your actions WILL NOT STAND.

See you all tonight...