Beyond the Blackboard

CUSD to Patch: Public Records Request will Cost $269,000

This from Jenna Chandler at the Capistrano Patch site:

I learned firsthand last week that the cost of getting public information from the Capistrano Unified School District comes with a big price—$269,064.95.

I believe that this over-the-top price tag is the latest in a series of moves to deter Patch from learning how the school board enacted restorations of teacher salaries and school days and what message the district wanted the public to hear about those restorations.

It would take 3,272.50 hours at a cost of $82.22 hourly to retrieve the copies of the communications Patch is attempting to obtain between district staffers, trustees, Teamsters, unions, etc., since December about the restoration, district spokesman Marcus Walton wrote in an e-mail to Patch on March 9. Walton said that because the district's backup and storage policy for e-mail was created for disaster recovery and discovery purposes, it does not have an e-mail archiving server solution for easy access.

See the rest of her column here.

Authorities Investigating Whether Hankey Sub was Drunk

Orange County Sheriff's investigators are looking into whether a sub at Carl Hankey was drunk, the OC Register reports.

The teacher apparently launched a dance contest in his class that had students dancing on furniture, and the principal smelled alcohol on her breath. By the time deputies were called, the sub was gone.

Here's the entire report.

OC Weekly Report: Regi Going After Teacher Salaries -- and Some Aren't Happy

No sign of Capistrano Unified in it yet, but this from www.ocweekly.com:

An Orange County Register editorial project that relies on the names, campuses and salaries of all public school teachers in the county has riled many instructors, a state teacher union official confirmed.

This was most dramatically played out in the Huntington Beach Union High School District (HBUHSD), the final holdout in providing the public information sought by Register editors.

The HBUHSD is working with the paper and the Orange County Department of

Education "to determine the relevance of all of the requested data, including specific work locations," Deborah M. Coleman, the district's assistant superintendent in charge of human resources, wrote in a letter dated Oct. 19 and sent to all employees.

"Although we continue to work with the Orange County Register and dispute the need and newsworthy nature of the specific data being requested, we feel it is important to notify each of you of the possibility that this will be released and become part of an upcoming newspaper article. To date, it has been determined that the requested information is within the rights of the Register and our District must relinquish this data."

Click here to see the entire story.

 

CLASSIFIED EMPLOYEES, CUSD AGREE ON CONTRACT, REINSTATE BUDGET RESERVE

Capistrano Unified School District

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO—Agreement on a two-year contract with classified workers in the Capistrano Unified School District (CUSD) has helped restore a 2 percent reserve used to temporarily balance the budget while negotiations took place.

The settlement with the California School Employees Association (CSEA), approved by the CUSD Board of Trustees on Tuesday night, saves the district $5.3 million and helps restore the state-mandated budget reserve at 2 percent.

“We are extremely proud of the sacrifices our classified workers have made to help us through these extraordinarily difficult budget times,” Board President Anna Bryson said. “The leadership of our new superintendent and our senior staff was critical in coming to terms with CSEA. Only with the help of all of our employees can we weather this crisis and still provide the high quality education our children deserve and our community demands.”

The District’s classified workers, who include employees such as instructional assistants, occupational therapists, food service workers and clerical staff, overwhelmingly ratified the contract on Sept. 15. They will take between five and 12.5 unpaid days, accept a 0.7 percent pay reduction effective retroactive to Sept. 1, forgo automatic pay increases for individual employees for one year and consolidate work hours and calendars. The contract runs through June 2012.

“I am happy that we came to an agreement through mediation and I am happy that we have some stability,” CSEA President Ronda Walen said. “A lot of our classified workers have been anxious not knowing their financial future, but we understood that sacrifices would have to be made.”

With the CSEA contract now ratified and approved, CUSD employees groups have contributed approximately $27 million in salary and benefit concessions, which contributed significantly toward closing the estimated $34 million shortfall the District faced for 2010-11.

“When you are negotiating the livelihood of your employees, things are never easy,” Superintendent Joseph M. Farley said.  “It is my hope that we are close to the end of making difficult choices that hurt our students, our employees and our communities. Everyone is grateful to CSEA for its willingness to negotiate for the sake of our children and for proving, once again, that the education of our children is the highest priority for all of us.”

Since 2007-08, CUSD has cut approximately $100 million from its general fund budget. Officials estimate the District will need to cut an additional $10 million from its 2011-12 budget.

Williams, Another CUSD Ex-Pat, Does Well

Word is that Carolyn Williams, the former Dana Hills Principal and Capistrano Unified Assistant Superintendent, has landed the position of Interim Assistant Superintendent in Fullerton Joint Union High School.

That's the post last held by Sherine Smith, another former CUSD administrator who went to Fullerton and has now been named Superintendent of Laguna Beach Unified.

Another note about Smith -- the Laguna Beach Independent reports that 31 people applied for the Superintendent's job there.

Here's a link to that story.

Government Appoints Evers and Capo Unified Teacher to Academic Standards Content Commission

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today appointed Williamson Evers -- the husband of Capistrano Unified School District board of education President Anna Bryson -- to the Academic Standards Content Commission.

Joining Evers, 61, on the panel is Lorena Sweeney, 40, an English-language development (ELD)/Spanish instructor and ELD advisor for the Capistrano Unified School District since 1998.

The appointments do not require any confirmation and do not pay any salary.

From the announcement: "The Academic Content Standards Commission was established by SBX5 1 by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) to evaluate the national Common Core State Standards for statewide adoption and to make a recommendations to the California State Board of Education on any adjustments necessary to ensure that California’s rigorous standards are maintained."

Schwarzenegger earlier this monthissued this statement on common core standards:

Governor Schwarzenegger Issues Statement on Release of Common Core Standards

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today issued the following statement after the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers released the final Common Core State Standards for English-language arts and mathematics:

 

“California leads the nation with our rigorous academic standards, and I am committed to ensuring these standards are upheld. The Common Core Standards released today set a high, though minimum, bar for all states to reach in K-12 educational content to help ensure that every student is college and career ready. I created the Academic Content Standards Commission to consider the Common Core Standards and make recommendations for policy changes to ensure all of California’s standards are as rigorous as or more rigorous than those laid out in Common Core. My appointments to the Standards Commission will be made this week, and my Administration looks forward to receiving their recommendations.”

The announcement with the panel appointments is long, with more bio information:

Download Evers Appointment