Letter to the OUSD board
The following is from three Ojai citizens. I have encouraged them to keep an eye on the thread, and engage with the community, as we all are looking for solutions to a challenging issue facing Ojai...
To the Board of the OUSD,
While Governor Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts pose enormous challenges to the Ojai Unified School District (OUSD) for the 2008-2009 school year, it has been hard to grasp the exact benefits of a number of the funding cuts proposed by OUSD staff. A number of questions stand out.
Will it really save money to close schools? The potential closure of Meiners Oaks Elementary School is estimated to save $284,000 per year in campus staffing, but no figures are available either for the increased costs of transporting these students to other nearby schools, or for the leasing of new, portable classrooms at these schools.
When considering closing schools and moving the district offices, it¹s not an all or nothing situation. Meiners Oaks Elementary could be kept open at a reduced size, by redrawing the boundaries served by Meiners Oaks, Mira Monte and Topa Topa Elementary schools. Mira Monte and Topa Topa currently have at least seven unused classrooms. Moving several classrooms from Meiners Oaks to Mira Monte and Topa Topa should free up adequate space to allow the OUSD administration offices on Ojai Avenue downtown to move to the Meiners Oaks campus.
This would free up the downtown OUSD offices for lease, without the need to close Meiners Oaks School. However, the creation of more office space for lease downtown is a decision that affects the broader community. Before the OUSD Board heads down this path, how do they propose to involve the community?
Is there a benefit in cutting back on food service? The labor savings from the elimination of hot lunches for all elementary students is estimated to be $85,000, but immediately below it is calculated that fewer students will be signing up for cold lunches, resulting in the estimated loss of $79,000 in federal and state reimbursement. Thus the elimination of hot lunches may only save $6,000.
With severe cutbacks likely to continue into the 2009-2010 school year, it would be forward-thinking to create a committee of administrators, teachers and parents, early on, to evaluate the budget line by line and come to a consensus to present to the OUSD Board. In a similar vein, Conejo Valley School District set up a 25-member committee to evaluate possible school closures.
As things stand, it has not been easy for interested parents to get hold of the complete line item budget from District staff. When seeking to participate in decisions on major and imminent cuts to local K-12 education, it is frustrating to have to wait over a week for copies of budget data that is readily available at the OUSD business office.
By way of contrast, in Santa Monica the complete school district budget is available on the internet for all to see. The OUSD owes it to the community to be transparent and inclusive in its planning process.
OUSD budget line item 5200 shows that $50,000 is allocated for the 2008-2009 year for travel and conferences. Why is the OUSD Board retaining this travel budget while Summit School was slated to be closed to save $30,000?
It is also not clear how much administrative overhead is currently required to run the OUSD. Without access to this information, and comparing it to other school districts, it is impossible to ascertain whether the OUSD is run efficiently or not.
Sage Intner, Lauren & Alasdair Coyne
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Comments (8)
as i seem to notice so often (with other issues like affordable housing, local theater, etc), there's a WEALTH of citizen-powered wisdom and solutions available to us, if only we'd use it a little more often. thanks Sage, Lauren, and Alasdair for the letter!
Comment #1 Posted by: evan austin | May 25, 2008 09:02 AM
There is a lot of information, statistics, etc. on the OUSD website and the California Board of Education website with breakdowns of teacher salaries, student enrollment, class size and so on. And a breakdown of the proposed budget cuts was handed out at the last school board meeting. I'm sure there will be a lot of information, as well as an opportunity for public comment at the next school board meeting this coming Tuesday.
Comment #2 Posted by: Demitri | May 25, 2008 12:14 PM
Yes! So glad to see the questions regarding the Ojai School District's allocation of funds - past/present/future - being brought up. I'm eager to review the response!
Comment #3 Posted by: Kathy | May 25, 2008 04:25 PM
The governor's latest budget proposal calls for no fewer than 211 greenhouse-gas busters to be sprinkled throughout state government, at an annual cost of $55.4 million. Basically a bunch of bureaucrats on the government payroll who have created their own agency to support their lifestyle and that do nothing and produce nothing.
I wonder how many schools $55.4 million dollars would support.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/05/04/BALG10G2RL.DTL&type=printable
Comment #4 Posted by: Brian | May 26, 2008 07:09 AM
here's an idea: open/supported/well-funded schools AND people being paid to keep our planet healthy.
how? a first step might be to end (the) war, which cost the state of California $17.4 Billion in FY2007 and could have provided
7,174,307 People with Health Care for One Year OR
31,057,431 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year OR
311,404 Public Safety Officers for One year OR
246,242 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR
2,619,603 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
52,176 Affordable Housing Units OR
6,515,788 Children with Health Care for One Year OR
2,085,029 Head Start Places for Children for One Year OR
250,353 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
220,156 Port Container Inspectors for One year
Comment #5 Posted by: evan austin | May 26, 2008 07:51 AM
Or we could think outside the (institutional) box.
How about home schooling?
Comment #6 Posted by: Jock Doubleday | May 26, 2008 09:30 AM
The "people being paid to keep our planet healthy" are doing nothing.
"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate where it's safe, in America.
Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places in the world that really need peace activism the most?
During World War II, defense spending peaked at nearly 40 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Applying the same accounting to the Iraq war finds the nation spending about 6.2 percent of GDP on defense overall, with Iraq accounting for perhaps half that figure
Comment #7 Posted by: Brian | May 26, 2008 10:13 AM
Brian, the evil genius of America is that we've ALWAYS "fought them over there" so we look clean and pretty while we send funds and weapons to any side of any conflict that's buying. so to say that demonstrations are not needed in America is frankly silly....we're the puppetmaster, the source, so it's needed here as much - if not more - than anywhere else.
do you have the time or means to go sell honey in Syria? neither do i. i do what i can where i am. and there ARE peace delegations going to ALL of the places you mentioned all the time. my mother once tried a similar line of illogic on me, and so i searched for it. do the same, and you'll see that there is peace work happening ALL OVER THE WORLD.
it doesn't surprise me that it would APPEAR as though we're spending a pittance on national defense, if you use the Gross Domestic Product. i'm not an economist or an accountant, but the GDP is the market value of goods produced in this nation. what do we still produce here? we don't even make our own American flags! we're using 50-cents on every tax dollar on nat'l defense, and we're borrowing heavily from China and other places. it's a debt system, and it's not sustainable.
Comment #8 Posted by: evan austin | May 26, 2008 12:04 PM