June 1st Board Meeting Agenda has been posted

The agenda for Tuesday's board meeting has been posted to the district's web site and is also available via our Scribd site listed at the left side of this page. To view, just click on the document, or visit the district's website. In any case, please take a look at the agenda, particularly the items that follow the recognition of retirees. Very often when there is a large group at a board meeting for something like that (recognition of retirees), people leave during the intermission that follows. But it's during this post-intermission time that the business items show up, like the results of the supt's phone survey about putting a multi-million bond on the ballot, etc. We will post again after we've read over the whole document, but in the meantime we wanted to let you know that it's available for reading. Please take a few minutes and look over it. There are important items coming up at this meeting.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

One way would be to read Dale Carnegie's ancient but still relevant book of the same title. Another way would be to study the way that our new superintendent is dealing with community groups and organizations, and then do the opposite. In the past couple of months he has undertaken a series of actions that have left many of us in head-shaking disbelief, as he has disregarded and undermined some of the most respected and longstanding organizations involved with the district, most notably the YMCA and the EEF.

In the case of the YMCA, here's the quick info:

• The YMCA Playground Partners program is a means for parents to be involved in  while also providing an excellent service to the schools and students.  Playground Partners is "an outdoor curriculum, through collaboration with parents as trained playground coaches, to enrich the playground..." experience.  The program is subsidized by the YMCA itself, and the district contributes funds as well. As those of us with kids in the schools can confirm, this program is excellent and benefits a great number of students at a relatively low cost.
• In addition, the superintendent announced that the district is planning to discontinue the after school care programs that the YMCA runs at three of the district's schools. This is possibly even more stunningly unilateral than the playground program item. The after school programs host scores of students in a professionally developed program. Those of us who have kids in those programs know that they are excellent, and provide an alternative to sending our kids to some random after school daycare away from school.
• The long and short of it is that the superintendent has proposed completely eliminating the YMCA after school care and Playground Partners programs. He had apparently not consulted with the YMCA, the school sites, or the parent community, since there has been quite an uproar in the wake of the board meeting. When the director of the YMCA, Susan Hight, was able to address the superintendent and the board, it was only by way of a public speaker's card filled out at the meeting. As far as we've heard, the YMCA found out about the cut when the meeting agenda was posted the Friday before the meeting. 
• When the YMCA did speak at the meeting it was to request that the cuts be put on hold until the district and YMCA could further discuss options.
• This is a clear example of the the Baird way of doing things: Shoot first, ask questions later.
• Why would the superintendent so snub a community organization that is as respected and established as the YMCA, and over a program that the YMCA subsidizes?
• The answer lies in the fact that the district hopes to expand its own after school programs which Baird & Miyashiro view as a cash cow. Sadly, these programs are nowhere near the caliber of the YMCA programs, in both training and organization. The district's after school programs are staffed by well-meaning and energetic young people who generally look to be of recent-high-school-graduate age. This is fine, except that they're not trained adequately, the turnover is very high, and the programs are really more akin to after school babysitting. While it might be in the interests of the Educational Services Department's bottom line to reap financial rewards from such an expansion, those of us who have children in the programs know that doing away with Playground Partners and expanding the district's after school effort will not do anything to involve parents and will definitely not be a positive move for the kids.

In the case of EEF, here are some recent developments:

• The superintendent has stated that he would prefer to disband the EEF and devolve its various activities  to the PTA at each school site.
• He has enlisted and co-opted the help of the present EEF president in an effort to severely limit EEF activities, including restricting them from on-campus activities.
• As the EEF battles internally with this problem of its leader aligning himself with the superintendent, the schools and community are sent mixed messages about what EEF is, what it's up to, and whether or not the district supports it.
• Based upon his recent actions, we must question where the loyalties of EEF president Bill Abrams lie. It appears, from the recent EEF meetings, that he has made some proverbial 'deal with the devil' and agreed to be Supt. Baird's henchman. This is unfortunate because EEF as an organization has become a well respected group that parents and the community can be proud of due to the efforts of past leadership and the ongoing work of those lower in the organization. We would humbly recommend that those who are other office holders in EEF use whatever procedural mechanisms may exist to oust Mr. Abrams and regain control of their very venerable and well regarded name.
• We do not yet understand why Supt. Baird would want to bring about the end of the EEF, but we're trying to. It seems unfathomable that a superintendent would intentionally seek to disband an organization whose sole mission is to raise money which is subsequently donated to the school district. Has he never heard that it's not good to look a gift-horse in the mouth?

And what did all of this amount to at the board meeting? You would assume that the school board members, four of whom have been here since Moses and should understand the dynamics of community groups like the YMCA and the EEF, would have been stunned at these strange power grabs and reacted accordingly. But, in typical fashion, they did not chastise the superintendent for alienating two of the most supportive groups in the district, they did not ask many questions or even appear all that interested. The did agree to postpone the cancellation of the YMCA after school program until further notice. 

And the perhaps the most disheartening thing is that they aren't so apathetic because they're bad people, it's because they're just too disconnected from the school district and constituents that they're supposed to serve. The board members who have been there too long need to agree that it would be best to get an infusion of new energy, oversight, and attention on the board. Please, Bill Parker, Cathy Regan, and Marla Strich: You have all had a long and productive run on the board (since the '90s). Send a message that you see the value of stepping aside for the good of the organization. Announce that you won't be seeking re-election in order to encourage folks who might like to run but are intimidated by incumbents. It will be an honorable and thoughtful thing to do.

Please attend the June 1st Board Meeting

While there may be blog posts of interest between now and then, we want to call your attention to the board meeting that will take place on Tuesday, June 1st, which will likely include several topics of serious concern. It will be unclear what will be discussed until the Friday afternoon preceding the meeting, since that's when the agenda is normally available on the district's web site. Between now an then the district will re receiving a financial update from the state, which will bear directly upon layoffs, etc. Also, it is likely that there will be a revisiting of some of the 'per projects' of the superintendent and the board. It is of crucial importance that people attend the board meetings and stay until the end, since that's often when upcoming shockers are mentioned, such as the purchase of solar for all of the schools. (Again, we're all in favor of solar, but maybe not right at this financial moment in time.)

So please consider attending, or at least reading the agenda ahead of time to see if you think any of the topics to be discussed are of interest and importance to you and you, your students, and the community. The agenda will be available on the district's website:  http://eusd.net/about/board/agendas.asp

Can't hold our tongues any more: It's time for a change

Ok, it's past time for a change.  But more about that later.

We were going to make some observations about the last board meeting (May 4th), but we've been busy working on a few things. While we've been preoccupied, somebody has beaten us to it in the form of a comment on our prior post (about the April 20th board meeting). Not sure who you are, Anonymous, but you're very observant. Thanks for the comments.

We may comment further about that meeting, but one thing that Anonymous forgot to mention was that at the end of the meeting Supt. Baird mentioned, rather casually actually, that he was moving closer to closing a deal with Sequoia Solar to purchase solar electric for all of the schools. Once again, the timing mystifies. If Baird was a military leader he would surely attempt to march on Russia in the winter. Teachers and Classified jobs are being lost, class size WILL be increased (you may be reading it here first), programs will be cut (such as the attempted cutting of the YMCA after school programs that he had to back away from under popular pressure). And examples could go on and on (VAPA program cut, TOSA positions cut, GATE program funding cut, and on, and on). Yet the superintendent continues to take this walk through Financial Fantasyland, purchasing solar, purchasing $1.7M of technology infrastructure for something that looks a lot like it's already working including phones that we use all the time without a problem, trying to purchase a new student information system to replace one that's perfectly good, and this list goes on as well.

Please do not misunderstand our concern: We are 100% in support of alternative energy sources when they make sense (or cents). The City of Encinitas put solar panels on its roof and apparently it's working out ok for them, but that program started several years ago, prior to our current economic meltdown. But right now the district is in a financial bind the likes of which we haven't seen in decades, so how can this really be the opportune time to spend yet more money on non-essentials?

Supt. Baird, to a lot of us it's starting to look like you're cutting Peter to pay Paul, and Paul is your own personal wish-list. But we can't fault the supt. alone for this. He's only doing what the board will allow him to, but that's not saying much. This board seemingly allows whatever the supt. wants, and has done so dating back to the tyrannical days of Lean King. Only Mrs. Muir seems to be asking any questions, which is too bad, since the other four board members have much more experience than she does (that is, they've been there longer than dirt), and they should know when it's time to rein in the craziness. But, like the supt., they apparently also have no sense of timing, of the dire straits in which the economy has left the district's finances, or of how such flagrantly off-base spending will be received by their bosses, the voting public.

It is due to their obviously declining interest in earnestly fulfilling their positions, their ongoing poor oversight and string of badly permissive decisions, and their general apathy toward their main stakeholders (voters, parents, employees, and most of all, students), that we have concluded there must be a change. We are calling on Bill Parker, Cathy Regan, and Marla Strich to announce publicly that they will not seek re-election in November when their terms are concluded.  This will send a message to anybody who might consider serving on the board that this would be a good time to do so. When Parker, Regan, and Strich were elected (oh those many, many, many years ago, prior to their children graduating college and entering the workforce) their hearts were in the right place. But that was sooo long ago, too long. They're too far out of touch. They've been to so many "How to be a School Board Member" conferences that they've forgotten to look inward for "Why to be a School Board Member". Really, speaking directly to the three of you now, please, make some room for new thinking, for dynamic leadership, for people who really have a stake in the game. You three have done your time, and we thank for your past contributions to EUSD, which were substantial. You were good back in the 1990's, and decent into the new millennium, but in the last 5 years or so it's become very apparent that the so-called "Dream Team" has become more of a lethargic nightmare. Not to be mean-spirited, but speaking bluntly, think of the students and hang up your hats. Please.