Greater Orange News Service

OUSD Board votes 5-1 to accept “letters of intent”
to participate in retirement buyout

The Orange Unified School Board voted 5-1 at their February 21st, 2008 Board Meeting to proceed with accepting letters of intent from employees to participate in a possible “golden handshake” retirement buy-out. Trustees Rick Ledesma, John Ortega, Kathy Moffat, Kim Nichols and Melissa Smith all voted to initiate the beginning phase of the retirement plan. Trustee Steve Rocco voted against the plan. Board President Wes Poutsma was absent, reportedly on a planned family vacation to Walt Disney World.

The OUSD Administration stated the goals of a possible buyout were to reduce costs and give OUSD more flexibility in handling any needed cuts in staffing that may be a result of state budget cuts. The vote allows OUSD to proceed with an offer to employees of up to a 6.5% retirement incentive. The feasibility of the plan saving money depends on the amount of employees willing to take the retirement incentive. The OUSD Board will revisit the proposed plan for a final approval in May 2008 after information is available on the plans feasibility. In supporting the plan, Moffat described the plan as an incentive and called the vote “a business decision”.

The OUSD Administration added the plan to the February 21st Agenda just weeks after OUSD Superintendent Dr. Thomas Godley announced his retirement from OUSD. If the plan is eventually approved, it would provide up an additional $15,000 a year in “retirement incentive” to Godley who has worked in OUSD for five years. After the vote, Board Vice President Melissa Smith took a swipe at the Orange County Register story based on an interview with Dr. Godley on the retirement plan. The article focused in on the Godley’s participation in the retirement aspect. In the article, Dr. Godley tried to defend his being included in the plan (see link below). The article also noted that community opposition started from an “anonymous blog”. Smith shamed the article’s mention of a blog apparently not understanding that the article merely noted correctly that local opposition to Godley participation in the “retirement incentive” came from the blog. In addition to the First Amendment inspired anonymous Greater Orange News Service blog carrying the story, the state’s leading conservative non-anonymous blog, Red Country/ OC Blog, also covered the Godley angle of the story. (Editor’s Note: Beginning in August of 2008 ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE will keep a lifetime running total of Godley’s retirement bonus called:
Former Superintendent Godley’s total estimated “golden handshake” bonus).


OUSD CULTURE OF CONSULTANTS lives on to the tune of $ 8000
Remember when Dr. Godley had trouble finding just $7,000 a year to keep the weekly cable broadcasts of the OUSD School Board meetings to the Greater Orange Communities? No such problem today, even as the OUSD Administration cries that the sky may fall in the next state budget. OUSD will pay another $ 8000 to a consultant to speak to staff from Canyon H.S. and Yorba Middle School. The $8000 Consultant is Dr. Kathy Weigel who moonlights for the educational consultant conglomerate “edu-buisness” the International Center for Leadership led by none-other-than controversial educational consultant Dr. William Daggett (see link below). Weigel will present two Successful Strategies workshops ($4,000 a piece) for OUSD Staff in March. When not moonlighting as a high paid consultant, Weigel is the Principal of Atlantic Community High School in Del Ray Beach, Florida. Her school is famous for its nationally known International Baccalaureate Magnet program that attracts the best of the best students from south Florida. The high school has a student to teacher ratio of 17 to 1. Weigel’s claim to educational reform is not the school’s International Baccalaureate Magnet program (which she had little to do with), but the school’s establishment of several Career Academies where the schools non-International Baccalaureate regular students can get real world experience. Basically, the school has returned to a mostly abandoned vocational education model(similar to ROP classes in California) for its gang infested local non-magnet students. Not exactly No Child Left Behind, but more like Some Children Job Trained. Weigel has boasted that three of the school’s Criminal Justice Career Academy students have gone on to be local Del Ray Beach police officers through the program.

Typical of educational consultants, Weigel plays up her accolades. Her school’s webpage announces her as “2007 Principal of the Year”. A close examination shows the headline-grabbing-honor was from one department of the local school district. The Career and Technical Education Department of the local school district picked Weigel as their 2007 Principal of the Year. For this departmental honor Dr. Weige’s page on the school’s website reads: “2007 Principal of the Year”. As usual, the devil is in the details for Daggett and his consultant family.

To see a video clip of the $8000 Consultant and Career and Technical Education Department 2007 Principal of the Year at work (and to see what OUSD will get for that $8000 in educational tax dollars it forks out to the newest education consultant conglomerate it has decided to waste tax dollars on) just CLICK ON the site link and start the Dr. Kathy Weigel presentation (be sure to notice her repeated reference to Dr. William Daggett!) CLICK ON: CONSULTANT WEIGEL and viewers be warned…even at $8,000…she’s no Obama and seems to offer taxpayers no hope or change.

Dr. Kathleen Weigel’s “Principal of the Year” homepage at Atlantic Community H.S. CLICK ON: PRINCIPAL WEIGEL

The Dr. Daggett Controversy CLICK ON:DAGGETT

Moffat asks for “human give and take” on Villa Park E.S. buildings

Reporting to the OUSD Board that the Villa Park City Council is now concerned about the pending demolition of the Villa Park E.S. historic buildings, OUSD Trustee Kathy Moffat asked for some type of statement from the OUSD Board on the buildings to offer a “human give and take”. Noting that the process under way is by design methodical and prone not to produce “enough dialogue”, Moffat asked that more communication regarding the process be generated from OUSD to the Villa Park community. Trustee Kim Nichols suggested that the district produce a historic timeline chronologically explaining the years of steps that has brought the district to the current place of planning to demolish the two buildings.
To see the main stream media stories on VPES historic demolition CLICK ON:
VPES
and VPES2

COMMUNITY DONATIONS: The Orange North Rotary continued its special relationship with Richland High School it has had since 1999 by presenting the OUSD Trustees a check for $2675.00 from a grant for ongoing projects at Richland.

INSIDE the OUSD AGENDA for March 6th, 2008
Agenda ITEM 12 A: OUSD will report a “positive financial status” in the Second Interim Financial Report. The legal document shows the district with a required reserve of $7,700,000 and a current unappropriated balance of $1,473,166.

Agenda Item 12 B: More Board policy reviews-this time on Instruction.

Agenda Item 12 C: Hiring a search firm to replace retiring Dr. Godley. No price tag on this until the meeting.

14 K- Consent Item- gives the Certified (Support) Staff another .25% pay hike to make their raise even with the teachers and the administrators.

Comparison Shopping
Ever wonder how to really compare OUSD with other district’s financially? The Orange County Department of Education has released the Financial Report 2006-2007;
CLICK ON: OCDE Financial Report



INSIDE the OUSD Budget
“We’re a $220 million dollar business; we’re going to spend the money somewhere.”
-OUSD Trustee Wes Poutsma 9/22/05

Former Superintendent Godley’s total “golden handshake” bonus (beginning 8/2008): $00.00

INSIDE’s EDUCATIONAL TAX DOLLARS WATCH 2008:
$308,000 Total
2008 Attorney Fee Tally:
2/07/08 Parker & Covert $100,000
11/15/07 Parker & Covert (for 1/08 to 6/08) $200,000
$300,000
2008 Consultant/ Speaker Fee Tally:
3/7/08 Dr. Kathleen Weigel Speaker Fee $ 8,000
$ 8,000
2008 TOTAL $308,000


Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2007: $704,090.00
2007 Consultant/ Speaker Fee Tally:
4/30/07 Debra Ford Speaker Fee $ 4,090
4/30/07 Danny Brassell Speaker Fee $ 3,500
3/8/07 Dr. Daggett Speaker Fee $ 9,000
9/27/07 Dr.Daggett Speaker Fee $ 35,000
11/15/07 OCDE High Priority Consultants $115,000
Total $166,590

2007 Attorney Fee Tally:
1/18/07 Parker & Covert (1/07 to 6/07) $175,000
(6/07-12/07) $200,000
2/08/07 Miller, Brown, and Dannis $ 7, 500
2/22/07 Parker & Covert $ 45,000
5/10/07 Miller, Brown and Dannis $ 50,000
7/19/07 Parker & Covert $ 60,000
Total $537,500

2007 Administrative Conference/Travel: hidden since 6/8/06*

*JUNE 8th, 2006 Trustees VOTE to Give OUSD Superintendent the power to APPROVE Travel Requests taking this item OUT of the PUBLIC AGENDA

Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2006: $849,717.00*
2006 Consultant Fee Tally: Total $176,400
2006 Attorney Fee Tally: Total Approved $655,000
2006 Administrative Conference/Travel: Total $ 18,317 *
* JUNE 8th, 2006 Trustees VOTE to Give OUSD Superintendent the power to APPROVE OUSD Travel Requests taking this item OUT of the PUBLIC AGENDA

Total for Watched Tax Dollars approved in 2005: $978,300.00:
Total 2005 Conference Administrator/Board Fees: $ 7,500.00
2005 Attorney Fee Tally: $730,600.00
Total Watched 2005 OUSD Consultant spending: $ 270,200.00


Next OUSD Board Meeting Thursday March 6, 2008.

For more information
CLICK ON: AGENDA


OUSD CLOSED SESSION STARTS 6:30 PM, Regular Session: 7:30 pm
For more information call the OUSD Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at 714-628-4015

ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
Independent insight into OUSD
is an independent news service of /O/N/N/
Orange_NetNews@yahoo.com