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Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Peralta,elementary music, and Measure K
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
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Peralta lease back on
the OUSD agenda and...
OUSD looks at elementary arts and
music
The
Orange Unified School District
On
the agenda as Action Item 12 C is the Revised Budget report for 2014-15. The report shows that OUSD has a healthy balance of $70.4 million- with $7.4 million of that in a
state required reserve.
The
Peralta lease returns to the September 11 Agenda as Item 12 H. At the August 10, 2014 OUSD Board meeting the
Peralta Lease was the subject of a lengthy discussion on allowing Peralta Golf Partners
to extend the lease with provisions of not selling the property while the
extension is in effect. During the
discussion Trustee Rick Ledesma warned
that 'fixing the schools does not go away" and stated that if Measure K
does not pass he would immediately seek to sell all of OUSD's surplus
properties.
Item
12 B on the September 11 Agenda lets the OUSD Board accept or reject the
auction offers for the Walnut Site. The OUSD Board had placed the value of the
property at $12.9 million.
At the August 10, 2014 OUSD Board meeting several speakers from the meeting spoke during the Public Comments section on Agenda Action Item 12A . The agenda item was on extending the contracts for the architects that did the renderings for the needs assessments on the high school facilities in a lead up to placing Measure K on the November ballot.
Orange
County Third District Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer was one of the
audience members who spoke in favor of
Measure K. Spitzer, who has
children attending OUSD schools, announced his support of Measure K as he
described his personal observations of the need of modernizing OUSD schools .
Supervisor Spitzer also signed the ballot argument in favor of Measure K.
Spitzer's
public announcement to support Measure K came just days after OUSD's teacher association endorsed Measure K. While this may not seem unusual it in fact is
the first endorsement of an OUSD Bond by the teachers' union. C.A.R.E. has also announced that for the first time all four high school's parent, teacher and student (PTA's and PSFO's) have voted to support Measure K.
The
OUSD Board however split over the spending of more money on facilities plans
before the election. Trustee Diane
Singer cautioned to wait until after the November vote on Measure K before
spending further money-reasoning that if the measure does not pass, the new
first phase renderings that the action item would provide would not be needed.
Trustee
Dr. Alexia Deligianni (who voted against
placing the measure on the ballot and is the only OUSD Trustee to sign the
ballot arguments against Measure K)
spoke again of her concerns with the original architectural renderings
of high schools that were designed without a budget according to the wishes of
each high school's stakeholders..
Trustee
Timothy Surridge agreed that the blueprint process should be in place for what
the estimated $74 million per high school bond could accomplish before the bond
is potentially passed.
Trustee
Rick Ledesma likened supporting the agenda item for the new renderings to being
"good stewards" in preparing
for the bond monies.
The
Deligianni concerns mirror a recent anti-Measure K Op-Ed in The Foothill Sentry and appear to be part of the loosely organized
anti-K campaign that appears to be heavily counting on the hard-right
controlled Orange County Republican Party for help in defeating Measure K. The Orange County Republican Party went on
record against every school bond in Orange
County
Action
Item 12A passed on a 5-2 vote with Deligianni and Singer voting
"No" and the rest of the OUSD
Trustees voting yes.
Item
12 C was also about Measure K. The agenda item requested by Trustee Singer
called for Bond Transparency Training. While all the trustees supported the
idea, the devil was in the details of when and where the training would take
place and who would sponsor the training.
At the end of competing motions, the training was ultimately supported.
Is OUSD starting on a new Consultant "Milieu"?
Is
Orange Unified headed for another round of wasteful spending by bringing back a
Consultant Culture, or rather as the
"description" OUSD Administrative Director of Community and Student
Services Dr. Kenneth Miller used in OUSD's latest press release a "milieu"
(French...as in the language...for environment). Unlike OUSD's budget busting failed Focus
on Results consultant experiment, this new the top down Consultant Milieu may have serious consequences
not just on the budget, but on local perceptions of the "optional"
schools.
A
new elitist OUSD Consultant Milieu spending spree could not come at a
worst time for the community schools as the OUSD Trustees are asking voters for
approval on a series of bonds to upgrade and repair aging schools that are in
dire need of improvement. In all of Orange
County
The
press release sent out by Superintendent Michael Christensen on Friday
September 5, 2014 to the community (but not OUSD employees) touts Cerro Villa Middle School being the first
ever Orange County middle school to be granted the optional
"accreditation" which is called in the release an "award". In the press release "Director of Community" Dr. Miller
is quoted explaining in contorted bureaucratic educrat-speak the benefits of
the Cerro Villa accreditation to Greater Orange "Community" as :
"Our professional team can now see how we as a school
will not only improve our service model in the current milieu but we have also
will [sic ] nurture this opportunity to empower our students to achieve at optimal
levels throughout their high school and postsecondary careers.”
The
optional accreditation of middle, elementary and even pre-schools comes as the
accreditation process itself is under increased scrutiny from educational
reformers of all types.
The
reason no other high achieving Orange
County CLICK ON
The
process for the optional accreditation for Cerro Villa MS was began by Dr.
Miller when he was the school's principal. For the expense of the accreditation process,
Cerro Villa was "granted" a
two year accreditation until 2017 by the quasi-governmental Western Association
of Schools and Colleges (WASC) with reported minimum requirements. That however
will change.
In
1965 the accreditation process for "higher education" was granted to
six agencies with monopolies in geographical areas by federal legislation. The status of those six "agencies"
as official but "private" allows them to tout- as the WASC website
does-that they do not have to give out any information under the Freedom
of Information Act that government agencies do. That means there is no public scrutiny of the
budgets or administrative pay.
For
years the exclusive monopoly of college and high school accreditation was
widely accepted with the strings of federal funding attached, but since the No
Child Left Behind legislation, the accreditation "agencies" have come
under increasing scrutiny by educational reformers on all sides of the
political spectrum Increasing calls for reform or elimination of the six
agencies and/or their monopoly power have been made by a wide range of
education reformers including the notable
American Council of Trustees and Alumni. WASC and the other regional accreditation
monopolies are seen as pawns of the federal government wielding enormous power
over public local control issues and private educational institutions. They
have often been seen as anti-reform. (Click on FEDERAL and
AEI ) .
All
expenses of the accreditation process for the committee and agency
administrators- including airfare, local transportation, lodging, meals,
materials and supplies are paid for by the school district. Payment is
requested in two weeks after the accreditation visit (the schools are invoiced)
and if payment is not received in 30 days after the visit- a 15%
"administrative fee" surcharge is added to the bill (see link
below). In the OUSD press release Dr.
Miller thanked educational consultant Tony Ferruzzo of the consultant firm DecisionInsite (Click on CONSULTANT)
and WASC's Executive Director Dr. Van Leuven for their guidance through the
process. The press release further
stated that Leuven, who is based in Burlington California , had
personally come to Orange Click ON
Unlike
governmental oversight, the private accreditation firms operate much like
consultant firms with a twist, they can demand payment and add on fees all
before rendering a life or death decision for schools. While the WASC uses
unpaid "volunteers" for the real time consuming committee work that
reviews the schools for the process, the administrators of the mega-agencies
get paid- reportedly very well.
Christensen's
press release included information that Yorba and Portola Middle Schools were
next in line for the accreditation
process-reportedly much to the surprise of the staffs at both middle
schools. The staffs at those schools were only made aware that their schools
would be part of an optional accreditation process when the community press
release was brought to their attention. The press release stated that OUSD had "initiated the WASC process for middle
schools" mentioned both Portola and Yorba by name. Now, like the costly mistake of trying to
unsuccessfully impose the failed Focus on Results top down consultant
culture on school stakeholders during the unpopular "Good to Great" Godley Administration, with the new
influx of educational tax dollars the
current OUSD administration appears poised to follow with their own expensive encore
top-down Consultant Milieu.
Despite
the recent OUSD mailer on Measure K to the Greater Orange Community touting the
high achievement in OUSD schools (which happened after the former OUSD Superintendent Dr. Dreier ended
the OUSD Consultant Culture and switched to using the talent of OUSD
administrators and teachers) OUSD middle and elementary schools appear poised
to work on Dr. Miller's new consultant driven "service model in the
current milieu" to "nurture
this opportunity to empower our students to achieve at optimal levels
" because obviously what the new OUSD Director of Community and Students
appears to be inferring is that OUSD teachers and schools have been failing
students all these years and need more consultant hoops to jump through to
prove they can "empower our students to
achieve at optimal levels".
Now with tens of millions of educational tax dollars "in
the current milieu" , will OUSD return to the failed top down pre-recession Consultant Culture or as it may now be know as a new Consultant
Milieu?
INSIDE the September 11, 2014 Meeting
Item 9E- New Student Board Members representing OUSD's high
schools
Item 9F- Walk to School Week and Day recognition
Action Items 12 D,F,E,G: Vote on revisions to various Board
Policies.
NEXT OUSD BOARD MEETING Thursday September
11, 2014
CLOSED SESSION NOTE Time change 5:30 pm
OUSD Regular Session: 7:00
pm
For the AGENDA-CLICK ON: AGENDA
For more information call the OUSD
Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at
714-628-4015
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