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Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Trustees cancel vote again
SPECIAL REPORT
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
Independent
insight into OUSD
a news service of
Orange
Net News
/O/N/N/
OUSD President cancels Special Meeting of OUSD
Trustees to discuss Tentative Agreements on employee contracts
For the second time in less than 1 week, the OUSD Board
President John Ortega has cancelled consideration of the Tentative Agreements with
the OUSD employees groups after those groups voted last month to approve the
agreements offered by OUSD.
Orange Unified School Board President John Ortega issued a
statement in a press release late Wednesday afternoon reporting that the
December 18 Special Board meeting, the second meeting that the OUSD Board was scheduled to consider the Tentative
Agreements reached by OUSD and their employees, was cancelled.
Ortega's
statement stated the "Unfortunately
not all members of the Board are able to attend on the 18th" and that
"...the cancellation will
allow staff time to provide more information to the Board".
(For full statement CLICK
ON : ORTEGA STATEMENT )
Ortega had originally placed the OUSD Tentative Agreements
with its employees on the December 11th Board Agenda. Those agreements were
reached after months of negotiations with the district's employee groups and
after five separate agendized Closed Session meetings between the OUSD Trustees
and their designated district negotiators between May and September and an additional
session in December.
After returning 15 min late from Closed Session on December
11th, Board President John Ortega in calling for approval of the meeting's agenda
stated that Item 14 D (consideration of the Tentative Agreements) would be
removed and a Special Board meeting would be called for the following Thursday
December 18 to take up the item. At that
time, no trustee indicated that they would not be able to make the Special
December 18th meeting, and the trustees voted 7-0 to accept the agenda as
changed without further comment. The December 18th Special Board Meeting then
appeared on the OUSD Board of Education on Monday December 15th, but without
the agenda.
Both OUSD employee groups, the Orange Unified Education
Association (OUEA) and the California School Employees Association Chapter 67
(CSEA) had asked its members to show up at the Special Board Meeting on
December 18.
Sources inside OUSD report that the Trustees delay on
voting on the Tentative Agreements further complicates the employee's health benefit
situation. OUSD had consolidated employee health plans
under the CALPERS health plan. The plan
offers numerous health package choices to OUSD employees. When open enrollment
began, at the beginning of the school year, many of the offered plans had
substantial increases but employees could switch to less expensive plans. Those increases are scheduled to take effect
in January.
The Tentative Agreements reached with the employees
provided not only a pay increase, but also covered this year's increases to the
various plans. The employees who changed
their health benefits based on the initial announced CALPERS increases in
theory could re-evaluate the financial impact taking into account the Tentative Agreements
health benefit items. Based on that re-evaluation, they could then rescind the
initial changes they made to their health benefits.
However, the deadline for those wishing to rescind health
care changes is 10 am Friday December 19th.
That date would of been in plenty of time for employees to re-evaluate finances if the Tentative Agreements were approved
by the Trustees on December 11. The
December 18th date made it imposable for most employees to change, but now with
both votes cancelled, the rescinding option appears to now have been taken away
from any employees who might have wanted to change back to their original health plans based on the Tentative Agreements.
In addition, any employees who did rescind their changes
based on the Tentative Agreement's health package, will now be faced with
substantial health care increases in January.
The next regularly scheduled OUEA Board meeting is January
22, 2015.
NEXT REGULAR OUSD BOARD MEETING
January 22, 2015
Next OUSD Board Meeting -OUSD BOARD ROOM
For more information call the OUSD
Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at
714-628-4015
ARCHIVAL Information and direct news can be found
at:
the Greater Orange News Service
http://greaterorange.blogspot.com/
ORANGE
Unified Schools INSIDE
and the
Greater Orange News Service
are independent news services of /O/N/N/
Orange
Net News
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
SPECIAL REPORT
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
Independent
insight into OUSD
a news service of
Orange
Net News
/O/N/N/
OUSD Board calls unprecedented
special meeting on employee contracts
At their December 11, 2014 meeting, the Orange Unified
School Board without comment withdrew the scheduled Action Item vote on the
contract with all of its employee units from the December 11, 2014 Agenda and
moved it to an unprecedented end-of-the-year Special Meeting on December 18,
2014.
OUSD Board President John Ortega announced the move when he
called for approval of the December 11 Agenda eliminating Agenda Item 14 D of
the published agenda. The OUSD Board voted 7-0 to approve the agenda minus item
14 D- the vote on the "Tentative Agreement between the District and its
Related Employee Associations". The
agreements covered the classified employee union, the teacher's association and
the administrative leadership organization. Votes to accept the agreements had already
been conducted by the OUSD employees.
The Orange
Unified California
School
"In a shocking and
extraordinary move for the Orange Unified School District (OUSD), the Board of Trustees removed from
tonight's agenda the Tentative Agreements scheduled to be approved for CSEA as well as the OUEA."
As the statement continued, it included:
"These actions are VERY disturbing to us so soon after the
recent elections where Board members who we and OUEA did not support (we in
fact endorsed their opponents) are the VERY ONES who moved to table these
agreements. If this was indeed their motivation, these actions would be ILLEGAL and CSEA would pursue every legal
avenue available to us."
"We know that finances
cannot be a legitimate concern for the District because despite the failure of
passing the recent bond (which was NOT slated for salaries but only for building/repairs) the
District STILL enjoys a reserve in EXCESS of $80 million dollars"
The CSEA webpage includes a link to this OUSD Budget
Analysis: Click on: BUDGET
The Orange Unified Education Association (OUEA) website
also had a statement to its members which in part reads:
"The Orange Unified School
Board had a series of action items that they were ready to take action
on…except for one! The lone item was Action Item 14D; The Tentative
Agreements (TA) scheduled to be approved for OUEA as well as for classified employees.
The approval of the Tentative Agreements were tabled and will be discussed
during a Special Board Meeting on December 18, 2014 at 6 pm."
Both bargaining units (OUEA & CSEA) have already
ratified the agreements which were negotiated with the District’s bargaining
team. All that was needed was for the OUSD School Board to approve the TA.
Usually it’s a quick mention during the meeting and then life goes on.
Now, There is a delay.
The district’s bargaining team had full authorization from
the School Board to complete the TA. Rejecting a tentative agreement negotiated
in good faith would establish a poor precedent for future negotiations."
Trustees Rick Ledesma and Tim Surridge easily won
re-election in November despite the fact that their opponents were
endorsed by the OUSD employee unions. Both Surridge and Ledesma had
sought the endorsements of the teacher's union.
The OUSD Trustees had met once a month in Closed Session
with their district negotiators from for
six consecutive months, from March to September of this year. The Tentative
Agreements were announced in mid November. Votes by both employee associations
to approve the agreements immediately followed. The vote for approval of the
agreement by the OUSD Board-considered a mere formality because of the six
months of Closed Session meetings with their negotiators - was
scheduled for the December 11th meeting.
During the Great Recession, OUSD employee groups early
on agreed to a series of cost saving
measures including furlough days that lasted for years. Those employee
concessions along with other cost cutting measures lead Orange Unified to be on
solid financial footing throughout the
Great Recession giving it a stellar financial reputation across California.
That reputation led OUSD to be one of the first districts in the state to
promote its budget director to the district's top job. The financial architect of the OUSD budget miracle, Michael Christensen, was promoted to OUSD Superintendent. When
Christensen's appointment was announced in the OUSD Board Room filled with OUSD
employees, the room burst into cheers and applause.
OUSD Board elects 2014 officers on a 4-3
gender vote
At the December 11th meeting, the OUSD Trustees voted three
times to exclude Dr. Alexia Deligianni for any Board Office along gender lines.
Nominated for OUSD Board President, Vice-President and Clerk, all three votes
were cast along gender lines. Kathy Moffat, Diane Singer and Dr. Deligianni
were out voted on all three votes by the male trustees, John Ortega, Timothy
Surridge, Mark Wayland and Rick Ledesma.
John Ortega was elected President, Timothy Surridge was
elected Vice President and Mark Wayland was elected clerk.
OUSD Board votes to
oppose Killefer site nomination to the National Registries of Historic Places
Also at the December 11 meeting, during Closed Session, the
OUSD Trustees voted 7-0 vote, to oppose
the Old Towne Preservation Association attempt to add the former Killerfer School
In April 2013, a
split Orange Unified Board voted in to sell the Killerfer site to Olsen
Urban Housing for a housing development.
The OPTA is trying to get the site's buildings placed on
the National Register of Historic Places as one of the first schools in California to voluntarily desegregate before the
landmark 1947 California California California and in a
federal appeal, based on the rulings then California Governor Earl Warren
signed the law ending segregated schools in California
The Killerfer School was racially integrated in 1943 when the
school for the Hispanic population, the Cypress Street School
In August, OPTA notified OUSD that they were in the process
of getting the Killerfer historic school site placed on the National Register
of Historic Places. OPTA has hired a consultant to work on the designation that
has included filing documents to nominate the site as historic to the California
If the
site does get placed on the National Register of Historic Places the buildings
could be adapted for re-use, but not destroyed.
For the National
Register of Historic Places: CLICK ON
NRHP
NEXT OUSD SPECIAL BOARD MEETING
December 18, 2014
Next OUSD Board Meeting -OUSD BOARD ROOM
CLOSED SESSION- 6:00 pm
OUSD Regular Session: 7:30 pm
For AGENDA-CLICK ON
For more information call the OUSD
Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at
714-628-4015
ARCHIVAL Information and direct news can be found
at:
the Greater Orange News Service
http://greaterorange.blogspot.com/
ORANGE
Unified Schools INSIDE
and the
Greater Orange News Service
are independent news services of /O/N/N/
Orange
Net News
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
Board elections and plans after K
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
Independent
insight into OUSD
a news service of
Orange
Net News
/O/N/N/
OUSD Board members to remain the same-officer
elections to take place at December 11th meeting
After the November 11th election were voters re-elected all
the Orange Unified Trustees who had terms expiring this year, the trustees will
vote for Board officers for 2015 at the December 11, 2014 OUSD Board of
Trustees Meeting ( Agenda Item 10 A page 4).
While Trustees Timothy Surridge (53.7%) and Rick Ledesma
(56.6%) won their races easily, it should be noted that Kathy Moffat garnered
more votes than any candidate in OUSD (or Measure K) with 61.3% of the vote.
Trustee Diane Singer had no opponents. Former OUSD Trustee and perennial
candidate Steve Rocco received 10% of the vote in the 3-way race in Ledesma's
Area 7 contest. Rocco has now pulled papers for the Orange County First
Supervisor's Special Election Race joining
six other potential candidates: Lou Correa, Chris Phan, Andrew Do, Mark
Lopez, Lupe Morfin-Moreno, and Chuyen Nguyen.
The November election results keep the OUSD Board in the
hands of a majority made up of the male members- John Ortega, Mark Wayland,
Rick Ledesma and Timothy Surridge.
Trustee John Ortega was the OUSD Board President for 2014
becoming one of the most successful Board President's since the Orange
Recall. Ortega for the most part brought
civility and order back to the board, despite its polarized membership. Taking the Board on a widely praised, highly
successful and well attended road trip
meetings to the 4 high schools, Ortega was also able to help steer OUSD the
closest it had ever come to passing a Facilities Bond. In addition, he averted
a fight over the Peralta Property even as the Board sold off other OUSD surplus
properties without major difficulties and kept popular OUSD Superintendent
Michael Christensen despite an extended review of the superintendent that had
stakeholders all over Greater Orange rallying to Christensen's side on rumors of a potential ousting.
With the main four Board antagonists all re-elected for
another four years, it would seem fitting for Ortega to be the statesman-like
leader to work to further ease the tensions on the OUSD Board. By pushing the
Board majority to elect the popular Trustee Kathy Moffat ( who received a
higher percentage of votes than any trustee or Measure K ) to at least one of
the Board offices as a token of continuing Ortega's inclusive leadership style to
bringing the OUSD Board together would go a long way in healing a bruised board
and community. Will Ortega again rise to meet the current challenge?
Measure K results to be presented as
VP's Pauly is quoted as supporting special School Facility Improvement Districts
for local school improvements
Agenda Item 8A (page 1) on the December 11th OUSD Agenda
will report the final election results for the trustee races and for Measure K.
Needing a super-majority of 55% to pass, the measure received 54.6% of the
vote-coming up under 200 votes short of passing.
The third defeat for an OUSD Bond measure once again by
less than a few hundred votes has many in Greater Orange looking for creative
solutions to repair the aging schools. On November 9th Orange Net News reported
that school facilities improvement districts were being discussed as a possible
solution to addressing critical update needs for some of OUSD schools. On
November 11th, an article in The Orange County Register reported OUSD
Superintendent Michael Christensen as saying :
"he was asked after the
election by some community members about school facilities improvement
districts, which he said he is looking into".
In a November 24th Orange
County Register story, former Villa Park Councilwomen Deborah Pauly (who
wrote the ballot language against Measure K and lead the effort to defeat the
measure) was quoted as saying that she would support the idea of school facilities improvement districts. The
article states (see link below):
Pauly said she’d be
in support of school-facilities-improvement districts, because the districts
would make construction and debt more manageable.
“I think that’s a very smart idea,” she said. “Because once again, the larger the bureaucracy, the harder it is to control what’s happening.”
“I think that’s a very smart idea,” she said. “Because once again, the larger the bureaucracy, the harder it is to control what’s happening.”
(link Click on: Pauly)
Of course with other sections of Orange Unified outside of
Villa Park included in school facilities improvement districts and approving bonds
the four Villa Park schools would be
surrounded by modern facilities. This scenario would result in the choice of Villa Park residents to have schools that could
eventually look like third world facilities. That scenario could see the very
real possibility of student flight into better the OUSD and private school facilities
with numerous consequences to the city's school's academic and sports programs.
With that doomsday scenario for Villa Park comes plummeting property values and possible
school closings- just like almost happened in 1985.
Another possible scenario is that a Villa Park centered
school facilities improvement district could
pass a bond for the four OUSD school's in Villa Park
and include money for the mothballed and chained -off historic Villa Park
Elementary buildings being restored. Built in 1919 and 1924 as the original Mountain View School (Villa
Park 's original name) the historic main building features Spanish
tiles and a bell tower. Restoration has
long been a goal of Villa Park residents in
saving the buildings from being demolished.
 |
| Villa Park Elementary, 1922 |
The first attempt to demolish the buildings was in 1998. Saved
from demolition, the Villa Park
Elementary School Restoration Corp was formed in 1999 to raise money for a restoration-but
failed. In 2003 the site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places
and in 2008- the site was again barely saved from demolition as supporters
tried to drum-up support for a bond to restore the buildings. That effort was
never followed-up. Including those historic buildings in a Villa Park
facilities district bond maybe the final hope to save the residents of Orange County
INSIDE the December 11 OUSD Board Agenda
14 A Prop 39 Clean Energy Funds (page 7) -approve 3 firms for
spending $1.5 million yearly for five years from Prop 39 monies for OUSD clean
energy projects
14 B Increase OUSD Maintenance Budget (page 8) - add one custodian
to the four comprehensive high schools and establish a new administrator- the Executive Director of Facilities
and Planning
14 D Contract Agreements (page 10) - new contract agreements between
OUSD and its employee groups
NEXT OUSD BOARD MEETING December
11, 2014
Next OUSD Board Meeting -OUSD BOARD ROOM
CLOSED SESSION- 6:00 pm
OUSD Regular Session: 7:00 pm
For AGENDA-CLICK ON
For more information call the OUSD
Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at
714-628-4015
ARCHIVAL Information and direct news can be found
at:
the Greater Orange News Service
http://greaterorange.blogspot.com/
ORANGE
Unified Schools INSIDE
and the
Greater Orange News Service
are independent news services of /O/N/N/
Orange
Net News
Friday, December 05, 2014
Greater Orange celebrates the holidays
Greater Orange Holiday Traditions:
Plaza Tree
lighting, Santa's Tour and the
Villa
Park Dryland Boat Parade!
The Christmas holiday season’s official Greater
Orange kickoff celebrates 20 years of tree lighting ceremonies in the
Orange
This year's guest narrator will
again be retired former Orange Police Department Lt. Dave Hill.
The free community event as always features the
350 voice Orange Master Chorale choir led by Orange High’s world famous choir
director Michael Short with a full orchestra for the traditional Choir
Procession and Tree Lighting Ceremony.
The festivities start at 3:30 pm with food
booths and kids activities including those holiday photo ops with none-other
than Santa himself followed by the official choir and tree ceremony starting at
5:15 pm.
In case of rain please call the official Orange
Special Events Hotline for details: 714-744-7278.
Santa to Tour Villa Park December 13th before heading to back to the North Pole
Few people outside Villa Park may know that Santa and Mrs. Claus keep their Southern California vacation residence right here in Greater Orange at the Claus Villa in
The Santa route map is below. For approximate
times on various streets and at various intersections CLICK ON: SANTA TOUR
17th Annual
Being land-locked never bothered many
in Greater Orange, especially in Villa Park
where the Annual Great Villa Park Dryland Boat Parade takes place on Sunday
December 14th, 2014.
This year's 17th Annual Dryland Boat
Parade called the Parade of Holiday D'Lights, will return to its original
starting point of Villa Park High School on Taft Street
Starting at 5:00 pm, the mighty Villa
Park Fleet sails to the Villa Park Towne and Community Centre arriving around
6:00 pm. for more hometown holiday festivities including a tree lighting
ceremony and entertainment.
The Great Villa Park Inland Boat Parade is sponsored by the Villa Park Foundation.
The Great Villa Park Inland Boat Parade is sponsored by the Villa Park Foundation.
