About that Board Meeting ( And Other Concerns...)

None of us were able to make it to the VAPAC Board Meeting held last night. If anybody has any word, please let us know.

Additionally, parents who have children enrolled in public schools are entitled to notification when one of their children's teachers lack a proper credential. Additionally, the Williams Settlement ensures that schools have adequate instructional material to go around. Interestingly, charter schools are allowed to opt out or in depending on where their funding for instructional materials comes from. For more information look here:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/ce/wc/index.asp


To look up a teacher's credential, go here:

https://teachercred.ctc.ca.gov/teachers/index.jsp


Once again, The Bee is urging the district to stay the course in its development of small charter schools while simultaneously pointing out that 2 of the districts small charter schools have been nomadic (probably due to a lack of planning on the District's part; of course, the Bee would never say so). It's interesting how the Bee continuously weighs in on educational matters while disregarding any coherent or reasoned critical inquiry into these matters not to mention encouraging the district to ignore sound business practices in the process. ( Let's see, according to the Bee: Project Stabilization Agreement -- Bad Business Idea; Creating More small Charter Schools -- Good Business Idea. At least the district researched the Stabilization Agreement; After two years the Bee seems intent on proclaiming the small schools experiment a success worthy of more taxpayer money without similar research and evaluation.) Nevertheless, the Bee feels that these small schools "need to start telling their story to the public now." And who has a better story to tell then the parents and students of VAPAC.

Write to the editorial board here: opinion@sacbee.com

Send a letter to the editor here: jhughes@sacbee.com

The education writer, Lauren Rosenhall, can be reached here: lrosenhall@sacbee.com.


Get the word out.

Our Modest Proposal...

If, as Black47 reports, no definitive action has been taken on the status of VAPAC or its administrators, perhaps our voices should weigh in on the situation. Judging from comments and our own postings, we strongly urge the SCUSD to consider the following actions:


1. Release the CFO from employment with the district.

This decision should be a no-brainer. Significant portions of the job description, which he wrote and the board approved, deal with raising revenue, procuring donations, running business operations, and writing grants. From what we can discern, none of these activities have occurred with any measure of success. Additionally, several teachers and staff, employed by the corporation and not the district (Attn: SCTA and SEIU) report that paychecks from the corporation were frequently incorrect, 1099 paperwork was improperly filled out, and W2’s were not issued until mid-March.

In his defense, the CFO has offered that he has had to focus most of his energy on “helping his mom with student discipline,” an activity outside of his job description and outside of his experience. However, if the district continues to maintain a relationship with this individual, might we suggest that he write a new job description under the title of “Mother’s Little Helper” with pay commensurate to that of a 1st year hall monitor. Of course, the CFO could do what’s right, realize that he is in over his head, and resign. Then the school could use his salary to hire two real administrators – a principal and a vice-principal – ending the worse case of nepotism we have had the (dis)honor of witnessing.

CFO Job Description

District Salary Schedules (17A and 15A)

2. Release or reassign the Director

As we have shown, back in November, former district CEO Joan Butt considered the Director at VAPAC to be a district employee (see previous post). This being the case, the district has the ultimate word in deciding the fate of this employee. While it’s apparent that the district is reluctant to terminate administrators, the exposure to litigation that the Director has subjucted the district to in her brief tenure is unfathomable and reckless. The harm that she has done to students is unconscionable. The way she manages employees and handles parents is immature and unprofessional.

We have it on good authority that several complaints have made their way through channels to the State Department of Education and back to the school district for correction. Several teachers have also filed complaints with the district regarding her management style, and at least one of those teachers has secured the services of legal counsel. In fact, several faculty and staff members have sworn out statements to this teacher’s counsel saying, in effect, that they were told by the Director (a) to avoid contact with this faculty member, (b) to cease any communications with this faculty member, and (c) instructed that this faculty member was incompetent, untrustworthy, and “didn’t know what s/he was doing.” Since this summer it seems that several more teachers and some parents have agreed to verify this teacher’s claims by also writing statements for counsel. (Note: We have this information from the a source close to the teacher and several of the collaborating witnesses. This is not speculation.)

Let’s not talk about those salaries that she had the executive board approve and that clearly violate stipulations in the charter.

In any other work environment, this employee would have been fired. In the SCUSD, this situation should be handled no differently. However, in lieu or making the obvious right choice, the district, at minimum, really has no option but to reassign the Director to limit its own culpability in her actions.


3. Revisit the charter with the specific aims of making it a district school in some capacity.

We do not want to see this charter revoked nor this school closed. However, work needs to be done in aligning the operations of this school to the practices outlined in the charter or used by most schools. The number of material violations in this charter is mind-boggling, most noticeably the provisions on salary and the composition of the executive board. These flaws need to be corrected, and the current administration is too entrenched and invested in the current system to facilitate any meaningful changes. Remember that this program works and has worked for almost 20 years; it would be a shame to allow a power grab and district indifference to bring it down. If the current administration wants their own school and their impossible-to-defend salaries, let them do it privately and not with taxpayer money. While provisions regarding facilities prompted the school to change its status to that of an independent charter, the Field Act, which prompted this change, can be dealt with in an appropriately legal manner.

Ultimately, we implore the SCUSD to do what is right for the students and the taxpayers of this district and to put an end to this travesty that rewards so few at the expense of so many.

Keep fighting the good fight...

Apparently, the administration has seemingly saved their hides and will continue to pull exorbitant salaries while "running" their school... (Reminder: their salaries represent 10% of the school's operating budget. Who needs a library, or a computer lab, or hall monitors, or...)

We wonder who the administration is going to hire to monitor the students' comments on myspace.com. ( I suppose that the administration's lap dog parent can continue with this job. Nice work VAPAC, way to squash free speech!!!)...

Still having problems getting transcripts or services from the school, call the district, they really seem to care about you, your students, and your taxpayer dollars... ( If you need contact information to complain, see the comments section of the previous post.)

This just in... we have it on good authority that Fox is gone. Supporting this -- a recently posted job opening for a stagecraft teacher at VAPAC on the SCUSD website. With Kapp and Fox rounding out the trio of Siegert, Melcher, and Spilman, we have heard grumbling that some students are worried for their safety...

Big news: The district has to keep their word and build a new high school in the former Sacramento High School attendance area. Some board members are attempting to go back on the deal that they offered in the settlement of the lawsuit against the district over the closure of Sacramento High, and the Sacramento Bee, once again weighing in on something that they seem to know very little about or are at least willing to forfeit any pretense of objectivity, has thrown their support, no surprise here, to St. Hope... ( Message to the Bee -- while you implore the SCUSD to "stay the course" with their small school reforms, have you noticed that (a) America's Choice has no home, (b) The MET has no home and attempted to kick the Success Academy out of their home, (c) the board says that they have no money to build a new Sacramento High School, so we assume that they have no money to sustain any more growth of the small school nature, (d) VAPAC is a mess, etc...)

Speaking of St. HOPE, principal of the school of arts, Allen Young, has resigned "effective immediately." No word on the reason for that move but for info about St. HOPE from a student's perspective, go here:

http://sthopeless.blogspot.com/