Capistrano Unified School District (CUSD) parents and teachers are in a full uproar. Below is an email touting a “Strike” by the parents tomorrow. It is followed by the official response from the CUSD Superintendent.
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL!
DON’T LET THE CAPISTRANO SCHOOL BOARD DISMANTLE PUBLIC EDUCATION!
Things are heating up in the South County schools. Last week students at two Capistrano High Schools went on strike, refusing to go back to class. Tomorrow, parents are going on strike, strategically withdrawing their kids from the schools for a day. Tomorrow is also the last School Board meeting before the strike vote among teachers. The Board will vote on an imposed “resolution” which includes a permanent 12.5% salary cut to teachers.
Meanwhile, the CUSD appears to be intent on provoking a strike of their teachers. Public records show that the district has spent $140,000 on background checks of armed and unarmed security guards to control students and teachers during a possible strike. Also, district office copy machines are currently pumping out mountains of worksheet packets for the students who would be most likely rounded up and monitored in the gym and/or on sports fields without their teachers. CUSD is also offering double-pay for scab substitute teachers willing to cross the picket line.
You can make your voice heard with signs, musical instruments, and by speaking during the School Board meeting. Stand with the teachers during this moment of struggle!
Tuesday, 7pm Capistrano Unified School District Office
CUSD EDUCATION CENTER
33122 Valle Road
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
(949) 234-9200
I-5 FWY SOUTH.
Exit CAMINO CAPISTRANO. Turn RIGHT on CAMINO CAPISTRANO. Turn RIGHT on SAN JUAN CREEK. Turn RIGHT on VALLE. Continue past the Volkswagen dealer to the end of the street.
The CUSD Superintendent reacted to the talk of a psarent walk-out thusly:
April 12, 2010
Dear Parents,
During the last week you may have read one or more e-mails advocating for a “K – 12 Student Walk-out” to take place on April 13 as a symbolic gesture of support for the teachers’ union position regarding labor negotiations. It is of significant concern to hear that students would be held out of school on a regularly scheduled and staffed school day in order to address adult issues.
Everyone in CUSD is experiencing and affected by these exceedingly difficult financial and emotional times, and no one is comfortable with nor escapes the anxiety of having to ask valued employees to make personal sacrifices. Clearly, all parties involved are deeply concerned, have strong opinions, and want to be heard. However, it is difficult for me to imagine that the same professional educators who stand before you during Back to School Night and discuss the importance of daily school attendance by asking you to plan your family vacations and celebrations during weekends and holidays, as opposed to school days, would approve of this method of demonstrating support.
Public education is at one and the same time a right and a privilege. We are, as a nation, blessed to have the opportunity to send our children to school to learn.
I have read one of the e-mails giving numerous reasons for this movement, and as I did so it further saddened me to learn there are so many misperceptions and so much misinformation driving a suggestion that completely loses sight of CUSD’s most important group……………our children. Due to furlough days, our students will already be losing three days of school this year. I only see an additional loss of privilege and a loss of opportunity to learn with their teachers should they not attend school tomorrow.
Meanwhile, if you did not read my letter of March 29 in which I explained how the Board of Education’s decision regarding CUEA negotiations substantially compromised its original pre-impasse proposal with that of the fact finder’s recommendation, please do so. I also refer you to our CUSD web site where you might click onto the April 13 Regular Board Meeting Agenda, Item 43 which delineates the results of an intense process to identify almost $6 million in cuts, efficiencies, and the recapture of revenue streams to further draw down our massive deficit of $34 million while still preserving class sizes, student programs, and teaching and support staff personnel. I can also assure you that additional feasibility studies are being conducted to realize additional savings.
District and site level leaders are diligently striving to salvage programs and services which have become core to the high levels of success CUSD students’ exhibit. These include Trustee designated values and appear in alphabetical order:
……Academies (high school)
……Advanced Placement programs
……Athletic programs
……Dual Immersion programs
……Co-curricular programs (i.e. academic competitions)
……Elective programs
……International Baccalaureate programs
……Keeping all school sites open
……Music and art programs (including grades 4 and 5)
……Preservation of class size
……Preservation of teaching positions
……Sufficient administrative and support staff services on all sites to ensure the safety and welfare of students
I thank you for taking the time to read this letter. My only purpose in joining CUSD was and remains to serve your children to the best of my ability and to ensure this great school district continues to be viable, solvent, and successful.
Most Sincerely,
Bobbi Mahler, Ed.D
Interim Superintendent
After thinking about this since last night I have to say that as both a teacher and a parent, I just couldn’t justify keeping my kids out of class today if I was faced with the decision. It just seems to be the wrong message all the way around. I support the teachers in CUSD and I believe that the fact finding report should have been agreed to by both the teachers and the board. The board seems particularly vindictive in placing the “permanent” word on these cuts. While some believe there is no difference since the contract has to be negotiated when it is up for renewal, there IS a huge difference. When the teachers bargain either for a restoration of cuts versus a 10% increase in pay the difference will be clear. The fact that the teachers were willing to accept the cuts proposed by an outside fact finding committee speaks volumes for the fact that they are willing to take cuts.
W0W! i WENT TO SCHOOL TODAY AT MARCO FORSTER MIDDLE SCHOOL,AND 340 STUDENTS DID NOT ATTEND AND MY SCHOOL LOST &1,700
CUSD alum,
You say that your first and second grade classes had 50:1 ratio. Was that before NCLB? Was that before API scores, CST’s, Benchmarks? Was that before California content standards?? The 70’s and 80’s are much much different than they are today. Comparing the 70’s and 80’s to today’s classroom is irrelevant because today’s classroom environment is much different. The stakes are different and the public has a magnifying glass on your every move. The teachers of the 70’s and 80’s had it made.
I remember in the 80’s our teachers were allowed to hit us with wooden paddles! These little whipper snappers don’t know how good they have it. 🙂 Then again, those “paddlings” were for misbehaving, missing 3 assignments, etc. Just watching this fatty paddle my brother kept me from missing my work. Once 241-KIDS came out, they took new measures. They sent us home with this shameful letter we had to get signed by our parents.
Trex, I realize you understand LaderaMoms situation, or you think you do. I’m not being rude (hard to read a tone). You are overlooking what she said about teachers and focusing on how hard she works to provide for her family. She cannot do anything to correct a problem with her kids if she’s unaware of a problem. We’re not pulling this out of thin air. Teachers are NOT sending home emails, notes, slips, no calls, nothing if a child misses an assignment and it’s not like the child is going to tell us. Schoolloop isn’t being updated daily, atleast not assignments (missing, completed, graded, etc.). The grades and assignments completed/missing usually aren’t added until the end of each quarter. I hope that makes more sense. How can we, as parents, address something while being unaware of it?
It’s not using the teacher as a pawn, it’s asking the teacher to do THEIR JOB so you can do YOUR JOB. Should we call everyday and ask the staff to go to every teacher and confirm your childs work was completed and turned in on time? That’s what we would have to do because I asked teachers to sign my childs agenda and they did for 2 weeks (his Math teacher only for 2 days) and then didn’t because they were too busy. One teacher told my son if he wasn’t so lazy, she wouldn’t need to sign his agenda. He missed 4 days of school because HE HAD SURGERY and she called him lazy for asking for his assignments (as she didn’t put them on schoolloop). Then when I called her, she said my son misunderstood her and said she merely “insinuated” he was lazy for not emailing his classmates on schoolloop to ask them for his homework. Did I mention he had no use of his dominant hand due to surgery?
I guess my child is a heathen, my child who has had perfect grades and attendance until we moved to Coto and put him in LFMS. He’s now a B & C student, and is finally getting back up to straight A’s with the assistance of the person I hired to help him (hey, I suck at Algebra :), atleast I’m honest). He has asked his teachers for help, I have sent him with notes and written in his planner, I have called and emailed and requested several meetings. I’m doing MY job and the teachers job. Back in ‘my day’ teachers were paid pure rubbish and took their students work home daily and graded it, they called our moms and sent home notes if we didn’t finish our homework in one way or another, they didn’t make our kids feel punished if they didn’t donate items to the class (which we gladly donated a LOT of stuff), etc.
Like I said, you’re either without child or you’re not reading these messages well. Sure, we’re flustered and possibly rambling and incoherent at times, but it’s still clear. If we weren’t doing our jobs and weren’t concerned about our kids; why in the hell would we be concerned about this or even spending time trying to keep up on it?
LaderaMom, I appreciate your comments and I really commend what a hard worker you are. I’m sorry you were up on the cutting block for doing what many people have to do, work hard to provide for their children. I’ve seen what you have, so I understand what you’re going through. On the bright side, I’ve heard great things about Rancho High so once they’re older we have hope! 🙂
**Please exclude typos &/or grammatical errors. I haven’t had coffee and really hate to offend people with my weak grasp on the English language (apparently also known as illiteracy).
I completely appreciate the position parents are in. Maybe I can give a little perspective from being both a parent and a teacher. I understand that everyone has a difficult job these days. Parents, including myself, are exhausted from the demands of a job or jobs and the task of trying to get a usually insurmountable amount of homework completed with their children. I have no interest in making excuses for teachers but I do need to share a few things. First of all, regarding the signing of agendas or planners, I do this everyday in each class period for several students. The only way it is going to happen is for me to remind the kids to bring it to me at the end of every class period with a pen in hand so I can sign it. If a child doesn’t bring it to me, there is no possible way that I will remember who needs it signed in a 45 minute class period with 40 students. At the end of the day I won’t even necessarily remember if I actually signed a specific kid’s agenda that day. You can rip me to shreds for that but I see 240 kids in 45 minute periods and try to check homework, fill out forms for consequences for not doing homework, collect forms and signatures from the previous day, sign agendas, go over homework, answer questions and teach a new lesson with some degree of understanding every 45 minutes and believe me, time flies. The responsibility for getting it signed falls upon the student but of course I will sign any and all kid’s agendas when they bring them to me at the end of the period. Kid’s who don’t do their homework consistently receive consequences from me which are either a form indicating to the parent that the homework was not done (which must be signed and returned the next day) or a detention which also goes home for a signature. I’m not sure there is much else I can do during the limited amount of time I spend with each class everyday. Kids who are struggling have many opportunities to receive tutoring throughout the day. The bottom line is that the kid has to have a certain amount of interest in their own education in order for them to take advantage of all of those opportunities. This interest in education for the most part comes from their parents. It’s either a strong desire to do well or a strong desire not to receive the consequences from their parents. If there are no consequences at home and no love of learning that has been imparted to them from their parents, my job is extremely difficult and I may or may not be able to help the child succeed. I do think that many times parents expect too much of teachers and teachers expect too much of parents. It’s a problem and I genuinely can see each side. If most parents were anywhere near the type of parent that LFMSMom appears to be, teachers would have a much easier time actually teaching. With that said, being a teacher myself has led me to be a little more lenient in the response I think I should get to my concerns with my own child. I understand that sometimes e-mails get put off another day and phone calls back are not always made. When this occurs I try to remember that the teacher has many more students than just my own and I continue with a compassionate persistence. I also know that if my child gets a C on something and it feels like the end of the world to me, the teacher is trying to figure out what to do about the D’s and F’s and is not nearly as concerned as I am. Just my 2 cents, but my attitude with my child’s teachers has saved me a lot of stress.
tommarro as in april 23
Thanks for the alphabetical list Bobbi. Do you know if the board has plans to eliminate those programs one-by-one (and alphabetically?) in their continued efforts to dismantle public education? You say that they are trying to salvage those programs, but by doing so you imply that those programs will be the first to fall. Are you really trying to save them?
Really?