The SAUSD is in denial about the persistently low performing public schools in Santa Ana
If you glance at the Santa Ana Unified School District’s website, you might come away thinking everything in the district is great. Headlines include: “Academic Achievement Abounds;” “Measure G Facility Improvements;” and “SAUSD Congratulates its Top Educators of the Year.”
There is no mention of the fact that four of the seven Santa Ana High Schools have been placed on the State of California’s “Persistently Low Performing” list, necessitating massive changes which might include transferring teachers, replacing administrators and even the possibility of becoming charter schools.
But check out what overmatched SAUSD Superintendent Jane Russo has to say on her website, under the headline, “Success is the Standard:”
We are dedicated to high academic achievement, in a scholarly and supportive environment, ensuring that all students are prepared to accomplish their goals in life. Failure is Unacceptable! Success is the Standard…It’s Up to Us All!
Is it just me or is Russo in complete denial?
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Just “charge it” to my Jane Russo account. If that doesn’t work for you, then try my “Juan Lopez” account.
wow, sad state of affairs. Santa Ana was great in the 60’s, what happened? what changed? to get so bad, something epic must have happened there. wonder what it was? oh, and prop 187 would have saved the schools. but people do get in denial and miss the opportunity for saving
I wouldn’t transfer administrators or teachers until the improvements are acceptable. It’s a tough situation when you get into high school and can’t function in English and I sure don’t have a solution. But, it appears that parents are taking little responsibility and think they can just turn their kids over to the school system to be educated – wrong, wrong, wrong – with a strong push from the parents all the disadvantages can be overcome.
What happened to Al Mijares’s ATM (Above The Mean) program? I thought that was going to fix our schools and raise test scores. Art, I know that the public schools are important but would you mind writing a post about the private school options in Orange County? As a Santa Ana homeowner I love my home and neighborhood, and would like to stay, but I don’t like the schools. Perhaps O.J. could review the Private Schools in the area.
To Santa Ana Parent:
Look at SA’s fundamental schools – they all have interested & competitve students and challenging teachers and require/demand the needed parental oversight. Look carefully at private schools as too many hand-out good grades as a reward for paying the tuition and contributing a “little” more.
Hold the parents responsible to have their kids at school on time, every day. To attend parent- teacher and back to school night. To sign a statement daily that they reviewed their child’s homework along with their child. To sign a statement that they know, and will oversee their child accordingly, that behavior such as profanity, simulated sex, fighting, stealing and hand signals (including the middle digit)is unacceptable. When the parents step up to the plate and take responsibility for their own children, then school performance will improve. Not until.
How can we save our Santa Ana public schools?
You can’t that’s the problem.
At both a State and local level this needs to be reworked.
For those that don’t know, there are 58 counties in California. There are about 999 School Districts! This means there are 999 superintendents, 999, assistants. The top heavy bueracracy in school districts is incredible.
Santa Ana is not unique in it’s trouble, but one must ask, why SAUSD parents elect people with no “skin in the game”. Richardson is a politco, NEVER had a kid in the system, Noji, has grown kids? , Renya, a product of the system is “working torwards a bachelors degree from Springdale College of Los Angeles WTF??.
The other two, provide great promise, Hernandez, appears by all accounts to be using his position as a spring board. palacio, well from what I know about him, he represents the best in Parental leadership. On the most Human level.
Thats all I have time for now, but why does Rob Richardson wnat to be on the school board, he has no kids? Thats a good place to start.
“palacio, well from what I know about him, he represents the best in Parental leadership. On the most Human level.”
Palacio? You mean the guy who when you knock on his door at noon on a weekday answers it in his bathrobe and flip flops? I’d like to know how the guy makes a living. Maybe Sal Mendoza “insurance” guy knows…
I’d like a board made of people who DON’T have kids in the SAUSD because any parent who would send his ninos there now is loco!
Dear #4 Santa Ana Parent,
Even though our school site is 38 years old and fraught with inadequacies (like no parking lot), the students at our school receive an excellent educational experience from very dedicated professionals. Our school tied with another school for the highest point increase in API last year. Many of our students are working at the “advanced/proficient” level. The most profound indicator of a student’s ability to achieve is parental involvement. The top students in my class this year (as in previous years) all have VERY involved parents who care about their child’s education and expect the best from their child. You seem to be a caring parent too. I promise you that should your child ever be in my class, he/she will enjoy school and the daily challenges I present to him/her to be the best life-long learner.
Dear #6 duplojohn,
I believe you are correct. The only two board members who matter at all are Mr. Palacio and Mr. Hernandez. The others are not effective and were the prime movers to hire Ms. Russo as the Superintendent. She has yet to impress me. She seems to be preoccupied with enlarging and embellishing the District office. It would be interesting to know who the other candidates being considered were when she was hired. For one of the largest, most demanding districts in the nation, were there no doctoral level candidates or any candidates who had ever previously held the position of Superintendent? Everyone knows it was an “insider hire” orchestrated by Noji/Richardson.
“What happened to Al Mijares’s ATM (Above The Mean) program?”
The only ATM is the foolish CA taxpayer who keeps pooring cash down the public school rat hole! Of course Nativo Lopez, Palacio, and Mendoza started the race to the bottom in Santa Ana.
I met John Palacio, for the first time outside the district headquarters on a rainy night several years ago. It was after a board meeting.
A parent in a OLD CAR was having battery trouble. I watched Richardson, NOJI, Mijares and EVERYOTHER member walk past and ignore her like she was a beggar.
John pulled his station wagon up and pulled out jumper cables and we were able to help her.
The simple move led to my talks with him over the years.
DISCLAIMER: For 15 years I owned a small law practice which advised California school districts on funding. Eventually, our practice decided SAUSD, was not worth the trouble.
Art, i am missing a comment from here.. Can you find it?
Duplo Blows,
Mijares was a failure in Bako, why he got hired her is beyond me. As for ATM, it’s these kind of “high profile projects, that Sacramento loves, and throws money after” If you were’nt so interested in saving the taxpayers money, I could tell you a way to make upwards of $ 120,000. in the remainder of 2010 on SAUSD.
SAUSD, took progressive ideas from other districts (Mendota’s calendar change to benefit from ADA)but, there is still a real disconnect. The fundemental problem is the structure and the lack of involvement of the parent. When you have educators turned administrators as is the case in MOST SAUSD schools, this is a huge gap in priorities, that costs money.
The current superintendent was lured to SAUSD by Noji/Richardson. The search was a joke! Noji/Richardson wanted someone they could control. Least you forgot, the current super was dismissed from SAUSD several years before she was brought back.
So here was was something today that happens two or three times a week in one form or another. A half dozen of my students each gave me a form releasing them from class tomorrow to participate in a performing arts assembly. I’m supposed to allow them to “make up the work”, even though I have absolutely no idea what “make up the work” means. These students will miss instruction not “work”. It just doesn’t seem to occur to school site leadership that when students miss class their academic progress suffers.
Hello all,
I am very concerned about sending my son into Santa Ana public schools. We are considering homeschooling or cyber school.
I have heard that districts around the country are partnering with Calvert School, a program out of Baltimore, to create virtual schools.
The great thing about these virtual schools is that they use the Calvert curriculum, which has been around for over 100 years. This means students are receiving a top-flight education. In addition, virtual schools are sponsored by the state, meaning they would be tuition-free for families.
I personally feel like a Calvert School in Santa Ana would be a strong solution to this issue.
-SLN
Sorry, but SA mom isn’t really ringing true for me. Sounds more like spam than anything else.
I’m trying to prepare students to go head-to-head with the best at a U.C. school of engineering. Today’s lesson used vector subtraction to derive the math for centripetal acceleration, then the start of a lab in centripetal force. But 10 were missing out of a class of 32–a third of the class. They came to school today, but were released from classes for a track meet, a baseball game, and preparation for a musical performance. Our school district doesn’t see this as a problem.
SAHS teacher,
And therein lies the problem…
Thats because SAUSD is a business that makes money of failing students…. Santa Ana is a whore for federal money..
They do not want these kids to do well and they are not the only district doing this..
Hispanic students are great for business!