‘After the First 6 or 7 Hours, It Was Pretty Confusing’

Tuesday night's School Board meeting went until roughly 2 the next morning.

After some routine business, they began explaining each proposed cut and taking public comment on each item, one at a time.

A very long and painful process.

There are almost no painless cuts, and virtually every proposed cut will have a negative ramification all the way around.

There are no bad guys here, at least not locally. (What's up with Sacramento cutting education?)

At around midnight, after just beginning to talk about the first class-size issue, the School Board pulled class-size issues from discussion and decided to hold a special Board meeting just on class size.

I'm not sure if the issue of requiring all Advanced Placement classes to have at least 20 students will be included at this special meeting.

Everything else on the cut list was explained and commented on by the public. But when the Board started to vote on each cut, one by one, very late at night (the next morning, actually), they were just too confused and tired.

They decided to postpone all budget cutting decisions, except the first 6 items on the Community Budget Advisory Board’s list, which they approved to cut.

The Board is going to decide on the other non-class-size cuts at a future date (another special meeting between March 16 and March 18, I believe.

Then again, maybe this is the date when they'll discuss class size. It was all pretty confusing after the first 6 or 7 hours.

The Board did vote to send out layoff notices to teachers to give the Superintendent flexibility, as they say.

There was a lot of debate, very late at night, between administrators and Board members about what this vote meant.

It seemed some administrators were trying to say it meant the Board was agreeing to increase class size for now but could change it later.

Board members, though, were insisting that was not what the vote meant. They said no decisions were being made about increasing class size and letting teachers go.

Board members kept saying they were just voting to allow the School District to meet the deadline of notifying teachers in case it turned out that some teachers had to be let go.

I tried to point out from the audience, and a Board member also made this point, that class size was pulled from discussion. Many people had left with the understanding that no decisions would be made in terms of class size.

So their vote couldn't now be considered approving to increase class size. (Legally, the public must be allowed to comment before a decision is made).

The Board's interpretation won out, that no decisions had been made regarding class size.

(It was all very long and confusing. The public was having trouble following it, too.

You can watch the marathon yourself on Friday night on cable channel 35.

But you had better Tivo it. You will never make it to the end, watching it straight through.

At the very end of the night a parcel tax to support our schools got the nod to move forward, but only to the extent of getting proposals from consultants for the Board to consider.

In terms of the CBAC budget committee meeting last week that prioritized cuts for the School Board to consider:

All of the the parent representatives from our various schools in attendance, along with another School District parent member, did a great job in protecting our kids (and teachers) regarding class size issues.

If classes at the Middle School and Culver City High School get so big teachers can't teach effectively, then what's the point?

It should be noted that the budget savings from increasing class sizes are due primarily to firing our newest (and sometimes most energetic and motivated) teachers.

The CBAC ranking for increasing class sizes at our secondary schools is now toward the bottom of the cut list (unlike the initial ranking when most parent reps weren't present).

I believe the priorities of our community were much better represented with the parent representatives present at CBAC.

There was one item that got a high CBAC rating to cut (the District’s art consultant) because it wasn't adequately explained to CBAC, in my opinion.

I think if it had been better explained to CBAC what this position did and how it worked, it would have been given a very low ranking or been pulled off the table as we did for sports and music.

But I can't speak for other CBAC members.

I would also note a couple of other things regarding CBAC.

First, there were some things that appeared on the School Board’s cut list that CBAC never saw or weighed in on. They just appeared.

Secondly, CBAC never was given an organizational chart for District office positions, even though we were being asked to rank cutting positions at the District office.

I don't feel so bad, though. The School Board didn't get the organizational chart, either.

If anyone still is reading, I would like to say that I believe it is very important we all try to work together to save as many jobs as we can and achieve the best possible outcome for our schools and our kids.

We are a community. I believe we need to pull together as a community.