George Laase

In a spike heard clear across the Westside, Culver City High School’s boys volleyball team upset Santa Monica, 3-1, yesterday, announcing there will be a changing of the guard this year in the Ocean League. Culver City beat Samo pretty easily in the the first game, and repeated a breezing victory over the still stunned Viking team in the second game.

Editor’s Note: Mr. Laase’s interview with lacross coach Chabola was conducted before yesterday’s season-opening 13-9 loss to Peninsula.

Now I do not claim to be an accountant. But it would seem to me that our School District’s continued deficit spending has many different components that are working against it in trying to balance the budget.

Measure EE, the parcel tax, was passed by voters in 2009 with the intent to help tide the School District over during California’s budget mess. The voters decided to annually parcel out about $1.12M in assessments for the next five years. Little did we know that it was going to turn into The Great Recession, accompanied by a long and sluggish recovery.

During the last five years, even while education funding was being slashed back to 2003-04 state funding levels, District employees still continued to take their 3 percent to 4.1 percent automatic step-and-column increases. This combination of continued state funding cuts and the automatic annual teachers' increases makes teacher compensation take even a bigger slice out of the District’s ever-shrinking budgetary pie.

On Friday afternoon at the Anaheim Convention Center, Culver City High School’s girls basketball team’s quest for its first 2-A CIF championship in more than 30 years did not end as hoped.

Editor’s Note: Our columnist concludes his two-part interview with Culver City High School baseball Coach Rick Prieto. Q: What about the pitching this year?

Editor’s Note: Our columnist sits down with Culver City High School’s baseball coach. Q: Last year the Centaurs went 10-0 and were Ocean League champs. There were 12 seniors on that team. So you lost about half of your roster to graduation.

...as I started to compare the District’s latest 2012-13 First Interim report with the re-discovered 2007-08 First Interim, it was clear that even though the union rep’s statement about teachers not receiving a raise since 2007 is factually correct, it did not begin to tell the whole story...

In its opening bargaining proposal to the Culver City Unified School District, the Culver City Federation of Teachers suggested that the District develop a five-year plan to increase the employee salaries bringing them up to the county median. In his public presentation to the board, union President David Mielke, suggested that if the District did not offer competitive salaries, the it would not be able to attract good teaching candidates or retain its best employees.