Whether the Parents Union, formally United Parents of Culver City, will advocate for all students or end up just advocating for their students is yet to be seen. But there is a group of students whose parents seem almost powerless and disconnected from the local school community. Permit students. Although many parents are quite happy to have their children attend our schools, they have little or no say in how the ADA (Average Daily Attendance) funding brought into our District by their children is being spent. They cannot effect change at the ballot box because they vote in their home districts. These parents should be eager to join the UPCC and have a larger voice.
Reallocating Measure EE
One issue I am looking forward to seeing how this burgeoning parents group handles is the upcoming vote on extending the $96 parcel tax (Measure EE), passed back in November 2009. This could be a good first District-wide issue for the UPCC to have a say in developing the campaign strategy.
It will be interesting to see whether the UPCC will be influential enough to insist on reallocating the tax increment to funding programs that will directly affect all the students in the District, such as, funding an intergraded K-12 music program.
Fool Me Once…
The first time the community passed it, the Measure EE committee issued an un-prioritized list of parental concerns – based on an earlier parent survey – suggesting what, if it passed, Measure EE was going to address. Only after the passage of the $1.12M parcel tax did the voters actually find out that over 80 percent ($920k) of the tax went towards teachers’ salaries in the Advanced Placement programs at the high school; little funding went to the other categories.
Uncommitted Funding
Pamphlets on how to pass a local parcel tax initiative strongly suggest that parcel tax campaign committees should remain unspecific on how the funds actually are going to be spent. They suggest listing general funding categories where the monies could be allocated. Let the voters think where the majority funds will be going so it will have a better chance of passage.
Such strategy may not be effective this time. In 2009, too many from the community felt the committee had pulled a classic bait-and- switch to get it passed.
Spreading Around the Funds
This time the parcel tax committee members will have to be more upfront with the community if they want voters to extend their tax for another five years. The voters probably will want to know exactly how these funds are going to be spent before they vote on them. The committee probably will have to reallocate the percentages of the funding to programs that will directly affect all students of the District, not just placing a majority of the funds in the advanced sections of math and science at the high school, as happened the first time it passed.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
