voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Parents: Cut Back on Testing:
"The ideas ran fast and furious at the third budget meeting held by San Diego Unified, this one at Madison High, which was hosted Tuesday night by school board member John Lee Evans.
Parents, teachers and other attendees flung out ideas to help schools weather the financial storm: Close schools. Protest in the streets and write letters to legislators. Relax labor rules to let parent volunteers pick up work that they can't do now. Raise our taxes and fees. One parent even invoked the idea of renaming Madison as Qualcomm High -- but only if the company ponied up the cash, of course."
By the way, if you want to get all the gory details live about meetings like this, you might want to check out read on:
Community Journalist Emily Alpert "TWEETS"
San Diego Unified School District Budget Forum
- Evans: "This group understands that it requires something from us."about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Former Unified PTA leader adds, "You need to join the PTA!"about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Another person asks: could we rename Madison High as Qualcomm High and get corporate dollars?about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Cutting back on testing is getting major props from parents here.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- (That one got MAJOR applause!)about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- More ideas from parents: Tax gasoline. Switch to online communication. Pare back to half day kindergarten. Reduce to a four day school week.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Another mom: Cut some of the outsourcing. Close some schools.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Curie Elem mom: Free up parent groups to pay for more things. Splittig the district could make things easier. Don't cut extra curriculars.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Hage dad: Willing to pay money to help schools.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Spreckels Elementary dad: Class sizes should not be increased any further. We have to go after the state revenue to preserve ed.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Another suggestion: Suspend No Child Left Behind to save money.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Mt Everest principal: cut out the fluff. Get back to basics at school.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Mom and former teacher: March on the streets for education funding!about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- One dad: start branding buses, pencils, etc for cash.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- After breaking into small groups, everyone gathers to share ideas on cuts and new revenuesabout 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- That should have been cutting, not xutting. As you might have guessed.about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Evans: what we're doing right now isn't really belt tightening--- it's xutting off one of your arms.about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Evans: "we really need both" revenues and cuts to get out of his crisis.about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Evans: saving all the money by shortening the school year would mean cutting three months from the calendar.about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Evans: 600 fewer teachers this year than last, despite no layoffs. The staff was shrunk with a golden handshake.about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Evans said he had to pay for some of the handouts at this meeting himself. Every little bit counts...about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Interim Superintendent Bill Kowba: Freezing salaries would mean we owed employees money later.about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Notable folks here: bond oversight committee member, school law attorney, adorable childrenabout 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Another handout cites "low hanging fruit" for new Calif. revenues, such as an oil severance taxabout 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Handout asks parents to pick one priority: maintaining class size, keeping the school year its usual length, or keeping all programsabout 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- Library at Madison High is packed. School board member John Lee Evans says, "We're not going to sugarcoat it" about budget cuts.about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
- En route to Madison High for a town hall meeting on the budget cuts. Look for tweets!about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck
