Wednesday, December 9, 2009

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Parents: Cut Back on Testing


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



  1. Evans: "This group understands that it requires something from us."
  2. Former Unified PTA leader adds, "You need to join the PTA!"
  3. Another person asks: could we rename Madison High as Qualcomm High and get corporate dollars?
  4. Cutting back on testing is getting major props from parents here.
  5. (That one got MAJOR applause!)
  6. More ideas from parents: Tax gasoline. Switch to online communication. Pare back to half day kindergarten. Reduce to a four day school week.
  7. Another mom: Cut some of the outsourcing. Close some schools.
  8. Curie Elem mom: Free up parent groups to pay for more things. Splittig the district could make things easier. Don't cut extra curriculars.
  9. Hage dad: Willing to pay money to help schools.
  10. Spreckels Elementary dad: Class sizes should not be increased any further. We have to go after the state revenue to preserve ed.
  11. Another suggestion: Suspend No Child Left Behind to save money.
  12. Mt Everest principal: cut out the fluff. Get back to basics at school.
  13. Mom and former teacher: March on the streets for education funding!
  14. One dad: start branding buses, pencils, etc for cash.
  15. After breaking into small groups, everyone gathers to share ideas on cuts and new revenues
  16. That should have been cutting, not xutting. As you might have guessed.
  17. Evans: what we're doing right now isn't really belt tightening--- it's xutting off one of your arms.
  18. Evans: "we really need both" revenues and cuts to get out of his crisis.
  19. Evans: saving all the money by shortening the school year would mean cutting three months from the calendar.
  20. Evans: 600 fewer teachers this year than last, despite no layoffs. The staff was shrunk with a golden handshake.
  21. Evans said he had to pay for some of the handouts at this meeting himself. Every little bit counts...
  22. Interim Superintendent Bill Kowba: Freezing salaries would mean we owed employees money later.
  23. Notable folks here: bond oversight committee member, school law attorney, adorable children
  24. Another handout cites "low hanging fruit" for new Calif. revenues, such as an oil severance tax
  25. Handout asks parents to pick one priority: maintaining class size, keeping the school year its usual length, or keeping all programs