I just heard back from Grossmont schools about whether the big news from Tuesday -- that redevelopment money could be used for school budgets -- was going to impact them. The verdict?
Nope, said Scott Patterson, deputy superintendent of business services for Grossmont Union High School District. Just like San Diego Unified, Grossmont had already planned for this shift in funding because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger included it in his January budget
Here are some more issues I didn't get a chance to explore in my article on how legal challenges across the state could prompt San Diego County school districts to revamp their elections:
- Race isn't the only fault line when it comes to how people are represented on the school
A few readers wanted to know how the big headline in the Union-Tribune this morning -- "State given OK to take local funds for schools" -- would impact funding for local school districts.
San Diego Unified wouldn't have any changes to its budget, spokesman Bernie Rhinerson told me, because it was already budgeting for this switch. "No gain, no loss," he wrote me in an e-mail
More than 100 educators in their first few years at San Diego Unified will get warnings that they might lose their jobs this summer, according to teachers union President Camille Zombro, who was notified of the number today.
The school board finalized the plan behind closed doors Tuesday after months of deliberating over how many teachers, if any, would receive the dreaded warnings. Zombro said the vote was 4 to 1, with school board President Richard Barrera casting the only
San Diego Unified is worried that its hiring freeze, which is estimated to save $1.8 million on salaries this year, may not have actually been a freeze. The school board recently asked its top officials to study whether school district managers hired hourly workers to fill vacant jobs that were supposed to be left unfilled during the freeze.
This could pose a problem: While San Diego Unified had a strict process for deciding when schools and offices could fill positions and when they had to leave them empty to save money, there isn't the same vetting process to hire an hourly worker. If lots of schools or district departments did that to avoid the freeze, it may have seriously undermined the savings that San Diego Unified got out of freezing its hiring.
