Politics & Government

Education Cuts, Student Stress Take Center Stage at Final School Board Meeting

The last meeting of the PAUSD school board for 2010-11 on Tuesday night delivered a more detailed look on the school board's goals for next year as well as an update on the state budget crisis and how it could impact funding for K-12 education.

Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Superintendent Kevin Skelly and the five members of the Board of Education returned from their annual two-day retreat on Tuesday and met for the last board meeting of the 2010-11 school year. The evening’s meeting delivered a more detailed look into , as well as a glimpse at how the California state budget negotiations are progressing in Sacramento and how a key vote that is expected to take place this week could impact funding for K-12 education.

Cathy Mak, a chief business officer for the school district, gave an update on the state budget at the start of the meeting. She said the clock was ticking on a vote that is expected to take place in the state legislature at any moment on whether to extend expiring taxes that could potentially lessen the severity of some cuts to education funding. Mak said the extension is expected to pass, and that an updated analysis of projected state tax revenues released this week was more optimistic than previous projections have been—to the tune of an additional $4 billion state legislators had not anticipated.

An updated budget proposal that was presented Tuesday night factored in that $4 billion and showed less severe cuts to funding for K-12 education, for the perspective of the PAUSD community.

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“The implication [of this new proposal] to school districts is, if the $4 billion in [anticipated] additional revenue does not materialize, it will trigger cuts,” Mak said, explaining that those cuts could be as much as $1.75 billion to education and $248 million to transportation.

Mak said the California Department of Finance will perform a detailed analysis in December to determine how much of that $4 billion has materialized by then, and subsequently, how deep the funding cuts will be that trickle down as a result.

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She further explained that, in the worst-case scenario, $1.75 billion in cuts state-wide to K-12 education would translate to an approximate cut of $3.5 million to PAUSD.

Mak said, fortunately, that worst-case scenario is one the district has been expecting and preparing for, for some time.

“We’re still within the worst-case scenario we projected back in May,” she said. “This new deal [in the state legislature] equals a slightly better situation than in the ‘Scenario B’ we presented to the board in May.”

“I wish we could control the financial situation up in Sacramento, but that’s more than we could ask,” board president Melissa Baten-Caswell commented.

“We are very fortunate to have, in our district, sufficient short-term savings to cover such scenarios,” said board member Dana Tom. “This conversation could have gone much different, otherwise.”

Following the budget update, Skelly provided a report on the annual retreat that wrapped up Tuesday afternoon just prior to the meeting, and gave more detailed insight into the discussions that took place and the major focus goals he and the Board have identified for the upcoming 2011-12 school year.

Skelly touched upon some of the personnel challenges the district has been experiencing, calling the present time in the district “a great period of transition,” in which a large number of district administrators and educators have little experience preceding their current jobs in PAUSD.

“Last year, we had an unprecedented number of openings for new administrators, and we’re approaching that number for next year,” he said. “The median years of experience among our site folks will be two years next year. Many folks will have zero or one year.”

For example, Skelly said interviews will be taking place beginning next week to find a new principal for , as current principal John Lents resigned unexpectedly last week and will be vacating his position as of this Thursday.

“We are confident we will have a new principal by the start of the next school year,” Skelly reported.

Another goal the Board identified, going forward, is to foster more communication and transparency in the district. Specifically, Skelly said he wants to brainstorm more ways to gain feedback from the students and families in the district that are “not typically heard from,” in terms of how they feel about their school experience in PAUSD.

“How can we hear from those parents or families that perhaps don’t have the time to attend a lot of board meetings?” he asked. “We want to keep an ear on the pulse of what our community is feeling.”

Skelly said the Board of making the minimum requirements for acceptance into both the California State University and University of California systems, known as “A-through-G,” as the official requirements for graduation from high school in PAUSD.

“Our parents send their children to us with hopes that we will prepare them to achieve their hopes and dreams, not just in high school, but beyond. Balancing all those pieces is a huge undertaking,” Skelly commented.

The Board also touched lightly upon the hot-button topics of students’ social, emotional and physical health, and what their specific plans are to address those issues, but they did say such issues will be high on their list for the following year.

“I think one thing we need to constantly focus on is providing our students with the best possible environment in which to learn,” Skelly said. “It should be easy for them to focus on learning and not so much focusing on feeling intense pressure.”

Skelly commented on some of the strong, emotionally-charged buzz that has been taking place in the PAUSD community over the past year on these sensitive matters, and said, in essence—we’ve been listening.

“We’ve had quite a lot of speakers into this topic as we’ve gone forward, and I think the Board has listened carefully to that input, and I think we all recognize it as an important area,” he said. “As a board, we felt like this was an important thing to add to our work to do for this year.”

Skelly said, further exploration into both —which makes recommendations for changes schools can make to reduce academic stress—and the use of data from the are among the Board’s action items for next year.

He said these two documents can provide the district with a “rough road map for a multi-year approach for solutions to students’ social, emotional and physical health.”

Another task on the Board’s to-do list for next year will be an in-depth analysis of the counseling and guidance systems at both and high schools. Skelly said, he is interested in bringing in an expert to come in and look at the two schools’ models to identify strengths and weaknesses within them and identify areas in which they can improve, at both schools.

Though the meeting was very lightly attended, there was one member of the community who spoke up regarding these issues—Ken Dauber, half of the husband-and-wife team who founded the local independent group, We Can Do Better Palo Alto, which advocates for improvements in the district on a number of issues, including the Project Safety Net Plan, the implementation of more of the recommendations in “P-8,” and .

Dauber actually took a moment to praise the Board and superintendent on what they have chosen as their major focus goals for the next year, and express his gratitude for how Project Safety Net, “P-8” and improvements to school guidance and counseling systems all made the list.

“I was particularly impressed with the superintendent’s draft he wrote up of the focus goals,” Dauber began.

However, Dauber continued to push for a better counseling system to be put in place at Gunn, similar to the one in place at Paly, and cited the results of surveys that were executed by the district itself that indicate that students and families at Gunn are, on average, twice as dissatisfied with their counseling system than at Paly.

The Board said, action on their focus goals will begin in early August as the district prepares for the start of the new school year. A cabinet retreat and leadership team retreat are both planned for the first week of August.


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