Positive items on docket, but concern over charter school funding
While the Healdsburg Unified School District had a lot of positive news to report at their May 16 meeting board of trustees, much of it was overshadowed by concerns about a decision made at a previous special board meeting the week before.
The meeting started with several Healdsburg High School students presenting their experiences in the internship program, followed by the district honoring six retiring staff members. Those staff members included Neil Hubberth from the Maintenance Department, Danna Leonhardt from Food Service, Maryam Shamin, a teacher from Fitch Mountain, Gwen Soares from the Finance Department, Kathy White from Food Service, and finally Healdsburg Junior High School teacher Bruce Standifer, who is retiring after 32 years.
All of the retirees were spoken about in glowing terms, but Standifer’s absence will clearly be keenly missed. Current student Allison Grandy came to the meeting to tell the board that, “Mr. Standifer is a friend to all and welcoming to every student. He always opens his classroom and even though it always ends up messy, he still lets them back in. Thanks you for the three years you have given me and for your great example. I will miss you very much.”
Next came public comment, and the unhappy rumblings that had been present in the community for some time bubbled up. These rumblings are the result of a controversial ruling at a special meeting the previous week to guarantee funding to Healdsburg Charter School, during an item that was meant to prioritize funding for various endeavors at all the schools, should money become available following the governor’s revised budget.
During the May 9 meeting, the committee for funding prioritization and the board were largely in agreement about priorities, save for the charter school’s upper grades, which the committee ranked the least important and the board ranked most important. The “averaged rank” still should have placed it last, but the board elected to fund it immediately.
“The board did direct district administration to create the additional charter school teaching position at fourth grade,” said Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel in an email to the Tribune. “The reasoning behind the decision was to avoid having a multi-grade (4/5) combination class. While funding is somewhat uncertain still, the Governor’s May revision as well as preliminary property tax figures look favorable in terms of additional revenue coming into the district.”
Former HUSD employee Lauren Parnes spoke first at last week’s meeting. “There has been so much talk for so many years in the community about the economic and ethnic divide between the two schools in the elementary. There may be misinformation in the community, but if so it is the district’s responsibility to clarify the information publicly and to be transparent to everyone,” Parnes said.
“And I believe that information should include the errors the district has made in the past; including the way programs have been administered, how mistakes have been corrected or are in the process of being corrected and answer questions. Perhaps there is a lot of misinformation because so much information travels in coffee shops and staff rooms and people talk because they are gathering information they feel they do not have access to in any other way.”
Parnes proposed special board sessions to study the elementary program and also the Accelerated English program for their efficacy and equity. “If there are other ways for the district to start communicating with district members and the staff and with the parents it would be appreciated,” she said.
“I’d (also) like you to keep in mind that if you work for the district it’s not so easy to say what you think about controversial issues. There’s a lot of information you might not be getting and I’d like to propose some form of anonymous information gathering that could happen from the employees of the district and the students that would allow them to honestly answer questions about both of these programs. Because we hear things that maybe you don’t hear and maybe that information would help you and maybe you can tell us what you know and maybe that information would help us.”
Next to the dais was Mindy Kiff, who spoke in favor of the board’s ruling, saying she believed that class sizes were now equitable between the charter and regular elementary schools, stating that both schools would now have the same number of teachers for similarly sized numbers of students (12 teachers for 264 students at HES and 12 teachers for 262 students at HCS). However, Kiff also pushed for greater transparency and access to meetings and suggested they be broadcast like the town council meetings.
The final speaker was WHS councilor and teacher’s union president Ever Flores who said he was speaking at public comment in lieu of his scheduled union report later in the meeting, because in the union meeting just prior to the board meeting the only thing teachers wanted to discuss was the recent ruling.
“Just so you know, every single teacher at (the elementary level) is concerned about where the board is going with this decision. Equity is a big issue. I understand that you are put in a very difficult and compromising position to account for the next year but we want you to be the voice of reason and communicate that information, equitably,” Flores said.
“As union president, I am completely disappointed in the board’s decision and recommendation to unilaterally move the last item on the list that we all agreed on to number one. We have a lot of students that are being affected (by the change in funding prioritization). If combination classes are the issue, then all elementary teachers from now on, regardless of where they teach, should be able to reap the same benefit of this new direction that you have chosen to guide us on.”
Readers can expect more on this topic in a future issue of the Tribune.
While the staff may not have been happy with those budgetary rulings, they likely were with another item the board approved, the new salary schedule which provides a three percent raise for everyone for the 2018-19 school years, with one additional day of pay, and a 3.5 percent raise for the 2019-2020 school year.
The decision to give these raises went against a board policy to have 12 percent of its annual budget in a reserve fund. The raises cut the reserve in half, to six percent, but Vanden Heuvel made it clear that raises are needed to retain quality staff in a competitive job market. Meanwhile, the district has to hope that property taxes and other state funds will rise to meet the shortfall and repair the budget bottom line in the coming years.
“Hopefully this is the worst case, and the final will be much better,” said Director of Business Services Steve Barekman.
