End of Year Update

As another school year has ended, it seemed appropriate to give everyone an update on the state of the San Carlos School District, what we have accomplished this year, and the look ahead to next year. This has been a challenging year particularly due to the state budget crisis. I have been trying to keep folks up to date on my blog (www.rosenblatt.org), but the bottom line is that we face a $2.8 million shortfall (on an approximately $23 million total budget) for next fiscal year, 2010-2011. We need to cut this amount (or raise additional money) in order to stop deficit spending and depleting reserves. I will elaborate on the budget a bit more below.

Let’s start with the accomplishments for the year. First and foremost, the primary responsibility of a school board is to hire (and then manage, advise, and review) the Superintendent of a school district. He/she is the CEO and ultimately has the biggest impact on what we accomplish. I’m very excited to report that I think we did an exceptional job in hiring Dr. Craig Baker to be our superintendent. In just his first year, he has established himself as one of the best superintendents in the county and has accomplished an amazing amount particularly in a time of fiscal crisis. He combines a thoughtful and inclusive leadership style with a “get it done” mentality, and the results are clearly evident. The community has embraced him, and earlier this year we signed him on to a longer-term contract. So, it’s my hope that Dr. Baker will stay in this role for a long time!

One of the bigger goals we had set this year for the Superintendent — and for ourselves — was to fix the long-running imbalance in the current boundaries among our four elementary schools. This was creating significant stress among both parents and staff, and it was clear for a number of years that we had to fix this problem. Historically, school boards tend to be very shy about approaching a boundary change as it normally fraught with lots of community angst. However, I was always confident that besides the fact that it was the right thing to do, our community really understood the need and would be largely supportive of this goal. That notion was correct. Although the process was long and involved many board meetings and other community meetings to gather feedback, the change was actually embraced by a far majority of our citizens. I attribute this to the fact that the process was handled in a very fair and open way, and most parents do understand that all of our elementary schools are equally superb. The nature of this boundary change will actually take many years to fully implement (as the change affects new students and not current students), but it will provide a much better balance between our population and our schools’ capacities, and ultimately maximize the likelihood that everyone will be able to attend their neighborhood school. Of course, no change is perfect nor is it better for everyone it affects, but it’s hard to imagine a better overall outcome for the entire community.

Another big goal this year was to improve communication between the school district and the community. This is a perennial challenge as the parent population constantly turns over, the number of entities involved is vast (the District, the schools, the PTAs, the Ed Foundation, etc.), and a school district generally does not have a lot of administrative resources focused on communications infrastructure (as money is properly prioritized for the classroom). However, we knew that improving communication was critical to accomplish our aggressive set of goals. Thanks to Dr. Baker’s leadership and the volunteer time of many community members, we made a fair bit of progress here. First of all, we established a communications sub-committee of the board (on which I sit) to help advise the administration on communications and assist in drafting messages to the community and to the press. We dramatically increased the number of “touch points” and frequency of messages this year. And perhaps most importantly, we overhauled the district web site (http://www.sancarlos.k12.ca.us). The earlier website was woefully out of date, and it was based on an old platform which required IT support to update it anytime someone wanted to post new information. We now have an agile, blog-framework, site that allows the Superintendent and his staff to quickly update the site and get news out there. The new site is also organized much more logically, and it is much easier to find pertinent information.

Another big development this year was the launch of our “enterprise” programs — these are fee-for-service programs for students, including summer camps, after-school programs, and pre-school. (The camps are referred to as SMArT-E camps). Besides being excellent programs that leverage off both the expertise we have in this district as well as our facilities, they will provide an additional source of sorely needed revenue for the District. Also, these programs can provide extra income potential for our staff members who choose to be involved. I predict you will see these programs expand over the next couple of years, as there is a significant need in the community. This is truly a win-win!

Last, but certainly not least, is the budget. As I mentioned, we continue to face a crisis in the reduction of funding from the state. (On a side note, I have felt the frustration felt by so many people to understand the byzantine funding system we have in California, so I was inspired to create a video presentation on the subject. It still needs some polish, and I need to make it shorter — it’s 40 minutes long — but I encourage each of you to check it out if you have an interest. You can find it at http://www.rosenblatt.org/video/ca-ed-finance.html). The details of the budget would take a bit too long to outline here (and I have detailed them in a number of my blog posts), but the impact is severe. The only good news is that relative to many other districts we remain in better shape. This is due to a number of factors, including: the amazing work by the San Carlos Educational Foundation (which is on track to raise $500,000 more this year than they did last year), our two parcel taxes (Measure D and Measure B), the former of which expires in June 2011 (more on that later), the development of the enterprise and SMArT-E programs, as well as aggressive pursuit by the Superintendent of new grant money to support parts of our educational program. However, painful cuts will still be made, including significant cuts to District office staff, program reductions, a modest increase in class sizes, and an across-the-board salary cut for employees. Of course none of this is anything we want to do, but I think it’s the “least worst” solution in terms of impact to our students. Also, I’m confident that we had a very open and honest process to develop the budget, and I’ve tried to keep folks informed along the way through my blog postings. We’ve set ourselves up to eliminate deficit spending next year and stay above our mandated reserve levels. However, there continues to be both upsides and risks in our continuing financial picture. Hopefully we will continue to get good news from SCEF, from efforts to secure grants, and the results of the enterprise programs. The risks stem from continued tightening of the state budget, the need to renew the Measure D parcel tax, and the expiration of certain state and federal benefits over the next few years. Naturally our goal is not to just sustain where we are — when we are financially able, we want to restore programs that have been cut, lower class sizes again, restore compensation to employees, restore lost positions, and maybe even launch new programs! So, there continues to be a long road for us here.

This leads me to what we will be looking to do next year. Although the Board will meet sometime this summer to formally set up goals for the Superintendent for next year, I predict the following will be major items on the agenda:

• Budget (again!): As I mentioned, we need to examine where the State budget is headed as well as assess our upside potential and downside risks. After September when we officially approve the unaudited actuals for 2009-2010, we may look at changes that we can make mid-year to hopefully restore some cuts. But that may be wishful thinking on my part!
• Parcel Tax: Related to the budget discussion, our current Measure D parcel tax expires in June 2011. (This is independent from Measure B, which was passed in 2009). The community would need to renew Measure D just to keep the financial situation stable at its currently reduced level. The sunsetting of this measure would mean devastating cuts — a loss of over an additional $1 million annually. Fortunately a group of parents are already starting to organize a campaign committee. The Board needs to vote to place the measure on the ballot, and I predict we will place it on the ballot for next Spring.
• Capacity: Although we successfully addressed the elementary school boundary problem, we still have an overall capacity issue, especially at our middle schools, which are busting at the seams. We need to start the process to develop creative ideas to expand capacity across the district without spending a lot of money.
• Communications — we need to continue the progress we’ve made this year, and there are a number of initiatives to streamline and better organize the multitude of messages that parents receive. The District is looking at a number of online systems which should improve messaging.
• Charter Learning Center — The School District and the San Carlos Charter Learning Center (CLC) need to renew their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which outlines the relationship between the two entities. As many parents know, this relationship has been under stress and there is a lack of clarity about fundraising policies, among other issues. There have been discussions throughout the year on this topic, but we will need to come to resolution soon. I am hopeful that we can resolve all outstanding issues and maintain the tight relationship that that the SCSD and CLC have enjoyed since the school’s inception.
• Green initiatives, traffic management, etc. — Although these are more difficult to address in bleak economic times, I continue to be hopeful that we can make progress in a few areas such as solar energy systems and creative solutions to alleviate traffic problems at a few of the schools and improve safety. I continue to have the goal of re-starting a SCOOT-like system (perhaps on a fee-for-service basis) to transport students to and from school.

On another note, I have gotten more involved in countywide school issues by joining the board of the San Mateo County School Boards Association. It has been a fascinating experience as I am exposed to what’s happening in other school districts, and we share ideas and strategies with others who have similar goals to build the best public education system possible.

Also, I’d like to remind folks that 2011 is an election year for School Board. Two seats will be up for election (including mine). Although I haven’t yet decided if I will run again, I do want to encourage others to get involved. Please free to contact me if you have any interest in learning what it’s like to be a school board member. Despite the frustrations and all of the issues we have to deal with, it is actually an extremely fascinating and rewarding experience. Sometimes it just looks like no fun from the outside!

In any case, thank you again to everyone who worked so hard to make our school district the best it can be, and thanks for your continued support. Have a great summer!

Best regards,