More than 200 people jammed into Santa Rosa City Council chambers Wednesday night for what Santa Rosa School board members Donna Jeye and Bill Carle called the largest crowd they had ever seen.
The tone was civil, there was very little finger pointing and many in the crowd and at the dais took pains to point that out.
In addition to the story that is running on the front page Thursday, here are some other bits.
(Well, I’ll start with the bit that did make the story…Gildardo Lugo of Luther Burbank Elementary. He was seated near me and I saw him going over some notes earlier in the evening. When he got up to the microphone and read his speech, the audience went bananas. The woman next to me was crying. Board president Donna Jeye broke through the raucous cheers to say this: “As board president, it is my job to run an efficient meeting but this guy deserves another round of applause.”)
Some other moments:
Melodee Bettman, president of a chapter of the California Schools Employees Association, urged her membership and others to take advantage of the public forums and email comment sections to make their feelings on individual line items known.
To see the full list of potential cuts, click here.
http://www.srcs.k12.ca.us/news/PotentialReductions.pdf
To comment, highlight an item and it will pull up a comment form.
Trustee Bill Carle pressed the audience to go beyond saying “Don’t cut my program.” He asked people to lay out clearly what impact cutting a particular program has on student learning, on the educational environment, on jobs. He also asked people to offer up alternatives. If not you, then who? And simply saying hack the district office, won’t cut it, he said. “Tell us how much and from where,” he said.
It felt a smidge eery when, in the middle of teachers union president Dan Evan’s talk about cuts and right before he said “Management’s share is $300,000 and the rest of the $5.6 million comes out of everyone else’s hide,” someone’s cell phone rang with the ringtone from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” You know, this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv-VxrsF9sI
Comstock Middle School teacher addressed ongoing concerns that the distirct’s smallest middle school might be shuttered, despite tremendous academic gains in the last year.
“Why a diamond would be thrown in the coal bin,” she wondered.
Gail Aune, who administers the program at Nueva Vista High School that not only gets young parents back into the classroom to earn their high school diploma, but also offers child care and parenting classes. That program could potentially lose $50,000 which likely means losing a child care provider — meaning three students could not bring their baby to the site while they take classes. That would almost guarantee losing those students, Aune said.
Cook and Slater middle schools librarian Anne Sullivan reminded the board that in some neighborhoods, a school library is the only library for miles, students’ only access to a computer, and the only place where students can readily experience books.
Elementary school physical education teacher Tori Meredith said because of the obesity epidemic, P.E. has become for many students as crucial as reading, writing and arithmetic. Cutting prep periods and eliminating P.E., art and music from elementary campus would be devastating down the line, she said. “You are going to have students in high school who will not be able to play an instrument, who will not be exposed to art, who will not be athletic.”
The board meets again:
Nov. 18 6 p.m. regular board meeting in city council chambers
Nov. 30 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. town hall meeting, location to be determined
Dec. 7 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. town hall meeting, location to be determined
Dec. 9, 6 p.m. board meeting, city council chambers
Jan. 13, 6 p.m. board meeting, city council chambers