Summary of the CVUSD school board meeting from February 27,2014. Here is a link to the board packet and agenda.
The items that were of interest to me were the discussion on LCFF/LCAP and the public comments from members of the Castro Valley classified union, CSEA.

Superintendent Jim Negri gave the LCFF/LCAP presentation to the board. This is what is in the video that was sent out via email to everyone in the district. This is the presentation that principals will give to each school community.

CVUSD is a diverse school district. About 25% of our student population has some English Learner designation, which could be an indicator of the recentness of entry of families into our country and education system. Our school district is top notch, so it makes sense to me that new families come here and want to be a part of it.

One of the goals of LCFF is to meet the needs of target populations and to engage those families in the development of the LCAP (please see my last blog explaining these). One of those target populations is English Learners. I addressed the board about the importance of translation of meeting materials into other languages. At a recent Title-1 Parent Night I attended, there was no translation available, and the handouts were in English only. If this is how we continue to reach out, the target population will be missed completely.

If the school district is truly committed to reaching out to underserved populations, they did not show that commitment at the Title 1 meeting. In Title 1 schools there is a large population of English Learners ranging from about 16% at Marshall Elementary to 22% at Castro Valley Elementary. Predominant languages include Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese and Russian.

The excuse the district gave of not having translations already done for LCFF/LCAP was that the time-line is short and they needed to get the information out. The fast time-line is true, but they knew this herculean effort was coming. LCFF is not a surprise; there has been talk about it the entire school year. The district knew basically what it was going to look like, but they seemingly dragged their feet until they received the template from the state. Other districts are FAR ahead in outreach, acting without the state template, and not scrambling at the last hour. Superintendent Negri said the district is working on Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese translations and possibly Russian, but as he mentioned, the time line is fast. It was suggested that LCFF funds be used to fund the translations.

After the agenda items were discussed, it was time for public comment on items not on the agenda. CSEA Union members gave their testimonials, pleading with the board to sign a contract with them, and give them what was long over-due. The union is more than 250 days without a contract with the district. These district employees have had hours cut, and no raise for 7 years with the same workload, if not more. They continue to serve our children lunch, they continue to clean up after our children, and they continue to maintain the facilities to the best of their ability with limited resources. They deserve better.

For the most part I am happy with what our district does for our students, but I always feel as though they can do better.