Still Not Getting It

To read the Daily Pilot’s recap of last Tuesday’s school board meeting, one would think that the big news was the approval of a feasibility study about lighting fields – something they should have done years ago. Many years ago.

Those of us in attendance, including the superintendent and the school board club, know differently. Last Tuesday, a parade of people strode to the podium to attempt to put the final nails in the Swun Math coffin. Some sound bites:

“Teachers are not the problem. The curriculum is the problem.”

(To Superintendent Frederick Navarro) “[Swun Math] is part of your legacy. It is a failed legacy at this time.”

“Swun Math has been problematic.”

“A sad, sad, situation.”

“[This is] the worst math program I have ever seen.”

(Student) “There must be another math program that doesn’t require extensive adult help.”

“Take a bold step. Show leadership. This isn’t working and it’s time to try something else.”

Prefacing and following these public comments, taxpayers heard the usual educrat gobbledygook – phrases that sound official but mean nothing. These included:

“We are moving in that direction”

“We are identifying targets”

“Drill down”

I’m not sure what I’d give to have these people understand what it feels like to sit in the audience and hear this nonsense, which really amounts to a bunch of stall tactics. The coalition that is complaining about Swun Math has been complaining about it for a long time. The only reason they showed up in numbers last Tuesday is because they’re tired of being spoon fed these delays and expected to take it. These comments and tactics are an insult to the intelligence of the people who pay all of the bills and salaries of the district.

Unbelievably, they are actually going to conduct a survey to get to the bottom of Swun Math – you know that drill: The district makes what appears to be an earnest attempt to get input from the appropriate parties, then uses the responses to blah, blah, blah. Well, I have news for the superintendent and the school board club: Your survey results were sitting in front of you on Tuesday night.

The coalition has teed up Go Math to replace Swun as early as January. But the bureaucrats don’t like to admit failure and the certainly don’t like to be told what to do, so a new math program in four months doesn’t have much of a chance of developing. Oh, it would happen if the school board club directed the superintendent to do it – they are his bosses, after all – but they don’t want to rock the boat. This school board club – all of them – lack the will to make a serious challenge to any existing program.

So, while all this wheel-spinning goes on, teachers, students, and parents suffer with a math program they believe is faulty and which may be harming the ability of students to understand key basic math concepts.

The one question I keep asking myself is, “Where are the Swun Math people?” I mean, if this program has merit, shouldn’t the district ask someone from Swun to make a presentation to preserve it? Shouldn’t the Swun people have offered to do this without being asked?

Oh, yeah, there was this display before the meeting:

I guess the Daily Pilot got there too late to photograph it. Or maybe they thought that the field lighting survey was a more dramatic topic.

After the Swun Math debate, the bureaucrats had to deal with yet another brewing scandal: An 80′ high net that is going up around the Estancia baseball field to help protect the new solar panels in the parking lot behind the diamond. Nearby homeowners on Joann St. are upset for three reasons:

1. Someone should have thought about placing the solar panels so close to the diamond before construction began.
2. The netting will reduce their property values.
3. Most important – they weren’t informed prior to the start of the installation process. (What!? No survey?!) One homeowner said that if this situation were taking place in Newport Beach, the bureaucrats would have alerted everyone prior to starting.

I couldn’t take much after this so I left.

A couple of other notes: Kirk Bauermeister was the only bureaucrat present who had the decency to show respect to taxpayers by wearing business attire. Thank you for that.

There were three references to resist shouting out comments because “This is not a [Costa Mesa] city council meeting.”

Steve Smith

 

 

 

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Always Remember This…

Everything in the district is paid for with tax dollars. Every school, every desk, every computer, every paperclip – all paid for by tax dollars… your money.

That includes salaries, too, and money used to pay one administrator not to retire.

You own everything – the district owns nothing.

If you don’t like what you see, speak up. If you don’t speak up, the administration and the school board club will think everything is fine.

And if you don’t get satisfaction, you have an opportunity every two years to change the faces on the school board.

You’re the boss. Not the superintendent, not the school board club – YOU.

Always remember this.

Steve Smith

Bagel Up!

Buried in the agenda for tomorrow night’s meeting are a few gems:

1. The district paid – sorry, YOU paid – Shirley’s Bagels $32,400. I like bagels as much as the next guy, but $32K? Really?
2. You paid Nicole Miller & Assoc. $80,000. They are the folks conducting the investigation into the Mariners Gold Ribbon investigation. Let’s hope that wasn’t the cost of the investigation into the accusations of “untruths” in the application for Gold Ribbon status at Mariners.
3. Your school board club will be rubber stamping the recommended reassignment of ex-Mariners principal Laura Sacks as a “POSA” (special assignment) at CM Middle School. That agreement runs through June 17, next year. So, you may be wondering, how can the district enter into an agreement with someone who is under investigation for lying (OC Register’s term) on the Mariners’ application for Gold Ribbon status and whose responsibility has yet to be determined?

Answer: They don’t care what you think, that’s how.

Steve Smith

A MUST See

Here is a link to a video that you have to watch. It’s short and to the point and it was created by students.

This is powerful and expresses the concerns of the coalition over a failed math program.

The longer this program continues, the more it continues to erode what little is left of the credibility of the superintendent and the school board club.

Note the number of empty seats at the :50 mark. This is what the admin and the club count on – that you will be so bored or confused that you will leave or not show up at all. Please attend tomorrow night’s school board club meeting at 6 p.m. at 2985 Bear St. in Costa Mesa. You don’t have to speak, just show up and applaud at the right moments.

Steve Smith

Passing the Torch

When I ran for a school board seat in 2014, my opponent, Vicki Snell, characterized me as a “lone wolf” – s0meone whose beliefs were not consistent with the voters in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. I knew that was wrong and that this belief was the product of the bubble in which the school board club operates. The bubble consists of a lot of people telling them that everything is OK and that they are doing a wonderful job. The only way they found out about what was wrong was by reading it in the Daily Pilot, which usually prompted another worthless study session or community input meeting.

Though I lost the election, there were a third of the voters who agreed with my positions. So the lone wolf theory was debunked, but there were many times when I did feel as though I was the only one who cared about school issues, even important ones. One recent example is the case of John Caldecott, who was dismissed in a cowardly manner after 10 years of service to the district. Caldecott spent endless hours and his own money to report a series of abuses by the administration – information that in the private sector would have meant terminations.

I reported extensively on Caldecott’s news and broke some stories, too. But today, it is as though Caldecott never existed and his revelations meaningless. No one has been fired – not even reprimanded – and it is once again business as usual on Bear St.: The policies that existed then are the ones that exist today. Why? Because not enough people cared. I have not watched the recent video of the Costa Mesa “Feet to the Fire” forum, but I will bet a good chunk of volunteer hours that not one school-related question was asked and not one candidate bothered to raise the subject.

I was never a lone wolf, I just had not figured out how to get enough people interested.

That was then, this is now. Now, there is a blossoming coalition of parents, teachers and their union, and – gasp! – students, who are doing some serious heavy lifting and getting the attention their issues deserve. They are wondering, for example, why Swun Math is still around, why a well-liked and successful Costa Mesa principal was yanked from his post to fill a controversial spot at a school in Newport Beach, how a Gold Ribbon application may have been allowed to be submitted with “lies” (OC Register term), and most important, they are wondering about how all of this could happen under the noses of the school board club. On the one hand, taxpayers are supposed to believe that their years of experience are an asset, but it’s hard to swallow when we are faced with one scandal after another. If this is what experience gets us, bring on the rookies.

This coalition is approaching these topics in a more delicate and diplomatic fashion than I have or would. My approach is born of 15 years of frustration, their’s is the product of the optimism that comes with a new beginning.

There is something to be said for their focus. At this time, the point of contention that is Swun Math, the focus of which has enabled them to become lay experts on math programs. This expertise will not allow the club or the administration to offer the usual pat on the head and the reassurance that they are the experts and they know what they are doing and leave to them because everything is going to be OK if we just leave them alone.

This coalition is armed with information and a communications network and they mean business. In increasing numbers, teachers are summoning the courage to step forward not to demand change, but simply to start a discussion. At the very least, they suggest, let’s talk about it.

My approach polarized. Some battles were won – more than I know, I have been told – but others were lost, not because they  lacked merit, but because the approach was incorrect. A hammer is a good tool but a scalpel is useful from time to time, too. Shaming the club and the administration was occasionally effective. Most of the time, my pleas were met with indifference. It was the lone wolf and if you ignore it, it will go away.

The new coalition does not carry the baggage of over 15 years of frustration. The parents who are speaking up today have something I lost a long time ago: They have hope.

The coalition is facing an entrenched bureaucracy that does not like to be told what to do. And where I was telling them what to do, the coalition is making recommendations or providing information that will help them make the right decision. Most important, however, is their ability to get these issues addressed in the first place.

The coalition needs your support. They will be making their case again at tomorrow night’s school board meeting and your attendance will help greatly.

Steve Smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, that scuttlebutt!

I get stuff all the time: theories, rumors, hearsay. What I have not published here or in the Daily Pilot column I had for 15 years would make a book. Sometimes, however, reporting unconfirmed information has value.

That is the case today as I report – unconfirmed – that former Mariners principal Laura Sacks is now the assistant principal at CM Middle School or the assistant principal at CM Middle School on special assignment, whatever that means.

Limbo, that’s what it means.

Sacks has not been found responsible for anything having to do with the accusations of lying (Orange County Register term) on the Gold Ribbon application at Mariners. But if the transfer scuttlebutt is true, it would have been prudent to wait until the completion of the totally, completely, and indisputable independent investigation conducted or being conducted by an outside agency (one that has regular business with the N-MUSD, by the way).

If this information is correct it is yet another example of the poor leadership from which we have been suffering for too long. Would it have hurt anyone or anything to wait until the report was issued and exonerated Sacks? Nope.

But a funny thing happens when the school board club goes on vacation and hands over the keys to the kingdom to the Bear St. bureaucrats until they return on Aug. 23.

Stay tuned.

Steve Smith

 

The Dog Days of Summer

No, I have not forgotten this blog. But the school board club is on vacation until Aug. 23 and they handed over all of the decision-making to the superintendent at the last meeting. And since he’s not about to issue an interim update on what he is doing or how he is spending your tax dollars (that’s called accountability and it’s one of the traits of an effective leader), there is not much to report.

You should know that there are residents in the area who are not on vacation and who are pushing for long overdue changes while the school board club is out. This is the most gratifying effort I have seen in a long time.

In the meantime, you can watch an interview produced by Costa Mesa brief in which three candidates for the three school board club seats up for grabs discuss a few issues, including Swun Math. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iRlifS9jrs

We’re still waiting for that Mariners report on the Gold Ribbon application. That will be the one that does not answer the question as to whether any other schools also may have fudged their applications. That’s not the fault of the outside agency hired to investigate – they were given their marching orders and are being paid to investigate Mariners and only Mariners so that the administration and the school board club can declare that the problem was isolated, solved, all wrapped up and let’s move on to other business.

But they can’t know that because they haven’t checked into it.

As a result, there will always be a cloud over the 11 other schools that achieved Gold Ribbon status.

It would be nice if at least one member of the school board club suggested that all of the applications be reviewed but that is rocking the boat and the Bear St. bureaucracy likes things they way they are, thank you very much.

Most important is the deeper issue that will never be discussed. No one has thought to bring up the subject of how to prevent this mess from happening again. Nope, next application time it will be business as usual and the lack of oversight that was present this time will be present again.

My solution: The superintendent must approve all Gold Ribbon applications. That way, if this happens again, we know who is responsible and we can save the taxpayers the cost of another application.

How’s that for accountability?

Steve Smith