But wait, there’s more!

I was 18 when the Watergate hearings were held and I would sometimes skip school to watch them.

I grew up hearing about Donald Segretti and the dirty tricks of the Nixon campaign, so I get all that. It’s not good, but it happens.

But in a school district race? Seriously?

Hours after incumbent Trustee Vicki Snell posted a deceptive photo in a pathetic attempt to discredit and smear Dr. Leah Ersoylu, her worthy opponent, we have learned that someone notified the Costa Mesa Code Enforcement Dept. that an Ersoylu banner may be out of code due to its size. A code enforcement person actually came out and measured it.

(P.S. Everything was fine. I guess it never occurred to whomever called Code Enforcement that the – Duh! – Ersoylu campaign checked ahead of time and had the banners printed per city regulations. But that’s to be expected from a trustee majority that routinely shoots from the hip.)

Yes, it’s true: With all of the upheaval in the district, including a failed distance learning program, irate teachers, classifieds who seem to be ready to mutiny, and no clear path to ensure the safety of any of them before in-person classes resume, the Snell campaign is busy wasting valuable city resources on measuring campaign signs.

Between these two events over the last 24 hours, Snell should have the good sense to resign as her conduct is unbecoming that of a trustee. It matters not whether Snell called the city – it happened on her watch and if she cannot control her campaign people, or herself, then she should quit.

This conduct is a disgrace.

So please note: No one from the Ersoylu campaign has posted deceptive photos or wasted taxpayer dollars on bogus code checks.

If Snell had any sense of propriety, she would reimburse the city for the code enforcement time.

But apparently, she does not. In one respect, that’s OK because voters now have the opportunity to see how not to act as a trustee, and that there is a good candidate option.

Steve Smith

Busted!

Campaign dirty tricks are nothing new. But few of us expect them from an incumbent school board member – someone who is supposed to be setting an example for our young residents.

Well, we’re all supposed to be setting an example, but a school board member is particularly visible.

Enter Signgate

What started out by incumbent Trustee Vicki Snell as an attempt to smear or discredit her opponent has turned into a local brouhaha that exposed her lack of credibility and her desperation to do whatever it takes to win. With an emphasis on “whatever.”

These are the facts:

1. According to the Facebook time stamp, Snell posted the following at approximately 6:20 a.m Sunday morning: “Do you think it’s right to post a sign next to a personal home when the owner supports the opposition? I’m told by the candidate it’s legal and if the homeowner takes it down, they could be charged with a misdemeanor. Really? What has happened to respecting our individual rights. Some people actually don’t want any signs on their property!”
2. The rant was accompanied by this image:

3. Not long after this was posted, a sharp-eyed local exposed this for what it really is: A pathetic attempt to smear and discredit Dr. Leah Ersoylu, who has mounted a formidable challenge to Snell to help restore transparency, accountability, and fiscal responsibility to the school district.

The local did it by showing the same image corner in a wider angle:

That campaign sign stuck into the ground off to the left, next to the light pole belongs to Snell. So while she was questioning the placement of Dr. Ersoylu’s campaign sign, she had one of her own just a few feet away.

Busted.

When the ruse was discovered, Snell posted this: “I should have mentioned that I am supported by this family and received permission to post. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”

In all sincerity, I applaud her for using the word “Sorry.” I am serious about this point. Too often, when people screw up, they cannot say “I’m sorry,” even though they should. I believe, as I have written, that the two most powerful words in the English language are “I’m sorry” and if they were used more often in place of “mistake in judgment” or “erred” or any of the other usual insincere euphemisms, there would be far fewer problems in the world.

But that’s where the applause stops. Snell knew that her sign was just a few feet away from Ersoylu’s but she attempted to make Ersoylu look bad by selectively posting that photo.

Even worse, Ersoylu’s sign is in a perfectly legal location. So there was an attempt to generate controversy when there was no controversy at all.

If you visit the website for the district, then click on “Board,” and scroll down to “Board of Education,” you will see this statement: “Board members occupy unique roles because they are also citizens, and, in some cases, parents. This unique status causes Board members to have a special responsibility when they are acting as citizens or parents because their elected positions carry a great deal of prestige and visibility.”

Vicki Snell wants another four years on the school board and wants us to believe that she possesses the integrity and trustworthiness to make the crucial decisions regarding the education of our children. But from what I have seen, she does not uphold the “special responsibility” that is required of the position.

So, why? Why would an elected official – someone who is involved in one of the most important components of our society – stoop so low?

The answer is desperation. Snell has nothing to show for her six years on the school board. To the contrary, her tenure has been an expensive one: Between the stink, the pool fiasco, and the baseball poles – all at Estancia –  and more, a lot of money has been wasted on her watch.

So it’s only natural that when a candidate such as Leah Ersoylu comes along – educated, respected, entrepreneur, parent of a child in the district – that she would lash out this way.

Natural, perhaps, but not acceptable.

Steve Smith

So many notes, so little time

I gave it the old college try, but I could attend only the first two hours of last night’s school board meeting. That, however, generated three pages of notes, the first of which focused on the Student Board Member reports.

These students were reporting on the results of a survey they created to get feedback on the status of the distance learning program. My takeaways include:

• An overall “middlin'” grade for distance learning. Say a 5 out of 10.
• Any higher response was related not to district improvements with the program but due to increased familiarity (getting over the learning curve)
• A very low grade from the student board member at Estancia High School, who reported a “2-3” rating out of 10.

The low Estancia rating should not be surprising. Things at Estancia High School have not been going well under the oversight of Trustee Vicki Snell. The school has been battered with a wrecked aquatics program due to a premature draining of the pool, the costly – wasteful – placement and subsequent removal of huge poles at the baseball diamond, and a stink at the school that was there for years and resulted in the disability of a teacher, to name a few.

Now, they are facing the potential loss of some beautiful, mature trees due to the construction of a new theater at the school when there are alternate sights available.

So, yeah, the kids there may be a lot more discouraged and skeptical than at other schools.

Please support Dr. eah Ersoylu to replace Snell this fall:

Donate or volunteer at: https://www.leah4newportmesa.com/

Excuse me???

After all these years of reporting on the school district, I am still surprised at the occurrence of “foot-in-mouth” disease.

A prime example happened last night when designated Superintendent Russell Lee-Sung commented on “the importance of hearing student voices.”

Yeah, right. It’s so important to you that they had to create their own survey. You didn’t think of it, they did. But now, their voices are important.

As long as I have been doing this, there has never been a time when student voices have been important to the school board. That’s changing slightly with the addition of Trustees Michelle Barto and Ashley Anderson, who are both much closer in age to the students (and Barto has school-age children) but it’s not where it needs to be.

Month after month, we listen to the student reports with no substantive questions from the trustees about sensitive issues. There were no questions from anyone during the CdM cheating scandal, the prom draft, the pool draining, and so many more episodes.

Lost opportunities. The board had intelligent, involved students in the room and they failed to take the pulse of what was happening on our campuses. Why? Because they didn’t care. It was more important to the trustees to hide the messes than to discuss them openly and perhaps gain some insight as to how to react or how to avoid the problem in the future.

It’s part of that transparency thing that the board with which the board has been struggling.

Help is on the way

Dr. Ersoylu will be a welcome addition to the board. To illustrate this, one need only look at the campaign activities of her challenger in Area 1.

For the most part, Snell’s online presence is limited to regurgitating whatever messages the district administration cranks out: re-opening updates, meeting announcements, agenda postings, etc.

Visit Dr. Ersoylu’s website and/or Facebook page and you’ll find useful resources and initiatives, including this one tomorrow night:

]

Dr. Ersoylu has teamed with candidate Amy Peters (Area 6) to help parents navigate the current school year.

Peters deserves your vote, too. Peters ran four years ago and at that time and since then, she has kept an eye on the collapse of our once-proud district. Peters attends board meetings (when they were onsite), which is something that her challengers can claim. I know because I attend nearly all of them.

More than her challengers in Area 6, Peters gets it. She has a firm grasp of the challenges we face and has the background and experience to solve problems and get us back on track.

Please help her get elected by donating or volunteering:

Via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmyPetersNMUSD/

Via website: https://www.amypeters4schoolboard.com/?fbclid=IwAR0KaHhwKPhODEVVEV49zWaLA6tG-YOQp3If4uu8wuxQwFksA-WUN10lGE0

“What we’ve got here…”

Cool Hand Luke is an excellent movie. But then, I am a big Paul Newman fan and would have paid to watch him read the phone book. (Back in the day when we had phone books…)

I thought of this scene from Cool Hand Luke with Strother Martin – another excellent actor – last night as I listened to CSEA rep Pamela Saunders plead for more support – again – and then listened to Super Lee-Sung dismiss all of her issues without apology.

What we had last night was failure to communicate:

Saunders was asking for pandemic protection for the district’s classified employees. The value of the classifieds often gets lost in the district discussions but the reality is that nothing moves forward without their involvement: They make the trains run on time.

Saunders and her crew are concerned about safety and whether it is safe to re-open schools. She lamented the lack of cleaning supplies, PPE, and additional custodial help. These are all real concerns that she has brought to the district’s attention in the past, as recently as two weeks ago.

So, what did the super do? He claimed, in short, that everything was “readily available” or that everything was in the pipeline and that they are getting “deliveries today.” Yippee!

Even if Lee-Sung’s dismissive response is true, it does not address the real issue here, which is communication. Had the super or any of his well-paid staff bothered to keep Saunders in the loop, she would have had to bring any of this to their attention last night.

But they did not so Saunders did.

Failure to communicate indeed.

Steve Smith

Faux leadership

Last week’s presentation of school re-opening options was notable for a few reasons and not notable for a few reasons because it was business as usual on Bear St.

The first thing that struck me was Supt. Lee-Sung’s exclamation that, “As the leader of this district…”

Oh, brother.

First of all, pal, you are the superintendent by a thread. You were next in the line of succession and were pre-selected under the fake pretense that the pandemic prevented any nationwide search for someone more qualified.

You will do well to remember that your contract is for two years, not the usual three, and that a search for a replacement may come early next year.

And I want to remind you that you are not the leader of this district. No superintendent has ever been the leader of this district. That honor belongs to the residents of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa who pay for everything – every desk, every chair, and every paperclip. This is a long lost concept on Bear St.

Then there is the district chain of command, which was made clear to me at the trustee candidate meeting in 2014. Those in attendance were told quite clearly that the superintendent answers to the board of trustees and the trustees answer to the people.

You may think you are the leader because your predecessors did a good job of role reversal and got the trustees to work for him. And you may think you are the leader because until recently, the public has been on the sidelines of all this school stuff.

But as the song goes, “the times, they are a changin.”

The super may want to get out of his office, take a walk around the block to get some fresh (smoky) air and think about connecting the dots. Those dots include the sharp rise in the number of public comments at recent meetings, the fact that there will be at least two fewer incumbents when the new board is seated this winter – with the much-needed election of Dr. Leah Ersoylu, it will be three – that there are a lot of people trying to become trustees, that you were appointed, not selected (big difference), and a few more. Stuff like that. It’s all connected, you just have to push yourself away from your desk and think about it and consider what it all means.

When I connect those dots, it means to me is that there is a strong possibility that in a few months, this blogger will not be saying, “Business as usual on Bear St.” very often, if at all.

So, adjust your approach accordingly. Feeble attempts to drive a leadership stake in the ground are not the way to protect your job, which is quite likely the pinnacle of your career.

With apologies to the late Margaret Thatcher, “Being a leader is like being a lady. If you have to tell someone you are, you aren’t.”

That’s my free leadership consultation for today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah

No one will dispute the fact that the pandemic has created the greatest crisis in the history of this district. There is no “arguably” here, it is the greatest crisis.

One would like to see, accordingly, a rise in the changes to the conduct of business. But that’s not what we’re getting. What we are getting in this extreme time of need is the same ol’, same ol’.

The most blaring example of this is the structure of the public comments submitted to the board. The last few meetings have shown serious spikes in the numbers of comments – 309 at the last one.

So did board president Martha Fluor adjust things accordingly? Did she say something like, “Due to the overwhelming input from the public, we are going to expand the comments time to one hour.”

No, she did not.

Did she say, “The large number of comments indicates a heightened interest so as a service to the community, we are going to post all of them on our website on a dedicated page so that the community can see the concerns of others.”

No, she did not.

What we are getting instead is 20 minutes. 20 minutes of comment time to cover two weeks of space between general board meetings. That’s works about 1 minute and a half a day for you to get your .02 in.

90 seconds.

If ever there was a time when we need leadership, it is now. The problem is that neither the new super nor the board president have ever had to lead in a time of crisis. Until now, the big challenges have been events, such as the premature draining of the swimming pool at Estancia High, the construction of costly baseball field poles at Estancia that were subsequently removed, the seven-year stink at Estancia – Hold on… I just noticed a pattern here: These all happened in Trustee Vicki Snell’s Area – and so many more, including the Mariners Gold Ribbon mess, the CdM cheating scandal, Swun math…

The response to those events was always the same – a combination of a fake community meeting, a fake investigation, a fake report, and more fakery, all of which rotated around the primary goal of just riding out the storm while the public moves on and forgets about the incompetence.

And until now, they always did.

Connect the dots here. Do you really think it is just a coincidence that during this major crisis that the superintendent decided to retire and that the two longest-serving trustees have decided not to run again? Please…

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything is connected. Everything.

The board majority does not expand the scope of the public comments portion of the show during this major crisis because they just don’t care what you have to say. If they did, they’d make a change. But they don’t because they don’t want to. It really is that simple.

Your and your comments are a nuisance. You’re a pest and your comments are meaningless, so just go back to whatever it is you were doing and we’ll take care of things here, thank you very much.

Speaking of vacuums…

Trustee Vicki Snell recently attempted to fill a vacuum by crashing the Zoomed PTA meeting of a local school, the school that just by coincidence happens to be the one attended by the child of Dr. Leah Ersoylu, who is challenging Snell for her seat on the board. No coincidence at all.

Had she some track record of attending meetings, OK, fine, then this fits. But she does not. It was a pathetic attempt at pandering, but it also shows Snell’s desperation and lack of scruples.

Snell also exhibited some minor desperation in the Mesa Verde neighborhood. I’ll spare you the details, but I will say that when my wife and I saw it, we laughed. So, perhaps I should thank her for that – these days it’s getting harder to find the humor in anything.

What is even more amusing is Snell’s decision to avoid reading the public comments during board meetings. Snell opts out because she believes that the comments should be read by a neutral party. I have no argument with that – it sounds reasonable. But I wonder if she realizes that by not reading the comments, she is taking herself out of some precious face time in front of the community.

Such are politics.

Say what?

Sometimes you have to look for the little things to find the big things. Today’s case in point is the word “cohort.”

After checking two reliable online dictionaries, it is clear that the word “cohort” has two meanings. One relates to a division of Roman legion soldiers, the other is “a group of individuals having a statistical factor (such as age or class membership) in common in a demographic study.” (Merriam-Webster)

Before discussing the N-MUSD meaning of cohort, a pet peeve… “Individuals” is not a word. Even if you can find it in a dictionary – not easy – it is still nonsensical, certainly when it is used as above and in the cases when I have heard it used by district personnel. Yeah, district folks, you can continue to use it, but now you know that there is at least one person in the community who has doubts about your command of the language. Try “people” instead.

About “cohort.” For most of the people watching and listening to board meetings, a cohort has no association, that is, there is no mental picture they can associate with the word, unless they are thinking of Roman soldiers, which is highly unlikely.

That association is an important part of communication. It’s something that I learned many years ago and has served me well since. The idea is that if your audience can’t imagine the word or phrase as an image or scene, they will disconnect from your comments.

In advertising, we used to call it “storyselling” – getting someone to take action in your favor by describing an event or anecdote that paints a mental picture for them. It’s a very effective tool.

Every time I hear the word “cohort,” I think of two things:

1. Nothing at all.
2. The district doesn’t care to make things any easier for the public. If they did, they’d substitute “cohort” with “class” or “session” because that is what they really mean.

The use of the term “cohort” is just plain bureaucratic laziness. “Cohort” is probably in some documents from some other organization so it’s copied and pasted and spoken because that’s what they know. Not a thought is given as to what the public knows or needs to understand.

Here, there, and everywhere in government, the Ross Perot rule should apply: “Tell it to me like I”m 12 years old.”

Yeah. Good luck with that.

School is in session

Soon. That’s what the district wants everyone to know. There are a lot of questions yet to be answered but school is starting nonetheless. More on this shortly.

Steve Smith

No. No. No.

This is a truncated report, with more to dish tomorrow on:

• Fake community input concern
• Bad advice from the too-new superintendent
• Incumbent campaign desperation
• Unsettled school start
• And more…

For now, please note that there is another school board meeting tomorrow night starting at 6 p.m. If you are concerned about the school starts, or if you support them, or if you wish to comment on anything else, go to either of these links and submit your thoughts prior to 9 a.m.:

• English: Public Comment Form
• Spanish: Public Comment Form

Steve Smith

P.S. Just a taste here… The board will be asked to spend $5,286.51 for “theater rigging inspections at various sites” even though there is no chance of a performance in any theater anytime soon. This can and should wait, but that’s not how it works at the N-MUSD.

The case against Vicki Snell

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District relies heavily on the recommendations of the California School Boards Assoc. (CSBA), which is “… the nonprofit education association representing the elected officials who govern public school districts and county offices of education.”

The CSBA provides policy resources and training to members, and represents the statewide interests of public education through legal, political legislative, community and media advocacy.

In other words, it can only make recommendations – it has no power.

According to the CSBA, school boards perform five major responsibilities:

1. Setting direction
2. Establishing an effective and efficient structure
3. Providing support
4. Ensuring accountability
5. Providing community leadership as advocates for children, the school district, and public schools

That’s the same way it has been for a long time – a list of responsibilities so squishy that almost anyone can be a trustee. And – with thanks to the late George Carlin – that’s the problem: Almost anyone CAN be a trustee.

Enter Vicki Snell

Vicki Snell’s first term in office was two years, serving as a replacement for David Brooks, who quit. Brooks was a good man. Perhaps not a good trustee – I can’t think of a single thing he brought to the party – but I had no questions about his integrity and neither did the community.

Brooks and I met many times while he was a trustee. Some of those later meetings took place on the train to Los Angeles where we attended the trial of ex- N-MUSD Superintendent Jeffrey Hubbard.

My late wife came with me on some of those trips to L.A. Cay was in remission at the time, but the return of her brain tumor was inevitable – a matter of when, not if. Only our family and a very few friends knew of Cay’s cancer. Dave Brooks didn’t know but from the way he treated Cay, you would have thought he did: Thoughtful, kind, gracious. I will always remember that.

I will take those character traits in someone with whom I frequently disagree over someone who sees what I see but is mean and rude.

After a series of fake interviews in 2012 in which Brooks’ trustee colleagues tried to make it look like they were serious about giving every applicant an equal chance, Snell got the nod.

Snell was not chosen by the rest of the board because she would bring new ideas, innovations, and energy to the board, she was chosen because she wouldn’t.

Small mind, small thoughts

The California School Board Assn., is very clear on the conduct of trustees. One general passage reads, “Board members occupy unique roles because they are also citizens, and, in some cases, parents.  This unique status causes Board members to have a special responsibility when they are acting as citizens or parents because their elected positions carry a great deal of prestige and visibility.”

Vicki Snell and I used to be Facebook friends. At some point a few years ago, I challenged something she had posted and I got some snarky response. Then she posted this gif and unfriended me:

A short time later – a very short time – Snell took it down. But not before I was able to capture it and preserve it for all time.

So much for the prestige part of her role…

I should thank her, though, because the gif is a perfect representation of the frustration that many of us feel when dealing with the trustee majority or the administration. It is so appropriate, I have been using it at the top of this blog

Rubber stamping

In the calendar year 2019, Vicki Snell cast 151 votes in regular and in special meetings that were not closed sessions. These votes do not include the mundane votes of approving the minutes or agenda – they’re almost all votes on spending money or approving policies or programs.

All of these votes were on items presented to the board by the staff.

Out of the 151 votes,  Snell voted “yes” 149 times.

We do not need trustees who just approve – rubber stamp – whatever is set before them. A kid could do that. We need trustees who ask questions, probe, and challenge. We need trustees who are more beholden to taxpayers, parents, and students than they are to their colleagues or the district staff. 

Fiscal irresponsibility

For a time a few years ago, I would make an appointment to review the district’s travel expenses for the prior fiscal year.

It was always an eye-opener. The receipts for these expenses revealed a general disregard – not a complete disregard – for the hard-earned money of the area’s taxpayers. In this blog in 2014, I revealed, for example, that the district was spending money on annual fees for seven American Express cards. We should not be paying annual fees for credit cards,

After reviewing the expenses nine years ago, I discovered and wrote about, ” wasteful travel expenses of ex-Supt. Jeffrey Hubbard. Those included multiple minibar purchases, numerous room service charges, including $72.84 for one meal, $29.90 for Internet service in his room, and $216 to get to and from O’Hare international airport in a luxury car.

When I brought these to light, Vicki Snell called the $200,000+ 2014-15 N-MUSD travel allocation “A drop in the bucket.” (In fairness to her, none of her colleagues expressed any concern, either.)

I don’t want that attitude or the person expressing Snell’s attitude as a trustee. I don’t think you do, either.

Snell also supported a contract extension that includes a tax-deferred annuity for former Deputy Superintendent Paul Reed. He was the guy that Snell and her then-colleagues used your tax dollars to pay to keep Reed from retiring because they thought he was the only one who could do that job. And it was a lot of dough.

Seems to me that Jeff Trader, the fellow who took Reed’s job, is doing just fine.

There were also payments to former super Fred Navarro – tax deferred stuff and undeserved compensation increases. Perhaps Snell could justify those because they were just more drops in the bucket.

Drop enough stuff in that bucket and it overflows. But that’s OK because there’s always more money where that came from.

Vicki Snell has not been a good steward of our tax dollars. For that reason alone, she does not deserve to serve another term. But wait, there’s more…

Lack of transparency

The business of the school district is the people’s business. We have the right to learn everything that the district is doing, short of personnel matters.

That’s not my proclamation or my opinion, that’s the law.

When a government body is transparent, it increases public trust and awareness and it saves money, too. Without full transparency, the public may have to file a request for information under the California Public Records Act (CPRA), the public has a right to access “any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics.” The purpose of the request is not required.

Unfortunately, the N-MUSD has not been as transparent as it should. Over the years, precious resources have been spent to fulfill CPRA requests when a simple and broader transparency policy would have saved the time and money.

Transparency is more than just shining a light on documents and policies, it’s an attitude. It’s an approach to governing that has trustees who understand that the taxpayers in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa pay for every salary, every desk, every chair, and every paper clip and they deserve to know what is happening at all times without having to jump through hoops to find out.

Vicki Snell has never taken a position supporting increased transparency. Why? Because she is not wired that way. If she were, she’d be advocating increased transparency. Besides, maybe there are things about which they prefer you just not know.

Lack of ideas 

The CSBA recommendations for trustees were written in a different era. Back then, there weren’t a lot of people outside of a few parents who cared about what was happening in our schools.

Over the past several years, that has changed. The core group of the activist organization, Newport-Mesa Community for Students, for example, is comprised of people who have no children in district schools. Yet, they are working hard to change the old ways.

New ways of thinking are required of the trustees. Vicki Snell cannot think the way the new trustee model needs to think. Frankly, I can’t think in some of those ways, either. I am sometimes confounded by some of the new technology and don’t understand the point or logic to some of it. But I also recognize that it is not of my generation: It doesn’t appeal to me because it’s not supposed to appeal to me.

Snell does not have that self-realization. If she did, that is, if she realized that the learning environment is becoming increasingly dependent on technology and that people of our generation may not be the best leaders in this regard, she would not run.

In her eight years on the school board, Vicki Snell has not introduced a single new significant idea, program, or policy that has improved our schools.

That lack of creativity and insight will become a major hindrance to progress as we move into the next phase of public education.

Poor academic performance

Prior to the 2018 elections, anyone who wanted to become a trustee had to acquire the most votes from the entire cities of Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. Under the threat of a major lawsuit, the N-MUSD school board chose to carve up the district into seven sections and allow candidates to win by getting most of the votes only in a section in which they live.

Though the trustees are supposed to act in the best interests of all of the students of the district, they have an unwritten responsibility to ensure smooth sailing in the schools in the area from which they were elected.

Here are some key statistics for the schools in Area 1, where Snell is the trustee. The source of this information is the School Accountability Report Card, which appears on the district website for each school:

Estancia High School

For the last year of reporting, 2018-19, the student suspension rate at Estancia High School is nearly three times the rate for the entire school district.

Over the last three years of reporting, the suspension rate at Estancia High School (EHS) has risen each year.

The percentage of students at EHS who failed to meet the state standard for English (aka ELA) in 2018-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 40%.

The percentage of students at EHS who failed to meet the state standard for mathematics in 2018-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 77%.

TeWinkle Middle School

The percentage of students at TeWinkle who failed to meet the state standard for English (aka ELA) in 2018-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 58%.

The percentage of students at TeWinkle who failed to meet the state standard for mathematics in 20180-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 67%.

For the last year of reporting, 2018-19, the student suspension rate at TeWinkle is 3.5 times the rate for the entire school district.

Adams Elementary School

The percentage of students at Adams who failed to meet the state standard for English (aka ELA) in 20180-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 40%.

The percentage of students at Adams who failed to meet the state standard for mathematics in 20180-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 50%.

California Elementary School

The percentage of students at California who failed to meet the state standard for English (aka ELA) in 20180-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 31%.

The percentage of students at California who failed to meet the state standard for mathematics in 20180-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 37%.

For the last year of reporting, 2018-19, the student suspension rate at California is 4 times the rate for the school year 2016-17.

Killybrooke Elementary School

The percentage of students at Killybrooke who failed to meet the state standard for English (aka ELA) in 20180-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 26%.

The percentage of students at Killybrooke who failed to meet the state standard for mathematics in 20180-19, the most recent year of reporting, was 29%.

Snell has done nothing to address any of these important issues. No ideas, no thoughts, no inspiration.

The mismanagement…

Where to begin. Hmph.

Let’s start with the placement of expensive solar panels at Estancia in an area in which batted baseballs from the nearby field damaged them. It got to the point at which the district’s solution was to erect roughly 20 huge steel poles around the field and attach netting to them to stop the baseballs.

That bad idea was bad enough, but oh! the district failed to tell the residents next to the field that every time they step into their backyards, they will have the ugly poles in sight. Yeah, forgot to mention that to them. Or just didn’t want to. Either way, it’s bad.

The residents complained. So, the poles were put up, then taken down, then sold for far less than it cost to buy, install, and remove them.

That was on Snell’s watch.

Then there was the premature draining of the pool at Estancia High School, which wrecked the aquatics program and cost taxpayers about $100,000.

On Snell’s watch.

And the stink. The stink was apparent when my son graduated from Estancia in 2010. He’d known about it and so did anyone in the area. The stink was so bad that one teacher could not go to work and has not returned.

On Snell’s watch.

The Mariner’s Gold Ribbon debacle. The CdM cheating scandal. The prom draft. The termination of whistleblower John Caldecott. The Adams Fence reversal. Swun Math!!! Rats on campuses. Tainted musical instruments. And more…

All on Snell’s watch.

End of story

I could go on giving you more reasons why Vicki Snell does not deserve to be on the school board.

I haven’t mentioned her rudeness as president of the board, which seemed more like a power trip than an opportunity to lead.

The bottom line is this: The times are changing. We have a unique opportunity to elect trustees who are closer to the evolution of education – people such as current trustees Ashley Anderson and Michelle Barto – than the folks who have been occupying their seats for far too many years and cannot see that it is time to leave.

The education environment is different now, and we need different people to lead.

I have taken the time and trouble of compiling these facts and opinions and reporting them to you because of the three school board seats up for grabs this fall, Vicki Snell is the only incumbent running.

Her challenger, Dr. Leah Ersoylu, is more than qualified to replace Snell. I urge you to support Ersoylu and support the increased accountability, transparency, and fiscal responsibility she will provide to the district.

The URL for Ersoylu’s website is:

https://www.leah4newportmesa.com/

Steve Smith

 

 

Forget what you learned.

A few days ago, the N-MUSD held it’s bi-annual meeting for the school board candidates, or as it is known on this blog, “The candidate brainwashing.”

I attended this fake informational meeting back in 2014 when I ran. From the outset, it was clear to me that the only information the trustees and bureaucrats in attendance wanted us to know was that we should not rock the boat.

I don’t remember the exact language but the overall message was that if you have any new ideas, forget ’em. We move forward in lockstep and anyone who doesn’t go along will not get along and will be a frustrated, isolated trustee.

But the funniest moment was when we were told the hierarchy of the chain of command in the district. This I recall well: “The superintendent works for the trustees and the trustees work for the community.”

That pap may have been news to the other candidates, but not to me. By that time, I’d already been watching and reporting on school district nonsense for over 15 years and I knew better. By that time, I also knew where some of the bodies were buried.

The reality is that the tail has been wagging the dog fore decades. The super has no more been held accountable to the trustees than I am held accountable to governor, which is to say, not at all. What the super wants, the super gets. End of story.

The fact that this nonsense is still being delivered to the candidates after all this time is more proof that new people are needed on the board starting this year.

The retirement or resignation of two incumbents is a huge first step. Both have served far beyond the 12-year term limits established by the board not so long ago and it was long ago that they should have left. But you can ask any professional athlete: When you’re still in the game, it’s hard to know when to quit.

The fact of the matter is that very little of what was revealed at the candidate meeting is relevant today. Following the CSBA old school (pun intended) way of doing things, keeping your mouth shut while the veteran trustees work behind the scenes to advance their agendas, and rubber-stamping everything that is presented to you has set the N-MUSD back at least 10 years.

We need a new, different type of trustee, one whose experience with a child or children in the district is current or recent, and who understands that kids today do not learn the same way that they learned when George H.W Bush was president, which is when one of the outgoing incumbents was first elected. (Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office when the other departing incumbent started serving on the board.)

The new trustee is more than just not afraid to speak up or speak out, he or she understands that it is their duty.

The new trustee realizes that the cabinet, as it is currently composed and as uninspired as they are, is unlikely to introduce any innovation and that outside resources are necessary to provide the advanced educational programs and strategies needed for today’s students.

The new trustee understands that giving lip service to community input – or, worse, purposely trying to stifle it – is the best way to build distrust and acrimony in the community.

The new trustee believes that the folks who pay the taxes here deserve more for their money than they have been getting. Specifically, that means that the trustee encourages a higher level of thriftiness without reducing the quality of the education they are providing.

The new trustee knows that the old ways of doing things are just that: Old.

But, old habits die hard and it was an old habit that drove the messaging in the candidate meeting.

Besides, there is more than one way to accomplish just about any goal and if a rookie trustee has a new idea, that should be celebrated, not discouraged.

The first 100 days: Let’s try this again

Recent communication with Superintendent Russell Lee-Sung has provided me with sufficient support for his achievements in improving academic performance. This is a correction to my assertion that he does not, one that I am happy to make.

This is also the end of addressing him as “Mr.” Lee-Sung, which was a not-so-clever attempt to highlight the fact that he does not have a doctorate, which was a requirement of his predecessors.

The fact is that I don’t care if Lee-Sung has a doctorate. I would not even care if he never spent a day on a college campus. The most valued qualities we need in a superintendent are not learned in a classroom, they come from their upbringing and their own attempts to strive for effective leadership. A dissertation is no guarantee of competence or compassion or the ability to inspire others to be the best they can be.

It was never about Lee-Sung, it was about a corrupted process.

Lee-Sung has a relatively short window in which to prove to the board and the community that he is a keeper. Frankly, I hope he becomes the best superintendent we’ve ever had because that will mean that we finally have someone who understands the unique challenges faced by the schools on Costa Mesa’s Westside, who is not afraid of pushing the academic performance envelope, and who supports both classifieds and certificateds by accepting that everything that happens on his watch, ultimately, is his responsibility.

This shouldn’t be too hard: He has small shoes to fill.

Here are five initial recommendations for the super, all of which are designed to put some distance between him and his predecessor and start down the road to patching up the many broken relationships left in the wake:

1. Crash some high school and middle school distance learning classes. Set it up ahead of time with the teachers and ask them to reserve the last minute for you. At that time, you tell the students how much you appreciate their patience as you try to improve the experience, how much you appreciate the hard work and extra hours put in by the teachers and, most important, that one day this will all be over. These kids need a message of hope from the top.
2. Tell each member of your cabinet that you are holding a half-day meeting, during which they will be asked to provide two recommendations to improve either accountability, transparency, fiscal responsibility, or academic improvement. (Two total, not two for each).
3. Become a part of the community by moving to Newport Beach or Costa Mesa. We just learned that commuting supers just don’t work out. Don’t make the same mistake. Besides, there aren’t two better cities in the county to call home.
4. Rescind any and all non-disparagement agreements that may have been signed over the past ten years. People should be allowed to speak freely about their experience without the threat of economic reprisals. Isn’t this what we teach in school?
5. Learn Spanish.

More to come.

Steve Smith

Candidate update and meeting recap. Sort of…

If there had been a pandemic while my two kids were in elementary school, I would have given serious consideration to road schooling them: Renting or buying a motorhome and take off for historical and fun sights around the country, teaching them the three Rs along the way.

Imagine teaching kids about U.S. presidents in the shadow of Mt. Rushmore. Or having them learn about the national park system as you hop from park to park. Or getting an understanding of the legislative process as they sit in the gallery of the U.S. Senate.

While we spent a lot of time traveling as they grew up, there was always more we could have seen and done.

I understand that the district has a self-interest or self-preservation mentality, but if those in charge are truly interested in providing the “highest quality education,” they would include links to homeschooling options. Or road schooling…

It’s not a matter of whether you are in favor of homeschooling, it’s a matter of providing parents with all of their options, not merely the ones that suit the district’s best interests.

Candidate update

Here’s the final tally:

In Area 1, it is Dr. Leah Ersoylu vs. Vicki Snell.

In Area 3, it is now Charles Kent Booker vs. Carol Crane.

In Area 6, it is Amy Peters vs. Ralf Muller II vs. Krista Weigand vs. Alexis Zavouris. I know only Amy Peters, who ran four years ago.

More money, less patience

There’s a bunch of stuff from last night’s school board meeting but it will take a little time to sort out my notes.

So in the meantime, here are some random thoughts on the passing parade…

• Early in the meeting, the student board representatives got a chance to speak. Sort of. In what I believe is an absurd attempt to control the narrative, Board President Martha Fluor told attendees that the students would be answering two questions, the first of which is “What has you most excited about the coming school year?” The second is, “What is the greatest challenge, yada, yada?”

  Softballs. Wasted opportunities. But that has been standard operating procedure for the trustees for as long as I have been hearing the student board member reports. It’s all roses, rainbows, and recaps and lost chances to ask these bright kids about district issues.

  The student representatives have valuable input that can help improve many areas but month after month no one asks. My question to them would have been, “What recommendations do you have to improve the distance learning experience?”

  But that’s just me.

• Why isn’t the public allowed to attend the meetings of the Harbor Council PTA? Particularly when there is no pandemic and they convene on the public property at Bear St…

• Pamela Saunders of the CSEA gave the board the what for. Classifieds are sick and tired of being “undervalued.” They want the “respect we deserve,” and  Saunders reminded the assembly that many of the classifieds are working through the pandemic and want better access to protective gear. Amen.
• The super did not wear a tie. In fact, only one fellow did. I’ll try this again: A virtual meeting is no excuse to dress down. Wear the clothing you would wear at a live meeting, which, as far as I could ever tell, meant business attire for men.
• (OBTW… in nearly every instance, the use of the term “individuals” is incorrect. Instead, say “people.”)
• Board President Martha Fluor referred to the super as “Russell.” This is another one of those inappropriate lapses. It is “Supt. Lee-Sung” or Mr. Lee-Sung” but never in this setting is it “Russell.”

Maybe I’m just an old school fuddy-duddy but I think this kind of stuff counts for something. Decorum matters.

More to come.

Steve Smith

So easy

On Sept. 8, 2015, a rainstorm, alternately called “surprise” or “freak,” severely damaged classrooms at three Costa Mesa schools, California, Killybrooke, and TeWinkle.

The rain poured in through holes in the roof, which were created in preparation for the installation of air conditioning units. Despite the contractor’s attempts to stop the rain, it poured in resulting in the following damage:

• Computers, printers, and carpeting
• TeWinkle: Five classrooms, library, computer classrooms, and the office – all damaged.
• California: Eight classrooms, library, computer room.
• Killybrooke: 18 classrooms damaged, electricity out.

Students at Killybrooke were bused to Costa Mesa High School. More expense on top of the structural and equipment damage.

Regarding the damage, then board president (And current president after just five years, despite seven trustees. How did that happen???) Martha Fluor was quoted in the Daily Pilot as saying, “We have insurance, so we will make sure that whatever’s been damaged can be replaced.”

Yeah, that’s great, but not so fast. I argued at the time that the taxpayers of Newport-Mesa should not be held liable through their insurance policy for damage that was caused by contractor negligence.

I brought responsibility for the rain damage to the attention of the district and was told later that they would be pursuing reimbursement through the contractor’s insurance company. I never confirmed that and wondered why this was not the district’s first move. Why did it have to take a member of the public to point out what should have been obvious?

Why? Because the board majority does not and has never thought the way you and I think. You and I shop around. Maybe we wait for a sale. Maybe we buy it used instead of new.

At the N-MUSD, however, this is a foreign concept. There is a guarantee of money each year, thanks largely to the area’s property owners so there’s no real incentive to save money, or, in the case of the rain damage, to confront the contractor responsible for the damage. Following the path of least resistance has been too common and too often results in waste and mismanagement.

Once in awhile, though, the right thing is done. Item 14.a.8 on tonight’s agenda is another change order, but this time it’s in the taxpayer’s favor. According to the agenda background, a contractor was determined to be responsible for 113 damaged roof tiles at Newport Elementary and a flower pot at Mariners Elementary. This has resulted in the change order which credits taxpayers with $2,190.

There. Was that so hard?

Steve Smith

 

 

 

We shall see

In a presidential term, the most crucial period is the first 100 days. It’s during that time that voters see whether their commander-in-chief is an action person or has some other process in mind.

The first 100 days may include judicial appointments, executive orders, staff picks, etc. and whatever. It’s the first impression and as we all know, you have only one chance to make a good first impression.

So it will be interesting to see tomorrow night whether Mr. Russell Lee-Sung, the new Superintendent, will provide Newport-Mesa residents with some idea of his plans and goals. Not the squishy stuff, you know, the “academic excellence” and “learning experience” fluff we’ve been handed for years, but something substantive.

It would be a welcome change, for example, for a super to say, “My goal is to raise test scores by ____ ” and to increase GPAs by ________, while we increase teacher morale and reduce expenses by 10%.”

Anything. Anything other than the usual, worthless, lofty concepts that we’ve been fed for far too long.

My guess is that even though these first 100 days are more important than ever, they won’t mean a thing to the super or to anyone else in the administration. These folks are smart enough to know that these well-paid jobs are not easy to find and that the best approach is to avoid anything controversial or innovative and just manage what you have.

Unfortunately, that will no longer suffice. We are past the start of an era in which student learning methods have changed and we need that innovation and inspiration. We need people who are bringing ideas to the job and not waiting around for the California School Board Assoc. (CSBA), or the Orange County Dept. of Education, or any other entity, to tell us what to do.

Here, for example, is how the CSBA describes the role of a school board trustee:

• Setting direction
• Establishing an effective and efficient structure
• Providing support
• Ensuring accountability
• Providing community leadership as advocates for children, the school district and public schools

Nothing there to get a handle on. So vague that a high schooler could do this job. We need better leadership now, not just from the superintendent, but from everyone who is employed by the district.

I would like to hope that the new super will find ways to end the rank-and-file fear of retaliation and get the cabinet to start bringing innovation to the party instead of just managing whatever is on their plate.

But I don’t hope because hope is not a strategy. This evolution in the administration and the trustees will take renewed leadership from people who understand that:

Leaders inspire. They encourage others to innovate and challenge the status quo. They restore confidence in the rank-and-file by letting them know that if they experiment and fail honorably, that their boss has their back.

Leaders communicate. They are in front of every potential bad situation and they are constantly providing support, feedback, and updates on the status of key developments and programs. Transparency is an essential form of leadership communication.

Leaders support. My decades of management led me to “servant leadership,” which I found to be the most effective style. A servant leader ensures that staff production needs are met and that everyone truly understands the interdependency of the entire organization. A servant leader ends every meeting by asking the staff, “Do you have what you need to succeed?”

So far, so-so. The super posted a “2020-2021 School Year Message” that, with the exception of a three-paragraph anecdote, could have been written by any superintendent anywhere for any school district in the country.

In the message, he wants you to know that it is his privilege to take home a big salary to serve as superintendent  and it continues with the usual “eduspeak” terms, including:

• Highest quality education
• Work together to continually build and improve our systems to best educate and support each student’s unique needs and goals
• We will work each day to provide the highest quality education (again)
• Comprehensive programs
• I look forward to the opportunity to meet with parents, students and staff to seek feedback and to work together to blah, blah, blah
• Dedicated teachers and support staff

It’s that last one that chaps my hide. Where was this attitude in the last round of teacher contract negotiations? I grew up in a difficult, unforgiving environment, the motto of which could very well have been, “Talk is cheap.”

The 100-day clock is ticking…

Is it safe?

The agenda fun begins with the approval of a contract valued at about a quarter of a million dollars annually for the latest Assistant/Deputy/Associate Superintendent of One Thing or Another.

For that kind of dough and a work year of 224 days, I expect people to produce; to bring new ways to teach, learn, and save money.

Ah, yes, saving money. Which brings me to item 15.a.2., the approval of a contract to teach ladder safety to the members of the Maintenance and Operations team.

This is not a small thing. Ladder accidents are common and many of them are devastating. I had a friend who fell off a ladder about 10 years ago. He suffered a significant head injury and his speech was bad for a long time. (He’s fine now.)

One of the items on the agenda for tomorrow night’s school board meeting is the approval of almost $3,000 for ladder safety training.

This is particularly important to me because it was almost exactly four years ago that I reported here that Rodrigo Ospina, 26-year district employee, died in a fall at TeWinkle on Sept. 1. I was told by a knowledgable source that Ospina’s fall was from a ladder but the district never confirmed this.

Ospina was a custodian. He was older, male, and Hispanic. Put all that together and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) he is a top candidate for a fall off of a ladder while working. The bullet point from the CDC reads:

• Most falls from ladders occur in construction, mining, maintenance and repair activities. Victims are predominantly male, older and Hispanic.

I’m not going to reopen that wound except to repeat that the best the trustees could do for this 26-yar employee at the time was to adjourn a school board meeting in his memory.

So, yes, ladder safety is important and the training is important. But if I were a trustee, I’d like to know if this is a recurring cost. If so, I’d like to find out how we can train and certify a small handful of M&O people to teach ladder safety in the future, thereby saving some money each year.

And more dough for…

Contractors must love the N-MUSD: I cannot think of a single change order that was not approved. The case in point tomorrow night will be the rubber-stamping of a change order for the new CdM stadium (another mess – don’t get me started). This one is for $93,000 and covers, “changes arose that required a change order to compensate the contractor for additional work.”

Gee, really?

You can see the itemization here:

As you can see, this is not just a change order, this is a request for multiple changes, not all of which are related. It really should be called a “Changes Order.” True transparency policy dictates that each of these items has a separate change order, but that would mean five change orders instead of one and that wouldn’t look too good. So, they are bundled and smuggled past the school board at night on a Tuesday in the summer. Remotely.

Oh, and then there is that $554.96 clerical error for which the construction company wants to be reimbursed. First of all, if I were in charge of the construction company, I would have told the project leader or accountant not to bill for the mistake but to let the district know that the company is eating it. A lot more goodwill is gained that way than to bill for the mistake the company made, then demand payment.

Second, this doesn’t belong on a change order. It is an accounting error and should be broken out as such on a separate invoice or corrected invoice. But two N-MUSD administrators at HQ thought this was the best way to proceed.

Check and double-check

Last month, $35,000 of your tax dollars was paid to “Sorenson’s Ranch RTC.” RTC is an acronym for “residential treatment center.” Sorenson’s Ranch is an RTC in Utah. So… Maybe our new superintendent can get the transparency ball rolling by telling us why Newport-Mesa tax dollars are going to a “… second generation school with over 30 years experience helping troubled teens. We combine clinical therapy and experiential learning to help teens redirect their lives in a positive manner.”

Maybe there’s a good explanation. Great! But… what is it? And why should taxpayers have to work so hard to find out this kind of stuff?

But wait, there’s more!

After scrolling down the check register just a little more, I came across a payment of $13,527.24 to the Diamond Ranch Academy, which is a “... second generation school with over 30 years experience helping troubled teens. We combine clinical therapy and experiential learning to help teens redirect their lives in a positive manner.”

Oh, and did I mention that the Diamond Ranch Academy is also located in Utah?

So, yeah, maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this – and this coincidence – but what is it?

Wait! Not done yet. There’s $12,852 to Provo Canyon School – similar philosophy – located in Utah. Again. And Heritage Schools, Inc., $13,830. Also in Utah. And another check to Sorenson for $11,415.

Why?

Steve Smith