LAUSD TOLLS MIGHT SURPASS $210 MILLION: New Payroll System, Previous Errors Account For Charges

from knbc.com:

December 16, 2007 -- LOS ANGELES -- The state's largest school district might end up spending more than $210 million to roll out a new payroll system, and fix the thousands of errors that have bedeviled the project, it was reported Sunday.

"There's going to be a judgment day when all of this is over," said school board member, Richard Valdovic.

The Los Angeles Daily News said Sunday that the system's original $95 million cost has ballooned to at least $132.5 million, and officials said they don't know what the final cost to the district will be.

At least $6 million in overpayments to teachers, police officers and other district employees may have to be forgiven, because of the accounting nightmare that has developed. Some employees face paying income tax on supposed overpayments, but have no accurate accounting on what their actual pay should have been.

The latest computer expert hired by the district to sort out the payroll system fiasco, Tony Tortorice, says the giant district underestimated how much it would cost to switch over from an antiquated and unproductive pay system.

Tortorice told the board last week that a large organization should expect to spend at least one percent of its payroll implementing and ironing out a new payroll system. He noted that errors have dropped from 5.9 percent of the district's employees in October to 1.3 percent this month.

But LAUSD may have overpaid its employees by as much as $53 million during a five-month period of upheaval that saw some people put into financial duress due to underpayments, and others with overpayments that they could not calculate.

About 60 percent of the people who were overpaid have agreed to reimburse the district a total of $14 million, the Daily News reported. About $15 million in claims are currently outstanding, officials said.

As much as $6 million can never be recovered, district officials said, because the amount of each overpayment was less than $250 and the district would have to spend more than that to calculate the correct figure and recover the overpayment.

When the first payroll checks under the new system were sent out last summer, some teachers received nearly no money at all. The district set up an emergency loan program for them, but teachers reported they had to take a day off of school to go to district headquarters to process the emergency payments.

The third phase of the new accounting system, involving all purchase orders and bill payments by LAUSD, is yet to be implemented.

LAUSD TRIES TO STEM THE OUTFLOW

by Paul Clinton, Staff Writer | Daily Breeze

December 17, 2007 - Hoping to stem the tide of sixth-graders abandoning Los Angeles Unified elementary schools on the Westside for private schools, trustee Marlene Canter is stepping up recruiting efforts for seven middle schools.

Canter wants local parents to take another look at LAUSD, so she's offering tours of higher-achieving magnets, hosting an open house and extolling the virtues of Los Angeles public schools in speeches.

"Many families in the areas that I represent send their children to LAUSD elementary schools, but opt for private schools when their children get older," said Canter, who represents schools from Westchester to the San Fernando Valley.

"But as the district opens new schools in overcrowded areas, we now have the opportunity to increase local resident enrollment."

Her case should be bolstered by the decision of two Westchester schools to opt out of LAUSD bureaucracy and partner with Loyola Marymount University in a "family" of campuses.

Last week, parents and teachers at Wright Middle School and Kentwood Elementary School agreed to a five-year experiment to bring decision-making powers over curriculum, hiring and budget issues to school communities.

Parents often switch from LAUSD to private schools, because they perceive them to be safer and believe they offer higher quality academics, parents and educators say.

Or they'll search out homes in places like Torrance or El Segundo just for access to quality public schools.

"You get a heck of a lot more house for the dollar in Westchester than you get in El Segundo," said Terry Marcellus, a member of the Westchester-Playa del Rey Neighborhood Council. "In El Segundo, you get less house for the money because you get to send your kids to the El Segundo schools."

The tidal outflow may be starting to reverse itself.

Stephen Rochelle, principal of Wright Middle, said he has captured more local residents in the past two years. He also acknowledged the district must improve its academic program.

"We need to reform schools, so we can do a better job of educating all children," he said. "When we do a better job, we will get the results we're looking for. Those results will be higher test scores, lower suspension rates, higher attendance rates and high rates of parent satisfaction, teacher satisfaction, student satisfaction."

At Wright, about half the incoming sixth-graders arrive from five local feeders - Cowan Avenue Elementary, Kentwood, Loyola Village Elementary, Paseo del Rey Magnet and Westport Heights Elementary schools.

Of the crop of 306 entering in 2005-06, 162 arrived from local feeders. Another 109 arrived from other LAUSD schools. The remaining 35 moved into the district or transferred in from a private school.

When they leave LAUSD, parents often enroll their sixth-graders in private schools such as the Westside Neighborhood School or Westchester Lutheran School.

Nancy Timmons removed her son from Cowan Avenue Elementary midway through second-grade and enrolled him in Westchester Lutheran.

Her son had been identified as gifted and was often bored in class.

"In LAUSD schools, there's a particular curriculum they have to abide by," Timmons said. "If your child falls outside of that, they will not tailor the curriculum to your child's needs."

The LMU Family of Schools has set a goal of repairing the broken feeder link. Only a small group of students attend LAUSD schools from kindergarten through 12th grade on the Westside.

Drew Furedi, executive director of the LMU Family of Schools, said keeping students on one education path would provide them better continuity in instruction and likely raise achievement.

"The overall thing we're seeing is that parents, now going back several years, are making other choices," Furedi said. "If you're creating those linkages (between the schools), there's greater support for those students going through the pipeline."

Parents have until Jan. 11 to apply for enrollment at LAUSD magnet programs.

Wright and Loyola Village both house magnets, which typically offer smaller school environments and can be attended by any student in the district.

After Jeanette Salazar's son leaves Loyola Village in the spring, he'll likely head to Wright Middle's aerospace magnet.

"Private schools are so expensive," Salazar said. "If they improve the academics at the public middle school, that could be a good decision for me."

MARNESBA TACKETT: A LIFE WELL LIVED IN PURSUIT OF L.A. EQUALITY:

by Betty Pleasant, Contributing Editor | LA Wave Newspapers

December 20, 2007 - Marnesba Tackett, the granddaughter of slaves who led the fight to desegregate the city of Los Angeles, went to sleep Sunday night and did not wake up.Tackett was 99 years old and in relative good health when she died in her West Adams home, which 55 years ago became the headquarters for the community organizing, civil defiance, protest demonstrations and legal actions that resulted in the outlawing of restrictive covenants that maintained segregated housing in Los Angeles, that broke open boundaries that kept the public schools segregated and forced the businesses on Crenshaw Boulevard to stop discriminating against black people.

Less than five feet tall, Tackett was a fiery little woman who never took “no” for an answer to anything. She was the recognized mother of civil rights on the West Coast and the driving force that wrested from the entrenched white majority virtually every right African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Hispanics in Los Angeles now take for granted.

Tackett was a civil rights activist since she was 13-years-old and refused to pay for a hot dog at a segregated lunch counter in her Kansas City, Kan., hometown. Having joined the newly formed NAACP as a child, Tackett participated in all the sit-ins, demonstrations and protests held in the 1930s to integrate public schools and other facilities in Kansas City, and then moved on to fight Jim Crow in Tennessee, Georgia and Michigan. Then she came to Los Angeles in 1952 and the city has not been the same since.

“When I came to Los Angeles, I found the same kind of racial discrimination that I found in Kansas City, in Detroit, and very little better than what I found in the south,” Tackett told me during an interview four years ago. Upon arrival here, she immediately set about fighting the racism she saw all around her.

While working at an early job as an insurance agent, Tackett single-handedly forced the insurance industry to drop its practice of devaluing the lives of African-Americans by charging them higher premiums than whites, yet paying them less in benefits. Today, many of the country’s insurance companies are being used by black policy holders for those racist practices of yesteryear.

As chair of the Los Angeles NAACP’s Education Committee, Tackett raised money to pay for the Supreme Court briefs submitted by Thurgood Marshall in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan. case that desegregated the nation’s schools in 1954. That done, she turned her attention to the Los Angeles Unified School District, which she found was just as discriminatory as the district in Topeka.

She had textbooks with stereotypical presentations of blacks removed from the classrooms and she filed and won a lawsuit, Crawford vs. LAUSD, to make the Jordan High School facility and environment more conducive to the educational process.

Tackett’s activism had outgrown the constraints of the NAACP, so she created and directed a coalition of like-minded firebrands, called the United Civil Rights Council, which became the most effective civil rights group on the West Coast. UCRC held a series of massive civil rights demonstrations. One, in 1963, had 5,000 people in attendance, which for that period was an impressive number of angry people.

Tackett and her UCRC took on the school board for its racism, the police department for its brutality, the businesses along Crenshaw Boulevard for their refusal to hire black people and the White Citizens Council for its insistence on segregated housing.

Tackett worked with attorney Loren Miller to defeat Los Angeles’ housing covenants in the U.S. Supreme Court, and she and her UCRC stood toe-to-toe with the White Citizens Council against housing discrimination in Torrance, Covina, the San Fernando Valley and other parts of Los Angeles County. She fought the California Real Estate Association’s attempt to legalize housing discrimination in the state, and her success gave rise to the creation of some 40 fair housing groups which today monitor the treatment of minorities who want to live wherever they can afford and which take legal action against housing discriminators.

Tackett served on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1966 to 1976 and became SCLC/LA’s first female and first lay executive director. She created the Martin Luther King Legacy Association, Project AHEAD and the Black Agenda Inc., sat on the board and chaired several committees of the NAACP and was the leader of the Community Relations Conference of Southern California.

Born Feb. 4, 1908 in St. Louis, to Elizabeth Edwards and Ivory Adkins, Tackett’s grandparents, Richard and Annie Edwards, were both slaves who were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. She married Joseph Edgar Tackett in 1926, who was the assistant minister at Second Baptist Church when he died in 1958. Her daughter, Hazel Maurie Keller, died in 1988 and her stepson, Joseph Orin Tackett, died in 1978.

She is survived by seven grandchildren, including Michelle Keller Cole and Benjamin H. Keller of Los Angeles; 11 great-grandchildren, which include Terri Keller McRae, Dwayne Godoy and Isaac Keller of Los Angeles, and one great-great grandchild, Lauren Khali McRae.

A private family funeral service will be held Dec. 27, but her granddaughter, Keller Cole, said a public celebration of her life will be held on Feb. 4, 2008, which would have been her 100th birthday.

SCHOOLING ANTONIO: The mayor learns to settle for less than a total takeover of L.A. Unified

TKO: MAYOR V DISSES ROMER

by Ayse Arf | LA City Beat

Dec 12, 2007 - Teachers and parents of students from one Los Angeles high school and its feeder campuses voted Tuesday to join Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Partnership for Excellence in L.A. Schools.

The Partnership – the latest iteration of the mayor’s push for school reform – calls for the takeover of low-performing Roosevelt high school and the web of middle and elementary schools that feed it. In beating the drum for the Partnership, both Villaraigosa and community groups stressed the idea of autonomy for parents and teachers. The vote itself made a marked statement on self-determination, allowing parents of students at the schools in question to vote alongside teachers regardless of immigration or voter-registration status.

Maria Brenes, executive director of the Boyle Heights education non-profit Inner City Struggle, agrees with the mayor’s oft-repeated claim that one of the biggest problems these schools face is L.A. Unified itself: “They feel that this partnership is a way to really cut the bureaucracy and get the most resources and funding to our local schools.”

That Villaraigosa can bring in the dollars is not in question. But details on how schools will be run under the Partnership are vague at best, and intentionally so. Under the banner of autonomy, teachers, school administrators, and parents will be responsible for any detailed plans for school governance and budgeting, the rationale being that local stakeholders can better determine what’s best for their students. With hundreds of teachers and staff and thousands of students at each of the schools in question – several thousand at Roosevelt and Santee – developing a cohesive plan could present some serious bureaucratic challenges in and of itself.

As bold as this plan may be, it was originally to be even bolder.

Honeymoon Cut Short

Villaraigosa took office July 2005 with all the fanfare of a 4th of July block party – complete with a personal theme song (inspirational chorus: “Villaraigosa!”) – and the adoration of a city ready for action. And the first priority was public schools. As a former United Teachers Los Angeles union organizer, the spouse of a public school teacher, and with his own history as an almost-led-astray L.A. Unified success story, his credibility on the issue was sterling.

Despite the campaign bluster, Villaraigosa’s first mayoral forays into education were relatively benign – he even balked at supporting an early version of legislation (introduced by state Senate ally Gloria Romero) that would have opened the door to mayoral control of L.A. Unified. The new mayor instead chose to focus on social issues closely related to student success, such as school safety and health care.

But Villaraigosa soon made good on his broader campaign promises. His initial volley in a string of escalating City Hall-School Board hostilities came shortly after his first 100 days in office, formally asking for an audit of L.A. Unified management to “root out inefficiencies.” The Board responded in-kind, sending City Controller Laura Chick a gift basket of hundreds of previous audits and studies of school district operations.

Round One

Villaraigosa pushed the issue with friends in Sacramento, particularly Sen. Romero and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez – demanding a state audit of L.A. Unified on the basis of Chick’s assertion that “millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted.”

Weeks later, another Villaraigosa-state legislature joint venture was introduced – Assembly Bill 1381. The final version of the contentious bill, passed in August 2006 and signed into law by a glowing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, gave the mayor less direct control than originally sought, but handed him a Council of Mayors in which Villaraigosa’s vote alone would count for 80 percent. Villaraigosa theoretically could have exerted significant pressure on future superintendents.

Skeptics asserted the law’s division of power would make the superintendent’s job more complicated and politicized, not less. Mike Kirst, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, has recommended mayoral takeover in Oakland, but remains unsure about L.A. “It’s not as clear cut,” Kirst says. “All of the other cities that have mayor control have contiguous boundaries between the school district and the city. Not one of them gets into even more than one school entity, let alone 26,” referring to the 27 cities served by L.A. Unified. He also notes that unlike AB 1381, the plan in Oakland required a citywide vote, and then-Mayor Jerry Brown couldn’t get the bill past City Council and onto a ballot.

Villaraigosa bypassed city-level politics for similar reasons, and eroded much of the goodwill from district educators and parents, with the notable exception of School Board member Monica Garcia, a staunch Villaraigosa ally. Even longtime friends at UTLA were faced with an embarrassing dilemma when union membership voted to repudiate AB 1381 in a blatant contradiction to statements of support from union leaders.

In his rush to push through reforms in education, which Villaraigosa calls “the civil rights issue of our time,” according to press secretary Janelle Erickson, the mayor neglected the need for local political finesse: He failed to give the School Board and outgoing Superintendent Roy Romer enough credit for improving elementary test scores and what Claremont Graduate University Education professor Charles Kerchner called a “political tour de force” by Romer in raising construction dollars for the district.

Round Two

Rumblings of a legal challenge began almost immediately. The constitutionality of the bill had been brought into question even before it was passed, and Villaraigosa’s push to assert his new authority in the search for Romer’s replacement months before the law took effect did little to placate school board members.

Days after the mayor left on a trade mission to Asia, L.A. Unified filed a challenge to the constitutionality of the bill in Superior Court. The board also took advantage of the mayor’s absence to announce the appointment of former Admiral David L. Brewer III as superintendent. Villaraigosa responded with a statement reiterating displeasure at being excluded from the superintendent search, and subtly questioned Brewer’s qualifications in a jab at a selection process he had previously insinuated was rushed and secretive.

One appeal and two hostile rulings later, Villaraigosa finally conceded defeat on AB 1381. The mayor had already turned his attention to another potential inroad for school district influence – school board elections.

Villaraigosa’s endorsements pitted him against an old ally, the teachers union, in almost all of the races, with the exception of District 1, where he shied away from endorsing Marguerite LaMotte’s opponent for fear of alienating South L.A.’s black voters, even though LaMotte was a vocal opponent of AB 1381. Of four Board seats in contention, three went to candidates endorsed by Villaraigosa after extensive stumping and fundraising by the mayor – pushing the price tag on two of the most contentious races above $1 million.

The Bell Rings

While the mayor touts his takeover of the cluster of schools as an issue of accountability, some parents have expressed skepticism about the plan, calling it little more than a political ploy and worrying that students under the plan will suffer if the mayor loses reelection in 2009 or runs for governor in 2010. Villaraigosa press secretary Janelle Erickson insists the mayor took his term limits into consideration: “That’s why the Partnership has been designed to go beyond his tenure and that’s why he stresses the importance of local control and accountability.”

States' Evidence: WHAT IT MEANS TO MAKE 'ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS' UNDER NCLB

States across the nation have identified the schools or districts that did or did not make "adequate yearly progress," or "AYP" under NCLB - this is what is driving Superintendent Brewer's High Priorities Schools Initiative. But the question that provides the most insight into a school’s performance is not whether a school made AYP, but rather how a school did or did not make AYP.

by: Erin Dillon & Andrew J. Rotherham from Education Sector.org

July 24, 2007 When Congress passed the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001, the law's passage initiated a new educational ritual that plays out each summer: States, in reporting on student achievement, announce the schools that did or did not make "adequate yearly progress," or "AYP." Under NCLB, states must hold schools accountable for improving student performance. Specifically, the law requires states to set performance targets that schools must meet. The goal is to ensure that all schools improve their performance over time and have almost all of their students score "proficient" on state standardized tests by 2014.

This accountability system is a linchpin of the law, which is the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. And, under NCLB, the consequences for missing AYP are substantial. Schools that do not meet performance targets for multiple years are deemed to be "in need of improvement" and face an escalating series of interventions, including giving students the chance to transfer to other public schools or using school funds for extra tutoring. These interventions can culminate in a school being completely restructured or even closed and reopened under new governance.

(See sidebar, "What Happens When a School Misses AYP?")

Also, NCLB's requirements for AYP are especially noteworthy because in order to meet them, schools must improve the performance of all groups of students, including minority and low-income students and those with disabilities, not just the overall average for students in the school. This was not the case with previous reauthorizations of the 1965 law. For instance, the 1994 version required states to set performance targets, but allowed states tremendous discretion and did not include the type of enforcement measures that are found under NCLB.

Yet, because the consequences for missing AYP under NCLB can be substantial, discussions of AYP often focus on a yes or no question: Did a particular school or school district make AYP or not? But the question that provides the most insight into a school's performance is not whether a school made AYP, but rather how a school did or did not make AYP.

In practice, there are several ways for schools and districts to make AYP. And making AYP looks different from state to state since NCLB allows each state to determine the specifics of how it calculates AYP. States can decide, for example, to average test scores across grades and years. This flexibility gives schools some leeway in meeting NCLB's requirements and makes the requirements less strict than they might appear at first. It also renders many of the common assumptions about AYP—that it requires schools to get every single student to proficiency by 2014, that it does not recognize year-to-year improvements in school test scores, and that all students must achieve at the same level—inaccurate. As NCLB comes up for reauthorization, much of the debate will be about AYP. Thus, understanding the "how" of AYP can help teachers, parents, the public, and the news media make sense of the debate and the central element of NCLB's accountability system.

This Education Sector Explainer provides these audiences with an aid to understanding how NCLB's accountability system works overall and in different states, without weighing in on the merits of the law's 2014 goal. We discuss the basics of "making" AYP and the multiple routes schools can take to get there, and we include data showing what the requirements are in each state to meet AYP this year and for the past two years.

Please download the full Explainer

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MORE EDUCATION SECTOR:

For Release: How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act

Report updates Pangloss Index that ranks states on their NCLB progress; offers recommendations for Congress to close the law's loopholes.

For Immediate Release: November 13, 2007

Washington, D.C.—When policymakers in the White House and Congress wrote the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, their goal was to steadily raise the bar for academic achievement. But many states have undermined the spirit of the law by lowering achievement goals every year. A new report from Education Sector explains how these states are gaming NCLB's accountability system and doing so with the full approval of the U.S. Department of Education.

"The Pangloss Index: How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act," features a composite index of state rankings based on annual reports that states submit to the federal government detailing their progress under NCLB. Ideally, the index should show which states are doing the best job of educating their students. Instead, the index is more indicative of which states have simply chosen to define themselves as doing well. Education Sector first unveiled the Pangloss Index in a 2006 report "Hot Air: How States Inflate Their Progress Under NCLB."

In this new report, Research and Policy Manager Kevin Carey updates the index for 2007 and reveals that in some states, not much has changed: Wisconsin and Iowa still fill the top two slots, defining themselves as educational utopias, while Massachusetts, which is one of the highest-performing states nationally, is ranked near the bottom, holding itself to tougher standards.

But some states changed their rank substantially. And none increased its position more than Alabama, which jumped from 22nd to 5th. Carey chronicles Alabama's progress under NCLB and demonstrates that this didn't happen because students in Alabama and in similar states learned much more than they did the year prior. It happened because state departments of education manipulated NCLB in such a way that no other result was possible.

"The Pangloss Index: How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act" provides specific recommendations for Congress as it prepares to reauthorize NCLB, including ways to close the loopholes that states have routinely used to undermine the nation’s most important education law.

Read "The Pangloss Index: How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act." Detailed information about how your state measures up on the 2007 "Pangloss Index" is available upon request.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Education Sector is an independent education policy think tank devoted to developing innovative solutions to the nation’s most pressing educational problems. We are nonprofit and nonpartisan, both a dependable source of sound thinking on policy and an honest broker of evidence in key education debates throughout the United States.

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Challenging the LAUSD/I-Division/Mayor's Partnership election

There are three bases for challenging the I-Division/Mayors Partnership of Schools election

1. FRAUD
2. PROCESS
3. CHALLENGING THE OUTCOME.

TO DATE NO ONE HAS ALLEGED FRAUD: Not counting someone's vote, stuffing the ballot box, etc. If anyone has any evidence of this please report it.

Questions of fraud should be reported to the LAUSD Inspector General.

(from the IG website)

You can choose one of the three easy methods to report fraud, waste, and abuse:

1. COMPLETE THE ON-LINE FRAUD REPORTING FORM and submit it electronically.

2. Print the FRAUD REPORTING FORM and mail or fax it to:

LAUSD Office of the Inspector General

c/o Fraud Hotline

333 South Beaudry Avenue, 12th Floor

Los Angeles, CA 90017

Phone: (213) 241-7700 FAX: (213) 241-6826

Email: inspector-gen@lausd.net

3. Call the Fraud Hotline (213-241-7778 or toll-free 866-528-7364) and speak to an Investigator or leave a message.

MOST OF MY QUESTIONS HAVE TO DO WITH PROCESS.

• Were parents adequately notified within the time line with the required one week notice?
• It has been reported that parents @ Hollenbeck only got one day notice.
• Because the final election procedures were not arrived at until 9:30 PM on Dec 6 it is doubtful notice went out one week in advance.
• Who actually ran the election and made up the rules?
• Why was no opposing viewpoint offered with the sample ballot?
• Were the circulated election materials skewed towards a YES vote?
• The elections were covered by the broadcast media and video coverage was broadcast - apparently violating election rules #7 and 11:

7. No electioneering will be allowed at the polling site or within 100 feet of the school site. Electioneering will be defined as including vote solicitation, wearing campaign paraphernalia, campaign signs, photographing voters or videotaping voters.

11. The media should not be allowed into the polling site. Media should stay more than 25 feet off the school limits to make sure that voters do not feel intimidated. Voters may not be photographed, videotaped or filmed entering or exiting the school site, and may not be filmed inside the polling location without the voter’s permission.

VIDEO LINK

• Did the I-Division have a conflict of interest?
• Was the election truly "Fair"?

THE THIRD OPTION IS BEING FOLLOWED BY UTLA

• Some in UTLA contend that a majority of all teachers rather than just teachers who voted is required to pass (this seems to have been conceded and is the basis for a second vote)

• Others fall back to the School Based Management voting procedures laid out in the UTLA contract - which require a supermajority of teachers. The SBM rules also specifiy a vote by staff other-than-teachers (classified). The election rules state that "existing collective bargaining agreements will be folllowed" providing the slippery slope on which to to play this game. There is an internal dispute at UTLA over whether the supermajority was ever given up and whether anyone had authority to do so. This needs to be worked out. See: 2 L.A. schools lack majorities for mayor's reform plan (Daily News)
  

There are also a couple of outstanding issues that I would just as soon not get into ...but other folks will. Allowing parents with multiple children to vote more than onceAllowing non-citizens to vote.

• • 
    

The full rules are posted here.

Other info and the sample ballot is posted here.

A Momentous Event?

Following is the text of notice sent to parents and teachers at Hollenbeck Middle School re the elections to join the Mayor's Partnership. Similar notices were sent out to teachers and parents at the other schools involved in the Mayor's Partnership and The Loyola Marymount Family of Schools partnersh

There are outstanding challenges from the Teachers Union on the election- see (LA Times L.A. Unified chief makes headway on two contentious fronts) - there are very real issues about the entire election process and also the parent's vote.

Read the following and tell me where the neutral objective non-partisanship required of an election administrator is?

We are told what a YES vote means, but not what a NO vote means— neither in the cold calculating language of a legislative analyst nor in the point/counterpoint of Argument-for/Argument-against//Rebuttal-for/Rebuttal-against.

"VOTE TO TRANSFORM OUR SCHOOLS" seems like advocacy to me

"A momentous event…." looks to be a bit of the old cheerleading.

…and the election was conducted by the I-Division - the folks who would stand to gain from an affirmative vote - who also formulated the rules for the election and then conducted it.

The parent election was supposed to be conducted under the rules for conducting School Site Council and School Based Management elections - which require a one week notice of the elections and that the elections be conducted by trained local district staff.

But it has been alleged that that the notices were not circulated to Hollenbeck parents until ONE DAY before the election! The above flier and the election rules were not even put in final form until 9:48 PM on December 6^th according to the time and date of the documents - 4 days and 11 hours before the election.

And no parents were involved in creating the election rules - although, from the quotes in the Times article above - the Mayor's office certainly was!

If as the Times says, "The mayor's office endorsed the idea of additional voting" - Let's go there!

As a a matter of fact, let's go there anyway!

- smf

VOTE TO TRANSFORM OUR SCHOOLS!

Special School Election

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Vote at Hollenbeck Middle School

A momentous event will take place on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 that will impact the future of Hollenbeck Middle School. On that day, LAUSD will hold a vote at your school to decide whether or not the school should become part of the Innovation Division in partnership with the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

I hope that you have had a chance to attend one of our informational meetings to learn more about the Innovation Division and the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. The Innovation Division is a key initiative of Superintendent David L. Brewer III and the Board of Education intended to move decisions about how a school is run and how children are taught as close to the classroom as possible. The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools is an effort launched by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa with a broad collaboration of partners to provide more resources and support for our schools.

If you have not had the chance to learn about this exciting opportunity to make a significant difference in your workplace, please see the attached key points.

Voting will take place at your school on December 11, 2007 from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The Innovation Division is looking for the following indicators of support:

1. 50% +1 of certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining agreement votes

2. 50% +1 of parent (or legal guardian) votes

3. Letters of support/petitions from:

a. Classified Staff

b. School Administrators and management

c. Community groups, parents and community members

d. Students

If you cannot vote on December 11 and would like an absentee ballot, please call

(213) 893-6831 no later than Monday, December 10, 2007 at 6 p.m.

Please call (213) 893-6831 if you have further questions.

We owe it to our children to vote on December 11!

A YES VOTE MEANS

1. Hollenbeck Middle School will become an Innovation Division School working with the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools in the 2008-09 school year.

2. Schools will set their own governance structures with parents, students, teachers, classified staff and administrative staff.

3. School will have more authority over decisions related to:

- School budget

- School hiring

- Instruction

- Professional development

- School operations and services

4. The Innovation Division and the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools will work to bring additional resources to the school.

5. The school would be exempt from certain LAUSD policies.

6. The school would follow Federal and State Regulations, as well as existing collective bargaining agreements.

SAMPLE BALLOT

YOUR VOTE COUNTS! Tuesday, December 11, 2007

HOLLENBECK MIDDLE SCHOOL

Are you in favor of Hollenbeck Middle School becoming an Innovation Division School in partnership with the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools in the 2008-09 school year?

□ YES □ NO

FYI: THE I-Division Voting Process

Innovation Division Voting Process

The process below is being followed for schools deciding whether they will join the Innovation Division working with The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools in the 2008-09 school year. The following schools will be indicating their support about whether or not to work with the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools on December 11, 2007:
• Roosevelt High School
• Hollenbeck Middle School
• Stevenson Middle School
• Santee Education Complex
• Jordan High School
• Markham Middle School
• Gompers Middle School
Also, please note the following corrections to the letter from the Innovation Division describing the process:
1. If you cannot vote on December 11th and would like an absentee ballot, please call (213) 893-6831 no later than Monday, December 10, 2007 at 6 p.m.
2. The in-person ballot will be confidential for all voters. Voters will not be asked to write or sign their name on the ballot (please see below for a description of who will vote). There are 2 exceptions to this noted below.

SAMPLE BALLOT
YOUR VOTE COUNTS! Tuesday, December 11, 2007
[SCHOOL NAME]
Do you support [School Name] becoming an Innovation Division School in partnership with the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools
in the 2008-09 school year
􀂉 YES 􀂉 NO

Voting Requirements for Entry into the Innovation Division
The Innovation Division will assess the following indicators of support:
1. 50% +1 of certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit votes
2. 50% +1 of parent (or legal guardian) votes
3. Letters of support/petitions from:
a. Classified staff
b. School administrators/management
c. Community groups, parents and community members
d. Students
Voting Process for Certificated Staff in the UTLA Bargaining Unit
1. LAUSD’s Innovation Division has sent a letter of notification to all certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit along with a sample ballot (please see above for corrections to this letter). The letter contains a number to call for more information (213-893-6831).
2. Each school site will convene a voting committee that will include the following representatives:
a. An LAUSD representative
b. The UTLA chapter chair (or his/her designee)
c. The parent coordinator (or his/her designee)
d. A representative from the Partner organization (optional)
The LAUSD representative will serve as the point person on the committee and will be in charge of convening the committee, training committee members, and communicating with committee members.
3. In conjunction with the school principal, the LAUSD representative will be responsible for setting up a voting booth in a convenient, easily-accessible location for both certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit and parents (we recommend main foyer, parent center, library, auditorium, etc.). The LAUSD representative will also be responsible for posting appropriate signage in the main office and throughout the school to direct voters to the right location. The committee will inform the main office staff about the voting procedure in order for main office staff to be able to answer questions from parents, certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit, and other members of the community.
4. The LAUSD representative will prepare ballots as well as a roster of eligible certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit assigned to the school site. The voting committee will ensure that only certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit of the designated school vote.
5. If there is an individual who claims to be certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit at the school site but is not on the available roster, then in order to vote, this person would be asked to complete a form with his/her name, address and position at the school, as well as a “provisionary ballot.” The provisionary ballot
December 5, 2007 Page 2 of 6
will contain his/her name. This is to allow LAUSD to validate these votes after the polls close. This is the first exception to the anonymity of voters described above.
6. Certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit can only vote at the school site where they work.
7. Eligible voters will have an opportunity to vote at the school between the hours of 7:00am and 8:00pm. The voting committee will check off eligible voters who have voted from a master list provided by LAUSD. The voting committee will be responsible for collecting and recording all ballots. After the polls close at 8:00pm, the voting committee will count the votes at the school site, record the results and sign a form to certify that the results are accurate. The LAUSD representative will then hand deliver the ballots and the certified results to LAUSD central office. At this point, LAUSD will cross-reference all voter lists to make sure that each person only voted once. Any discrepancies will be recorded. In addition, at this time, all absentee votes (described below) would be added to the total results. All voting committee members are invited, but not required, to attend this meeting. LAUSD will certify the final voting tally.
8. All off-track certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit will receive three forms of communication regarding the vote: 1) a letter of notification, including documents describing the Innovation Division and the network partner; 2) an email; and 3) a phone call. Off-track certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit can contact Sarai Romero Evans (LAUSD Community Outreach) at sarai.romeroevans@lausd.net or 213-893-6831 if they would like additional information or need additional clarification.
9. Off-track and absent certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit have the option of either coming into the school to vote or emailing their vote to Sarai Romero Evans (LAUSD Community Outreach) at sarai.romeroevans@lausd.net as well as to their designated chapter chair. All votes that are emailed must be received by 8:00pm on December 11th. This is the second exception to anonymity of the vote (if C-track certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit vote via email).
10. Principals are being asked to allocate time during their banked time on Tuesday, December 11th to allow certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit to vote to help drive a large turnout amongst certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit.
11. It is the responsibility of the voting committee to ensure that the ballot box is secure throughout the voting day. Chapter chairs and parent representatives may designate individuals to staff the booth during the day in their place.
12. In order to vote, certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit will be required to provide their name and position at school at the polling site.

Voting Process for Parents
1. LAUSD’s Innovation Division has sent a letter of notification to all parents along with a sample ballot (please see above for corrections to this letter). The letter contains a number to call for more information (213-893-6831). Note that when we refer to parents in this document, we are also referring to legal guardians, who are permitted to vote.
2. Each school site will convene a voting committee that will include the following representatives:
a. An LAUSD representative
b. The UTLA chapter chair (or his/her designee)
c. The parent coordinator (or his/her designee)
d. A representative from the Partner organization (optional)
The LAUSD representative will serve as the point person on the committee and will be in charge of convening the committee, training committee members, and communicating with committee members.
3. In conjunction with the school principal, the LAUSD representative will be responsible for setting up a voting booth in a convenient, easily-accessible location for both certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit and parents (we recommend main foyer, parent center, library, auditorium, etc.) The LAUSD representative will also be responsible for posting appropriate signage in the main office and throughout the school to direct voters to the right location. The committee will inform the main office staff about the voting procedure in order for main office staff to be able to answer questions from parents, certificated staff in the UTLA bargaining unit, and other members of the community.
4. The LAUSD representative will prepare ballots as well as a roster of parents with students at that specific school. The voting committee will ensure that only parents or guardians with students currently attending the school vote.
5. If there is an individual who claims to be a parent of a child at the school site but is not on the available rosters, then in order to vote this person would be asked to complete a form with his/her name, address and child’s name, as well as a “provisionary ballot.” The provisionary ballot will contain his/her name. This is to allow LAUSD to validate these votes after the polls close. This is the first exception to the anonymity of voters described above.
6. Eligible voters will have an opportunity to vote at the school between the hours of 7:00am and 8:00pm. The voting committee will check off eligible voters who have voted from a master list. The voting committee will be responsible for collecting and recording all ballots. After the polls close at 8:00pm, the voting committee will count the votes at the school site, record the results and sign a form to certify that the results are accurate. The LAUSD representative will then hand deliver the ballots and the certified results to LAUSD central office. At this
December 5, 2007 Page 4 of 6
point, LAUSD will cross-reference all voter lists to make sure that each person only voted once. Any discrepancies will be recorded. In addition, at this time, all absentee votes (described below) would be added to the total results. All voting committee members are invited, but not required, to attend this meeting. LAUSD will certify the final voting tally.
7. Parents who have additional children in the school will receive the number of ballots that correspond to the number of children attending the school (one child=one ballot). Additionally, only one parent can cast a vote for each student.
8. Parents will be able to cast both of their ballots at any school in the family of schools. For example, if a parent has a child at Roosevelt, that parent would be able to cast his/her vote at Roosevelt, Hollenbeck or Stevenson.
9. It is the responsibility of the voting committee to ensure that the ballot box is secure throughout the voting day. Chapter chairs and parent representatives may designate individuals to staff the booth during the day in their place.
10. In order to vote, parents will be required to provide their child’s name, their name and their home address. No formal identification will be required.
Voting Day Rules and Regulations
1. Members of the voting committee (or any person staffing the polling area as a designee of a voting committee member) are prohibited from advocating, coercing, or influencing the nature of the votes.
2. The voting committee (or designees) should not answer any factual questions about the Innovation Division, The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools or other school reform plans. The voting committee (or designees) should refer all questions to the Innovation Division, The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools or other relevant parties.
3. The Innovation Division and The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools will be allowed to provide written information on their programs for the voting committee (or designee) to distribute at the polling site. The Innovation Division and The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools are not permitted to hand out any literature. Only the voting committee (or designee) shall distribute information when asked to do so.
4. Representatives from the Innovation Division and The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools may not answer any questions at the polling location.
5. The voting committee (or designee) will be allowed to answer factual questions about the voting process only.
6. We are committed to a free and transparent process. Votes and petition signatures must be willing and voluntary. No intimidation of voters will be allowed at the polling site. The voting committee (or designee) can ask for intimidation activities to cease.

7. No electioneering will be allowed at the polling site or within 100 feet of the school site. Electioneering will be defined as including vote solicitation, wearing campaign paraphernalia, campaign signs, photographing voters or videotaping voters.
8. Any complaints about intimidation or electioneering should be referred to the voting committee (or designees). Formal complaints must be provided in writing from the voting committee (or designees) to the Innovation Division. A complaint form will be made available at each voting site.
9. Members of the community may be in the polling place observing the process as long as they do not interfere with the voter’s right to a secret ballot or the voting committee’s (or designee’s) ability to perform their duties. All observers must remove all paraphernalia and avoid any other electioneering activities within 100 feet of the school site. All non-LAUSD organizations must receive the permission of the school principal in order to enter on campus.
10. Voters and others who may be observing have the right to ask questions and to observe the election process. Observers have the right to ask the voting committee (or designee) questions regarding election procedures and to receive an answer or be directed to the appropriate person for an answer. However, if persistent questioning disrupts the execution of their duties, the voting committee (or designee) can stop responding and direct the observers to LAUSD for all further answers at the following phone number: (213) 893-6831.
11. The media should not be allowed into the polling site. Media should stay more than 25 feet off the school limits to make sure that voters do not feel intimidated. Voters may not be photographed, videotaped or filmed entering or exiting the school site, and may not be filmed inside the polling location without the voter’s permission.
12. All votes will be considered confidential. All ballots should be folded by the voter to make sure that the vote remains confidential.
13. If the voting committee (or designee) finds a language barrier interfering with their ability to communicate with a voter, they should locate a bilingual individual at the school site who can assist.
14. If there are any questions from the voting committee (or designee) or any voter, they should call LAUSD at (213) 893-6831.

EDUCATIONAL WORKSHOP OFFERED IN CONJUNCTION WITH 3RD ANNUAL LUMMIS DAY: THE FESTIVAL OF NORTHEAST L..A.

An educational workshop for teachers encompassing the history, geography and culture of Northeast Los Angeles will be presented in conjunction with the third annual "Lummis Day: The Festival of Northeast Los Angeles" on two consecutive Saturdays in February, (2/2 and 2/9).

Titled “A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT: Charles Lummis and the Culture of the Arroyo Seco,” the workshop will be presented as an LAUSD-approved one-point credit class and the curriculum will include seminars and presentations by poets, authors, naturalists, a Native American storyteller, and historians. A broad cross-section of Arroyo locations will serve as classrooms for the program, which will include docent tours of the area’s museums, field studies and nature walks through urban wilderness areas.

Carmela Gomes, a retired LAUSD teacher who serves as Educational Director for the Lummis Day Community Foundation, has designed the 15-hour course in cooperation with the Los Angeles Unified School District and will lead eight additional presenters representing a broad cross section of disciplines and interests for this uniquely multi-disciplinary curriculum. The course is aimed at allowing teachers to impart a sense of “place,” community pride and unity among Los Angeles students.

Participants will join field studies and nature walks in the restored Lower Arroyo, and will attend sessions at some of Northeast Los Angeles’ most historically and culturally significant locations, including Heritage Square Museum, Lummis Home and Gardens, the Casa de Adobe, the Southwest Museum’s Braun Library and Judson Studios. The course will emphasize the geography of the Arroyo Seco watershed, its modes of transportation, the urban wilderness, and the diverse heritage of its inhabitants.

A central theme of the workshop will be the life and work of Northeast Los Angeles’ larger-than- life pioneering spirit, Charles Fletcher Lummis, first city editor of the Los Angeles Times, a city librarian, founder of the Southwest Museum, and an early proponent of Native American Rights.

Presenters for the educational workshop will include poet Suzanne Lummis, Arroyo Seco Foundation Director Tim Brick, native plants expert Christopher Nyerges, author and artist Don Newton, artists Deborah Thomas, instructor and Gabrielino/Tongva tribal council member Julia Bogany, Arroyo Scenic Byway founder Nicole Possert and Highland Park Heritage Trust member and raconteur Virginia Neely.

Participating teachers will be able to create meaningful, standards-based curriculum-relevant projects for use with students, projects that can be shared through community presentations in their own school environments. Teachers will be asked to encourage their students to return with their projects on June 1, for presentation at the Lummis Day Festival.

The program is limited to 40 participants and the fee is $65, which covers materials, museum entries, tours, and speaker fees. Registration and fees are due January 25. The complete schedule and registration forms may be accessed at www.lummisday. org. Online payment is limited to Paypal account holders. Checks may be mailed to Carmela Gomes at 1326 N. Avenue 54, Los Angeles CA 90042.

Lummis Day: The Festival of Northeast Los Angeles will take place on Sunday June 1 and will be preceded by a month-long series of events at libraries and schools throughout Northeast L.A. Lummis Day information can be found at www.lummisday.org. Lummis Day is presented by the Annenberg Foundation and the Autry National Center and is sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, the Greater Cypress Park Neighborhood Council, the Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council with support from public radio station KPFK 90.7 and City Council Districts 1 and 14.

For further information, contact: call or email Carmela Gomes at 323-257-1900 or carmela.gomes@ lausd.net.

WHILE PARENTS SLEPT: Urban Scrawl by Doug Davis

December 17, 2007

Original political cartoons from Downtown News by Doug Davis