Closure questions

I have some questions about the Vallejo City Unified School District's school closure report.

[gun metal blue]

Marianne Kearney-Brown , trends of birth rate or data from other districts have no bearing on vallejo data. what is of interest is the data of vallejo. it is of no consern what other cities are doing but only what vallejo is doing and can afford. to use data of other cities is not the right thing to do. if you think so, use the data from china or korea and see how it compares to vallejo. useless. the bottom line is vallejo school district has just so much operating funds and that is what is important. using and compareing data from other sources would be like using your income and comparing it to the school district. you could not pay the electric bill for the schools each month. all vallejo school district desisions MUST be made on the funds the vallejo district has to operate with. NOT THE funds of fairfield or benica or any other city! you are comapring apples to oranges. look at vallejo period. each city has property tax losses. what it costs in napa has nothing to do here. this is vallejo, not napa. get used to it. look at what is available here. what you are trying to do is look at what your neighbor has (money and other value) and trying to live and operate on what they have instead of what you make. if you have more you can live at a higher standard, if not you can not live as good.

[Marianne Kearney-Brown]

Correction: I am from Napa. I taught at Hogan in 1994-1995 and from 1998-2006.

[VHS]

I had the same reaction as you Marianne. When I read that bit about declining birth rates I immediately thought it was a way to gloss over the more important reason for declining enrollment: poor district performance. If the schools and students were performing above average we would draw students from surrounding areas. Just the opposite is happening.

[Glitterdome]

The problem is simple. Parents do not want to send their children to school in Vallejo! There is no industry, technology, or companies in Vallejo to be employed at so Vallejoans work outside of Vallejo. Now if you had the option to send your child to a much better school in the district you are employed via Interdistrict transfer or failing Vallejo's school, where would you choose? As a parent, I want what is best for my child!

[Another Concerned Citizen]

There is so much secrecy at the VCUSD no one knows how decisions are made. People get fired and no one knows why. There are lawsuits but no explanation on how they are being settled with taxpayer money. Grants are lost, due dates missed by this gang and no one cares. The newspaper never investigates anything. The district goes $60 million in debt and still no one knows why or who is accountable or responsible. Now schools are going to close and there is no real substantive reason other than finances. Well if Damelio, Santa Cruz and their gang were doing their jobs and stopped hiring more and more supervisors, buying more furniture, getting the place painted twice and having a Starbuck's at the palace maybe there would be more money.

Should Hogan close. It is an emotional issue for those concerned at the school but probably so, to maximize the usage of space at Bethel and Vallejo high schools. But Damelio, in his capacity of King of the school district, doesn't tell anyone why or really think he needs to.

[tramky]

Public education is a jobs program for union employees. If you think that a school district exists to educate your children, think again.

The problems at VCUSD can only be eliminated by replacing virtually ALL of its employees--the corruption runs deep & wide there.

As for why many details are not included in the Executive Summary--that's why it's called the Executive Summary. No details are supposed to be provided in a summary. If you want the details, they should be provided in the more detailed documents that support the Exec Summary.

[Marianne Kearney-Brown]

That was my point-- The executive summary made these claims and there was no supporting evidence anywhere in the other 250+ pages. I would not accept that type of thing from a 9th grader.

[I do drum]

tramky wrote:

Public education is a jobs program for union employees. If you think that a school district exists to educate your children, think again.
The problems at VCUSD can only be eliminated by replacing virtually ALL of its employees--the corruption runs deep & wide there.
As for why many details are not included in the Executive Summary--that's why it's called the Executive Summary. No details are supposed to be provided in a summary. If you want the details, they should be provided in the more detailed documents that support the Exec Summary.

And you base this on what ?? do you have hard facts or just a hunch? Heres a couple of facts
1) enrollment has dropped
2) Teachers have lost there jobs
3) Classified have lost there jobs
4) District pays $100,000 per year for a Spokesman
5) Administrators have NOT lost there jobs
6) Almost every District Employee brings home less money than they did 5 years ago ( do you know how much the cost of living has increased in that time period?)
7) Morale is in the dumper and has been for years.
Im sure you don't care because it's all the Unions Fault , Right?

[CO 99s Navy Boy]

I graduated from Hogan in 99 and at that time it was the best school in the area. I lived in VHS school zone and my parents wanted me to go to Hogan. I just want to know what happened in vallejo. Did the city and school district go down hill this bad?

[Mr Vallejo]

Marianne Kearney-Brown wrote:

Correction: I am from Napa. I taught at Hogan in 1994-1995 and from 1998-2006.

I bet you couldn't wait for school to end, so you could get back to Napa. No lingering in Vallejo.

[Mr Vallejo]

VHS wrote:

I had the same reaction as you Marianne. When I read that bit about declining birth rates I immediately thought it was a way to gloss over the more important reason for declining enrollment: poor district performance. If the schools and students were performing above average we would draw students from surrounding areas. Just the opposite is happening.

Get real. I dig Vallejo, but families have never, and will never, be drawn to Vallejo for its schools, no matter how well they are performing. Moreover, no parent wants their children hanging with ghetto kids. That only happens when you can not afford to live elsewhere.

[Concerned Citizen]

Glitterdome wrote:

The problem is simple. Parents do not want to send their children to school in Vallejo! There is no industry, technology, or companies in Vallejo to be employed at so Vallejoans work outside of Vallejo. Now if you had the option to send your child to a much better school in the district you are employed via Interdistrict transfer or failing Vallejo's school, where would you choose? As a parent, I want what is best for my child!

I have to agree. I discussed many issues from contractors and businesses, which identifies Vallejo as an anti-business regen, because of their mentality as a source for their revenue comes from homes being built, not industry, and that's the only target they have.

Give you an example- why was an automall develop in columbus parkway, then after several months, everything collapse.All you see from a huge area, vacant buildings and a large autodealership handling three different dealerships. Poor planning of the city.

The school district is under the control of the state, because of the mismanagment of the district's funds, carelessness of it administrators for the benefit of their selfishness. That's why Vallejo is in bankruptcy, and the district having to close schools.

We all failed as a community, because we tend to follow our own interests, and as long as it doesn't affect me. Guess what people, you live here- you are already affected.

It's time to stop blaming everything around us, and start looking at ourselves as solutions to these matters. Encourage each of us to work together as a community, and help rebuld the remaining schools to be than what it is today. Volunteer and take part in your schools and show that our community is worth fighting for. When efforts are seen, and the schools start to proper with cooperation from ALL Parents, and students, those who take their kids to other schools will come back.

And as for the city, remove the mentality of anti-business, and start promoting businesses that will want people to come to Vallejo, because it is a better place to eat, shop, and spend time with the family. COMMUNITIES START RISING UP AND BE INVOLVED.... THIS IS YOUR CITY....

[Not Optimistic]

All the public schools in Vallejo will never be closed. Washington could not allow our children to be taught by John Birchers or some other right wing organizations that would teach the young what is really going on in their country. Remember the
the Hitler Youth groups were abandoned only after
WWII. Even a 60 million dollar deficit didn't close
the Vallejo public schools. Nevertheless, I always remember that Abe Lincoln got an education with a candle and a book.

[Vallejo Parent]

Vallejo is doomed! Too many corrupt hands, people who earn too much money for doing so little, what do you expect? And all the want is people to pay more taxes, volunteer to teach their children who can't behave, use foul language, wear their pants down their ankles, and want everything for nothing? We are leaving this sinking cesspool! Good riddens!

[Marianne Kearney-Brown]

Vallejo Parent wrote:

Vallejo is doomed! Too many corrupt hands, people who earn too much money for doing so little, what do you expect? And all the want is people to pay more taxes, volunteer to teach their children who can't behave, use foul language, wear their pants down their ankles, and want everything for nothing? We are leaving this sinking cesspool! Good riddens!

I love Vallejo. I loved teaching the kids in Vallejo. The problems here are solve-able and I hope to be part of the solution.

[VHS]

Marianne Kearney-Brown wrote:

<quoted text>
I love Vallejo. I loved teaching the kids in Vallejo. The problems here are solve-able and I hope to be part of the solution.

Marianne, it seems to me the way federal funds are provided to education is extremely inefficient. There are so many different programs, each with a set of mandates and time lines for reporting that our district people can't keep them all straight. We all enjoy criticizing the district people but wouldn't it be much more efficient if the feds simply took the total spending on education and provided each district with a lump sum? All of the various programs could be documented and made available from a central source and districts could adopt those programs that they considered the best fit in for the circumstance. Other posters have talked about education being a jobs program and I tend to agree. The jobs and overhead required to run a thousand different funding streams is the "jobs program". The principal, teachers and support staff at the school sites are the real necessary workers in education.