The Point Loma Cluster Schools Foundation wants to hear from you. Over the past few days and upcoming weeks, we would like to her your thoughts and ideas on possible school closures and reconfiguration. In the forum, we are looking for ideas. The district estimates it will save $400,000 to $500,000 per year per school closure. The budget crises is real - read the The Ticking Time Bomb of San Diego Unified School District Finances and San Diego Schools Chief "On The Road To Insolvency.
Currently, the Point Loma Cluster has 6,400 students. 1,800 students come to our cluster from outside cluster boundary. Due to serious budget constraints, it is likely that in the future the District will only offer transportation to students as required by law - which will reduce to number of students in our cluster. {We are working to get an estimate on the estimated decline in enrollment}.
Learn about the District's Proposed Point Loma Realignment / School School Closure.
Now, what are your ideas?
Now, what are your ideas?
11 comments:
How about we get accurate information verses district estimates. Why not ask the current choice parents if they will return if bus service is discontinued?
'choice' families don't use the bus system. They are required to provide transportation for their children. Dana only has 53 students who utilize the bus out of 800 students.
The raises in 2012-2013 not only increase salary but reinstate for lost "wages" due to furlough days - which by the way, were in the form of 5 less student teaching days. Seems we will reinstate the "lost money" to the adults, but, there is no indication that the kids will get the lost days back as the school year goes back to 180 from 175. So, instead of going to 185 days for the kids, the adults get money for furlough days and kids just plain lose it
Teachers should require their union to look at foregoing:
• 1. The imprudently-promised across-the-board salary raise
• 2. Sharing the cost of District-paid benefits
• 3. Adjusting downward automatic step-and-column raises
• 4. Modifying the punishing last-hired-first-fired rule of tenure that indiscriminately puts new (dues-paying) teachers on the street during tough times.
• I am for splitting the District. I am for merit pay for teachers. And I am against how this District has been run for the last thirty years.
Looks like cannibalization of the district to satisfy labor agreements rather than Demolition of the existing structure. Too bad the rules for district splits aren’t waived if the state does take over – splitting into six or more smaller districts would be great – academic and contract resolutions would be made on the needs of their specific community (since there is no way to make good one-size-fits-all decisions for over 130,000 students.)
Develop or sell the previously closed PLC cluster property Freemont/Ballard in Old Town.
In a crisis like this, lets focus on the kids and theis facility does not serve kids. It sits on prime land in the heart of Old Town.
I say focus on getting revenue from properties not serving children as in Freemont/Ballard and other closed properties before making decisions that impact so many kids and families in the district.
Anyone working on the benefits of keeping the config of PLC the same?
-Dana is less expensive in cost per student than the HS. Very efficient way to educate our 5-6 students.
-Music program and benefits
-How having a 5-6 config has helped other ways
Secede!
Annex Mission Bay!
Claim Old Town!
Last night (Oct. 24) I attended the Town Hall Meeting at Dana Middle School. I left the meeting with some questions left unanswered.
1. Why is closing either Dana or Correia Middle School now under consideration? A week ago, Dana was to become a K-8 academy, with Correia remaining a middle school. Is our neighborhood now being punished because we did not support the District Office’s Pacific Rim Language Academy project? Why can’t Dana remain open and be used as an academy whose focus is chosen by the Peninsula Cluster instead of the District Office?
2. Why did neither Mr. Barnett nor Mr. Stover directly answer the question asked by the Point Loma High student? This question was simply, why isn’t one school in each cluster being closed? I can take that further and ask why each cluster in not being asked to sacrifice equally? If the Peninsula Cluster must lose 3 schools, then why are 3 schools not being closed in every other cluster as well? This would certainly take the district much closer to its potential need to cut $60,000,000 from its budget.
3. Why did I feel that both Mr. Barnett & Mr. Stover were being disingenuous? Mr. Barnett seemed to be more concerned with placing the budget crisis on the doorstep of previous school boards than he was about listening to and standing up for the concerns of his constituents. Mr. Stover certainly reflects the fact that the District Offices have already made their decision, regardless of the feelings of individual clusters. May I remind them that they are both public servants, and their first responsibility is to the public, not to a decision that was made months ago with no public input?
4. Why cannot the Peninsula Cluster schools be reorganized in such a way that would cause little or no increase to the budget? If Barnard and Cabrillo must be closed, their students would have to be redistributed among the remaining five elementary schools, all of which are close to capacity. Bungalows would need to be brought on to those campuses. This certainly cannot be done for free. Instead, could we go back to a configuation of the cluster that was discussed many years ago? The five remaining schools could now be K-3, Dana could be 4-6, Correia could be 7-9, and PLHS could be 10-12.
Respectfully,
Linda Cobb
Community member
An Open Letter to the San Diego Unified School District Board
I’m a community member, a parent of two Dana alumni, and am in my twenty-fourth year as a teacher in San Diego Unified, twenty-three of which have been in the Point Loma Cluster, with the past eleven at Dana Middle School. At the Point Loma Cluster informational meeting on October 17, it was pointed out that this school closure issue is not about saving successful educational programs, nor is it about saving a particular set of buildings. It is about saving money. I would like to propose an idea that is no more expensive than the district staff’s closure plan and might even be less expensive.
At this time, Dana has about 775 students. Of these, 250 students are in band or orchestra, 86 in theatre or musical theatre, 130 in art, for a total of 466, or about 60% of our students currently enrolled in a visual or performing arts elective. Add to this number the 40 students who are taking part in the after-school dance and guitar classes, and you have over 65% who are involved in the arts. Add again the 200 students who requested theatre or musical theatre as their elective, but who we could not accommodate since we only have two theatre classes. With the budget to hire a full-time theatre teacher, we would have had over 600 children, more than 75% of our students, in a VAPA class! I’ve heard it said that refugees from troubled countries vote with their feet. Well, in Point Loma, people often vote with their children’s feet. If 75% of our school’s population have that much interest in the arts, perhaps our district ought to listen.
Remember that the original staff proposal was to turn Dana into a magnet school. However, the program chosen, important as many of us believe it to be, has not drawn the numbers that would fill Dana. So allow me to propose that Dana become a Visual and Performing Arts Magnet. The grade level configuration would be open for discussion, be it K-8, 5-8, 6-8, or something not yet discussed. If a language magnet was OK, why not a VAPA magnet? Administratively, it is no more expensive. If the grade levels are limited to 4th grade and above, there’s no need to redo the lavatories for primary aged children.
This community has supported the VAPA programs at Dana to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past decade-and-a-half. Clearly, the parents and children of Point Loma recognize the necessity of having the arts in our schools. We have award-winning VAPA teachers on site. Our instrumental music program is second to none, more than two dozen of our theatre students have continued their education at SCPA. Our art classes produce sophisticated and attractive pieces. With the addition of magnet status, the school’s population could again approach 1000.
Finally, allow me to ask this question: In the Hoover Cluster there are two middle schools with identical grade configurations (6 – 8) which operate at a lower percentage of their capacity than either Dana or Correia. Why are both of those schools spared? Wouldn’t it make more sense to close one of them? Even if it meant that the district had to provide bus transportation for the students at the closed school, it would be cheaper than keeping that school open.
It is my hope that these questions will be thoughtfully considered and honest answers provided.
Yours truly,
W. William Cobb
Teacher, Dana Middle School
The most outrageous aspect of the district recommendation is their proposal to close a middle school, completely realigning the elementary-middle system in our area. The current system was created with a lot of community input. It is popular and it works; our middle schools have some of the highest scores in the district. The district staff is proposing to blow up this system, by fiat from downtown, just to save a buck - without any community input or any educational rationale or even any thought to the educational consequences. (Not to mention that their own figures show that the remaining campuses would not have sufficient capacity to absorb the increases in enrollment.) They are making a similarly outrageous proposal in Pacific Beach - where they want to close PB Middle School completely and make Mission Bay High School into a 7-12 high school. But the six-year high school is a concept that was abandoned by most of American education several generations ago, for sound educational and developmental reasons. To go back to this obsolete concept now - again just to save a buck and without any community input or educational rationale - is completely unacceptable. We need to reach out to the Mission Bay cluster and work together with them to fight these two proposals. All the other proposals are for closing elementary schools - painful but not disrupting the entire educational plan of the cluster. But these two proposals would wreck the entire system in our areas, and we need to unite to oppose them. --Melanie Nickel, Point Loma
As for the town hall: very UNIMPRESSIVE showings by Barnett and district staff.
It was clear that the SDUSD staff presenting at the town hall had not done all the homework necessary with respect to population and demographics to support these proposals. Their assumptions were not clear or substantiated about the impact of moving the 5th graders to the elementary schools nor what capacity is needed now or in the future at the middle schools. I think we need to advocate vigorously to save both middle schools: every study shows the incredible risks to middle school students simply by being that age and moving to a new school. In Pt. Loma, we've found a recipe that succeeds, thus "saving" our children at an incredibly vulnerable time and ensuring their success for high school and beyond.
Mr. Barnett sounded like his only job was to keep the district afloat but what is the point of that if educational success is not rewarded and supported.
Also, on the economics of the choices, why wasn't it mentioned that Barnard has already been "closing" and we've paid a price for that already?
The pie can be sliced many different ways but success should be a criteria that is honored. Just look at the scores and the achievements of the kids at both middle schools. We are so lucky to have so many kids in Pt. Loma who have gotten to know each other through these very "safe" middle schools that promote independence and self-confidence (I think the arts are a wonderful way for kids to grow and connect, amongst other things) that when they get to high school, they are very friendly and supportive of each other.
I'm not opposed to an arts magnet: our community certainly values the arts as do I personally. I just don't want to see 2 middle schools pitted against each other. Again, we've found a recipe that works.
Can we be united in a proposal to save both middles?
"every study shows the incredible risks to middle school students simply by being that age and moving to a new school. "
So your proposal is to move them to new schools twice? Once between 4th & 5th, and again between 6th & 7th? I dont follow.
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