Part One of Two
By Nick Diamantides
Staff Writer
This week and next, the Signal Tribune focuses on the three candidates running to occupy the District 4 seat of the Board of Education of the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD). District 4 encompasses the Southeast portion of Long Beach and all of Signal Hill and Avalon. Due to space constraints, half of the questions will appear in this issue and the rest will be in next week’s paper.
Incumbent Jon Meyer was first elected to the school board in 2003 to fill the unexpired term of a board member who died. He was reelected in 2004 and is now running for his second full, four-year term. Prior to serving on the board, he worked for the LBUSD for 27 years as a teacher and 13 as a principal.
Prior to retiring, challenger Karen Hilburn worked for the LBUSD for 39 years–first as a teacher, then as a principal and later as an administrator.
Paul Crost, the other challenger, worked as a labor and employment attorney for 40 years before recently retiring to begin a career as a mediator.
On April 8, voters in the LBUSD’s districts 2 and 4 will decide who will represent them on the board of education.
Signal Tribune: Can you briefly describe some of the good things now being done in the LBUSD?
Meyer: The Long Beach Unified School District continues to do many good things. We provide all of our 10th graders a free PSAT to identify and encourage as many students as possible to opt for more challenging academic course work. This has helped boost enrollment in our advanced placement courses to an all-time high. Hispanic student and African American student enrollment has increased 95 percent and 85 percent respectively in the last few years. Small learning communities are common on most of our high school campuses and have led to greater personalization and higher student success. Mandatory intervention after grade three for all students who lag in math and literacy was approved by the state after our district pushed for this reform. New approaches to math instruction continue to foster great success stories at our elementary level.
Crost: Some good things have begun but need more work to make them fully effective. A few examples are the Jordan ACE Academy; principal training programs are a great start but need more input from other employees and parents to make principals inclusive leaders; and professional development.
Hilburn: LBUSD has developed over many years an outstanding seamless partnership with LBCC and CSULB to help local students. Historically, all LBUSD high schools have received full accreditation from Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
Signal Tribune: Recently, the District announced a $40 million budget cut due to the State of California budget deficit. What programs can be cut back or eliminated?
Crost: While the budget crunch has made cutbacks inevitable, they will severely limit the ability of the district to maintain, let alone improve, the level of education, health and safety of our students. Teachers, administrators and support staff will have to do more with less resources and manpower. To the extent cutbacks become necessary, we should keep them as far away from the classroom as possible.
Hilburn: I cannot agree with many of the suggested cuts, (recently listed in LBUSD’s budget) because they directly impact the children. However, they did suggest cutting Financial Services and Business Services to the tune of 5.5 million dollars. It is puzzling that this amount is so large. Is that department already too large? A better look into Central Office expenditures and potential cuts would be a first priority before considering any cuts that would impact the classrooms. Transparency in the budget process is badly needed.
Meyer: It would not be honest to say that some of these cuts will not affect the classroom. For example, it looks like a number of our teachers on special assignment as literacy and math coaches will now be asked to teach full time. Support staff hiring has been frozen and we will do without replacing those members who retire or resign. Several administrative positions in the board office will remain unfilled. Declining enrollment, we hope, will be matched by an appreciable number of retirements. The list of cuts goes on.
Signal Tribune: What are the programs you would absolutely not cut back or eliminate?
Hilburn: I would not cut the programs that have the greatest impact on the greatest number of students. I would not cut the substitutes’ salaries because we will lose the good ones to other districts.
Unknown to many is the large burden being placed on many of the schools in my district. Some programs are being entirely funded by parent/PTA efforts through fundraising with very little credit being given to those carrying the load.
Meyer: We absolutely will not cut back on our existing class size reduction, which is quite an expensive outlay of funds. We will not lay off any of our teaching staff. We will not sacrifice our music and library programs. School safety will remain a top priority. Summer school intervention programs for struggling students will not be cut.
Crost: Class size reduction, school of choice and programs that help our lower performing students.
Signal Tribune: What classifications of personnel can be laid off or have their salaries reduced?
Crost: Salary reductions are not an appropriate response to budget cuts. It is unwise and counterproductive to ask employees to accept pay reductions while asking them to work harder and under more difficult conditions. Staff layoffs that directly impact the classroom should be an action of last resort. Any detailed description of particular classifications that can or should be laid off would be inappropriate without a detailed analysis of the budget.
Hilburn: Many proposed salary cuts for classified employees have already been approved. Classified employees have been notified that a change in their work year has been reduced from twelve months to ten months.
A closer look is warranted into the equity of classified versus certificated cuts. In the past the burden almost always was placed on the classified employees. Currently, there exist several “principals on special assignment,” which are central office positions that bear scrutiny. Some may need to be eliminated or reassigned back to a school site. Attrition is always better than lay offs.
Meyer: Substitute teacher pay will be reduced by 10 percent, yet that pay will still rank our sub pay quite high in comparison with other districts. We will not reduce the salaries of any employees although there may be some shifting of personnel from a higher salary classification to a lower one. There are areas of job restructuring that require contract negotiation and of course they are off limits to open discussion.
Signal Tribune: What other expenditures can be reduced?
Hilburn: The complete elimination of all perks the central office administrators enjoy, including costly travel [to] conferences, where they travel to other states, including trips to Canada.
Meyer: We continue to look at other areas of expenditure reduction and they can be publicized after staff makes their recommendations to the board.
Crost: We need to avoid wasteful litigation such as the airport lawsuit brought by the district against the City of Long Beach and the Title IX litigation involving the Wilson girls’ gymnastics program.
Signal Tribune: Can you briefly tell us what you think should be done differently by the LBUSD Board of Education?
Crost: The board’s decision-making process should be more transparent. Currently the open session of board meetings is devoid of any debate or discussion about critical issues such as budget cuts.
Board meetings should be held at school sites located throughout the district so that the community has a greater opportunity to attend and participate. The board should be subject to term limits so that fresh ideas can be brought to the board. Board members who have served for decades are likely to become part of the administrative team instead of serving as independent guardians of public funds and overseers of the district administration.
Meyer: Hindsight always offers a perfect second guess position by any board. As long as our schools remain safe, as long as our students continue to increase in academic and personal achievement, as long as every board member serves the best interests of students first, this district will remain successful.
Hilburn: Increased and expanded vocational education throughout the school district is a number-one priority. There is a large population in our schools not being nurtured and offered positive direction. That population is the kids falling through the cracks and pushed out into the world without the ability to make a living. Those are the students bound for college. Career schools/vocational education/trade schools are desperately needed. The offering of trades will reduce the truancy and drop-out rates as well as discipline problems in our district.
Better and more open communication among board members, the public and the various entities with a stake in the school district. Fewer decisions made behind closed doors. Move board meetings out into the districts to make access easier for the community. Better communication between board members and the schools they represent.
Oversee potential costly litigation. The money recently lost in litigation could have been spent more wisely on our children and could have eliminated some of the cuts we are now facing.
