True Tough Choices: Close Schools or Consolidate Districts?

By Venturan — John B.

Image not recovered47426551.jpg

When recession hits business, the initial reaction usually involves eliminating ground-level positions in the field. Sure, a handful of corporate jobs are shed, but the big numbers come from the rank and file. Those left behind are asked to pull more weight, customers are often left with lower service at the same or higher price.

Best practice companies look further than entry-level, “optical” cuts and review the structure of the enterprise overhead. The original rationale for the overhead structure and each related position is scrapped in favor of a blank slate: how should the organization be resourced in the head office? Directors, VPs, C-Level positions are all re-evaluated, territories are re-drawn, middle managers are re-aligned or eliminated. Sometimes, the corporate offices are consolidated and/or relocated to lower cost digs (perhaps even tax-friendly places like our City). In this phase, eliminating one position has the same bottom-line impact of three or four ‘ground floor’ jobs. There is a short teething period, but the impact to the customer and customer-facing resources is minimal.

This is what I call “walking the talk” by the corporate office.

The Signal’s Sunday editorial presents a straw man argument:

The Saugus Union School District stands at a crossroads: Close two schools and shave a little more off the potential shortfall looming on the horizon, or do nothing and face even more of an uphill climb.

Doing nothing is our second option? Really? The premise of the opinion, which speaks glowingly about the SUSD leadership, is one of tough decisions — but they come at the expense of students and teachers.

Since the mighty Signal didn’t ask the question, your humble blogger will:
Do we really need five school districts?

According to the piece, closing Bouquet Canyon and Emblem Elementary schools would save $500-$600k per school. Total compensation of district administrators far exceeds $125k apiece. Imagine the possibilities of consolidation of one or two districts, bringing the total down to four or three total. Sure, there are some that will draw an immediate reference to the LAUSD behemoth, but our public school population is nowhere near LAUSD.

How much redundancy is there between our school districts?

Comments (11)

blazingmonkJanuary 10, 2010 at 11:03 am

Great Argument Nickledime, I completely agree.

SneetchJanuary 10, 2010 at 11:05 am

It is crazy how many districts there are in this valley.

leslieJanuary 10, 2010 at 11:45 am

If districts were to merge, I would rather see all of the elementary districts merge together into one and the junior highs and high schools stay separate. There are major differences between elementary and secondary schools and keeping the two separate would allow each to maintain their focus.

Berta González-HarperJanuary 10, 2010 at 1:47 pm

Unfortunately the predicament of the Saugus Unified School District is a combination of many problems. I believe we do have too many elementary school districts. The result is money spent on overlapping bureaucracies that do nothing to improve the education of students. If you had one elementary school district, you would save money on superintendents, administrators, purchasing agents, teachers, overhead, etc. You would also have more buying power for supplies as one larger school district. There are many other benefits to consolidating costs and resources as any business person can attest to. I don’t think our district numbers would create a problem such as those experienced by much larger, cumbersome school districts like LAUSD. Another of the most pressing problems is mandates which are not fully funded. One of the things that would save thousands of dollars immediately is to stop all mandatory bilingual instruction, translated official school documents, parent teacher conferences, etc. All instructional materials, school notices, etc should be in English. If students/parents want their children to learn another language i.e. Spanish, Korean, Urdu, Thai, Vietnamese, etc they could be offered as electives and if funding is tight as now, as an individually paid course of study. A quality basic education should be available in English. Anything else should be considered an elective paid for by those directly benefitting from those courses. That includes courses like art, band, drama, sports, etc. Concentrate taxpayer dollars on courses necessary to prepare students for real world careers and jobs. We can expand scholarship programs to encourage achieving students from less affluent families to go on to higher education and become doctors, teachers, emergency personnel, etc in their own communities. The original function of bilingual education in the LAUSD was to quickly transition students into mastering the English language. Once that process was subverted and taken over by the special interest groups within LAUSD and the State that changed and only prolonged the students’ instruction in their native language which in turn delayed and hampered their ability to learn English. Many of us who at the time worked for LAUSD in bilingual instruction quit in protest and went on to other careers. The American taxpayer should not be forced to pay to educate children in any language other than English. Nor should they be forced to provide any materials in other languages. That cost should be borne by those parents themselves. Before there was all of this “intervention” to assist students in other languages, children learned English within a year or so and quickly were on a par with their peers. They also quickly mainstreamed into society as a whole. Not so now. It takes many years and even after that, English language skills frequently lag far behind native English speakers. Just go to any barrio or ghetto if you doubt what I say. Speaking more than one language is beneficial but not at the expense of learning the commonly used language of this country. Yes, I know English is not the official language of the United States. It should be. I am eternally grateful my parents recognized the importance of speaking English if you wanted to have the chance to succeed in the good old USA. They led by example and learned English immediately upon being granted legal entry as was required in those days. Citizenship exams, Drivers Licenses, voting materials, etc were not provided in any language other than English. They ensured we learned the culture, language, history, cuisine, etc of each of their own countries of origin by instructing us themselves at home. We need to “fix” immigration too but that is a subject for another post.

Timothy MyersJanuary 10, 2010 at 4:52 pm

Unfortunately, this is one of those ivory tower discussions the Signal editorial board has brought up of late. In “real life” it is extremely unlikely that any taxing body with elected officials would vote itself out of existence, so we need to go to plan B, which means right sizing the districts for their revenue and size. The other fantasy the Signal brought up was voting all the legislators out of office. Never going to happen in “real life.”

sarahJanuary 10, 2010 at 5:02 pm

Did the Signal not ask that great question because Paul de la Cerda is on the Saugus School board and works at the newspaper? Maybe he is slanting the opinion. He is widely known to be unethical. Nobody really knows what he does at either one though it is funny that he is at both and they are both in big trouble. They would be smart to cut him loose at the district and Signal.

ReaderMamaJanuary 10, 2010 at 5:52 pm

In addition to the difficulty of getting the various school boards to agree to this, I am sure there would be objections from parents and controversies over school boundaries, not to mention issues over pay scales, teacher contracts and seniority.

ReaderMamaJanuary 10, 2010 at 6:10 pm

Before there was all of this “intervention” to assist students in other languages, children learned English within a year or so and quickly were on a par with their peers. They also quickly mainstreamed into society as a whole. Not so now. It takes many years and even after that, English language skills frequently lag far behind native English speakers. There is no bilingual education in Santa Clarita that I am aware of. Some teachers and staff are bilingual in order that they can communicate with students and parents, but instruction is carried out in English. That said, we still see lagging English language skills among Spanish speaking English language learners. Among other things I think a contributing factor is the sheer number of Spanish speaking immigrants. Radio stations, television stations, newspapers, supermarkets and a multitude of businesses cater to this population (in order to get their business), making it easy to live in the U.S. but not speak English. I think we’ve already lost this battle. Schools and parents must be able to communicate. Spanish speaking immigrants don’t have the money to pay for their kids’ lunches, much less hire interpreters. The powers that be turned a blind eye to this influx of humanity in order to benefit American businesses. The schools have to cope with it, and the taxpayers will have to continue paying for it.

JackJanuary 10, 2010 at 7:26 pm

You propose the same thing that always comes up during budget crises: cut the administration. Yet the voters, the state, and the feds are all demanding more. More programs, more data (and data mining), more testing, more accountability. At the end of the day a teacher isn’t the one that pulls all this meta data together and makes sure the state gets it and the district gets its money. It’s the administration. Looking at it another way, one could say the administration is a ‘profit center’ while the teachers are a cost center. I’m not saying we should go fire a bunch of teachers, but it’s a little tiring to hear the same old refrain about cutting as far from the classroom as possible. If the taxpayers don’t like that their kids classes just increased from 20 to 30, then they can damn well vote for a tax increase next time.

Samuel AdamsJanuary 11, 2010 at 10:28 am

Unifying school districts is a lot more complex than seems to be stated here. First it must have each board’s approval, then it must have the state go-ahead, then it goes to the voters. I have personally been involved in one losing unification battle and was amazed at how many people see unification as a loss of local control.

Timothy MyersJanuary 11, 2010 at 12:25 pm

ND: Yes, it is far fetched. The only time it would happen quickly is if a school were taken over by the state, but by then things have gotten so bad for YEARS that a lot of damage has occured.

blazingmonkJanuary 10, 2010 at 11:03 am
Great Argument Nickledime, I completely agree.
SneetchJanuary 10, 2010 at 11:05 am
It is crazy how many districts there are in this valley.
leslieJanuary 10, 2010 at 11:45 am
If districts were to merge, I would rather see all of the elementary districts merge together into one and the junior highs and high schools stay separate. There are major differences between elementary and secondary schools and keeping the two separate would allow each to maintain their focus.
Berta González-HarperJanuary 10, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Unfortunately the predicament of the Saugus Unified School District is a combination of many problems. I believe we do have too many elementary school districts. The result is money spent on overlapping bureaucracies that do nothing to improve the education of students. If you had one elementary school district, you would save money on superintendents, administrators, purchasing agents, teachers, overhead, etc. You would also have more buying power for supplies as one larger school district. There are many other benefits to consolidating costs and resources as any business person can attest to. I don’t think our district numbers would create a problem such as those experienced by much larger, cumbersome school districts like LAUSD. Another of the most pressing problems is mandates which are not fully funded. One of the things that would save thousands of dollars immediately is to stop all mandatory bilingual instruction, translated official school documents, parent teacher conferences, etc. All instructional materials, school notices, etc should be in English. If students/parents want their children to learn another language i.e. Spanish, Korean, Urdu, Thai, Vietnamese, etc they could be offered as electives and if funding is tight as now, as an individually paid course of study. A quality basic education should be available in English. Anything else should be considered an elective paid for by those directly benefitting from those courses. That includes courses like art, band, drama, sports, etc. Concentrate taxpayer dollars on courses necessary to prepare students for real world careers and jobs. We can expand scholarship programs to encourage achieving students from less affluent families to go on to higher education and become doctors, teachers, emergency personnel, etc in their own communities. The original function of bilingual education in the LAUSD was to quickly transition students into mastering the English language. Once that process was subverted and taken over by the special interest groups within LAUSD and the State that changed and only prolonged the students’ instruction in their native language which in turn delayed and hampered their ability to learn English. Many of us who at the time worked for LAUSD in bilingual instruction quit in protest and went on to other careers. The American taxpayer should not be forced to pay to educate children in any language other than English. Nor should they be forced to provide any materials in other languages. That cost should be borne by those parents themselves. Before there was all of this “intervention” to assist students in other languages, children learned English within a year or so and quickly were on a par with their peers. They also quickly mainstreamed into society as a whole. Not so now. It takes many years and even after that, English language skills frequently lag far behind native English speakers. Just go to any barrio or ghetto if you doubt what I say. Speaking more than one language is beneficial but not at the expense of learning the commonly used language of this country. Yes, I know English is not the official language of the United States. It should be. I am eternally grateful my parents recognized the importance of speaking English if you wanted to have the chance to succeed in the good old USA. They led by example and learned English immediately upon being granted legal entry as was required in those days. Citizenship exams, Drivers Licenses, voting materials, etc were not provided in any language other than English. They ensured we learned the culture, language, history, cuisine, etc of each of their own countries of origin by instructing us themselves at home. We need to “fix” immigration too but that is a subject for another post.
Timothy MyersJanuary 10, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Unfortunately, this is one of those ivory tower discussions the Signal editorial board has brought up of late. In “real life” it is extremely unlikely that any taxing body with elected officials would vote itself out of existence, so we need to go to plan B, which means right sizing the districts for their revenue and size. The other fantasy the Signal brought up was voting all the legislators out of office. Never going to happen in “real life.”
sarahJanuary 10, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Did the Signal not ask that great question because Paul de la Cerda is on the Saugus School board and works at the newspaper? Maybe he is slanting the opinion. He is widely known to be unethical. Nobody really knows what he does at either one though it is funny that he is at both and they are both in big trouble. They would be smart to cut him loose at the district and Signal.
ReaderMamaJanuary 10, 2010 at 5:52 pm
In addition to the difficulty of getting the various school boards to agree to this, I am sure there would be objections from parents and controversies over school boundaries, not to mention issues over pay scales, teacher contracts and seniority.
ReaderMamaJanuary 10, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Before there was all of this “intervention” to assist students in other languages, children learned English within a year or so and quickly were on a par with their peers. They also quickly mainstreamed into society as a whole. Not so now. It takes many years and even after that, English language skills frequently lag far behind native English speakers. There is no bilingual education in Santa Clarita that I am aware of. Some teachers and staff are bilingual in order that they can communicate with students and parents, but instruction is carried out in English. That said, we still see lagging English language skills among Spanish speaking English language learners. Among other things I think a contributing factor is the sheer number of Spanish speaking immigrants. Radio stations, television stations, newspapers, supermarkets and a multitude of businesses cater to this population (in order to get their business), making it easy to live in the U.S. but not speak English. I think we’ve already lost this battle. Schools and parents must be able to communicate. Spanish speaking immigrants don’t have the money to pay for their kids’ lunches, much less hire interpreters. The powers that be turned a blind eye to this influx of humanity in order to benefit American businesses. The schools have to cope with it, and the taxpayers will have to continue paying for it.
JackJanuary 10, 2010 at 7:26 pm
You propose the same thing that always comes up during budget crises: cut the administration. Yet the voters, the state, and the feds are all demanding more. More programs, more data (and data mining), more testing, more accountability. At the end of the day a teacher isn’t the one that pulls all this meta data together and makes sure the state gets it and the district gets its money. It’s the administration. Looking at it another way, one could say the administration is a ‘profit center’ while the teachers are a cost center. I’m not saying we should go fire a bunch of teachers, but it’s a little tiring to hear the same old refrain about cutting as far from the classroom as possible. If the taxpayers don’t like that their kids classes just increased from 20 to 30, then they can damn well vote for a tax increase next time.
Samuel AdamsJanuary 11, 2010 at 10:28 am
Unifying school districts is a lot more complex than seems to be stated here. First it must have each board’s approval, then it must have the state go-ahead, then it goes to the voters. I have personally been involved in one losing unification battle and was amazed at how many people see unification as a loss of local control.
Timothy MyersJanuary 11, 2010 at 12:25 pm
ND: Yes, it is far fetched. The only time it would happen quickly is if a school were taken over by the state, but by then things have gotten so bad for YEARS that a lot of damage has occured.