The Cortines Meeting

I have to say I came away from the meeting feeling a little better.  Cortines didn't shy away from anything at the meeting held at Grant High School Thursday night.  With the state budget only passed a few hours before, Cortines and his staff had little time to boil down specifics, but he gave numbers and hard facts where he could.

There will be cuts. Roughly 15% this year, and an additional 4% next year.  Primary grades will go from 20:1 to 24:1.  Libraries would not be cut.  No counselor cuts.  Gifted education and AP would not be cut.  Arts and Music would not be cut.  I'm not sure what supplemental art and music are, but they will be cut.

The bottom line: Cuts will happen as far away from the classroom as possible.

Teachers and classified staff will be offered early retirement to spare as many new teachers as possible.  Cortines stressed how important the new teachers are to the mix, and scaring people from the profession is counterproductive.

Cortines expressed a willingness to work with charters, and find them the funding to retrofit buildings that do not meet seismic requirements.

He stressed that Early Ed through Adult Ed should be viewed as one linear progression, not an "us versus them" situation.  Adult Ed is self-supporting, but he alluded that they'd need to be more judicious with funding, so perhaps expecting higher demand before hosting a course.

He said he didn't expect to shorten the school year--he actually wishes the school year was longer.  He was anticipating "adult" furlough days as a way to avoid layoffs.

Schools will be moving toward per pupil budgeting.  This means that schools must be self-sufficient on the money that children bring with them through programs like Title I, English Language Learners, etc.  As schools will be allowed more flexibility with regard to spending, school site councils will definitely be a major player in these decisions.

What this means for the 73 or 74 non-Title I schools is still not good news.  As a school that has to decide between paying for a copier contract and ordering another case of toilet paper, it seems like being a 900 API school with middle class parents is a liability.  Cortines is setting aside roughly $1,000,000 to give those schools at least something.  Afterall, if he's telling schools they can choose between hiring TAs or a match coach, and we're literally worried about our kids wiping their rears--nevermind.  It's something.

Tamar Galatzan will be hosting a non-Title I schools summit on Saturday, May 16 at Hesby Oaks Elementary School.  

For schools with active fundraising wings, there's some big perks coming.  The district will avail their lawyers to schools wishing to start their own foundations.  Money in accounts will rollover from year to year, so that schools can save for important big-ticket items instead of having to fight 

There were more, specific questions, and not surprising, special interests had their lobbies in the audience.  But the majority of folks were just parents--concerned, listening, and trying to decide if LAUSD is listening, or if in my case, I'll be homeschooling next year.

Based on what I heard last night, I'm still listening.  It wasn't perfect, but I'm not running scared.