Avoiding Burnout with “Bright Ideas”

I’ll admit, I’ve been with the district longer than most families.  With a son who started in 1995, and a daughter who will graduate in 2019, I’m afraid to even do the math to say the number when it comes to my tenure with LAUSD.  Suffice it to say, there will be some major celebrating in June 2019, when my frustration will only be that of a tax payer, which is certainly bad enough, rather than as a parent, in the trenches every day.

The most recent feel-good program LAUSD has rolled out is the “My Bright Idea” program where parents, students and staff were encouraged to come up with their best cost-saving ideas for LAUSD.  Thanks to quite a bit of promotion, and a lot of well-meaning folks, 1351 suggestions were submitted.

Many of us old-timers laughed amongst ourselves, because we’ve been suggesting things for years, and somehow it almost always seems if there’s an easier, cheaper way, LAUSD will list all the reasons why it must do it a more expensive, more challenging way.

Today, the ‘finalists’ for My Bright Idea were listed.  Three suggestions each for parent, student, and staff.  The winners of each division will get $3,000 to award to the school of their choice–$9,000 donated by the fine folks at Wasserman.

Honestly several of them are the same issues we’ve discussed for years–A mom dealing with mountains of paperwork for kindergarten registration (wait, til that mom finds out that the same forms will be filled out yearly for the next 12 years as well) suggested online registration.  And two other folks offered the suggestion of using both sides of the paper, or even emailing important notices home.   Some schools already do this, but it still seems like telephone-book-sized piles come home with frightening regularity.

I’m waiting to see which ideas win and which can actually be implemented, but they don’t need a contest to hear suggestions.  The district can simply ask its best resource: its families.