Tag: Schools/Education

UPDATED – Jerry Houseman’s pro-tax rant VIDEO

Jerry Houseman, SCUSD board member
Jerry Houseman,
SCUSD Board Member

At last night’s SCUSD board meeting, during which the board voted to close 4 schools, the thing that really caught my attention was member Jerry Houseman’s comment on the proposal for school closures. He took the opportunity to rail against the Tax Day Tea Party protests and Fox News, yelling at the assembled school parents and other taxpayers that the reason the district is in such dire straights is that people in California don’t want to pay taxes. The prospect of an elected official — charged with spending millions of taxpayer money — browbeating his constituents to cease their resistance to higher taxes while they have the gall to take advantage of a public service like education, is pretty frightening. I think perhaps he was out past his bedtime.

Continue reading “UPDATED – Jerry Houseman’s pro-tax rant VIDEO”

SCUSD votes to close 4 schools

After a marathon meeting this evening the Sac City Unified School Board has voted to close four schools for the upcoming school year. The board decided to spare Mark Hopkins — which had been on the chopping block as of Wednesday — but that school will most likely close after next year. Genesis High School, and Alice Birney, Lisbon, and Thomas Jefferson Elementary schools will close; the district believes this will save $1.5 million.

Public advocates present independent SCUSD budget analysis

At the April 2 SCUSD board meeting, a group of local advocates presented a well-researched and ambitious plan for the SCUSD budget that avoids layoffs and school closures. At least I think that’s what the plan does, there are lots of charts and graphs and financial stuff, and I didn’t have time before the meeting to dig through it. It does look well researched. Could make for an interesting presentation!

(Hat tip: SCUSD Observer blog)

Sac City open enrollment back on

SCUSD announced today that open enrollment for SCUSD is being conducted this week, and parents will be notified next week.

Previously: Via the SCUSD Observer blog we learned that the SCUSD Board of Education held an emergency special meeting on 3/26, but sent the announcement about the meeting and distributed the agenda at 3 p.m. that day, in violation of the board’s own policy requiring 24 hours public notice of a special meeting. Nothing gets CoolDMZ fired up like not giving proper notice about meetings. The board posts video of its meetings “the next business day,” but go figure, the video of this meeting has yet to be posted (as of 3/31).

More fun from Sac City open enrollment

Since the public were waiting for a follow up to my uproarious earlier post… The timeline for Sac City USD open enrollment just got 100% more confusing with this recent update to the SCUSD website:

This notice is to inform all families that applied during the Open Enrollment period for the fall of 2009-2010, the anticipated timeline for Open Enrollment notification letters for families will be mailed during the week of Monday, March 23, 2009. If any additional changes in timelines are to be made, an update will appear on the website. [Emphasis mine]

The timeline will be mailed out on Monday? Maybe they should announce on the website that they will be mailing out fliers that say to go to the website to find out when they are going to mail the announcement.

(I’m sure they meant that the timeline is that the announcements will be mailed on the 23rd…)

Jesuit Hires First Female Principal in School History

Not only is new principal Brianna Latko the first female principal in Jesuit High School history, she’s also the first non-Jesuit, or lay person, to hold the post. As a JHS alum myself, I can say definitely that no matter what, one big change is coming: the new principal will probably smoke a lot less camel straights than did principals during my day, not because she’s a woman, only because it would be almost physically impopssible to smoke that much on what is now a smoke-free campus.

For a full review of Ms. Latko’s bon fides, as well as a strangely placed list of all the people that didn’t get the job, sorry Joe Potulny, check out the official press release here.

Sac City USD ‘Tour of Excellence’ on Friday

Attention Sac City Unified parents: the district will be holding a “Tour of Excellence” of district schools this Friday. This will be a good opportunity to tour any schools you’re considering for open enrollment; especially since you’ll have an extra week to wait on finding out if your kid will be getting in. Here is what the Open Enrollment page says about the timing of open enrollment acceptance and school registration:

Acceptance notifications will be mailed home (tentatively) by March 13, 2009. Upon notification, parents are required to complete student registration at the school of choice between Monday, March 16, 2009, and Friday, April 17, 2009.

Love that the District gets “tentatively” for their part but the parents have a hard date. As it turns out, the acceptance notifications probably won’t be mailed out until next week, according to the Open Enrollment office. So their “tentativeness” could cut into parents’ requirement by two full weeks.

“Mastering the Mysteries of Love”

City Parks & Rec are offering a saucy class that would make a great gift to share with your sweetheart: “Mastering the Mysteries of Love”…

Talk about it, watch others do it, practice it yourselves.

Hey-O!!! They are talking about communication, of course. Though presumably there is the possibility of communication about watching others doing it and practicing it yourselves.

free play care will be included for children

What more do you need!

SCUSD open enrollment slogan QUIZ

Quick, which of the following is the slogan of Sac City Unified School District’s Open Enrollment program?

A. “Success for Every Student by Name”

B. “Choosy moms choose SCUSD”

C. “Moving kids upward onto the future”

D. “Knowledge for all, free lunch for most”

E. “Enroll you’re kid today” (sic)

Continue reading “SCUSD open enrollment slogan QUIZ”

Bee tuition piece focuses on woes at Country Day

The Bee’s Robert Faturechi reports today that area private schools are seeing increased requests for financial aid:

At Country Day – where tuition costs as much as $17,300 a year – administrators are already taking steps to buy cheaper school supplies, save energy and reduce gas consumption in school vehicles.

I can’t help feeling that Faturechi was playing for an unsympathetic audience reaction by mostly highlighting Country Day School and Jesuit High School (my alma mater) in his report about area families having trouble paying for private school. That’s the only explanation I can find for his relegating Cristo Rey High School to the bottom of his piece. Cristo Rey exclusively targets low income students, who pay for their education by working at local businesses. Some of those businesses are having to pull their support for Cristo Rey, Faturechi reports, which is hurting the school’s bottom line.