Thursday, April 20, 2006
Opinion: One step at a time
The traffic mess, numerous inconveniences and myriad of consequences due to the closure of Highway 1 have left all of us on the Coastside under a shadow of malaise.
But we need to separate our issues.
In reading various comments posted recently, it is obvious that people are looking for someplace to direct their understandable frustrations. Unfortunately, some people are misdirecting their frustrations at the Cabrillo Unified School District.
Busing has always been an important issue to the CUSD. In fact, the $250 parcel tax that lost by a very slight margin in 2003 would have indeed restored full busing. The closure of Highway 1 may highlight the need for student transportation; however, that is not what Measure S, the $175 school parcel tax on the June ballot, is about.
The top priority of our school district - first and foremost - is to provide a high quality education to the children and young people of our community. Measure S funds are dedicated solely to the mission of improving student academic achievement and to help our kids meet and exceed academic standards. (To learn more about Measure S, visit [url=http://www.pro-school.org]http://www.pro-school.org[/url] ) .
Had we all known in early March when the measure had to be filed with the county in order to make it onto the June ballot that Devil’s Slide would go out, I might guess that the school district could have felt comfortable asking the community to approve a significantly higher parcel tax - more in the area of $290 - to restore full busing in addition to providing the resources needed to improve academic achievement. But without the benefit of precognition or a crystal ball, the school board chose to deal with its most important mission first and ask voters to approve a more modest dollar figure.
When Devil’s Slide did wreak its havoc, the school district responded immediately to the road closure. That first Monday afternoon, Superintendent John Bayless and the principals met to develop solutions.
The result? Throughout the duration of the closure, the school district will operate buses for Cunha Middle School students and has changed school start times in the morning to reduce traffic during commute hours. Additionally, supervised child care will be provided at all elementary schools beginning at 6:30 AM so that commuting parents can bring their children to school as early as necessary.
Regardless of the status of Highway 1, however, the overall transportation needs of our community extend much further than student transportation. Recognizing this - and well before the road was closed - the school board took a proactive approach to improve local transportation by initiating an active partnership with San Mateo County, SAMTRANS, the City of Half Moon Bay and the Coastside Opportunity Center to assess overall transportation needs and develop the best solution.
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to deal with road closures; our local schools would have the funding they need to provide the kind of education we all want for our community’s kids; and of course we would have school buses.
We all know that we don’t live in a perfect world. But by pulling together to do the best we can to solve one problem at a time, the closer we’ll be to that world.
Comments
Cindy,
Where did you get your numbers? And just what part of SLIDE in “Devil’s SLIDE” did Dwight Wilson and Jolanda Schreurs miss. This only serves to remind us that CUSD has been wrong on every major issue that affects our schools, our kids and our community!
“Bayless estimated that re-instating busing would likely cost between $200,000 to $300,000.” 8Mar2006 Review
Cunha now has 15% fewer students than when bussing stopped at a cost of $300,000 a year.
That works out to a parcel tax of $20 to $30 a year.
And wasn’t it the Parrs, Cheri Parr and Coastsider, that brought attention to the students plight to a callous school district that “didn’t know there was a problem“ for their students PRIOR to the slide emergency. If students can’t get to school safely, then how does the district expect them to learn!
The Social Justice problem was bought to the district and rejected by Dwight Wilson when he voted to cancel school bussing. The school board had no concern for the impact on all the coastside residents then and now.
Should we forget that just before last November’s election that Jolanda Schreurs voted to oppose moving the new school to the Cunha location? Or that for nearly a decade Dwight Wilson and Jolanda Schreurs opposed the Cunha location in favour of Wavecrest? Do you remember Jolanda Schreurs claming that she had a legal opinion that we couldn’t build at Cunha during the Build It Now campaign?
The school board has been wrong on each issue: busing, building at Cunha, and quality of education.
CUSD Board blew $15 million in opportunity costs delaying building a new intermediate school for a decade -- now lets give them another $9 million slush fund from the parcel tax?
“Strong Academic Performance”? Half the students at less than a D- (58% on the multiple choice state test on required state material), 1 in 4 who will not graduate on time with their class. All regular schools failed to meet NCLB numerical targets.
Now there is a war against NCLB, No Child Left Behind, going on at the Review! NCLB is arguably the only impetus for student achievement improvements in CUSD! The teachers finally recognize that their choice is teaching the kids or being unemployed. The teachers have chosen to fight NCLB instead.
You had access to the teacher union contract; did you see anything about performance or accountability?
I looked at your web site in favour of the Parcel Tax. It has multiple areas for giving money BUT no reporting of WHO contributed and how much!
You use the word “WILL” quite liberally but the actual language in the measure governs. If it isn’t explicitly in the measure it doesn’t exist!
As we saw in the Bond Measure, even if it does exist in the measure it is difficult for the people to get it to happen.
Fool Me Once, Shame On Them; Fool Me twice, Shame On Me!
The state is already steadily increasing funding. Shouldn’t our money go strictly for reinstating canceled bussing; new programs and resources; and additional staff to improve student achievement?
As long as Dwight Wilson and Jolanda Schreurs are on the CUSD Board, it looks to me like the only way we can get a Parcel Tax that serves the needs of our kids and our community is to bring it forward from the community. Lets work together on one for the November ballot!
Busing has always been an important issue to the CUSD. In fact, the $250 parcel tax that lost by a very slight margin in 2003 would have indeed restored full busing.
The language of both 2003 parcel tax measures proposed to "provide, maintain or restore ... [t]ransportation services;"
My recollection is that the board insisted on keeping the language vague enough that it would not mandate full busing. The justification was that the district could not predict how far funding might fall in the worst case, and that full busing could not be promised.
I believe that a busing provision would have helped to pass Measure S, and that, with Devil's Slide no doubt closed on election day, it would have been a slam dunk.
Deferring transportation funding to November is problematical at best. If Measure S fails, will the district still put busing on the November ballot? If it passes, will the electorate have the appetite for another parcel tax on its heels? And regardless, it appears that a November measure would be competing with a statewide parcel tax proposal.
Unfortunately, it appears to be a lost opportunity. I hope I'm wrong.