Comments by jlundell
November 07, 2006
Ray, it's hard to say at this late date what the voters were expecting, back in 1996, but I think we can say this much with confidence. * They knew that the current (1996) enrollment was about 3850. * They knew that the district projected 2006 enrollment to be over 5000. They didn't know that it would instead fall to less than 3300. * They would have been very surprised to learn that, ten years later, middle school construction had not yet started. What I'm trying to say is that we need to remember…
November 07, 2006
Bev, if the underlying cause of the enrollment drop was the graduation of boomer kids, we'd expect to see the same pattern statewide (indeed, nationwide), but we don't. The population of San Mate County has been dropping in recent years, but not nearly as fast as CUSD enrollment (and I don't think that coastside population has dropped, though I don't have numbers). My underlying point is that we (and the district) don't know why enrollment has been dropping steadily for the last 10 years. But we…
November 07, 2006
Ray, what features have you noticed that are present in the Wavecrest design and absent in the Cunha design? Having reviewed the Wavecrest design in some detail, and having attended some of the Cunha architectural review meetings, it seems to me that the Cunha design is quite a bit nicer, and "new" by any meaningful definition of the word. The independent review committee determined that the Wavecrest construction project would cost considerably more than the Cunha project, and take considerably…
November 07, 2006
Leonard: I'd have voted for Bob, it's true, except that I found out he was running a week before election day, and I (along with, I'd guess, roughly half the district's voters) had already voted.
Best of luck to Bob, nonetheless.
November 07, 2006
Ray, I don't doubt that there's been a lot of frustration with the slow pace of building the middle school. It's now more than ten years since the construction bond was passed, and while it appears that progress is being made, ten years without breaking ground is way too long. My point, though, is that K-5 enrollment, for example, has dropped just about as fast as middle school enrollment, and high school enrollment nearly as fast. Go back and look at the record: the current board was dragged kicking…
November 05, 2006
I disagree with Eric Nelson's contention that Cunha's enrollment drop is a function of not having built a new middle school, mainly because that drop only reflects the K-12 enrollment drop. Eric's other reasons are more plausible--demographic changes and a general dissatisfaction with the district. The board's rather stubborn refusal to investigate the reason for the district's falling enrollment is perplexing, ever since I raised the question in 2002. If parents are really sending their children…
November 05, 2006
I wrote this piece a while back, and since then have been mildly surprised at the company I'm keeping. Sure, there are the usual anti-tax suspects (the Howard Jarvis crew, of course), but also the California Federation of Teachers, the state PTA, the California State School Board Association, and the League of Women Voters. The California Teachers Association is officially neutral. What's the right course? Like many Californians, I'm increasingly skeptical of the initiative process, though that possibility…
August 17, 2006
Hawkins might want to read Article II Sections 9-11 of the California constitution before he starts collecting signatures. I don't think there's any referendum power in a fire district--or any special district or school district, for that matter.
Likewise initiatives. You'll recall that Measure D had to be a city initiative in Half Moon Bay, not a CUSD initiative.
August 16, 2006
What's the substantive difference (aside from cost) between the contracts? What would we get for the extra cost of San Mateo Option 2, for example, and how does that compare to CDF?
August 10, 2006
I share a 1/4-mile boundary with the YMCA property, and I can testify from experience that winter erosion is a big problem in that neck of the woods wherever the vegetation is disturbed.
A permit for 60% logging, in perpetuity, including winter operations, is just nuts.
August 08, 2006
Ray, if CUSD enrollment were anywhere near what their Facilities Master Plan projected, the obvious solution (anticipated by the FMP) would be to have a second middle school on the midcoast. It'd be good for students, for parents, and for the community (including traffic). But CUSD enrollment in general, and its middle school enrollment in particular, is way down instead of way up, so the second middle school will have to wait. The new middle school didn't get built at Wavecrest because the developer…
July 08, 2006
Huh. 5,500+ for Trader Joe's, 4,294 for Measure S.
OK, it's hardly an apples-to-apples comparison, but still....
June 19, 2006
Brian: that's why there's a permit process. Permit first, bulldoze second.
June 17, 2006
Matt Berman's point ("I’d agree with laying off teachers by teaching ability rather than seniority, just as soon as they come up with a valid method of determining comparative teaching ability. Such a thing does not exist now.") applies as well to merit pay. We can all agree that good teachers should be paid more and laid off last, but how do we measure teaching ability? Not from test scores. Even if we concede the value of standardized tests, a classroom of 20-30 kids is way to small a sample…
June 17, 2006
We have new election numbers as of Friday 6/16. Measure S's percentage dropped a hair, from 62.87% election night to 62.63% now.
The count is up considerably, to 4135-2467. That's now a higher yes vote than the March 2003 special election, but down from the June 2003 try (4895-2530).
As on election night, both yes and no votes fell from 2003, but yes votes fell more than no votes.
June 10, 2006
Ray, that's not how California school funding works. This comment thread isn't the place to explain revenue limits, but here are a few considerations. 1. Local property taxes are essentially fixed by Proposition 13, now part of the California constitution. We can't raise them, except by additional development (expanding the property tax base) or by specific bond measures (which can't be used for operating expenses). 2. Every extra dollar of local property tax revenue that the school district receives…
June 10, 2006
Dean, my point, and I should have been more explicit, was that suggesting that a district (or parcel tax) critic run for the board isn't all that useful. And while voters in 2002 were free to allocate their votes any way they saw fit, I continue to believe that Susan and Karen would have made fine board members, and that, had we been elected, the Cunha rebuild would have started in 2003 rather than 2006. Still, running for the board is neither here nor there. I've tried it twice, and am not likely…
June 10, 2006
How to get elected to the CUSD school board.
Run for office in 2002. Tell the voters that your top priorities included getting the middle school built quickly. Get elected, stonewall the middle school for three years, and in your re-election year, reveal to the voters that by "soon" in 2002, you meant 2009-2010.
Can't miss.
June 10, 2006
WRT differential federal funding, I suspect that you'll find higher federal funding (Title I funding in particular) in districts with higher levels of poverty than CUSD has. I imagine there are other considerations as well that drive the difference. California education funding does pretty much ignore local differences in cost of living, and with 85% of our operating budget going to salaries and benefits, that's a problem. Our teachers, administrators and other staff have to live in one of the most…
June 09, 2006
There are a lot of numbers being thrown around pretty freely here, and some of them bear closer examination. Does the district really spend $300K per classroom? Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation. The district's operating budget is about $25M. $300K per classroom suggests that we have 83 classrooms, which in turn, with 3500 students implies an average class size of 42. But according to the ed-data site, our average class size is about 28 (about what I'd have guessed). That gives us 125 classrooms,…
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