CUSD candidates’ forum: Jonathan Lundell

Thanks to Barry and Coastsider for providing this forum. I’ll begin this conversation by sketching out the issues that I’ve been talking about; questions and comments are welcome.

First, we need a more active and independent school board. The board ought to be the voice of our diverse community in the school system, and not simply the defender of the status quo.

I’ll be one of five board members, and no doubt I’ll come out on the short end of the occasional 4-1 or 3-2 vote. So be it; if I can’t persuade a majority of my fellow board members of the virtues of my position, that’s the democratic process in action. But a voice will be heard that isn’t being heard now, offering fresh approaches to old problems.

For years we’ve had a board with a single point of view and no real diversity. Take the Wavecrest middle school project as an example. Ever since 1998, school board candidates have been running on a promise to build a middle school at Wavecrest. Every one of the current board members has made the Wavecrest middle school a "top priority", as do my two opponents.

And yet the children who were in kindergarten when Measure K was passed, to fund the new construction, are now in high school. No child who was in school when the bond was passed will ever use the new school.

Unless we want another crop of school board candidates in 2006 to be promising to "build the middle school" (this time for sure!), we need another point of view on the board. We have a rich set of possibilities (I’ll describe one below); let’s not stay stuck in this rut.

Too much of the board’s decision making is done in secret. In the last year even District Attorney Fox, no particular champion of the Brown Act, felt obliged to step in and stop one of the most blatant public meeting violations. (The San Mateo Daily News covered the story. [link]) We need open, accountable decision making, and I’ll insist on it.

We can do better. That’s not a secret to our teachers, our principals, or the rest of our administration. But it’s not the story that the public hears; even when scores don’t improve, we’re told that "it’s okay to maintain". It’s not.

I don’t believe that the current school-wide test score averages (API, AYP) are very useful. They’re hard to interpret at best, and misleading at worst. Test results have the most potential in tracking the progress of individual students: are they holding their own, falling behind, or catching up? This kind of analysis would give us insight into the needs of individual children, as well as the effectiveness of our curriculum, programs and teachers.

What I’m saying won’t come as big news to our teachers and principals. Individual progress should be the foundation of our test reporting and accountability measures. We’re required to report school-wide averages for state and federal purposes, but we can aggregate and report individual progress, and use that information to inform and improve our own practices.

In 1995-96, the district projected that middle school enrollment would grow from 1,000 to 1,200 by 2004, and to 1,400-1,500 before a second middle school would be built. Instead, middle school enrollment dropped steadily to its current level of 800.

I see two major problems with our current middle school plan. First, our existing middle school at Cunha is too big already at 800 students. Expanding it to 1,150 (and eventually more) is moving in the wrong direction, whether we do it at Wavecrest, at Cunha, or somewhere else. The second problem is that the plan is still living in the past, a time when enrollment was projected to explode, and it ignores the reality of seven years of declining enrollment.

At the same time, we have more students in our elementary schools than we’d like. I’d like to see a target of 400 students per site. Current site enrollment is about 500, down from a peak of 600 several years ago. Despite the drop in K-5 enrollment, class size reduction has increased the numbers of needed classrooms.

Moreover, our facilities budget is severely limited, and without a new school bond (and higher property taxes), we’re going to have to live within our current means. So it’s important to spend the money we have wisely, not on an expensive middle school that’s larger than we need for the foreseeable future.

I suggest that we build a new elementary school (perhaps at Wavecrest), and convert our elementary schools from K-5 to K-6, and Cunha from 6-8 to 7-8. This would reduce average elementary enrollment to about 450, and Cunha to about 550. The smaller enrollment at Cunha would give us the flexibility to rebuild and refurbish Cunha in easy stages.

A smaller middle school at Cunha would also open the door for a midcoast middle school some time in the future, if and when enrollment picks up again. In the meantime, sixth graders would be attending neighborhood schools instead of being driven to the central middle school.

An elementary school at Wavecrest would be substantially less expensive than the proposed middle school, leaving us with money to fix up our deteriorating elementary sites and to afford a performing arts center. It would also make the project itself easier to approve, with substantially reduced traffic, and additional land to use as habitat and wetland buffers.

In summary, I advocate more community involvement in school board decisions. I want to see the board take a more active and independent leadership role in addressing district issues. Areas that would benefit from board leadership and public participation include test scores and related accountability issues, and long-range strategic and facilities planning.

I look forward to a lively discussion. You can contact me directly at [email protected], and read more about my ideas at cusd.lobitos.net.