As is not uncommon these days, the October School Board meeting focused largely on the scarce resources available now and the even scarcer resourced projected for next year, where they were coming from, what possible ways to get more of them, and how to divvy them up to best serve our students, parents and teachers. From discussing the lack of benefits of certain grants to the district, to cutting teachers and programs next year, to changing employee health insurance programs, to using advertising in schools as new source of revenue to make up for plummeting property tax revenue, this meeting was full of ideas and suggestions for facing the grim year ahead...some of them better than others.
C-80 (Request for Authorization to Accept Grant Awards for Nine Programs from Multiple Funding Sources and Enter into Contractual Agreements with the Agencies Described in the Grants)
UTD President Karen Aronowitz was the first speaker on this item. "This item is the acceptance of grants, often a mysterious portion of funding our district receives from various grantors. I had some questions regarding these grants that perhaps staff could help me with. I see that Race to the Top District Development Assessments for Hard-to-Measure Content Areas is part of the grant process here. This is essentially a pass-through grant, because the amount of money that this district receives will be spent on another company to develop these assessments. So it is not money that is benefiting our district in a direct sense. My question is, since this is part of Race to the Top and this is being funded through the Florida Department of Education, who received half of the RTTT funds, does this come from their half, meaning the $350 million the state itself received, or is this taking away from the money our district received on RTTT grant monies?"Superintendent Carvalho responded: "It comes out of the state's share. It does not come out of the $70+ million we received at the local level. Are these dollars earmarked to a third party beyond Miami-Dade? It is my understanding that it is not. We actually will develop in conjunction with other partnering districts. Ms. Gisella Field is here, maybe she can shed some light on exactly the process."
Ms. Field took the microphone: "We are partnering with a number of disricts: Palm Beach, Broward, Leon, Orange, and part of the monies involved here is to pay teachers stipends that will be coming in to review items, develop items and check items for item bias, etc. So that is part of the grant."
President Aronowitz drove her point home once more: "On page 4 of 4 I must point out that the agreement does reference American Institutes for Research, so the preponderance of that money is a pass-through to that company for the development of those tests."
In fact, a grant that goes directly to a private outside entity does not benefit the district in a tangible way. In this case, we are talking about developing ever more standardized tests, which will be used to evaluate students' progress and their teachers through Race to the Top and then the law created by the passage of SB 736; this money will by and large not benefit the children or teachers of Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
Board member Dr. Martin Karp also made a valid point, which is that a number of these grants approved seek to benefit at-risk students, but that there are few or none for proficient or high-achieving students. It does seem true that in the days of No Child Left Behind, no child gets ahead, either--or at least not with a great deal of support.
C-101 Proposed amendment of board policies, policy 9800 charter schools and policy 0133 quasi-judicial
Once again President Aronowitz stood to speak: "This item refers to rulemaking on the part of the district, and there is a place that has been mentioned. It requests that a hearing be held during the board meeting of November 22. I want to let the Board know that United Teachers of Dade will be requesting a hearing on this item. There are portions of it that still remain of great concern to us, and I urge the Board to read all the items that have been proposed, because I believe that the Board's involvement in preferential treatment of one charter school board has a conflict of interest to our district's schools, and puts in jeopardy peaceful labor relations. In addition, preferential treatment of one charter school board decreases money available to the rest of our public schools, and there are parts of this board rule that speak to those items."
The conflicts of interest possible seem quite evident, now that the district is running its own charter schools.
Board vice-chair Dr. Larry Feldman said, "As my colleagues know, I had numerous questions. I will look into the issues that were just brought up by the United Teachers of Dade president, but I'd just like to ask the attorney if you'd be able to differentiate between how we use the word 'sponsor' throughout the document. I see it in one place saying 'sponsor,' I see it another place saying 'board,' and then separately I can see where the superintendent is identified, so how does all that play out?"
The School Board attorney Mr. Harvey explained that in the document, 'sponsor' and the School Board were used interchangeably as allowed and mandated by Florida statute.
Board member Raquel Regalado then spoke: "To the issue of preference, which is something that Karen brought up, I guess it is something we will have to discuss also, but one thing we want to be clear on is that it's not the same as with other charter schools because in this one we are actually participating, so we need to ensure that people understand the limits of our participation, which is something that is not just going to come up in this item but it will come up in different items because of certain discussions that are occurring with different charter schools and we've all been getting the e-mails about some charter schools--there's one in my district in particular, but we won't get into the details--we're very limited in what we can do. Florida statute was changed last session and we should expect more changes that will further limit what we can do as a board. I know that when people read about this, they think that we are making a lot of those choices, and really for the most part we're just tracking the few powers the legislators have given us on this topic of charter schools."
E-1 Monthly Financial Reports: "2012-2013 will probably be the worst year yet"
Dr. Feldman led in by asking district Chief Financial Officer Dr. Leonard Hinds if projections for next school year could be made yet based on financial reports.
Dr. Hinds responded: "The legislative budget request on the part of the Department of Education requests an increase to the BSA (base student allocation) of 1.8%. However, in light of the state deficit, there is some possibility that we can experience a decrease of 2-4% of BSA, which is quite an amount of money. To complicate the issue, we also know that our FRS share will go up by nearly 2 percentage points or $35 million. We also know that we've used all the rest of our jobs bills money this year, which is upwards of $35 million. We also know that we spent our reserve the superintendent directed we assemble to preserve class size. Beyond that, we also know that the recent ad valorum estimating conference estimates that property values in Miami-Dade will decline by about 7% next school year.
"That situation much affects all parts of our budgets, but it would particularly impact the capital outlay portion, because right now in the event that were to occur, because most of our capital outlay goes to debt service, we risk a cutback in non-debt service expenditures in upwards of $55 million. In my opinion, '12-'13 has all the harbingers of probably the worst year in our recent history because we have our own built-in problems, the state has their problems, property values have their problems. I'd like to say it was all going to work out, but these are representative of the lingering effects of recession, and if the overall economy did flip back into recession, that will merely exacerbate the situation. We're on sound footing this year, we're running a contingency reserve of $85 million, this year looks good; next year is very problematic."
Dr. Feldman then requested that the Superintendent outline in broad strokes what we as a district are facing in terms of impact on our programs, teachers and employees.
Carvalho was very reluctant to make this projection. "I don't think it's opportune for me to do so at this point, because it's putting the cart before the horse. Basically it's me saying before the legislative process agrees on an appropriate allocation, clearly lining out the things we believe we would do should in fact the worst case scenario arise. But, let me go back to a couple of things Dr. Hinds said and really highlight the five main factors, and give you an idea of potential impact. There are basically five factors, all of them outside our control, that are squeezing our ability to function as a school system going into '12-'13. We've been under recessionary conditions for the past three years and we've managed admirably, and I really thank staff, not just the administrative team and the Board to really lead from a policy perspective but also the concessions and sacrifices the workforce has made. So the five factors totally external to the system that present liabilities that really can be mitigated, but not by us, is number one, the state's dependence on short-term federal funding, whether it was the initial economic stimulus investment, and most recently the jobs bill funding, that is sunsetting this year." (This is, of course, ironic because the majority party disagrees on principal with federal spending, stimulus bills, jobs bills, etc., yet not only takes the money but relies on the money to keep their own institutions afloat.)
The Superintendent continued: "Second, the impact of variances in the tax roll that we are experiencing, not just those specific to a continuing decline in revenues collected through the tax roll, but also this additional concern related to a backlog of homes not yet in foreclosure status but in the pipeline to go into foreclosure, which could depress further the total value of the tax roll. A third factor, the escalating nature of health care costs in Miami-Dade County and because we are the largest employer in Miami-Dade County, we happen to be the largest payer client of health services. I need not tell you what our partners in the health care industry have been doing to health care costs here in our community. We stand as the most expensive health care center in the country if not the world, right here in Miami. Higher than L.A., higher than New York. Obviously, with a huge percentage of indigent care provided in our local hospitals, those costs are passed on to the paying customers. We being the largest employer, the largest insurer, we absorb basically unpaid bills on behalf of healthcare providers in our community. The fourth factor is the state's own deficit position, estimated at this point to be between $1.5 and $1.8 billion. A lot of speculation at this point, but it is an issue to contend with. Last but not least, is this undisclosed and little spoken of mandatory increase to FRS which represents about a 1.96% increase to us, and this is applicable across the state.
"So when Dr. Hinds talks about next year potentially being the most difficult year yet, it's because in the middle of a recessive economy where we see not yet the end of the tunnel or a glimmer of hope, in the politically charged environment where acquiring new revenues is nearly impossible, nobody in Tallahassee is going to be advocating for tax increases or new revenues, in an environment where the local revenue stream driven by property taxes is not going to increase, if anything it is going to continue to go down, and facing the continued escalation of health care costs, presents itself in building once again the perfect storm. So how can it be made better before we can even talk about what we're cutting? Well, the state can in fact decide to replace the jobs bill money. That's a $35 million deduct from our headache. Otherwise it is a true reduction because the state treated those monies as true funds. Embedded them in the FEFP. The escalating nature of health care costs? It is one we can attempt to mitigate and it's one we're going to attempt to engage in collective bargaining action with our workforce, but a lot more needs to be done internally and externally. One thing I can tell you is our workforce does not shop health care choices wisely. We have an awful lot of people who believe that the co-pay at the doctor's office is the true cost of health care. We have a lot of folks believing that simply going to the hospital is the first measure of defense for illness without recognizing that they're paying ten, fifteen, twenty times more for the same service they could be getting at a doctor's office or, these days, at a Walgreen's pharmacy. Externally, this out-of-control escalation of cost, even in not-for-profit entities, that have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank, and continue to build new hospitals and new centers, is unethical at best, because it's all being charged back to us. Those are factors that could be controlled internally and externally going forward. I think it's fair to say that every public employee across the state of Florida incurs the 3% reduction. This is shared sacrifice recognizing where our state stands today. But to turn around and impose an additional 1.9% increase on us at this point is incorrect.
"So, I bring five huge liabilities. Going forward, depending on the success of our collective bargaining efforts regarding health care, ensuring people are pre-screened and in fact everyone goes through a pre-screening exercise that identifies earlier the cost pressures on our district is a good thing that could save us money. Our airtight hiring freeze--when I say airtight, I mean non-essential positions; we're going to have to hire principals, assistant principals, teachers and some key positions downtown, but not many downtown--that airtight freezing and the continual freeze on expenditures will help, but it won't be sufficient. What you will be looking at going forward, when you have 82 to 84% of your funding tied to personnel, is a clear look at how we spend money on personnel. How we provide benefits. And then last but not least, the essentiality of external contracts that we entered into with the private sector. And this ranges from technology we buy, textbooks, and the inflexibility that's presented to us in how we spend those dollars. I'll give you one example. We're being forced to spend $25-26 million a year with no recourse on textbooks, and I'm one who believes that textbooks no longer hold the value they once did. There are technological solutions that allow digital content to go on the platform that does not have to be bought every single year. We need to move in that direction. So we need both some concessions from the state for us to be able to spend money more wisely to get over this terrible hump we might be facing. That's where I'd like to leave it for now, Dr. Feldman."
The Superintendent mentioned the savings that could be accomplished by "going digital" with textbooks, but failed to get into details. As those of us currently working with insufficient numbers of textbooks to send one home with each student already know, far too many of our students do not have Internet access at home from which to access textbook content--all the more so in these difficult economic times, when more students have unemployed parents or even find themselves homeless, rotating among relatives' houses. Providing these children with the resources to access Internet from home could prove far more expensive than the textbook deal; and in any other case, it's simply unfair discrimination against poor children.
Carvalho: "The legislative session is scheduled for January. Legislature is going to try to dispose of the budget process very early on, and try to leave session early as possible, then take up later in the year additional issues through special sessions, should there be a need. A lot happening in Tallahassee with redistricting, and really poor economic conditions. It's not a nice place to be when you don't have money. I think we're going to get some real indicators to this process and the conditions really early on. In fact, I think it would be fair, after the next revenue estimating conference in Tallahassee, first we reconvene it is my intent to bring you that information with some early ideas about potential impact, and as soon as we do that, then we can start the process, which we've already done. We've been working on '12-'13 for the past four months, having conversations about it."
Dr. Feldman carried the cart-and-horse analogy a bit further: "As we reformulate, if we could consider that that cart and those horses could be used as possible revenue streams for us in creative ways, especially the cart, maybe the horse on what it's carrying, just to keep in mind this could be the perfect opportunity to weather the perfect storm by using things we have not tried yet."
Carvalho responded: "Last year the metaphor was the rabbit and the hat, so I understand that now it's the cart and the horse. We have very good horsepower. The cart is getting very, very heavy. You're absolutely right about that. And at a certain point you have to say, if you value public education, if you value the building of a future workforce, if you value the quality of life in our community, you certainly need assistance not only from the top but also from the rear to help. That's my expectation going into session, and I know that as we've been united in the past we'll be united again. The Miami miracle has been made over the last three years, but there's only so much you can squeeze, and you get to a point that there is nothing else but blood. There's nothing else but people. And I don't want to get to that point. Because along with people are arts and music programs. Along with people are world language programs. Along with people are counseling services. Along with people are security forces and police officers. Along with people there are all the opportunities we believe make up the fabric of public education. And that's what we don't want it to come to."
Dr. Hinds brought the conversation back around to charter schools. "There's another factor we haven't overlooked, but it's like a little cancerous factor. It really involves, regardless of our philosophical position on charters, charter schools. Charter school membership is up by 5000 students this year. Membership in our traditional public schools is down by 2,000. There's something like 90 applications for additional charters pending in the pipeline. Nonetheless, over a period of time, when a charter opens, it doesn't just--we can reduce our teaching staff, but our superstructures, our principals, APs, custodians, they remain the same. And over a period of time--let's say charters go from 41,000 this year to 46,000 next year. Over a period of time we either have to reduce the number of schools we operate or we're going to operate more and more schools with less and less students supporting them. And that's almost a cancerous-like situation. In our own school district, there are more pupils enrolled in charter schools than in the City of New York public schools with well over a million students as compared to our 347,000. So regardless of philosophical values or whatever, nonetheless, this represents an additional drain on our resources which is slow but nonetheless very telling over a period of years."
Regalado implored concerned parents, teachers and community members to pay attention to what their leaders were saying in committee meetings. "If there's one thing I'm very proud of, when we talk about funding and these issues, we're all on the same page. And we're all very alert to what's going on in Tallahassee. I know it's premature, but we have to have these discussions before decisions are made. Listen in to what your representatives are saying in committee. Call them out on it. It will really give you an idea of what the priorities are in Tallahassee."
E-89...More on charter schools.
Board member Renier Diaz de la Portilla brought up the report on how much it costs the district to administer charter schools. The report said that it cost the School Board $5.9 million to administer charter schools; Diaz de la Portilla wanted to know how much money the district received from those schools.
Dr. Hinds responded that in the time period of the audit, revenues exceeded expenditures, but that currently for '11-'12 the district was receiving $5.6 million (through the 5% administration fee that the district receives from charter schools) and was spending $5.9 million, therefore losing $300,000 on charter school administration.
Diaz de la Portilla inquired as to why the revenue was decreasing.
Dr. Hinds explained: "The last legislative session reduced the fee from 5% to 2% for high performing charters, and many of our charters are high-performing, so that was a big factor. There are more charters but the percentage moved from 5% to 2%. Many of these charters are, by the state's measure, are considered high-performing so they pay only 2% on the first 250 students, not the full 500 students. That reduction was from not this past session but the session before."
Diaz de la Portilla could not resist seizing the opportunity to defend the actions of the legislature in terms of cutting public education and showing preference to charters. "We had some discussion on this issue at the beginning of the meeting about costs of charter schools and such. Now we have answers. Now we know that the program paid for itself last year, and is probably going to break even this year, and that was probably the intent of the legislature. Not that we profit from it, but not that it be costing us any additional money either, and that's exactly how it's working. Just ineresting food for thought here and I'm glad Mr. Montesdeoca conducted the study."
Yes, we all know, Mr. Diaz de la Portilla. Charter schools should be promoted and given preference at every turn because they operate on your government-sponsored capitalist ideological leanings. Next?
H-27 (Direct the Superintendent to analyze and identify funding alternatives to the discretionary capital outlay property tax)
This item brought by board member Carlos Curbelo dealt with finding alternative sources of revenue in the face of declining property taxes, and was referenced by the Superintendent earlier in the afternoon. "I think we all have reached the conclusion that unfortunately the current situation is not sustainable. We do not have enough resources to fulfill our needs looking into our future. We have a five-year capital work program that, given our projections, it would be impossible to fufill. It is time for us to again lead. This district has led through these times of economic crisis when other governments have been in disarray, have been at war with their unions, have had their political leadership removed from office; we have been different. We have been responsible. We have worked together. We have innovated. And this is in large part a great result of the great partnership that exists between the Superintendent, his team and this Board. And I think it's time for us again to put our heads together as we look into the future and figure out how we're going to solve and address the challenges we face. We all know about the deferred maintenance schedule. I think one day something terrible is going to happen if we do not address our deferred maintenance needs now. I'd like my fellow Board members to join me in asking the administration to find other alternatives. It used to be that property taxes were a guaranteed, stable source of revenues for all local governments--ad valorum taxes. Not the case anymore. On the contrary. If we look at the past ten years, and as we look into the future, we see that property taxes are certainly not the most stable source of income. I personally also believe that property taxes are the most unfair of all taxes because people have absolutely no control over them. So I think we have a unique opportunity to lead to find what I call that sweet spot, where we can find property tax relief, increase funding for our schools, and create private sector jobs by putting people to work on our capital program and on this deferred maintenance schedule. This is bold, this would be, given the options that are out there, a significant policy shift, but I think the time is right for us to at least have this conversation."
Board member Regalado expressed her support of the item, while cautioning that it was just the beginning of a conversation, and that any conclusions would most likely have to be approved by the electorate. She also mentioned that any new solutions would need to include a diversification of funding so that "all our eggs are not in one basket."
Board member Renier Diaz de la Portilla showed some love to Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain by calling Curbelo's suggestion the 9-9-9 plan for public education. "If we have one inherently unstable revenue source we're in trouble. We need to find other sources of revenue for supporting our education system, as we can. Mr. Curbelo has several suggestions; his proposal is an open-ended proposal to look for as many sources as possible, but clearly he referred to the property taxes being unstable and in many cases unfair to the property owner as they have no control. Something like a sales tax or something that folks have more control over. This is kind of his 9-9-9 plan the way that I see it. This is Curbelo's 9-9-9 plan for public education. It's all about economic development and moving this local economy forward. This district has already found a lot of alternative revenue sources. Another example of something that this Board passed, I think it's been over two years now, but we haven't seen any movement on, is the advertising policy. I'm going to use your item as a segue into that issue, I'd like to know where our advertising policy is, if we plan to implement it anytime soon, because that's another revenue source for the school district, and it may be a drop in the bucket but a lot of drops in the bucket fill the bucket up eventually."
Superintendent Carvalho stressed that they were moving forward on the advertising policy, but that it needed careful review and planning before being implemented. "Part of the delay has been the methodical and very careful approach we have taken. We are the very first district in the nation to go as far as we've gone. So we're going to be the very first district in the nation to roll out a pretty global advertising program whether it's inside schools, digital advertising, website presence, billboard advertising, we're going to go all out. The process of ensuring the legality of all of it, ensuring that what we bring to you ultimately is one that respects the community of parents and students, one that controls the messages, one that produces the biggest value in terms of reinvesting back into the district. It's been one filled with details we didn't want to overlook. We are very close to bringing the final product, and it's one that's going to bring much needed revenues into the school district."
So soon, our children who are already inundated with advertisement everywhere around them, will not be spared even inside the school. I know it seems to me, and to many people I know, that school should be exempt from cynical corporate marketing. Children should be able to come to school without having corporate executives bombard them with pressure to buy these shoes, eat this cereal, etc. Is this what the state has brought us to? Withholding the money to provide an adequate public education to the point that schools have to sell their walls, websites, TV screens and the sides of their school buses and turn them into billboards, just to keep the schools standing? We have recently read in the Miami Herald about plans to sell advertising space within state parks and other areas usually exempt from the billboard culture, because they have been brought to the point of: blast joggers and hikers with advertisements, or leave no place for joggers to jog and hikers to hike. It is sad, and I for one will oppose introduction of advertising into our classrooms. It is the legislature's responsibility to ensure that all children are provided with an adequate education--it should not be funded by advertising.
Obviously Diaz de la Portilla does not share this opinion; he seems to think the sooner children are bombarded with advertising in the school, the better. (Certainly better than holding the legislature, which his family participates in on the majority side, to task.) "We can't let perfect be the enemy of good. In the last year we could have had a policy in place and generated some revenue; maybe we could have tweaked it and made it better and made it the right policy moving forward, but we could have at least raised some revenue in the process. So not to be critical, Mr. Superintendent, but we need to get some money in the school district as soon as possible."
The item passed unanimously.
A-1 Superintendent's announcements
Superintendent Carvalho announced that M-DCPS's Director of Physical Education and Health Literacy Jane Greenberg has been appointed to a post in the Obama administration, to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.
Public Hearing
Indeed, a demeanor of respect for the professionals working in the school and an invitation to collaboration would undoubtedly be far more productive than the current procedure.
UTD Executive Board member Chris Radney spoke compellingly about the terminology used in the Superintendent's speech on closing the schools in our county that were closed last year. "For 20 years before this I taught at J.R.E. Lee [an "opportunity" or alternative high school], a school that was closed this past year. For two years before the school closed we watched our population cut; we watched the number of students sent to our school reduced systematically and directly. When we were closed some of us found employment and maxed out; some of us found employment at other schools; some of us found no employment; some of us had to retire and are still looking for a job. We work with some of the most difficult children here in this school system, and you have some of the best teachers in this county doing this job. It's our life work to help these children. It's difficult; it's emotionally and physically exhausting; it can be physically dangerous and I have the scars to prove that, literally. I wouldn't want to do anything else with my life; neither would most of the people I work with. Imagine my shock upon hearing recently that we were categorized along with a number of other schools as 'dropout factories' to this Board. And that that same term was used in Washington, D.C. The harm, the hurt to us and to our children, was great, and it was greatly--I can't begin to tell you how much it wasn't appreciated. We work hard with these kids. We're sent kids that are already in danger of dropping out. If any of them graduate, it's mostly from the work we've done. If we are successful immediately with a child, they return to their home school. And when they graduate, whether it's four months or four years later, that doesn't count for us, it counts for that school. We are NOT dropout factories. We have children who need help. Sometimes I worry that many children are not being sent--we were so underenrolled, and the determination of who gets sent to our school is made downtown. I worry what might be happening to some children if they are not receiving the help they need. I worry about what's planned for our school in the future and for other schools like it and for programs like it. And in terms of our success or lack of success, please remember, the programs we work with, the design of our programs, are determined by you. We do the best you can ask with what we're sent by you, I don't mean children I mean the programs. We would at least like a little appreciation."
Dr. Feldman expressed sympathy. "Well understood, sir. We do appreciate what you do; it's tough work, it's on the level of working in a SPED school. Only special people can handle it and we do appreciate what you do as well as your colleagues there. I think the message has been heard."
Superintendent Carvalho defended his speech and the meaning behind it. "If you really want me to address this at this venue, I will. But I would like to do so through the voice of a child. I recently visited a school where a child, a male child, called me over, and this is not the first time I hear this. This child called me over and thanked me. He said, 'Thank you very much for the fact that you shut down this school that I was at. Because I know I'm bad. But if I had stayed there, I was going to get worse.' This is no offense to the great teachers that work and labor in these schools, but what I can tell you is this: sometimes recycling students where the overidentification of students who usually are predominantly minority kids into the alternative education program for violations or infractions that in my opinion don't warrant it, just to maintain the flow of FTE to an alternative school, is wrong, and in my opinion is immoral. So, do we need alternative schools in our district? Absolutely. And dedicated people that work in these schools ought to be praised for their valiant efforts in saving, rescuing and teaching these kids. But in the instances where we've moved to close these programs, you were working with buildings that were at 50% capacity and on an average basis because of the low attendance rates, in some instances we're talking about 40% capacity and lower. It doesn't work. The graduation rate for these kids, and I understand it's a very very tough cohort of students, is dismally low, notwithstanding the best efforts of teachers. So there's got to be a better way, and we're working at creating those better models, and we're going to be bringing those to you in the very near future. Putting kids through a traditional program in an alternative education program, providing the information and education through the same curriculum with the same bells may not necessarily be the best environment for these kids and that is by the way what the research shows. So it needs to change. Let me tell you what's worked. The success centers for the overaged middle school kids has worked. We took them from where they were, we put them in a high school in a program with a great deal of assistance, and digital content, and as was the case with the child we recognized at the opening of schools address, we've seen kids jump two school years in one. So there is hope, but the decisions we make are both at two levels: the best interest of the kids and the economic situation we're in. This does not in any way impune the good work of the teachers. It's just the reality we're dealing with. What would be better? Should we be happy the FTE is going down in alternative schools, or should we be happy if it stays the same or is even going up?"
Board member Dr. Marta Perez pointed out that a decline in enrollment did not necessarily mean the incidents had declined. "In the past, as you know, principals have been told not to send students because the district wanted it to appear that incidents were on the decline, and certainly that's not something that we would want to be happening. As I said, I trust what you're telling me, and I know precisely what you're saying. We would assume that things are going in the wrong direction if we're having to refer more students to these programs, however we don't want to create an artificial manner of getting to those statistics."
Carvalho defended it once again. "We would never do that. We're seeing a significant decrease in the number of violent incidents in our schools; Chief Hurley can attest to that, but also, we are tightening the process by which kids are referred. The incidents are still reported. But what qualifies as a referral for kids to go into the alternative education program has changed. Because what we know as the overidentification of minority kids, and I'm going to be very honest with you, particularly of African-American kids, into alternative education programs, and this is often a one-way ticket, and that is unacceptable to me. The other thing is this: you didn't say it, but it was the case at some point that it was the principal's system of unloading. My position there is all these kids are worthy of a great education and we all have a responsibility to teach them. And we should teach them in their neighborhood school to the extent possible. We ought to reserve the assignment to an alternative school as the measure of last resort."
