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Public comment can be made at all School Board Meetings.
Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes. –Maggie Kuhn

Dec 15th, Wednesday • 6:30 pm Lovonya DeJean Middle School, Regular Board Meeting • SCHOOL CLOSURES ARE ON THE AGENDA FOR ACTION

Superintendent Gloria Johnson and her assistant, Vince Kilmartin, are still recommending closure of El Sobrante, Seaview, and Fairmont Elementary Schools.
The Board of Education will hold public hearings for on the redistricting process. Recommendations may include school consolidations, changes to current elementary and middle school boundaries, and changes to transfer student policies. PDF files at: www.wccusd.k12.ca.us/
redistrict/index.shtml

The Redistricting Parent Advisory Committee recommendation to the Board is at:
http://www.wccusd.k12.ca.us/redistrict/
PAC_recommendations_100404.pdf

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Cynthia M. LeBlanc,
Superintendent, Interim Cynthia.LeBlanc@gw.wccusd.k12.ca.us

Dr. Gloria Johnston, Superintendent
Has left the School District (510) 620-2205 • gjohnston @gw.wccusd.k12.ca.us

Vince Kilmartin, Associate Superintendent for Operations
Redistricting Committee Liason
Bond Oversite Committee
(510) 620-2208
vince.kilmartin@gw.wccusd.k12.ca.us

Karen Frison, Regional Superintendent (oversees Kensington?)
(510) 620-2073
karen.frison @gw.wccusd.k12.ca.us

Kay Burnside, Regional Superintendent
(510) 620-2170
kay.burnside @gw.wccusd.k12.ca.us

Cathie Kosel, Redistricting Manager
She has left the district (510) 234-3825, ext. 2424, CKosel@gw.wccusd.k12.ca.us

And the School Board, who oversees our District employees
Charles Ramsey, President
(510) 682-5600
hawgs@ pacbell.net
cramsey @wccusd.k12.ca.us

Glen Price (510) 528-1315 glen@glenpricegroup.com
glen @glensprice.com

Karen Fenton (510) 236-8460
kfenton @pacbell.net

Karen Pfeifer (510) 526-5367 karenepfeifer@ yahoo.com

Dave Brown (510) 758-7077 dbrown247@ yahoo.com "Agenda for Change"

If you would like to email the Board using one address, you can send an email to:
wccusdcomment@baysidepta.org

West County Parents Chat Group
A united group of parents working with teachers & community members putting kids first in WCCUSD groups.yahoo.com/group/wccusdtalk

Forum with info NOT from the School District. School Board Candidates & WCCUSD Financial articles http://westcountyforum.com/

March for Education Coalition
http://www.march4education.org

Bayside PTA Web Site
http://baysidepta.org

Data & Statistics
(CA Dept. of Education)
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/

California Dept. of Education
www.cde.ca.gov/

The number 10 recommendation from the Redistricting Committee is:
"Recommend that the current Transfer Policy be amended for purposes of redistricting so that there is no "grandfathering" of non-resident students transfers be allowed during the first year of the redistricting implementation process."

Majority voting process: ••• Yes=8 • No=6 • Abstain=1 • Total:15
Above verbiage referenced from: Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) Recommendations Update 10/4/04

pacminutes.html
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www.baysidepta.org/pages/redistrict.php

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During the first year all transfer students at all schools will be sent back to their resident schools and they will have to reapply for transfer back to their school of transfer without any special privileges and only on a per space available. A student who has been going to the school of transfer for three years would have the same chance as a student who has never attended that school of transfer. The reason behind this was that in order for the new boundaries to work they had to be based on resident students and had transfer students been allowed to continue in the transfer school the new boundaries would have overcrowded the schools. (This is from a PAC discussion as a possiblity)
(Recommendation #10 may be illegal, the State mandates an "open enrollment" policy in any District (see Ed. Code: 35160.5.(b). It's also intended to be taken up by yet another committee before being approved by the Board.)

http://www.kcrt.com/series/wccusd.html

It seems the recent reconfigurations will make the redistricting recommendations much easier to implement.
• Olinda has not been allowed to have transfers for 2 years. • Valley View has beensharing a principal with Olinda, Their recent reconfiguration, losing 1 teacher, gave them splits in EVERY GRADE, and will make it easier to consolidate with Olinda. • Kensington Hilltop's recent reconfiguration will make it easier to allow more students next year to come here from Harding. So if they were to close Fairmont, then those students can now attend Harding. • Fairmont had SBC visit and measure for Administrative offices. • (WCCUSD staff wants to eventually close 10 schools.?) • WCCUSD locked out the PTAs from having meetings on school gronds at the beginning of this school year. • We were told that if only 4 teachers were effected that that would be only a cost of $200,000 of the district's over $256,000,000 budget, that the school board would consider rescinding the reconfiguration. Then the numbers changed to 10 teachers at too high a cost, then after the reconfiguration was implemented the numbers changed again to 4-5 (?) teachers? LL

Link to Resident School Directory
Look up by address assigned Elementary, Middle and High Schools.

http://www.wccusd.k12.ca.us/RSD/ResSchDir/resdir.htm

Revised 3/25/05

Dec 15th, Wednesday • 6:30 pm Lovonya DeJean Middle School, Regular Board Meeting • SCHOOL CLOSURES ARE ON THE AGENDA FOR ACTION
Minutes: http://www.wccusd.k12.ca.us/SB/minutes/2004/12_15.pdf

There is no agenda or packet yet for the 12/15 meeting on the District Web site. When it is posted, the agenda will be here: http://www.wccusd.k12.ca.us/SBA/sba.htm
and the packet will be here: http://www.wccusd.k12.ca.us/sb/packets/index.htm

CEQA California Environmental Quality Act
Here's some links to a case where the parents won against the school district trying to close a school. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wccusdtalk/message/4371
http://ceres.ca.gov/ceqa/cases/1989/epec_050589.html

Subject: Re: Staff Recommendation for Transfers (& SCHOOL CLOSURES?)
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:18:56 -0800
From: Vince Kilmartin <Vince.Kilmartin@gw.wccusd.k12.ca.us>
To: <president@baysidepta.org>

Let me first clarify the process for this staff recommendation on redistricting:• 
• Staff does in depth analysis on the issue with as many stakeholders as possible. In this case the PAC, consultants, district staff, school principals, cabinet and 2 board members (only 2 so we don't violate the Brown Act) have spent over 17 months on the issue. - This is complete. Then:
• The PAC makes a recommendation. This is complete.
• Staff analyzes the data again and makes a further recommendation as appropriate. This is ongoing.
• The cabinet reviews the final recommendation. This is ongoing.
• Public hearings are held to listen to the community and answer Board questions. 2 hearings have been held. A 3rd hearing is scheduled for Dec 13.
• The final recommendation go to the Board on Dec 15 for a decision or further direction.

At this point in time, today, the staff has the following preliminary recommendations:
1. Supports the PAC recommendations on changing elementary and secondary boundaries to better balance enrollment.
2. Recommends including all of the geo-political boundaries of Kensington within the Kensington boundary.
3. Recommends closing Seaview school in June, 2005 and consolidating Seaview with Collins and Shannon.
4. Recommends consolidating El Sobrante and Murphy in January 2006. For the first part of the 05/06 school year we recommend Murphy becoming a K-3 and the closed El Sobrante becoming a 4-6 until the winter break. At that time we would move the 4-6 into the completely reconstructed Murphy. We would conceivably have a substitute principal (probably a retired principal) l at El Sobrante as well as other staff. This would enable us to have approximately 6 months of general fund savings (January - June) when we close ES. It also would enable us to staff classes fully so that we can avoid combination classes as much as possible.
5. Recommends closing Fairmount and consolidating with Harding in January 2006. We would propose a similar scenario as I indicate above for El Sobrante and Murphy. As you are aware both Harding and Murphy are under construction and are due to complete during 2005. However we believe a smoother transition would take place if we consolidated in January.
6. Recommends all current non resident students be allowed to remain at their current school until they graduate. This is for both boundary changes and consolidated schools. We believe this provides the least impact to families and staff.
7. Recommends freezing non- resident transfers into those schools that will be at or over capacity. We believe this would result in balancing school enrollment in these schools in 2-3 years. The schools effected by this recommendation are: Highland, Dover, Downer, Chavez, Peres, Nystrom and Helms. This is a change in the current transfer policy. All remaining schools would follow the current transfer policy.
8. Convene a Hercules PAC in early 2005 to review Hercules boundaries in order to develop a recommendation to balance their elementary schools in August 2005 because of increased growth.
9. Reconvene a new PAC in Sept. 2005 to analyze potential future closings, consolidations or adjustments.

I should conclude by indicating that staff has looked at potential usages of any closed schools. The possibilities include relocation of:
a. Vista High, Transition and staff from El Portal because of Seismic concerns.
b. Requests from Manzanita and Leadership for facilities which we must provide by State prop 39 which requires this.
c. Using a closed school as a transition school for a school under construction.
We are not looking at any closed school as a relocation site for any of our continuation high schools.

Any recommendations on usage of schools will come after the board decision. Sometime in early 2005. We continue to listen to input from the community and all stakeholders before making final recommendations on Dec. 15.

Hopefully I have not missed anything. If I have I'll revise this e mail after I hear from other stakeholders.
Vince
Vince Kilmartin, Associate Superintendent for Operations, WCCUSD
1108 Bissell Avenue, Richmond, CA 94801-3135 • Tel: 510.620.2208 • Fax: 510.236.0190
E-mail: vince.kilmartin @gw.wccusd.k12.ca.us

Consolidations (more options presented by consultants)
• Close Fairmont and transfer students to Harding (estimated they would be 30 students over capacity)
• Close Seaview and transfer students to Collins and to Shannon. I think they showed that Shannon was over capacity by 28 already and that Collins had room for 170 more students)
• Close El Sobrante and transfer students to Murphy (estimated they would be 66 students over capacity)
• Close Olinda and transfer students to Valley View (estimated they would be 169 students over capacity)

[Nov 15, Monday • PAC Redistricting Meeting, 6 - 8pm, 1300 Potrero, Richmond, meet to discuss implementation of the redistricting and consolidation plan. (PAC, Parents Advisory Committee)]

This site is not working: http://www.SaveOlinda.com/ Save Olinda School (SOS) committee

New Olinda Site: www.olindaschool.com

olinda.html Excerpt: Fiscal Responsibility • Closing high performing schools will cost the district more money than it will save. Parents have indicated that they will remove their children from WCCUSD if the schools are combined … This represents a net loss of ADA money to the WCCUSD. If they lose just 115 students at an ADA "value" of approximately $4,500.00, that’s the equivalent of the savings they expect to realize from closing TWO schools ($257,715.00 consolidation savings x 2 schools = $515,430.00 divide that by the average ADA of $4,500.00 and the number of students is 114). Losing as few as 57 elementary students (with their ADA "value" of $4,500.00) to home schooling, charter schools, private schools or other school districts would eliminate all potential savings from consolidating Olinda.
sospac.html "The Case To Save Olinda School", Prepared By Rodger Eva, Olinda Elementary Parent, For the Parent Advisory Committee, Redistricting Committee, WCCUSD, Aug. 16, 2004

• The WCCUSD Parent Advisory Committee on redistricting voted against consolidating Olinda and Valley View. Recommendation is available as item 9 at wccusd./redistrict/PAC_recommendations_100404.pdf
• Vince Kilmartin’s recommendation to close Olinda is recorded in minutes, page 3 at ...PAC_minutes100404.pdf

School Closures and Transfer Policy
The school closures favored by WCCUSD staff should be opposed by all district parents. Not only do they violate the trust of everyone who voted for measure M, but they also force a reversal of transfer policy. Children attending schools outside of their home attendance area will be forced to abandon their transfers and go back to their local schools. Current transfers will not be grandfathered.
The concept is simple: close schools until the ones left open are filled to capacity with local students. The message to transferred students is "GO HOME!" If your child is benefitting from a transfer, you will be sent back to your home attendance area. There simply won't be room for transfers anymore.
Every school, and every child, will suffer from this ill-conceived short-sighted school closure plan. Until the district has proved that it has done everything in its power to cut costs without sacrificing classrooms, we, as parents, must fight to keep every school open. Everyone will suffer.…E B

Excerpt: valley.html Redistricting Impact on Valley View,
We are in the midst of a tragic redistricting blunder where the School Board decides to spend hard fought bond money to remodel and renovate under enrolled and academically falling schools BEFORE the redistricting process began. This insures that those under enrolled and academically falling schools will stay open while highly ranked schools like Valley View and Olinda are going be recommended to consolidate at the Valley View campus....The great misconception is that the WCCUSD believes that it can relieve its $10 Million financial shortfall by closing and consolidating a few schools. In reality, the total projected savings from closing the four schools that are targeted is about $1 million dollars...