In Sacramento, officials have been contemplating $4.8 billion in cuts to public education, continuing a budgeting trend that has nearly quintupled the number of school districts listed as endangered in a decade’s time. If the economy does not bounce back soon, school budgets could grow even leaner in coming years.
Four-hundred miles to the south, officials of Hermosa Beach’s 1,300-student school district are weighing their options, including an uphill battle for a parcel tax, converting its campuses to charter schools, making deeper cuts in academic programs and employee pay, and the clumsy prospect of rushing into the arms of a larger, neighboring district for a merger.
According to state officials, the Hermosa Beach City School District is not among the 110 districts whose financial solvency is uncertain over the next couple of years, and the district’s own reports also say it is expected to be in the black over at least the next two years.
But the potential state cuts could lop another $1 million from the Hermosa district, wiping out about 10 percent of its operating budget. And the district already counts on parents and other community members to raise as much as $1 million a year to keep afloat programs such as science, Spanish and physical education.
The seaside community does not lack human resources to study its future. Successful businesspeople are helping to identify a potential “bare bones” curriculum based on the minimum legal requirements to run Hermosa’s two campuses, with kids in kindergarten through eighth grade. Officials keenly aware of Hermosa’s parcel-tax history are taking a sober look at its chances in the future. Experienced civic leaders are mulling the ins and outs of the merger idea, and a Hermosan who directs a successful charter high school is helping to study that option.
Damned either way
The multi-committee study has thrust the Hermosa district into the spotlight, although any further state budget cuts would affect other districts as well. The study effort has grabbed headlines with power-point presentations that listed “insolvency,” as well as the merger idea, among possible future options.
School Board member Jack Burns, whose financial savvy is relied upon in the study, said officials are not “crying wolf.”
“The reality is that [a $4.8 billion cut] translates to a $1 million cut to our district. What are our options? What would a bare bones curriculum be? If we can’t cover a bare bones curriculum, what are our exit strategies?”
“We’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” he said. “If we don’t do this, we could be told at some point: you could have warned us, why didn’t you do something?”
Burns pointed to a three-year-old push for more financial transparency on the part of the school district following the last parcel tax defeat.
“In the past we have been criticized for not keeping the public informed, and now we’re trying to stay out in front.”
In March Melvin Iizuka, director of business services for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, agreed that a worst-case scenario would see a $1 million cut to the Hermosa school district. The district has only about $300,000 in its reserves, which have dwindled in recent years to help prop up academic programs.
“I believe the board’s perspective is the correct one, to look at all options,” Iizuka said. “…It’s very commendable that you have taken the step to begin these discussions.”
A board member at the neighboring Redondo Union High School District said Hermosa’s small size might cause its board more concern about the next few years, while larger districts enjoy economies of scale that provide some comfort.
Burns also said Hermosa’s small size might cause officials to take an earlier look at their options – a larger district would find conversion to charter schools a massive undertaking, it might have more trouble finding an even larger district to merge with, and it might have more administrative overhead that can be cut.
“I think we have more options than those districts,” Burns said.
Rocky road
As Hermosa officials drill further down into each of their options, no “silver bullet” has emerged to kill the budget vampire.
Those studying a parcel tax are well aware that the most recent attempt in Hermosa was easily defeated, and a statewide anti-tax sentiment makes a chance for the required two-thirds majority look even more remote. Charter schools are not pitched as a financial “solver,” even by their proponents. On the merger front, preliminary “napkin math” shows that could drive up Hermosans’ taxes to help cover the larger district’s debt.
Deep cuts to academic programs might be made, along with class-size increases up to 40 students, and teachers and other employees might see further pay cuts.
Going insolvent is not a choice made by a school district, but is imposed by state officials if a district can’t meet its payroll and satisfy its vendor contracts. If a school district goes under, it is taken over by county education officials.
In Hermosa, board members speak of deep cuts rather than insolvency.
Former board member Greg Breen, who took part in the initial phase of the district study, said in a January interview that Hermosa will not be left without public schools.
“We will of course survive in some form, but if revenue decreases we will have to make substantial cuts to be able to do so, mostly to salaries and benefits – things like increasing class sizes, increasing furlough days [for employees], combining administrative functions, cutting out specialized teachers, and reducing librarians and library access, as well as deferring investments in computers and books,” Breen said.
The study committees face a June deadline to report to the School Board, in detail, the options it might consider.
Parsing a parcel
School Board President Cathy McCurdy said a parcel tax on Hermosa properties has more momentum than the other options.
“That’s my sense,” she said. “Whether or not it’s ultimately the solution, we’re hearing a lot of community support now.”
McCurdy said the state budget picture is slowly becoming clearer to voters, and “the waters aren’t muddied” by the controversial construction of a gymnasium at Hermosa Valley School, which is thought to have hurt the last parcel tax effort.
Carleen Beste, who serves as the School Board representative on the committee studying a parcel tax, said no decision has been reached.
“Amongst parents there’s a lot of enthusiasm, and some community members understand the situation and are supportive of it. But it needs two thirds to pass a parcel tax, and I don’t know if there’s complete agreement across the community for that solution,” she said.
“Some people think it’s a foregone conclusion,” Burns added. “I don’t think the parcel tax would pass, in an anti-tax climate, unless there is a real community buy-in.”
Committee members are studying election deadlines, the cost of placing a measure on a ballot, what sort of volunteer force exists for the effort, and whether a parcel tax measure could win considering that the last one lost.
The subcommittee would then get together with officials looking at academic programs to determine what amount of money – if any – Hermosa’s voters should be asked to tax themselves.
For her part, Beste told the rest of the board that she would not support a parcel tax without reexamining the pay scale of teachers and other employees, who accepted five days of unpaid furlough this school year to help save money.
Beste said while teachers’ salaries did not go up, they continued to receive increases based on longevity and additional training and education.
“It would be hard to go to the community with a parcel tax to fund the schools when they are seeing increases in economic times like this,” she said.
The merger idea has not picked up much steam, although “unification light,” some sharing of administrative functions and overhead, seems to offer more hope.
“I think the sentiment is that as long as we can remain independent, have one district, that’s what we would like to do,” she said. “I think unification is pretty much at the bottom of the list of options that people want to pursue.”
Charter challenge
Hermosan Alison Suffet Diaz, 44, founder and executive director of Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, serves on Hermosa’s charter school committee. She said the schools operate under their own individual charters that obviate most of the state’s education code, and foster a focused mission that engages students in learning.
But they receive state funding as do conventional public schools, and Suffet Diaz said charter schools do not offer a panacea for the statewide budget woes.
“This is not a solver for money,” she said. “Could it help, probably. The difference is we are able to be an entrepreneur.”
For example, the school persuaded the Ahmanson Foundation, Weingart Foundation and S. Mark Taper Foundation to fund an indoor science lab with low-energy lighting and compressed paper tabletops, and an outdoor science center with chickens, rabbits and an underground cistern with water that students can draw by pedaling a stationary bike.
“It happens that our mission is very current” and eye-catching to some entities, Suffet Diaz said.
She said the Hermosa school community could consider adopting sustainability as a charter school mission, pointing out that the city government is striving to make Hermosa the area’s first carbon-neutral municipality. Hermosa also is home to a cutting edge Green Idea House, a community of bicycle enthusiasts, and an ambitious environmental task force that has the ear of City Hall.
“I think every school needs a mission,” she said.
Converting one or both of Hermosa’s schools to charter status would require a majority vote of the teachers, and could be accomplished in about a year, charter school supporters have said.
College bound
Suffet Diaz’ 10-year-old charter high school educates about 450 students. Its socioeconomic base is much more challenging than those of the two beach cities’ high schools – 80 percent of the charter school’s students qualify for free or discounted lunches, compared to 21 percent at Redondo Union and only 4 percent at Mira Costa.
Nevertheless, Suffet Diaz said, the dropout rate is below one percent, and 70 to 75 percent of the school’s students go on to college, most of them to a four-year college.
Students at the charter high school scored 774 in the most recent Academic Performance Index, one of California’s major markers of school achievement, ranking in the top 23 percent statewide.
Students at Mira Costa scored 898 and students at Redondo Union scored 825. (Hermosa has no high school, and most of its kids go to Mira Costa or Redondo Union.)
The charter school’s student body is 76 percent Latino, 14 percent African-American, 4 percent white, 4 percent Asian and 3 percent Filipino.
At Redondo Union it’s 50 percent white, 26 percent Latino, 10 percent Asian, 8 percent African-American and 2 percent Filipino.
At Costa it’s 61 percent white, 14 percent Latino, 9 percent Asian and 4 percent African-American.
Under its governing charter, the Lawndale school’s student body is chosen by lottery, with preference only for siblings of graduates.
The school has recruitment meetings at Will Rogers and Jane Addams middle schools in the city of Lawndale, which provides about 70 percent of the charter school’s students. Others come from Gardena, Los Angeles, unincorporated areas and Hawthorne.
One Hermosan attends the charter school, along with five or 10 students each from Redondo and Torrance.
Green campus
A brief tour of the campus shows the right angles of classroom buildings and concrete walkways relieved by naturalistic features including plants native to the area, a graceful stone-and-earth amphitheater with a wooden stage, and a river with fish and a pump to re-circulate the water. Students keep tabs on the river’s oxygen, temperature and other readings to maintain conditions favorable to the fish.
Suffet Diaz pauses at one of the many garden areas on campus to tear off a leaf of lettuce for the chickens. Nearby, bicycles hang on the wall of a bike shop where students learn to fix and maintain two-wheeled transportation.
Three outdoor trash cans are marked “recycle,” “compost” and “landfill.”
In a library, a handful of students are using spring break to study for college-oriented Advanced Placement tests, with the help of a European history teacher.
Lawndale students “needed a safe environment, a college prep environment,” Suffet Diaz said.
The school provides the students with help preparing for their SAT college admission tests, preparing the essays that must be submitted, and writing applications to colleges.
The students engage in services, including speaking to city councils, companies such as Google and entities such as the Edison utility, on subjects such as plastic bags and the environment. They often take classes off campus, such as robotics, speech and music at El Camino College.
Suffet Diaz said many beach cities parents have shown interest in the school.
Local control
In March, Alice Miller, a founder of California’s 18-year-old charter school movement, told a Hermosa gathering that charter schools are typically established to afford more immediate control by parents and teachers in matters such as curriculum and instruction methods, and are funded by the state as are the traditional schools.
If one or both of Hermosa’s public schools began operating on its own charter, she said, they would receive at least as much money from the state as they do now.
State budget cuts hit charter schools as they do traditional ones, she said, but budgetary decisions are made at the schools themselves.
In Lawndale the charter school’s teachers are not unionized, but have the right to unionize.
Suffet Diaz said the school’s charter allows it to use non-credentialed teachers for non-core subjects, so an artist can be hired to teach art or a web designer to teach web design.
Charter schools can offer physical education differently than district schools, or not at all. Discipline of students also can be tailored to the charter school, although any expulsions, suspensions and disciplinary hearings must conform to laws protecting people from discriminatory treatment.
The Lawndale school is run in the same fashion as many nongovernmental, nonprofit organizations. Its founding board of directors appoints new board members, making sure they understand and support the school’s mission. School charters can specify a broad range of selection processes, including having parents elect board members.
Suffet Diaz said conventional school boards can find themselves serving the larger community rather than the school.
“The general public doesn’t necessarily have the mission of the school first, so if you’re elected by the general public your mission might be to serve your public,” she said.
The Pennsylvania-raised Suffet Diaz, formerly a lawyer active in the LEAP program to teach inner city kids about their constitutional rights, was teaching history at Leuzinger High School in Lawndale when she helped launch the Environmental Careers Academy, a “school within the school.”
She found that tying education to the students’ lives inspired them to learn.
“I found out it worked,” she said.
When state law paved the way for charter schools, Suffet Diaz saw greater possibilities.
“I wanted to do it bigger and better,” she said. “Working within the system was slowing me down.”
She said she received encouragement from officials of the environmental groups Tree People and Heal the Bay, and spearheaded the launch of the Environmental Charter High School. The school was first housed in a church before moving to its current location, a campus that at one time housed Betsy Ross Elementary School. An Environmental Charter Middle School opened this year as well.
Suffet Diaz said the charter high school stresses problem solving and interpersonal relationships. Education, she said, has failed to change at the speed of the society at large.
“If you put Teddy Roosevelt in the middle of a freeway he would have no idea what was going on. If you put him in the middle of a schoolhouse there would be tables and a blackboard – or a whiteboard – and he would know exactly what he was supposed to do. He’d be right at home,” she said. “Why haven’t we caught up?”
Bottom line
For years the Hermosa district has ridden the state funding wave with little margin for error. At the end of each year, School Board members lay off handfuls of teachers, crossing their fingers that the weary community fundraisers can come up with enough money to rescind the layoff notices before the fall semester begins.
Each year, thanks to the private fundraisers, it mostly works out. The district has axed and then restored electives such as technology, Spanish and science. Physical education is funded half by the community and half by a grant from the Beach Cities Health District. But the music program has been decimated.
And that’s when things were only bad in Sacramento. Now they’re really bad. Gov. Jerry Brown hopes to stave off the $4.8 billion budget-cut scenario with a statewide ballot measure extending current tax increases, but his own Department of Education doubts that he will get his way.
“There’s simply no other way to describe it: this is an emergency,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, citing $18 billion in cuts over the last three years.
The state has identified 13 school districts that, based on current projections, will not be able to pay their bills this fiscal year or the next, and 97 districts that might be in the same boat.
No district in the beach cities appears on that list. But 10 years ago, only two school districts were projected to be unable to pay their bills, and 24 others were possibly in the same position.
A required report from the Hermosa district to state officials on March 9 stated that the “projected general fund balance will be positive” at the end of the current fiscal year and the next two as well.
The report also stated that the cash balance of the district’s general fund was expected to carry a positive balance at the end of the current fiscal year.
Available reserves, amounting to 3 percent of the operating budget, were also expected to “meet minimum requirements” for the current fiscal year and the following two fiscal years.
The report went on to state that in addition to the general fund, there are no other school district funds that were projected to show a negative balance at the end of the fiscal year, and that the school district has no “reports that indicate financial distress.”
However, the report lists concerns including declining revenues from the state government, the schools’ primary funding source.
The schools are bracing for the latest blow from Sacramento, and hoping it’s only a single whammy. Burns is concerned that if the economy does not strongly rebound, further cuts will occur.
Iizuka said the battle over the possible statewide ballot measure has overshadowed further funding changes, such as the lack of a cost of living adjustment in the state budget, which amounts to a cut.
In March he touched on the Byzantine nature of Sacramento’s number crunching.
“On every dollar you’re getting 82 cents. It’s sort of a numbers thing, when you add something and take something away,” he told the Hermosa school board. “…If all things go according to the governor’s plan, there would still be a reduction to education [funding].”
In addition, he said, state officials plan to defer payment of $2.1 billion to the schools from July 2011 to July 2012, exacerbating the cash-flow problem for the schools. And officials do not foresee further federal stimulus money coming to the schools.
Hermosa officials point out that their budgets, which must pass muster with state education officials, cannot include community fundraising, Health District grants and other sources Sacramento does not count on to materialize.
Worker cuts
David Carver, president of the Hermosa Beach Education Association which represents teachers and clerical, food service, maintenance and operations employees, said he is concerned about possible cuts to academic programs next year, a call for salary decreases, or class sizes going up.
“We need to do whatever we have to do to keep the district solvent, but we are not eager to make those moves,” he said. “I think in the grand picture of things, every district is in the same position we are.”
Carver approves of the school district’s push to look at its financial options, and said the labor force has pitched in, agreeing to a salary freeze and the five unpaid furlough days, which amount to a cut.
“If you asked me a couple years ago, I would have said no way we are doing that,” he said. “But you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face if you’re not realistic.”
School workers’ out-of-pocket costs have risen for medical, optical and dental care in recent years, because the employee benefit caps are not changed, Carver said.
He emphasized his gratitude to the community for its support of the schools, and said the teachers routinely “go the extra mile” for their students.
“I don’t know how many of them I have to kick out at 9 o’clock at night,” said Carver, who is in the maintenance section. “I tell them go home, I have to set the alarm.”
Burns, who owns a small textile company that produces, among other things, decorated towels that pro football fans wave at games, said he came to Hermosa with his wife and three kids in part because of the school system.
“In my opinion, schools are important to any community. If you have solid schools, families are encouraged to move there,” he said, echoing the sentiments of numerous real estate agents who have said good schools help bolster property values.
And he sees the district’s coziness as a plus.
“In Hermosa every third grader in town goes to the same campus,” he said. “I think that’s cool.”
(Next: a breakdown of where the money comes from and where it goes) ER
