A special committee mulling options for the city’s financially ailing public schools heard from a founder of California’s charter school movement, and plans to meet again Thursday, March 3 before making a presentation to the school board Wednesday, March 9.
The Strategic Planning Committee has been weighing the options of asking residents to tax themselves more, forming charter schools, merging with a neighboring school district, further reducing staffing and pay or, if all else fails, facing a county takeover of the schools.
As the committee continued its study, educators also heard from a county official who reiterated that the cash-strapped city schools are in dire straits. Melvin Izuka, director of business services for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, said districts such as Hermosa’s could find it “very difficult” to meet payroll within a year or two unless a tax-extending proposal by Gov. Jerry Brown makes it onto the ballot and is approved by voters.
“We’re doing what we can to stay on top of this, to be proactive,” said Jack Burns, one of two school board members who also sit on the special committee. “As an elected official in this town, I don’t want to be in a position that if the bottom falls out, I have to say ‘we don’t know what our options are, we haven’t explored them.’”
The Strategic Planning Committee, meeting at Hermosa Valley School, heard from Alice Miller, a founder of California’s first charter school 18 years ago in the San Francisco Bay area, who fielded questions from members of the public about the potential advantages of forming charter schools.
Miller said public 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.
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, Miller said. She did not endorse a charter move in Hermosa, saying that would require study by local parents and educators.
She said charter schools are freed from having to comply with large portions of the state Education Code, but they do have to meet the same academic standards as traditional schools. Charter schools receive no district staff support, and must pay for or provide services such as janitorial work. Some charter schools use parent volunteers for some administrative functions, Miller said.
In Hermosa’s school district, parent fundraisers and other community members manage to cover about 10 percent of the $10 million annual operating budget, and Miller told the assemblage that charter schools vary widely in their private fundraising, from $25 per student at a Venice school to $8,000 per student at a school in well-heeled Los Altos.
After the meeting, in response to a reporter’s question, Miller said charter schools are insured the same way district-administered schools are insured, and run no additional liability risks.
Dire straits
Days before Miller spoke to the Strategic Planning Committee, the city school board heard from Izuka, whose view of the 1,300-student school district’s economic situation offered little comfort.
Observers frequently say that a ballot measure Gov. Brown wants to place before voters in June — extending higher taxes that otherwise would lapse — would fund K-12 schools at current levels.
Not so, Izuka said.
“The budget has been characterized as a no-reduction budget to K-12 education. It is, in fact, not that,” he said.
Even with a successful ballot measure, the state budget for the schools would not include a cost of living adjustment, so it would amount to a cut, Izuka said. He touched on the byzantine nature of Sacramento’s number crunching, and then cut to the chase.
“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 school board. “…If all things go according the governor’s plan, there would still be a reduction to education [funding].”
Izuka, who is among the officials who try to anticipate how much state money will be available to schools, said Brown faces tough going in his attempt to get the measure before voters in the first place.
“We believe the ability of the governor to deliver on that promise is problematic,” he said.
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, he added, he did not foresee further federal stimulus money coming to the schools.
If the governor’s plans fail, “it would become very difficult for [K-12 school] districts to meet their financial obligations in the next year or two,” Izuka said.
He described worst-case budget cuts that could cost the Hermosa school district $1 million, or 10 percent of its operating budget. He pointed out that the tiny school district, hammered by years of state budget cuts, is operating with only about $300,000 in reserve.
Izuka praised the school board for looking at the potentially transformative options that are under study.
“I believe the board’s perspective is the correct one, to look at all options…It’s very commendable that you have taken the step to begin these discussions,” he said.
The Strategic Planning Committee has a possible parcel tax or bond measure on the table, as well as a merger with a school district in either Manhattan Beach or Redondo Beach.
The Strategic Planning Committee meets 6 p.m. Thursday, March 3 in the multipurpose room of Hermosa Valley School. ER
