Some good news (this is a bit long but wanted to share)

["Karen Canty" <kvscanty@pacbell.net>]

I just wanted to share some good news with all of you since there is so
little in California these days with school districts cutting programs
all over..
 
For those of you who aren't familiar with the Ravenswood School District
(in Menlo Park and East Palo Alto), it has been for years one of the
worst - not just in graduating students from 8th grade who can barely
read but in the corrupt management of the district - again, of course,
to the detriment of the students.  Almost two years ago, one of the
teachers in the district decided that something needed to be done (he
was a building rep for the teachers' association and began to see the
problems up close and personal) so he began to get teachers to attend
school board meetings.  At about the same time, a Latino parent began to
talk to and organize parents with the same goal in mind.to begin to
watch what the superintendent and board were doing.  The two groups came
to the conclusion that as long as the then current board was in place
with the superintendent that it didn't matter if 300 folks showed up at
a board meeting nothing would change.  So the teacher (who had to resign
his teaching position), the parent and another member of the community
who happened to be a principal in an elementary school in a neighboring
district ran as a slate in the November 2002 election with the major
theme that if elected they would fire the superintendent.  Ten people
signed up to run (two were incumbent board members) and some other
supporters of the superintendent but the slate won handily.
 
And lo and behold, at their first school board meeting, they put the
superintendent on leave and eventually "let her retire".They chose an
interim superintendent who had just retired as County Superintendent and
during the past year and a few months, they have made tremendous
progress.the most important being the financial solvency of the
district.  They were close to bankruptcy when the new board took over.
 
Now comes the really good news part.in November the board voted to place
a $98 parcel tax on the ballot in March that was specifically geared to
providing more money for teacher salaries and recruitment and retention
of qualified teachers (when the new superintendent came on board, over
60% of the staff were non-credentialed teachers).  With such a short
time frame to put together a campaign organization in a community where
PTA is a new word, some of us were skeptical that it would ever pass.
However, with an incredible amount of hard work by the community, the
teachers, parents and a very good campaign manager, the tax passed with
almost 75% of the vote (it takes 2/3 to pass a parcel tax)!  The ballot
measure also garnered the endorsement of every newspaper in the area and
of every prominent politician.  All of us who care about public
education were so pleased for the schools and the community..
 
Hope this adds a smile to your day.
 
Karen