What's next? This blog will continue shining the spotlight of accountability on the Lagunitas School Board

Starting today this blog will continue as a watchdog to follow, investigate, question and hold accountable the Lagunitas School Board. As I have documented during this campaign in earlier blog postings, a number of unethical actions by Mr. Sloan and Ms. Bohman have punctuated their tenure on the board. In addition, my complaints to the Fair Political Practices Commission and the Marin DA are still pending. Although the election is over, the spotlight of transparency must still be shined on the continuing slash and burn policies that are sure to be continued as the state and District face yet another round of neoliberal austeric cutbacks that will further attempt to dismantle and erode our local public school.

You can count on this blog as one source of information and analysis of school board policy. I hope you will continue to visit and stay in touch.

This election has brought the spotlight of accountability to the board

For all of those who voted and supported me in this election I would like to say Thank You! It's clear that this campaign differed from the incumbents' in several important ways. The first is that unlike the incumbents I talked about issues not "who we know". There are real fundamental problems facing this District worsened by the cut first and ask questions later polices implemented by the incumbents. I was the only one who proposed solutions.

As of 10 pm last night I finished in 3rd place with 223 votes or 16.24% of the vote. I hope that my candidacy will make it clear that there are positive alternatives to bringing equity and fairness to our local tax revenue tax base. Laying off staff and teachers and freezing their pay, packing too many children into the classroom cutting the school library, bringing multinational corporations onto our campus to entrap our children as a captive consumer market, and pushing more borrowing from Wall Street at high interest rates is no longer acceptable.

Parents and residents are watching this board very closely and holding them accountable for their policies. I hope that more residents with new fresh ideas will offer themselves to run for the open seats coming up next Fall when voter turnout is more than the 33% it was in this election. Low voter turnout combined with an off year election always favors the more conservative incumbents.

Most importantly my campaign has brought to light several troubling questions about actions of Superintendent Larry Enos and Ms. Bohman. I expect the county DA will get to the bottom of why the Administration has failed or refused to turn over all the self-promotional campaign emails Denise Bohman sent using her District email address—a violation of California law. Superintendent Larry Enos is now 12 days late turning over all the emails sent by Ms. Bohman to promote her re-election and may be in violation of the California Public Records Act. I have some emails sent by Ms. Bohman which Mr. Enos has not yet turned over to me. I await the DA weighing in on this issue.

Lobby the Governor to declare a fiscal emergency and set aside Prop 13: Part 3 of My Save Our Schools—Tax the Super-rich plan

Many District residents may not be aware that the Lagunitas School District is a fee paying client of a lobbying group in Sacramento known as School for Sound Finance which advocates for the concerns of Basic Aid School Districts of which we are one. If elected I will spearhead a new coalition of school districts to advocate that Governor Brown declare a fiscal emergency and set aside Prop 13, which he has the power to do, and file a lawsuit against the Governor if he fails to do so. Since it passed in the 1970s Prop 13 has been the primary cause of our on-going revenue shortfall.

Freeing us the bondage of Prop 13 would allow our District to restore equity to our local property taxes. This would be done by adjusting property tax increases so that they rise proportionally to the value of the property, eg. the more valuable your property the higher your property tax rate. Those with less valuable properties may actually see their property taxes fall. It would also allow the District to recapture lost property taxes from those who have benefited from Prop 13 especially those who owned when it went into effect in 1978. Right now the longer you hold onto your property the lower your actual property tax rate relative to someone who bought the same value property more recently.

The Legislature lacks the political will to touch the holy grail of Prop 13 for fear of losing re-election by becoming the target of fanatical anti-tax groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. It's up to the school board trustees of our state to take down Prop 13 or continue to see our system of public education drown in austerity, layoffs, increasing lass sizes, cutbacks, and privatization which both of my opponents advocate more of in our District.

Complaint filed with Marin County DA over Denise Bohman's use of District email for her re-election campaign

This week I filed a complaint with the Marin County District Attorney over Denise Bohman's use of District email for her re-election campaign. According to California Government Code Section 8314(a) “It is unlawful for any elected state or local officer, including any state or local appointee, employee, or consultant, to use or permit others to use public resources for a campaign activity, or personal or other purposes which are not authorized by law.” I have included the full text of my letter to the DA below.

On October 18th I filed a Public Records request with the Lagunitas School District when I came into the possession of emails Ms. Bohman sent as part of her campaign. The District turned over several emails none of which included the ones I already possess. They exceeded the 10 day limit to turn over these emails by 3 days and are still in violation of the California Public Records Act request. Has the District overlooked some of the emails they should have released to me or are they withholding these emails to help Ms. Bohman win re-election? I hope the DA can get to the bottom of this.

---------
November 2, 2011


Mike McBride, Esq.
Marin County
Office of the District Attorney
3501 Civic Center Drive, Room 130
San Rafael, CA 94903

Re: complaint regarding California Government Code Section 8314



Mr. McBride,

I wish to request that your office initiate an investigation of Lagunitas School Board Trustee Denise Santa Cruz Bohman’s use of public resources for her re-election campaign. According to California Government Code Section 8314(a) “It is unlawful for any elected state or local officer, including any state or local appointee, employee, or consultant, to use or permit others to use public resources for a campaign activity, or personal or other purposes which are not authorized by law.”

As you will see from the two attached emails, Ms. Bohman has been using her official District email for her re-election campaign. As a candidate for one of the two open Trustee positions I find this use of public resources to be illegal under 8314a, a violation of the public trust which she was elected to uphold, and gives her an unfair advantage in the campaign—the very kind of abuse this law was intended to ban and punish.

While I currently only possess these two emails I have a good reason to suspect that Ms. Bohman may have further used her District email address for her re-election. On October 18, 2011 I filed the attached California Public Records Act (Government Code Section 6250 et seq.), request with the Lagunitas School District. Thirteen days later I received several copies of emails sent by Ms. Bohman. However, the two emails attached to this letter were not included. As a result, I have asked the District to stop withholding these and all other emails sent by Ms. Bohman for campaign purposes and turn over all the emails they have in their possession. I have not yet received a reply.

I look forward to your immediate attention to this matter.

Sincerely,


Robert Ovetz, Ph.D

Update: Parents sue publisher Scholastic alleging misleading billing, marketing scheme

I think it is safe to say that our school bookfair that Denise Bohman is so proud of having run is part of a corporate marketing scheme that is reported to exploit school children and their families through false advertising.

According to a statement by the law firm that has filed suit vs Scholastic found on on PR Newswire, Scholastic "uses its marketing presence within elementary schools to convince parents to purchase educational products, and then bombards parents with unsolicited goods, demanding payment in violation of state and federal law."

Apparently, these marketing ploys and bookfairs are wildly profitable since Scholastic's top executives have received huge pay raises in the past 4 years. The total compensation for top executives grew from about $2.9 m to $9.7 m even though their stock price has fallen. Between 2007-11 their CEO's total compensation has more than doubled, their CFO's compensation grew almost 6 fold, and the president of Scholastic Education has seen her compensation rise by 50%. These figures were reported to Morningstar.

Daily facilities use fee: Part 2 of My Save Our Schools—Tax the Super-rich plan

Another measure to bring about a more equitable and fair local tax base would be to pass a proportional San Geronimo Valley Community Center facilities usage fee based on the average daily number of users present on the property. The objective of this fee is to restore balance to the local tax base. Several large property owners in the Valley who literally have hundreds of thousands of combined annual users of their property are profiting from access to our facilities without paying their fair share. This fee would end what is known as the “free rider” phenomenon.

The way the facilities use fee would work is that the more daily users of these facilities you have on your property the higher the fee would be collected to support local school district and community center services. The local tax burden would be restored by placing the largest responsibility for paying the fee on those property owners who gain the most use from the facilities.

Why is this necessary? Today the Valley is home to several extremely large businesses that generate a substantial income stream from tourists and customers that live outside the Valley and yet benefit from our services without contributing to them. As free riders these local businesses unfairly place the heavy inequitable burden for supporting these services on local residents.

The way that cities and counties such as San Francisco address this free rider phenomenon is to impose a luxury or tourist tax on such services. These taxes commonly are used to fund the arts which has the effect of stimulating a vibrant arts community but also jobs and income for artists and those who work in the arts such as carpenters, sound engineers, fashion designers, and actors for example.
However, as a school district we cannot issue a tourism tax but we can issue a fee based on use of services under Article 13D of the California Constitution.

For example, the following fee would create a fairer tax revenue burden by shifting the responsibility to pay local taxes to support our schools and community center to those with the greatest number of users. This is not unusual. Property and income taxes follow the same principle by scaling the responsibility to pay taxes based on how much one’s property is worth or how much one earns in income.

The other way a use fee makes our local tax base more equitable is that like a luxury tax it places all the burden on the consumption of luxuries such as maintaining a horse, going on a retreat, eating at a restaurant, staying at a hotel, or playing a round of golf. One need merely look at the high daily and monthly fees charged for a local retreat, to board a horse, or belong to the golf club to see that consumers of these services are living at the very top of the income and wealth brackets of our society.

The following fee imposes a tax per person per day that starts at 1/100th of a cent and maxes out at $1.00 per day. For example, a household of 4 people would pay merely 4/100ths of a cent per day which comes to 4 x 37 cents = $1.48 per year. You can barely buy one organic apple for that.

This fee generates nearly all of the revenue from local facilities that host 30 or more residential customers per day. It would not apply to non-residency sales of simple goods or services. As you can see below, my rough calculation below shows it would generate a minimum of $360,000 per year.

This amount would most likely be more than enough to restore all the cuts to teachers and instructional and other staff and even give the teachers and staff a pay raise—all measures the incumbents Richard and Denise are unwilling to do. There would probably even be money left over to pay for facilities upgrades without even further indebting our District’s to Wall Street on top of what we still owe from the 1997 bond measure.

Facilities Use Fee Scale:

1-10 users: .001 cents per day
example: at 1 per day: 37 cents per year

11-20 users: .01 cents per day
example: at 11 per day: $40.15 per year

21-29 users: .1 cents per day
example: at 21 per day: $766.50

30 and more users: $1.00 per day
example: at 30 per day = $10,950 per year (Serenity Knolls maximum guests)
example: at 40 per day = $14,600 per year (rough estimate for San Geronimo Golf Course)
example: at 100 per day = $36,500 (Dickson Ranch can accommodate at least 100)
at 822 per day = $300,000 per year (Spirit Rock estimated usage according to San Geronimo Valley Planning Group)

Why did Denise Bohman vote against a grant funded environmental education project?

At a packed and tense board meeting on 10/19/10 Denise Bohman attempted to kill the Larsen Creek restoration project. The project was the brainchild of parents from both the Waldorf Inspired and Montessori programs and included a campus watershed education component. This was truly inter-program cooperation at its finest and yet Denise tried to axe it. If you have had a chance to walk across the fantastic bridge (which Richard Sloan helped build) you will see that area cleaned up, restored and cleared of several unsightly storage containers.

Yet, although this project cost the District nothing Denise vehemently denounced the sponsor organization at the meeting and was clearly working on behalf of a competing local organization at the meeting. This non-issue was n extension of an on-going clash between the watershed conservation group SPAWN and the Valley Stewards that is rampant throughout the Valley.

By attempting to can the project Denise was politicizing not only the school board but the classroom by attempting to deny the expertise of trained watershed biologists to our children, parents and teachers. SPAWN has raised many hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Valley for about a decade restoring creeks, culverts, and roads in an effort to save the now probably extinct coho salmon.

We have been fortunate that until the past few years coho were found spawning in our very own watershed. I once saw coho jumping at the Inkwells when I used to work in the Valley. It was truly one of the wonders of my existence. It moved me to awe. Sadly, my daughter has yet to see them even after years of taking her in winter rain storms to find them. We have an extinction crisis happening right before our eyes and it's a tragedy.

Voting to allow the Larsen Creek project to go forward Richard put it succinctly that the District would not be initiating a relationship with SPAWN since it has long had one. That included, he pointed out, its sponsorship of the rain catchment structure at the upper campus, an amazing system that yet again Richard helped build.

I write about this because it raises a number of crucial questions about the incumbents' endorsement of one another for re-election.

1. If Denise really represents all the programs and the principle of parent choice as she repeatedly claims why did she try so hard to kill the Larsen Creek project?

2. Does Denise have an ideological opposition to environmental education and watershed conservation? If so, what is it? What does she think about the crisis facing our ecosystems?

3. If Denise really works to raise funds for the entire District and all its programs why did she vote against this grant funded program? Does she favor certain fundraising over others? The Larsen Creek project saved the District invaluable thousands of dollars on facilities and grounds maintenance that was freed up to be used to educate the children. That's much more effective than funding it by further indebting the District to Wall Street by borrowing at a 100% interest rate over 20-30 years.

4. Lastly, how can Richard and Denise, who stand on opposite sides on issues revolving around environmental education endorse one another? This is not just about SPAWN and the Stewards but a reflection of how they manage the District. They each represent interests which have bitterly factionalized our schools. Do we really want this to continue another 4 years? Could their mutual endorsement be an expression of just how willing they are to compromise their own principles just to stay in office? What else have they and will they continue to compromise on?

Of course, this also begs the question as to why Richard in early 2009 unsuccessfully attempted to cut SPAWN's parent organization's parcel tax by 80%.

These are crucial questions I hope voters will ask before casting their votes for either of the incumbents. A vote that is given away is a wasted vote.

Coming soon: Part 2 of My Save Our Schools—Tax the Super-rich plan

Coming soon will be my proposal for a Daily Usage Fee for use of the San Geronimo Valley Community Center.

This plan would provide an equitable reform of our tax revenue base so that the most valuable properties and businesses in the Valley begin to pay their fair share to fund the local services from which they profit.

The burden to pay for these services have been carried by Valley families and residents who are struggling to make ends meet. It's time to make the share more equitable.

Why did Richard Sloan vote to cut a local $1.3 million non-profit's parcel tax by 80%

As I mentioned in one of my Wednesday blogs, Richard Sloan claimed at the candidates debate that the District "zero control over revenues" with the exception of parcel taxes.

That's quite an important exception.

On 3/17/09 Richard proposed voting to cut the parcel tax obligation from 5 to 1 lots for the controversial local environmental organization SPAWN. A week later, on 3/24/09, he was the only trustee to vote to approve this huge discount. Luckily, it was not approved.

There are several crucial questions that Richard needs to answer.

1.Why did he propose cutting more than $1000 in much needed taxes for our schools when the board is slashing teachers, instructional aides, and staff? Is that what he meant Wednesday night by not needing to be "anxious" about our revenue crisis?
2. How much has SPAWN's executive director, family and staff contributed to his campaign? The executive director (Todd Steiner) and his wife (Lynette McLamb) are listed as endorsers of Richard's candidacy.
3. Why did Richard think that a local non-profit whose parent organization indicates in its 2010 IRS 990 that it has an annual budget of about $1.3 million needs to have a parcel tax cut?
4. What other political favors has Richard made to this and other donors?

While $1000 is nowhere near the millions showered on Sacramento and Congress in our rampant "pay to play" politics it demonstrates that what Richard does and says do not jive with one another.

Full disclosure: I worked for the Sea Turtle Restoration Project which is run by SPAWN's parent organization Turtle Island Restoration Network (which has the same executive director) for 3 and 1/2 years from 2003 to 2006. Although I loved the work protecting our ocean and its creatures from being driven to extinction I left to take a management position with Humane Society International, a DC based wildlife conservation non-profit. I also received a $45.00 donation from SPAWN's executive director but returned it several weeks ago without cashing it. This will be updated in my campaign filings. I wholeheartedly support SPAWN's long efforts to preserve our local watershed and assist local property owners restoration of their properties. But I do not think that means the organization now somehow gets to pay less than its full share of our local taxes and shortchange our schools—which the two children of SPAWN's founder attended—out of much needed resources.

Factcheck: Just how beneficial are the bookfairs?

One unconfirmed "fact" that Denise Bohman cited at the debate this week is that "I raised about $70,000 in books for our school in the past 14 years." Assuming that she is correct there are several ways to look at this, not all of them really that positive for our school.

How could this be? We all love reading and books. My daughter complains that I have too many books. She herself has her nose in books from morning until night and sometimes even later.

According to Scholastic's book fair web page, the school gets 40-60% of the sales to spend on books. If these fairs really brought in $70,000 then a simple calculation would show that around $140,000 has been drained out of our Valley community and into the bank accounts of a corporation with $50 million per year in sales. Keep in mind who runs the corporation including board Executive Vice President James W. Barge who also serves as Chief Financial Officer of Viacom Inc. which is the owner the such fine programming at MTV, Neopets, and VH1.

Denise's effort to sell our children books of doubtful academic or even entertainment value cannot compare to her vote in 2010 to cut our library instructional assistant position. What good are all those books she claims to have singlehandedly brought in for our school if there is no librarian to run the library? They do look pretty good on those shelves.

Also, while Denise has been giving her time to run the book fairs our local public library was shut down several years ago due to county budget cuts. Since the Fairfax library is shockingly closed on Fridays and Sundays Valley children and residents have virtually no library service for 2/3 of the weekend. Pt. Reyes is only open 4 hours during the weekend and Inverness for 6 hours. These are the meager library services across a distance of distance of 21.4 miles from Fairfax to Inverness.

Anybody who been in business knows that a 40-60% "rebate" on the retail price is really no rebate at all. This is really just a scam. If they really want to rebate what our children spend on their books they would give it on their cost not their mark-up. I put quotes around rebate because in reality this is nothing but a kickback for getting our kids in front of their limited product range. Our children are being led to these book fairs as a captive audience which is being taught to consume not to learn.

Lastly, take a look at the books offered at the fair. They are all brand new, overpriced, and the quality is fairly poor. Except for a decent selection of science oriented books there are books of doubtful "scholastic" quality offered. We own numerous scholastic books but these were published over many decades and acquired at pennies a used book. Most of the books they publish today are part of a vertical marketing strategy which tie the books to toys, movies, cartoons, video games (such as Neopets) and other commercial trash being marketed to children at younger and younger ages.

While Denise would have us admire her efforts to run the fair perhaps a more effective use of her time and efforts over the past dozen years would have been as a board member trying to make our local revenue tax stream more equitable and adequate. This could have included keeping our public library open and accessible to those children whose parents cannot afford to buy brand new books for their kids or even want to buy those from a limited range offered by a corporation. Afterall, this is a corporation whose bottom line is profiting from children with highly suspect products fronting as being of "scholastic" value.

We also know how libraries are more than just about warehousing books. They are a hub of community life and learning, an information access hub, and a gathering place used by people young and old. Denise let our library shut down on her (and Richard Sloan's) watch and they have done zero to bring it back.

Title transfer fee: Part 1 of my Save Our School—Tax the Super-rich plan

This evening I outlined part one of my equitable revenue enhancement plan.

Under Article 13D the District can levy a fee on local property owners. The District board can meet in an emergency session and pass the fee. Those who wish to oppose the fee have 45 days to send in their written objection. If they get a majority of the voters to oppose the fee it goes for a vote of all registered voters who then must pass it with a 2/3's vote. If they don't the fee goes into effect. This can be done in under 60 days—if the board has the political will to do so. The incumbents made it clear tonight that they do not have the political will.

The first fee that can be passed would have no effect on current property owners and taxpayers. The District can impose a title transfer fee that may be either a single rate or scalable.

For example, 27 homes sold in the past year totaling about $14 million. A 2% fee would have generated $280,000. A 3% fee would have generated $420,000.

A transfer fee would go a long way to rectify the inequitable property tax base inflicted by Prop 13 since the last 1970s.

It would also not only allow the District to avoid the further expected lay off of a Middle School teacher in 2012-13 but help us hire back the instructional aides and staff time cut in the past 2 years and even finally give the teachers and staff a pay raise.

And to top it off it would help us do all the facilities work that is expected to be needed at real current dollars instead of yet another inflated Wall Street funded bond measure that may be coming down the pipe line. We haven't paid off the past one from 1997 yet. The expected $4-6m bond measure in the works will end up costing us 100% interest over the next few decades.

Why do we want to sell off our school to Wall Street when we can fix the problems now?

Keep in mind that this is just one possible way to raise additional tax revenue in an equitable manner. I give the flat rate as just a hypothetical example. A flat fee is not as equitable as a scaled fee based on the sale price. I would exempt those buyers over 65 and homes for buyers who make less than the median income for their size household.

If it were scaled up it would link the fee to household wealth. For example, because a family with two income earners in the top 20% (~ $228,000 per year) would be able to afford a mortgage for a house around $900,000 and up (at about the standard 30% of their income spent on housing).

Scaling it up this way may generate less revenue than a flat fee since fewer homes sell for these prices. However, it would provide a long-term solution if home prices continue to rise.

I will be posting more about how to raise revenue on the super-rich in the Valley in the coming days.

Here's a cut I support: Stop paying for the board member's health insurance

This evening Richard assured us that he is trying to "cut as far from the classroom as possible".

If that is the case I have a suggestion: eliminate the subsidies for board members' health insurance.

District taxpayers pay $15,108 per year towards their health insurance. How many children at our school have no insurance? Too bad there is virtually no school nurse anymore due to "efficiency" measures to "share" the nurse.

Odd that they would keep this nice perk for themselves and yet propose axing the lunch program. What about all the kids receiving free and discounted lunches because they live in poverty. How many lunches can their perks buy for our children?

If we parents hadn't spoken up against their slash and burn plan to axe the lunch program and other services last year our children would have gone the entire day hungry. How much learning can happen on an empty stomach?

So much for trying to "cut as far from the classroom as possible".

Tonight's debate made it clear that the incumbents have no solutions

Our sparsely attended candidate forum exhibited the distinct differences between myself and the two incumbents. I asked those in the audience to listen for what policies Mr. Sloan and Ms. Bohman had to offer to address the continuing decline in our school's funding. Their comments are indicative of their policies about which they declined to address specifically.

Richard at one point said there is no reason to have "anxiety" over the revenue crisis since "we have zero control over revenues." Odd, I guess he still hasn't had time in nearly 40 years on the board to read California Constitution Article 13D that specifically outlines the power of school boards and other local government bodies to raise fees and assessments. The Ross Valley Sanitary District just used it successfully earlier this year. Are our children not worth it?

It was no different with Denise whose strategy is to, as she urged us, to "hold tight and see what's next". She also apologized "If I seem vague."

Actually, her silence on the widespread cuts she has voted for in the past two years is not vague at all. She supports cutting teaching staff, classroom aides, shifting the costs of paying for teaching staff to the parents, and increasing class sizes. In other words, if we elect her we can expect more of the same.

Neither spoke about any policies to address the revenue crisis because their actions in the past two years are their policies. In fact, it appears that they belittled the idea that we have a crisis at all. They must be aware that the state has cut the billions of dollars in the past 3 years alone and may end up making further mid year cuts.

Last year, Richard urged my fellow Lagunitas Waldorf Inspired parents to split up the District by forming a charter school. The track record for charter schools would lead us to expect classes packed to the rafters, special needs students excluded, teachers prevented from bargaining collectively and taxpayers having little control while having to front the money for a tax funded privatized school. No wonder the teacher's union called for him to resign. So much for "collaborative relationships."

Not much different with Denise. She would rather continue to bleed programs she doesn't appear to like. In the past 2 years she has voted 75% of the time against the Waldorf Inspired program (LWIP) not to mention the other teacher and staff cuts mentioned above. No wonder she didn't bother to show up at our candidate's comment evening a few weeks ago.

Look out Montessori, Open and Middle School teachers, students and families. LWIP is the canary in the coal mine. If Richard and Denise are re-elected teachers will get ever growing class sizes, declining instructional support, eroding pay and our children, nephews, nieces and grandchildren will become just another statistic on a spreadsheet, a cost to be minimized.

It's official: Bohman and Sloan endorse one another

It's perplexing how two trustees who sit not only on opposite sides of the table but on most District issues would endorse one another. Yet, that is what they did at tonight's candidate forum.

The forum was organized and run by a fantastic group of 8th grade students (with guidance from their teachers) from the Middle School. A fine model of engaged citizenship if ever there was one. Too bad the board is considering cutting one of the Middle School teachers when two of the current teachers retire.

Marin Peace and Justice Coalition endorsed my candidacy

This evening the Marin Peace and Justice Coalition endorsed my candidacy for the Lagunitas School Board. Their endorsement appears at the MPJC website.

A lot of damage to our school in just 1 year

I just returned from meeting the Marin Parents for Public Montessori (I admire that their name includes the word "public") meeting where the parent are struggling to be heard by the board. They have seen a big cut in the number of instructional aide hours and the District has assigned aides that don't meet their needs because they are not available at opportune times, do not know their children or the program.

The program parents voted to pay for more aide time out of their own precious parent pledge funds. I hope the two incumbents who joined me heard them. Yet, considering how both Denise and Richard spent nearly all their time touting their great deeds only Richard responded to the parents by repeating the need for what they just voted to do.

The District cut aide time District-wide by 75% in the past two years (although it has restored some this year). This has not only increased the workload and stress of our teachers (I volunteer on Monday mornings so the 2nd/3rd grade Waldorf teacher can go to the bathroom) but is subtly shifting the burden to pay for teachers to us parents. According to California court precedent it is unconstitutional to require parents to pay for their children's "public" education.

At the Q and A last week with the two District unions Denise denied any money is being spent on teachers. This decision tonight demonstrates either that she is mis-informed or mis-informing.

However, the refrain from both the incumbents is that "everyone knows me" but "no one knows Robert Ovetz." I know they both graduated from high school and college a long time ago (Denise does not credit herself as having ever attended college) but a google search on the internet for "Robert Ovetz" is quite straight forward to do. I have a long record of working and advocating on behalf of the public interest, the public sector and the environment—including 3 years in Forest Knolls.

It may have taken the incumbents nearly 50 years to build up our amazing programs but look at the damage they have caused in the past year, just 1 year.

An alliance of convenience?

Incumbent Richard Sloan reportedly showed up this morning at the Lagunitas Waldorf parent's fundraising committee to announce his new alliance with fellow incumbent Denise Santa Cruz Bohman.

If this report is accurate, it is curious that Richard would ally himself with his fellow Trustee Denise who not only sits on the entirely opposite side of him at board meetings (Richard to the left and Denise to the right) but often votes against him on issues ranging from killing the Larsen Creek restoration project to axing the Waldorf Inspired program by pink slipping two of its three core teachers last Winter.

It's clear what Denise's principles are but what are Richard's? 

Politics makes strange bedfellows indeed.

Why is incumbent Richard Sloan promoting charter schools?

Thanks to a recent huge tax break for Wall Street speculators hoping to get a cut of public education known as the New Markets Tax Credit, charter schools with big money financiers have been on the rise. Charter schools have been finally getting some press for their scandalous operations that drain money from under-funded public schools while skimming off the best students to rig their test results. Since many are outside of local school district oversight and management and have banned teachers unions, in effect, they get public money without any of the public accountability.

The same threat is starting to rear its ugly head here in the Valley.

Last year, long-time incumbent Richard Sloan advised parents in the Waldorf Inspired program (which my daughter attends) by email that we should threaten to split off into a charter school if the District cuts went through. This email got out a few days later and led the teachers union to call for his resignation. At about the same time he was advising the West Marin Alternatives in Education group on how to carve out their own charter school in West Marin.

Although Sloan professes to support "cooperation" and "collaboration" between parents from all the programs and the administration and faculty his words do not seem to match his actions. The parents in one of the programs realized this and has banned him from parent meetings. While he did tremendous work helping to set up the Open Classroom program in the 1970s, has made invaluable contributions to our District, and professes to support our innovative parent choice model, his push for charter schools is actually undermining our public schools.

Now that he's up for re-election he needs to speak frankly about whether he supports backdoor privatization of our public school district through charters.

Why does incumbent Denise Santa Cruz Bohman oppose the right of parents, teachers and staff to speak?

The answer, according to the question and answer session in which we appeared before the District's faculty and staff unions this past Wednesday, is not Denise Santa Cruz Bohman.

At that meeting I recalled that nearly the entire board had their eyes and ears closed to dozens of parents from all 3 elementary programs who packed every Board meeting last Winter and Spring to protest cuts being promoted by the board that would have killed the Waldorf Inspired program (which my daughter attends).

Taking time off from her knitting long enough to participate, incumbent Denise Santa Cruz Bohman chided parents who packed the board meetings and suggested we stop and try to handle these things one on one behind closed doors. Afterall, Denise assured us that she does all her advocacy quietly, one on one with important people.

One wonders how someone with so little faith in the democratic process would bother running for an elected position at all. Why not just get yourself appointed by one's friends with a handshake in a private meeting?

Another loan from Wall Street but still no pay increases for our teachers?

At the Tuesday, September 20th board meeting the District proposed no pay increases for our teachers for the fourth straight year and ratified a controversial new contract with the staff. However, the administration budget documents show a reserve fund of $920,131 or 29.05% when the state mandated reserve is only 5%. Clearly, the money is there to at least reward our hard working teachers and staff especially when their salaries are being eaten away by inflation and class sizes and workloads are rising. Apparently, the board doesn't think so.

In fact, the early signs were present this evening that the board is giving the administration the go ahead to begin the process of preparing for another huge estimated $4-6 million bond measure for expected upgrades and repairs of the campuses. The problem is that bonds are never as they appear. By the end of the 20 or 30 year life of the bond the borrower ends up paying twice as much due to accumulated interest. Bonds lock in the borrower to paying the creditor first before all other necessities—even our children. It would be much cheaper to raise the taxes paid by the super-rich on their property in the Valley to pay for these upgrades in real dollars without having to further indebting the District to Wall Street.

Surprisingly, the administration noted that the District is still repaying the bond measure that passed in 1995 but didn't know either the correct year, the original debt or how much the District has repaid and still needs to pay. One would think they would know this information considering the administration is making the push for further debt.

It leaves me wondering who really runs this District, the board of trustees or the administration. When the administration raised the issue of the bond measure at the August meeting the board said they would take it up later. However, at the Sept. 20th meeting the administration announced that they had already begun meeting with consultants and contractors. Rather than admonish them for going off on their own without prior approval from the board two of the trustees praised them for pursuing it now because they claimed construction costs are down. 

And it was only a few short months ago that the administration told us we were in a dire crisis. Until the parent uprising that forced them to back off, they claimed we needed to lay off two teachers, kill one of the elementary school programs, eliminate the crossing guard, and cut the bus service, special education, instructional assistants, custodial and maintenance staff, and the school lunch program.

“The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman” reminds me why we need to defend our public small school choice model

The new documentary “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman” documents the backdoor privatization of NYC's public schools under the guise of "accountability" and advocates for many of the very principles of parent involvement, equitable public funding, small class size, experienced dynamic and unionized teachers that we take pride in at Lagunitas.

I fear for how the last year of a manufactured crisis, pink slips, proposals to cut services, backlash against environmental education, push to make our school more "efficient," calls for spinning off our Waldorf program into a charter school, and the quiet return of high stakes standardized testing into our curriculum are putting us right on course for the same dismantling of our school as is happening across the country.

To order a copy of the film go to http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/ and keep an eye out for the screening I am planning soon.

The terror of budget cuts

Imagine not knowing if your child's elementary school program will even exist by the end of the summer.

Imagine your child not knowing what will happen to her, her classmates, and her teachers.

That's what the 50 children of the Lagunitas Elementary School Waldorf Inspired Program went through for most of the Spring months. It took many months to fight back a wrongheaded proposal to lay off two of the 3 full-time teachers in my daughter's program. Not knowing where my daughter would go to school in a couple of months time was a form of terror—a terror that our program would be axed and her education disrupted.

But we weren't alone. Others were facing draconian cuts across the District.

The Lagunitas board handed over responsibility to the superintendent and budget director to come up with an all cuts budget for 2011-2012. When the budget was proposed it included no projected revenue. What it did include were cruel cuts to special education, the elimination of the school lunch program and bus service, and classrooms bursting at the seams. The already understaffed teachers were being asked to take on more children at the same stagnant pay that has remained unchanged for years.

All of this to meet an projected budget shortfall in 3 years—if revenues remain unchanged.

This was a classic case of a manufactured crisis.
 
Not one single idea about how to increase revenues was ever seriously considered let alone proposed. Over and over again we heard about how the last parcel tax—which is a temporary regressive band aid that has already proven inadequate—barely passed. The board president even claimed that "there is no more money out there." The board members seemed to be more worried about getting re-elected than protecting the education of the children.

About a month later, after many meetings packed by angry parents—the District staff finally projected increased property tax revenues and most—but not all—the cuts were rescinded.

This experience demonstrated to me that the current president of the board lacks the ability to lead. Instead, she handed over responsibility for solving this "crisis" to the District staff—a responsibility of the board that she is supposed to be leading.

While arguing why it was her turn to be president, she had promised her colleagues last Fall that this would be a her last year on the board. She broke that promise when she announced she would run again. That's why I'm running. Its time for new leadership.

The people of the Valley have worked hard for more than 3 decades to build this model elementary school. Many of my neighbors attended our school, sent their children here, and watched their grandchildren graduate. We can't let it be dismantled because of an ideological dogma that refuses to find the needed revenues to educate our children.

I will be announcing my Save Our School—Tax the Rich plan soon. It will do exactly what the current board president refused to do—generate a long-term solution to the revenue shortfall our district faces by making the necessary changes to ensure that everyone pays their fair share. The free ride is over.