Wednesday, March 21, 2012

A small group of parents in our Waldorf Inspired Program plan to submit a petition to split off our program into a charter

This week a small group of self-selected parents in our Lagunitas Waldorf Inspired Program (LWIP) publicly informed the Board and San Geronimo Valley that they plan to submit a petition at the next Board meeting on Tuesday, April 17 to split off our program into a charter school. Only this month did they announce to us fellow parents in the program that they have been quietly working on the petition for about a year. My daughter is a student in the LWIP program.

Because this group of parents have refused my request to let me read the petition, preliminary budget, feasibility study, and consultant contract(s) and refuse to release it to anyone outside their small circle we don't yet know what their proposal looks like and if it even has the support of the parents in our program.

Although there were 2 recent parent meetings held to announce their plan no agenda was distributed announcing this critical issue in advance. Unfortunately, I missed the meetings due to a family obligation and having to teach. Yet, the only document shared with my fellow parents at those meetings was a short memo dated March 4, 2012 announcing their plan to file a petition. According to the memo and a March 20, 2012 email, this group of parents have been working with undisclosed consultants on this petition for about 1 year.

At tonight's board meeting I asked that the board consider requesting a broader range of documents than listed in the board policy. When Trustee Steve Rebscher asked me if I had any concerns I explained that I was concerned that this process is proceeding in an un-transparent manner. I explained that I had requested to see these documents but was denied them. At that moment I was interrupted by fellow LWIP parent Matt Andrews who yelled at me from across the room that I was a "liar". However, the following emails clearly demonstrate who was telling the truth. It was Matt who refused to share the documents with me.

Although this petition is supposedly being written on my and my fellow parents (not to mention our kids) behalf I have no idea what it says, who is being paid to write it, and what the contract with them says.

More to come...

-----

On 3/15/12 9:08 AM, Matt Andrews wrote:
> Hi Robert,
> Unfortunately we are not ready to hand this info to the Waldorf parent body, Administration, Board or the community at large yet. Everyone will have plenty of time to go over and digest the material before the public hearing on the Charter that the Board has to set within 30 days of receiving the petition. Let me know when we can get together.
> Matt
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 5:19 PM, robert ovetz wrote:
>
> Hi Matt,
>
> I would be happy to meet with you but I am also asking the see the drafts so I can make an informed decision as a parent in the program. I would appreciate it if you would send me the current drafts of the budget, feasibility study and the petition. This is critical information for me to be fully informed participant.
>
> Also, could you please tell me the name of the consultants and send me a copy of the contracts that the AC has signed with them.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Robert
>
>
> On 3/12/12 4:41 PM, Matt Andrews wrote:
>> Hi Robert,
>> We are working on the final budget and getting the petition finished up right now. When this stuff is complete we will present it to the program parents. We did have a couple of informational meetings with the parent body. I didn't see you there so I imagine you would like some info. I would be happy to sit down with you and fill you in on what's going on. Let me know what works for you. We could do it after drop off one morning.
>> I don't have the email addresses to the AC linked to this account so I just want to give you a heads up that I will be copying and pasting this email in my other email account and cc'ing them on it.
>> Speak to you soon,
>> Matt
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 3:38 PM, robert ovetz wrote:
>>
>> Hi Matt,
>>
>> I understand you are the person to ask for these from. I would like to see these please.
>>
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Robert
>>
>> --
>> robert ovetz, ph.d.
>>
>>
>> earth
>>
>> "they marched with staves and music"
>>
> --
> robert ovetz, ph.d.
>
>
> earth
>
> "they marched with staves and music"
>
--
robert ovetz, ph.d.


earth

"they marched with staves and music"

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