No Unforeseen Circumstances at WESD

As an active parent in the Washington Elementary School District, I am still dazed and confused by The Republic’s editorial on July 28. My first reaction was that WESD had strong-armed the paper into a retraction of the previous Lori Baker article. But in reading the overview of the board meeting in which citizens tried to voice their concerns, I’m sure the district is as upset with the inaccuracies as I am, although for different reasons.

What continues to bother me about The Republic’s articles is that they constantly give the illusion that the district needs funds for “unforeseen circumstances, like Proposition 203.” I’m sorry, this simply is not true. Proposition 203 provides general guidelines for immersion of English-learning students into English-only classrooms. It does not require significant changes in WESD schools.

Proposition 203 did not set standards for reduced class sizes, specify when aides are needed or require five facilitators (at $70,000-plus per year) to monitor the new program — all part of the district’s proposed changes. It is the district’s choice to formulate programs that increased costs. Even the two court cases the district constantly refers to as support for the program do not require these WESD improvements.

The WESD board has increased desegregation funds each of the past three years to $5 million to $6 million. Any private-sector investment requires benchmarks to show success. There is no reason for the public to believe that another $1.5 million is going to have any beneficial effect on our English Language Learner population when we have no evidence that prior expenditures have produced successes. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, even the government does not seem to have any required outcomes for districts that chose to use this funding source.

To allude that Prop. 203 will have a negative financial impact does not make sense in the Washington district. We have only two bilingual schools, and my understanding is they are still bilingual. The other 30 schools have had pullout programs or classroom aides assigned to ELL students. Our district says pullouts don’t work, but many studies show improvements when students receive one-on-one or small-group instruction. Shifting students into regular classrooms for language instruction does not raise cost. No law requires the class-size changes and personnel increases WESD is making. Until the Legislature’s education committees make recommendations leading to laws, the changes are a choice to increase taxes, not a need.

I also take issue with the comments about the budget council. Administrators and board members run this council. Parents and teachers are representatives on the committee but are privy only to the information they are given. When the budget council adjourned for the summer, it had prepared a balanced budget (for the first time in four years) and sent it to the board for approval. It was approved. No mention was made to the council that a need was on the horizon. The flier that was sent home with students (not a mass mailing as you indicated) never mentioned increased costs. The April board meeting you mention outlined the district’s new plan for English learners as prepared by a district ad hoc committee. Nowhere in the plan are increased costs mentioned.

It wasn’t until the board meeting at the end of May (after school was out) that the district’s new administrative plan, including increased costs, was unveiled. Why didn’t the administrators in charge reconvene the council for “unforeseen circumstances”? To blame the council is unfair to the diligent members who spend hours wading through district rhetoric.

So I ask The Republic: Have you acquired a copy of the WESD ELL program (including costs) that was presented to the board at the end of May? Do you have a copy of the legislative study the district used to justify the “needs”? Have you contacted the legislative education committees to see what is required and what legislation is pending? Tell the taxpayers the truth as to what is a need and what is an opportunity to increase funding in the wake of the passage of a controversial law. If you can show that these program changes are necessary, with discernable outcomes, the voters may rally for the district and not penalize our children’s schools by defeating the November 2001 bond election.



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