Our friend at the Contra Costa Times, Theresa Harrington, has provided an explanation of what happens when the state takes over a school district on her blog.
She'll also be blogging and tweeting tonight about a local school meeting with MDUSD Superintendent Steven Lawrence. Mount Diablo Elementary in Clayton, one of the largest elementary schools in the district, is one of the schools looking for a new Principal. Word is that Dr. Lawrence and MDUSD Asst Superintendent, Gail Isserman will be at MDE to talk with parents, and the school community, and to get their input on the qualities wanted in a new Principal at the school.
http://www.ibabuzz.com/hayword/2010/06/30/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-state-receivership/
ReplyDeleteThese excerpts from an article by one of Theresa's colleagues
"A state loan will be much larger than what the district would otherwise need to borrow locally if it had been able to solve its own fiscal crisis. Therefore, a district that receives a state loan needs to make more expenditure cuts and/or take longer to pay the loan back."
-- this means deeper cuts than if the district had not gone into receivership
"The State Administrator cannot set aside any contractual obligations that the district has already entered into, including vendor contracts and bargaining unit contracts, without renegotiating them. If modifying provisions of these contracts is critical to gaining fiscal solvency, the State Administrator has the power to invoke the timelines available in the contracts or by law, including the ability to use the impasse/ factfinding process to unilaterally impose changes in collective bargaining agreements."
-- note the state administrator has the power to unilaterally impose changes to collective bargaining agreements under certain conditions.
Does it get rid of the current board? If so it might be something worth considering.
ReplyDeletethe board stays, it just becomes powerless (as you and i are) and can only give input when requested. same for the superintendent. keep in mind, the payback will be horrendous. if you're in doubt look at what used to be Richmond Unified (now West Contra Costa) and what they went through to pay off thier 'loan'. the only way that this can be a 'solution' is if LA Unified and San Diego Unified go under - then the state can either go bankrupt or solve the problem some other way.
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