As we covered in District Deeds here: http://wp.me/p4LD0L-4J and here:http://wp.me/p4LD0L-cA ….the frantic, panicked and ill-advised budget balancing decision by inexperienced  Elementary School Superintendent Cindy Marten, who has virtually NO large school district budgeting credentials, to actively recommend to  remove English Language Support Teachers (ELST) from some of the neediest school sites has egregiously harmed thousands of English Language Learner (ELL) students and families in the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) in this 2014/2015 school year.

As outlined in the blog posts provided, the royal command by Monarch Marten occurred on June 9, 2014…over 6 months ago.  Since then, District Deeds has discovered that there has been virtually NO EQUIVALENT SUPPORTS for the individual Students and Families at the vast majority of school sites that had their ELST removed.

In fact, there have been many schools who actually HAVE SPENT ONLY A FRACTION of the Title 1 funds allocated to the removed ELST’s at their sites due to the ripple effect in the administration of the ill-fated Marten decision…along with hazy direction and authorization to spend the funds by the incompetent Marten

The rookie Marten, with her total lack of experience, did not understand the INNER ADMINISTRATIVE workings of the district that limited the Human Resource, Finance and Budgeting protocols and processes that HAD TO BE COMPLETELY REALIGNED to remove and reassign the 1 headcount from each school site…including the targeted ELST’s.  This inner administrative process has taken virtually MONTHS to resolve and has irrevocably taken away 5 months of learning opportunities for those ELL students affected.

WHAT WE DID NOT KNOW – ALL SCHOOL SITES WERE SCREWED!

What we did not know is that by removing the one headcount, MARTEN EFFECTIVELY ELIMINATED THE 2014/2015 “SINGLE PLAN FOR STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT”…the roadmap for student achievement strategies for individual SDUSD Schools!

All the hours spent by SSC’s to create and review the SPSA.

All the hours spent by the teachers, parents and community members to come up with and vote for effective strategies for the students in their school.

All the hours spent by Principals to compile the plan in a coherent and actionable document.

In ALL the schools with Title 1 funds in the SDUSD.

ALL THEIR EFFORT WAS WASTED!

So much for “Site Based Decision Making”.

According to Principals, Teachers, District and Site Staff, the direction by Marten was vague…in the opinion of District Deeds, INTENTIONALLY vague because Marten doesn’t know what she is doing.

She told some Principals:  “Use the 2013/2014 SPSA”

She told other Principals: “Hold on…we are coming up with a new SPSA form to align with (pick one):

• Common Core
• The WASC
• The 2020 Vision
• The Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP)

In other words Marten demanded they:

Use an outdated plan that had obsolete, nonexistent or undefined components without the clear SDUSD approval to spend the money to even implement them.

Meanwhile, from August, 2014 through January 2015, ALL the schools were floundering with her total lack of direction and ALL those thousands of students were losing educational opportunities.

And if a principal or administrator or teacher or any other SDUSD employee pressed her too much on giving them REAL direction?

Well…

We all know what happens when you do that to Marten…

Ask former Principals from Lincoln High School or SCPA – See: http://wp.me/p4LD0L-1o

Or the former Principal from Field Elementary – See: http://wp.me/p4LD0L-52

Or any of the OVER 90 PRINCIPALS MARTEN HAS REPLACED SINCE SHE WAS APPOINTED AS SUPERINTENDENT LESS THAN 2 YEARS AGO.

That is, if you can find them.

Marten’s unspoken message to Principals: AGREE AND FOLLOW ME BLINDLY…OR LOSE YOUR JOB.

That’s Leadership by Marten!

Or should that be

“That’s Leadership by Marten?

So what did ALL those Title 1 schools get in return for the loss of the headcount and the thousands of dollars left unspent?

A poster on Voice of San Diego (Link: http://voiceofsandiego.org/2015/01/27/scott-barnett-vs-san-diego-unified-is-the-least-surprising-fight-ever/), and a reader of District Deeds described it well from her observation at a recent SDUSD School Board Meeting

.”Metrics that go with it”…”reaching our indicators”…”launches a community dialog”…”larger community conversations”…”formative assessment indicators”…”equitable across the system”…”focusing on implementation”…”collaborative conversations led by intentionality”..”sense of advocacy”…”creates the whole child”.

A lot of edu-babble and indecipherable rhetoric by Marten to cover up her incompetence and total inability to manage the complex components needed to do the job as Superintendent of the 7^th largest school district in the United States.

Lots of talk and theory while student education suffers.

No matter how good this “New Age” education theory by Marten ultimately turns out to be…ALL our students have lost almost 2 years of education since she has taken over.

The SDUSD deserves better than that.

The taxpayers deserve better than that.

The Students require better than that

We must DEMAND better than that!

Marten must resign for the betterment of the SDUSD, the Taxpayers and especially the students.

Marten must go.

It doesn’t get any better than that!