Tags
San Diego Unified Board of Education, San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten, SDUSD CFO Gamy Rayburn
Here are some interesting articles District Deeds received and discovered during the past week…
ENJOY!
L.A. Unified diverts funding for neediest student, report charges – EdSource
Quote from Article:
“Los Angeles Unified has steered additional money to high schools with large concentrations of disadvantaged students over the past three years, but failed to do so for elementary schools, a report released Monday concluded. For those schools, the district ignored the requirement of the Local Control Funding Formula to direct extra resources and establish effective programs in schools with low-income students, foster youths, homeless students and English learners, which the law defines as high-needs students.”
District Deeds Synopsis:
Given the large increase of funds from California over the last 4 years since San Diego Unified Superintendent Cindy Marten was appointed and the corresponding decrease in support to the neediest of students, it appears that the SAME misuse of LCFF resources could be occurring in the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD),
Maybe UCSD or San Diego State along with the United Way of San Diego could fund a similar study for all of the SDUSD Students.
That is unless the “cross-pollination” between these educational and non-profit organizations prevent a similar study to be done.
Or maybe even better, the San Diego County Office of Education could financially and operationally audit San Diego Unified in the wake of the current $124 million Budget Deficit Scandal to be sure that funds have NOT been improperly diverted to cover the Marten financial mismanagement disaster that they had already warned the SDUSD about in November.
After all, it wouldn’t be the first time the SDUSD violated federal spending guidelines.
The NEW SDUSD CFO Gamy Rayburn had a problem with Federal funds when she worked in the SDUSD back in 2008 according to a Voice of San Diego article titled : “How San Diego Unified Will Repay … Itself”:
“San Diego Unified will repay its own federally funded education programs nearly $700,000 by billing less money from those programs for overhead during this and the next two school years, Chief Financial Officer James Masias said Tuesday. The repayments are part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Education after the school district was found to have inappropriately charged federal funds earmarked for child nutrition, disadvantaged students and other purposes more than $3 million in costs for its last “golden handshake,” a bonus to encourage veteran employees to leave in 2003.
“We needed to get prior approval (from the federal government) for it to be a valid charge,” said Gamy Rayburn, who oversees budgeting in the school district. “That is what we failed to do.””
District Deeds wonders how much “prior approval” has been ignored while trying to fill the huge 124 million dollar hole in the current SDUSD budget.
_________
“Turn it off right now!” – Study shows that as children’s screen time goes up, their grades fall. – Great Schools
Quote from Article:
“What effect does all this screen time have on kids’ academics? Many parents and experts have suspected that the effects aren’t good and now there’s hard evidence to prove it. A three-year research project, known as “The Learning Habit Study,” identified a direct link between screen time and declining grades.
Think this study only pertains to young screen addicts? Hardly. Even just half an hour of screen time a day caused grades to fall. Four hours of screen time a day caused kids’ GPAs to fall by an entire grade. (This seems like a lot until you consider that American kids average seven hours of screen time per day.)”
District Deeds Synopsis:
Interesting article that includes a link to a study showing the impact of Student usage of devices. If excess usage of devices has proven to lower grades and actual learning, District Deeds wonders what all the online credit recover class”screen time”, imposed upon Students to improve graduation rate by SDUSD leadership, actually lowers real learning and is a barrier to preparing them for life after graduation.
_________
The Quiet Wave of School District Secessions – Since 1986, 47 school districts have splintered off to create their own whiter and wealthier districts. – U.S News and World Report
Quote from Article:
“In total, 30 states have a process in place allowing districts to secede, according to a legislative analysis by researchers at EdBuild, who are preparing to publish a report on secessions next month. Of those 30 states, only 17 require consideration be given to the secession’s impact on students, and only six require consideration be given to the impact on socioeconomic factors and diversity. Moreover, only nine states require a study of the potential fiscal impact to the district.
“Said another way, in 21 states school districts can secede in order to create massive differences in school funding without there needing to be any remediation,” Sibilia says. “As you start to look at the detail related to secession policies, you start to realize that this is actually something that’s very permissible in several states.””
District Deeds Synopsis:
This article caught our interest due to rumors of interest within some of the wealthier SDUSD clusters north of Highway 8 to gain independence from the SDUSD clusters with the highest poverty rates.
One could say that the SDUSD 2020 propaganda of a “quality school in every neighborhood” being enforced by slowly eliminating busing this year for the poorest students, the Board of Education approving special “agreements” with wealthier SDUSD clusters and 3 of the 5 Board of Education Trustees elected by areas north of highway 8, this premonition of secession within the SDUSD is becoming a reality.
For the record, District Deeds is opposed to secession and for our readers who agree we dedicate the following quote:
If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately. – Benjamin Franklin
Have a great week!!!
_______________________________________________________
IF
- Your family has been injured by the San Diego Unified School District, go to the District Deeds Complaint Forms page to find instructions to fight for your Civil Rights!
- YOU ARE TIRED OF THE COVER UPS AND LIES BY SUPT. CINDY MARTEN…
Please Click the Link Below and sign the Petition Today and READ the COMMENTS to Support the REMOVAL of Marten by SDUSD Stakeholders!
FIRE San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten Immediately!
- You want to be sure you don’t miss an issue of District Deeds, click the “follow” button below and you will get an email automatically when an article is published on District Deeds.
District Deeds 
Another informative blog, thank you District Deeds! As a former SDUSD student, long time resident of Logan Heights and a parent, I can attest to the fact that low income neighborhoods have been neglected by this district. It is especially worrisome that for the past three decades our district has been moving further into politics by increasingly acquiescing to the every whim of the teachers union and to parents in more affluent neighborhoods. The State has compounded the academic and financial inequity against students named under LCFF regulations by not intervening in a timely manner. A visit to any parent advisory committee in the district is a clear example of how the lack of oversight has allowed these committees to be anything but representative of the district student population.
LikeLike