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San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten, SDUSD Trustee Richard Barrera
SDUSD Coronavirus Education Mirage List
After 45 lost instructional days (25 days of delay and 20 days of no accountability/substandard education), here are the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Fantasyland educational “standards” being represented by incompetent Elementary School Superintendent Cindy Marten and backed by the corrupt School Board led by Richard “Tricky Dick” Barrera:
- ZERO planning input or involvement allowed from Parent, Guardian, Student or Community Stakeholders.
- ALL Parent, Guardian, Student and Community Stakeholders are to blame for any failures
- No District, State or Federal Testing to measure amount of educational erosion
- No uniform, published, enforced Teacher performance standards – According to SDUSD/SDEA MOU , no disciplinary action can be taken during this Sandimic.
- No Class Scheduling standards…decisions left up to individual School/Teacher
- No meaningful Student grading – grades can only go up.
- No Student or Teacher attendance standards
- No verified/audited/published financial plan for thousands of frantically distributed Chromebook Laptops and Hotspots to Students including associated financial risk.
- No verified/audited/published Computer/Internet access reports for ALL Students by standard socioeconomic category.
- No verified/audited/published class logon or participation reports for ALL Students by standard socioeconomic category.
- No verified/audited/published plan or attempt to make up lost instructional days.
The SDUSD SANDIMIC!!!
PDF Link to List: Coronavirus Education Mirage List 5-10-20
As an ongoing feature especially for the Coronavirus Pandemic, we will begin to show the progress, or total lack thereof, of the SDUSD leadership via relevant LOCAL news articles by LOCAL Reporters (if available) that focus on the SDUSD Sandimic.
Below is an interesting LOCAL article and other information we received and discovered this past week regarding the Coronavirus impact to K-12 education…
BE WELL…TAKE COVID 19 PRECAUTIONS!
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San Diego Schools Can’t Reopen Without More Money, Officials Say
Students won’t be able to return safely to classrooms this fall unless schools get significantly more funding from the federal government, say district officials across the county and state.
San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest district with about 102,000 students, may need 20 to 30 percent more funding than it is getting now to reopen next school year, said Richard Barrera, vice president of the San Diego Unified school board.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced several proposed state budget cuts due to revenue shortfalls caused by the pandemic.
Newsom’s budget means California schools would lose 8 percent of the base funding they’re getting this year, said Mike Simonson, deputy superintendent for the San Diego County Office of Education. That’s a 10 percent cut to what schools were supposed to receive in the next school year.
And…
San Diego County public schools overall would lose more than a half-billion dollars in revenue, or about $1,100 per student, Simonson said.
The superintendents of six of California’s largest school districts, including San Diego Unified, told state leaders in a letter Monday that it’s “not realistic” they will be able to safely reopen in the fall with state cuts.
If schools don’t get more federal funding, students will have to continue distance learning for all of next school year — only, it will be distance learning with budget cuts, Barrera said.
“It would be a lesser version of what we’re doing now, and what we’re doing now is extremely stressful for students, parents, teachers and staff,” Barrera said.
And…
The potential state budget cuts would come at a time when schools need significantly more money than they were already getting this year.
In order to reopen, schools will need to pay for more cleaning supplies, masks for students and employees, and more staff.
Schools may need to hire more nurses to monitor student and staff health, more custodians to clean classrooms more frequently, and more teachers to lower class sizes enough to allow for physical distancing.
And…
The only thing that can save schools now is the federal government, officials say. The state has limited resources, but Newsom said some of his proposed cuts can be canceled if the federal government comes through with enough funding.
The House passed a $3 trillion stimulus package last week, which would provide $90 billion for public K-12 schools, colleges and universities. That’s the “absolute bare minimum” level of funding Barrera says San Diego schools would need to reopen, but far less than what many leading education groups are calling for.
What’s more, the bill faces strong opposition in the Republican-led Senate.
And…
If the federal government wants the economy to reopen, then it has to invest in schools, Barrera said. Many families won’t be able to return to work if they don’t have anybody to watch or teach their children. Public schools also are some of states’ largest employers.
“If schools don’t have the federal money that we need to safely reopen, it means we’re not gonna physically reopen. And if schools don’t physically reopen, how does the economy reopen?” Barrera said.
And…
Understaffed
San Diego Unified is hoping to let students attend school every weekday next school year instead of having students attend school only part of the week in a hybrid education model, Barrera said.
Students who wish to learn from home because of health concerns would be able to continue full-time distance learning, he added.
But to do that, the district will have to fix what Barrera says has been a chronic understaffing of employees such as nurses, counselors and teachers.
To reopen safely, every school would need a full-time nurse to monitor the health of students and staff, Barrera said.
Yet San Diego Unified nurses’ duties are currently split among as many as three schools in a week, according to the district’s contract with its teachers’ union. A San Diego school gets a full-time nurse if it has at least 2,367 students enrolled, and schools with 592 or fewer students get a nurse just one day a week.
Kisha Borden, president of San Diego Unified’s teachers union, said teachers have reported that their classrooms are cleaned as infrequently as once every four days, so the district needs to hire more custodians.
And…
To reopen, class sizes would have to be lowered so that students can be distanced apart from each other. That means classrooms may have to be set up in other spaces on campus, such as parking lots, auditoriums and playing fields, Barrera said.
Current COVID guidelines for child care providers say there should be no more than 10 children in the same room and no more than 10 children per teacher.
Yet California’s average class sizes range from 22 students for kindergarten to 27 students for sixth grade, according to the California Department of Education. In San Diego Unified, class sizes can reach up to 36 students, according to its teachers union contract.
“We’ve never had enough nurses, we’ve never had enough counselors in schools. Our class sizes have always been too big. That’s always been the case going back 40 years,” Barrera said.
Barrera said there is understaffing because California schools have long been underfunded.
And…
California’s per-student funding has lagged behind the national average for decades, and the state’s per-student funding was 13 percent lower than the national average in 2015, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Meanwhile, costs such as pension and special education have risen in recent years, leading many school districts to spend above their means even before the pandemic.
“The kind of underfunding that’s existed for years — that’s always been a problem, but now it’s a problem that prohibits schools from safely reopening,” Barrera said. “We just can’t live on the cheap when public health guidelines won’t allow it.”
There will be a board workshop in the second week of June to discuss reopening plans and to hear public input, Barrera said.
District Deeds Synopsis:
We want to thank the San Diego Union Tribune and especially Reporter KRISTEN TAKETA for delivering ALL the key components of the latest financial and legal SCAM by corrupt Board of Education Trustee Richard “Tricky Dick’ Barrera and incompetent Elementary School Superintendent Cindy Marten.
We give Ms. Taketa a lot of credit.
It is extremely difficult for any reporter to sort out the many lies, exaggerations and half-truths spewed from the mouth of a politician as unethical as Tricky Dick Barrera.
Here is the letter from the “superintendents of six of California’s largest school districts”:
The primary argument in the letter for BILLIONS of Taxpayer dollars MORE is the following:
However, the cuts for the 2020-21 budget come at a time when we are being asked to do more – not less – to deliver a quality education for students.
The dystopic “solution” signed by ESS Marten and promoted by Tricky Dick Barrera?
A very simple 2 step plan.
Step #1: Gather money:
- Take away funds for the neediest Students
- Create MORE TAXES via a “utility surcharge”
- Throw all the accumulated revenue into a centralized pile of money to be spent any way that the Districts decide.
Step #2: Aggressively remove Educational Standards, accountability and transparency from the District while stripping away legal rights of all SDUSD Stakeholders, especially Students and Employees, for three more years (through 2023-24) minimum.
- Strip legal protections from Students and Staff who contract Covid 19 of lawsuits and other legal protections against the SDUSD when the current incompetent ESS Marten and Tricky Dick inevitably blunder into larger widespread infections.
- Remove all oversight or standards “in the use of the $4.4 billion federal funds for summer school and reopening of school campuses”.
- Remove all oversight or standards to any and all “additional fiscal and programmatic” standards “through at least 2023-24, including:”
o “Suspend new mandates imposed by laws signed into law in 2019.”
o “Authorize school districts to earn average daily attendance (ADA) using a three-year rolling average of ADA.”
o “Authorize school districts to earn funding for excused absences related to COVID-19.”
o “Authorize short-term independent study for less than five consecutive days.”
o “Suspend the statutory requirements related to class size reductions.”
o “Delay instructional material adoptions and implementation of curriculum frameworks until 2022-23 school year.”
o “Authorize school districts to deposit fund balances and revenues from developer fees into the General Fund (rather than being restricted for facilities only).”
Let’s be clear…IF this educationally dysfunctional request is fully approved, the following District Deeds summary is true:
Step #1: Gather money:
- The fiscally irresponsible SDUSD, that has created massive budget deficits while producing horrible educational results for the neediest Students during the current Marten/Barrera unholy alliance, will be provided an additional HUGE pool of money to spend while avoiding all financial/legal transparency, responsibility and/or risk for the next 3 years AT LEAST.
Meanwhile…
Step #2: Aggressively remove Educational Standards, accountability and transparency from the District while stripping away legal rights of all SDUSD Stakeholders, especially Students and Employees, for three more years (through 2023-24) minimum.
- Teachers, Students, and all Stakeholders can become infected and die from Covid 19 due to horrible senior leadership with no legal recourse.
- FULL ADA is received on a 3 year average instead of ACTUAL annual data in order to be paid MORE money for LESS Students and enable continued raises and bonuses to incompetent personal and political cronies.
- FULL ADA for Absent Students the district infected with Covid 19 through poor operational practices.
- Expand “independent study” while suspending “statutory requirements related to class size reductions” enabling full staffing cost revenue from the State/Fed while reducing actual real time educational support to Students.
- In the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic where EXTRA educational improvement and creativeness is absolutely required, STOP ALL “instructional material adoptions and implementation of curriculum frameworks until 2022-23 school year.”
- Allow the SDUSD to launder money from “fund balances and revenues from developer fees into the General Fund” instead of being “restricted for facilities only”…very similar to the current practice of the SDUSD laundering money from various budget categories to pay for continued raises and bonuses to incompetent personal and political cronies.
A recent map by “Open the Books“ in Zip Code 92103 provides a list of the “SDUSD Over $90k Club” from 2017. This is an old list…salaries have been substantially and improperly increased for Marten/Barrera cronies since then.
Remember…when we talk about continued raises and bonuses to incompetent personal and political cronies we mean only a portion of the “SDUSD Over $90k Club” that got their job with no skills and just by sucking up and pledging fealty to the corrupt Marten/Barrera cabal, NOT the MANY SDUSD former and current SDUSD employees that EARNED their salary by dedication, hard work and excellent performance.
Many of those highly skilled/highly paid employees on the list HAVE QUIT since 2017 and moved to more ethical employers.
We leave it up to our readers to determine whether the individuals listed are worth the money they are getting paid.
Finally we need to address the self incriminating statements and lies by Tricky Dick Barrera regarding staffing.
Quoting Barrera in the UT article.
“The kind of underfunding that’s existed for years — that’s always been a problem, but now it’s a problem that prohibits schools from safely reopening,” Barrera said. “We just can’t live on the cheap when public health guidelines won’t allow it.”
Like we posted above…
There IS NO “underfunding’.
There IS “overspending” to line crony pockets and ensure re-election to the school board from financial backers.
It is simple.
The Marten/Barrera cabal has mismanaged the budget since Marten was improperly appointed by Barrera.
The Marten/Barrera cabal has mismanaged the Coronavirus Pandemic with ZERO Disaster Recovery Planning creating the SDUSD Educational Sandimic
The enclosed “Letter” is just another scam to subsidize the corrupt Marten/Barrera cabal.
This Must Stop.
NOW.
#martensgottago
#barrerasgottago
Now for our Quote of the Week:
“Overspending is a very attractive trap. If people like what they’re doing, despite the worry of debt, they won’t do anything about it.” – Adriane Berg
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ESS Marten Sandimic Motto:
Hardly Work, Act Blind, Lie Big, Make Excuses
#martensgottago
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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!
District Deeds 