An unknown number of days remain until the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) announces the selection for district Superintendent. Typically opaque, the appointment selection date, per the SDUSD propaganda department, is sometime “in March”.

Today’s Sunday Reads article is from one of the major local sources of “semi-investigative” journalism.  The San Diego Union Tribune (SDUT) actually paid a local reporter to toss softball questions and capture SDUSD enrollment propaganda and lies directly from the source of those lies, corrupt Trustee Richard “Tricky Dick” Barrera.  They were able to craft the questions to Barrera as to avoid any “refused to answer” responses, and to avoid being banished to “no SDUSD Press access” land.

Congratulations San Diego Union Tribune, but one question…

Where is the SDUT Editorial Board when we need them?

We have featured the complete San Diego Union Tribune article today in Sunday Reads with our synopsis and analysis and we strongly urge our readers to click on the title (in red) to read the full article for themselves.

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Enrollment dropped faster than expected at San Diego Unified

At about 95,000 students, the district has 4,000 fewer students this year than it projected

BY KRISTEN TAKETA
FEB. 28, 2022 6:42 AM PT

The San Diego Unified School District is losing students at a faster pace than school leaders expected, which could spell future financial difficulties.

Enrollment for this school year is about 95,000 students — about 4,000 fewer than district leaders had projected, according to the district’s latest financial report submitted to the county.

School leaders worry about declining enrollment because California public schools are funded based on how many students show up to class. Both enrollment and attendance totals at many districts have significantly declined during COVID.

The state has temporarily “held districts harmless” by letting them use pre-COVID enrollment and attendance numbers as a basis for funding.

But that protection will end starting next school year, and school leaders are expecting a serious financial hit.

“I don’t want to use the word ‘interesting,’ but it’s going to be a tough year,” said Deputy County Superintendent Mike Simonson.

Prior to COVID, San Diego Unified’s enrollment had been steadily declining by about 1,000 students a year, or roughly 1 percent. Until 2015, that decline was largely due to charter schools, which are privately-run public schools, said San Diego Unified Trustee Richard Barrera said.

Then from 2015 to 2019, San Diego Unified and charter schools lost students each year, suggesting that public school families were leaving San Diego entirely, most likely due to a lack of housing affordability, Barrera said.

Then COVID arrived. In the fall of 2020, San Diego Unified lost 4,300 students, or about 4 percent, dipping below 100,000 for the first time in recent history.

However, unlike San Diego Unified, San Diego charter schools generally did not lose students. The number of students enrolled in charters remained essentially unchanged from 2019 to 2020, state data show.

California has not yet released statewide enrollment numbers for this school year, but from fall 2019 to 2020 enrollment dropped 2.6 percent, compared to a 0.4 percent decrease the year before.

Much of San Diego Unified’s decrease showed up in the lowest grade levels, especially kindergarten, Barrera said.

Kindergarten is optional in California, and the prospect of online learning might have deterred some families from enrolling their youngest students in kindergarten during the pandemic.

San Diego Unified had expected more families would return to their schools this year after school buildings reopened for full-time in-person learning. But fewer students showed up than expected, which Barrera attributes to parent worries about exposure to COVID.

“Ninety percent-plus of our parents felt comfortable sending kids back in person, but you still have parents of kindergarteners who still feel like it’s not a safe situation,” he said.

Beyond enrollment, daily attendance played a role, too.

Last school year attendance suffered while schools were closed for remote learning, as educators struggled to get all students to participate in school daily. Not all students had reliable internet access, and many students struggled to stay motivated or engaged with online learning.

This school year, even though all schools went back to in-person learning, attendance still suffered because many students caught or were exposed to COVID and had to stay home for several days in isolation or quarantine.

In San Diego County schools, the rate of average daily attendance was typically about 95 percent prior to COVID, Simonson said. This school year the rate has been closer to 80 percent, he said.

In San Diego Unified, attendance averaged at about 93 percent this school year until the Omicron surge hit. That’s when attendance fell to about 85 percent, and on some school days, attendance dipped below 80 percent, Barrera said. That’s compared to about 96 percent before the pandemic.

With enrollment and attendance trending down, some state leaders are looking to soften the financial blow for schools next school year.

Typically, schools would use the greater average daily attendance of either the current school year or the previous year to calculate funding; financially, that would make it harder on schools, Simonson said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed allowing schools to calculate their funding instead based on the average of daily attendance rates from the 2019-20, 2020-21, and 2021-22 school years.

Legislators have also proposed changing the way schools are funded, so it will be based entirely on enrollment, rather than enrollment plus attendance.

“We maintain staffing for the number of kids who are enrolled, but we only pay for the number that show up every day. There’s a gap there that’s tough on districts,” Simonson said.

Because it is relatively early in the state budgeting process, it’s unclear how much of a financial hit San Diego Unified will take due to lower enrollment and attendance. As of December, the district was projecting it would need to close a $71 million gap in its $1.6 billion budget in 2023.

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District Deeds Synopsis:

When we first read this “scoop” from the San Diego Union Tribune we were about to relegate it to the waste bin of lost investigative journalism opportunities.  This local San Diego Media waste bin is overflowing with potential expose’s of SDUSD fraud and corruption abandoned by local news organizations afraid of being shut out by the SDUSD for actually asking investigative journalism type questions

But then an interesting “what if” crossed our mind.

“What if” we provided our readers with the full question WE would ask of Tricky Dick Barrera regarding SDUSD enrollment and attendance?

And “what if” we provided our readers with what Barrera would say if he would actually ever tell the truth

In the article the reporter did not provide the actual questions she asked so, based on the answer by Tricky Dick, we will formulate the original question and then provide our readers and the reporter an actual Investigative Journalist question for Tricky Dick.

Here we go!!!

Hypothetical SDUT Question 1:

What is the SDUSD enrollment trend since you were elected in 2008?

SDUT Article/Tricky Dick answer – excerpt #1: 

“Prior to COVID, San Diego Unified’s enrollment had been steadily declining by about 1,000 students a year, or roughly 1 percent. Until 2015, that decline was largely due to charter schools, which are privately-run public schools, said San Diego Unified Trustee Richard Barrera said.”

District Deeds Investigative Response Question 1:

District Deeds Sunday Reads – Sunday, April 25, 2021: Marten Lincoln High Enrollment: 1,428; REAL Student Enrollment – Under 500!!! Senators – Do YOU want a Liar in the Education Department?

“The enrollment for Lincoln High School on the report is 1,428 Students.

As recently as February, 2020 before the Covid Pandemic, our sources heard directly from Trustee Sharon Whitehurst Payne and the Lincoln Principal that enrollment at Lincoln had shrunk to under 900 Students.” and “Under 500 Students are REALLY enrolled at Lincoln High School!!!”

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST QUESTIONS TO TRUSTEE TRICKY DICK BARRERA:

How were you able to manipulate the enrollment numbers to avoid exposure to major actual attendance decreases before covid and how can you attribute that loss to Charter Schools while your actual student performance in english and math has been tanking, especially for students of color?  How much has Student enrollment and other key metrics been intentionally falsified at OTHER SDUSD schools by the SDUSD?

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Hypothetical SDUT Question 2:

“Trustee Barrera, what was the enrollment trend after 2015”

SDUT Article/Tricky Dick answer – excerpt #2: 

Then from 2015 to 2019, San Diego Unified and charter schools lost students each year, suggesting that public school families were leaving San Diego entirely, most likely due to a lack of housing affordability, Barrera said.

District Deeds Investigative Response Question 2:

An article in the Voice of San Diego on September 9, 2019, five months BEFORE the pandemic, posted an article by Ashley McGlone titled “Many San Diego Unified Schools Are Nowhere Near Full”

In that article there were these startling facts:

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“The result: 94 schools reported enrollment below 80 percent capacity, and a dozen schools were at 50 percent capacity or less. Three of the most severely under-enrolled schools were in Clairemont Mesa, and three were in the Skyline-Paradise Hills area.”

• The most severely under-enrolled school was the K-12 Whittier School, which serves 53 students with special needs in Clairemont and was at 27 percent capacity. In 1999, the school had 969 students, state data shows.
• The most under-enrolled traditional school was Alcott Elementary, occupying just 34 percent of its Clairemont Mesa campus with a mere 195 students. Back in 1997, the school had 575 students, state data shows.
• The third-most under-enrolled San Diego Unified school overall was Memorial Preparatory for Scholars and Athletes, a Logan Heights middle school serving just 416 students on a campus with capacity for 1,146. Memorial had almost 1,900 students in 2003, according to state numbers. The school has long struggled to attract and retain students, and has been rebranded and re-envisioned more than once over the years, even converting to a charter school and back again. The campus is now in the midst of a rebuild to convert it to a K-12 campus, pushing out a separate charter school that had been sharing the space. (State law requires school districts to share unused space with charter schools.)
• Four other district schools operated at less than 44 percent capacity: Kimbrough Elementary in Grant Hill, Lafayette Elementary in Clairemont, Montgomery Middle School in Linda Vista and Wilson Middle School in City Heights.

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INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST QUESTIONS TO TRUSTEE TRICKY DICK BARRERA:

How can the SDUSD claim that there has been only 1% erosion per year of enrollment district wide over 10 years amounting to around 1,200 departing Students per year when there are 106 schools (out of 163 total) with less than 80% actual enrollment representing tens of thousands of student departures?  How did you manipulate enrollment data to cover-up huge attendance decreases?

Hypothetical SDUT Question 3:

“Trustee Barrera, what was the enrollment trend during the Covid?”

SDUT Article/Tricky Dick answer – excerpt #3: 

Then COVID arrived. In the fall of 2020, San Diego Unified lost 4,300 students, or about 4 percent, dipping below 100,000 for the first time in recent history.

However, unlike San Diego Unified, San Diego charter schools generally did not lose students. The number of students enrolled in charters remained essentially unchanged from 2019 to 2020, state data show.

California has not yet released statewide enrollment numbers for this school year, but from fall 2019 to 2020 enrollment dropped 2.6 percent, compared to a 0.4 percent decrease the year before.

Much of San Diego Unified’s decrease showed up in the lowest grade levels, especially kindergarten, Barrera said.

District Deeds Investigative Response Question 3:

On November 29, 2020, we posted “District Deeds Sunday Reads – Sunday, November 29, 2020: SDUSD Avoids Accountability and Parents Make Them Pay!!!” where we said:

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But District Deeds predicts that there WILL be a HUGE price to pay for both the corrupt SDUSD leadership and their SDEA masters.

The best clue comes from a KPBS article from September 22. 2020 titled  “San Diego Unified Grappling With Significant Drop In Kindergarten Enrollment“:

“San Diego Unified reported 2,474 fewer students than it expected this year. About two-thirds of that deficit came from kindergarten.”

So the current lie is that the SDUSD enrollment has dropped by only 824 Students in grades 1 – 12 in the 2020/21 school year.

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Comparing that “824 Students” number from Tricky Dick with the drop of enrollment at Lincoln High School alone from Trustee Payne and the Lincoln Principal of 1,428 Students to under 500 students which represents approximately 900 HIGH SCHOOL student departures, the Student departures are obviously NOT just from Kindergarten.

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST QUESTION TO TRUSTEE TRICKY DICK BARRERA:

With proof of widespread departures from ALL grades at all SDUSD Schools, what independent documentation proves that “Much of San Diego Unified’s decrease showed up in the lowest grade levels”?

It does not take an experienced, professional investigative journalist to do the math and hold the corrupt Tricky Dick Barrera accountable for his behavior…1+1=Too:

Massive community discontent with the poor quality of a SDUSD education

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Over 100 SDUSD Schools at 80% or less capacity

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Too many lies, too little transparency, too little accountability

What it DOES take is journalistic bravery from the top to the bottom of the local San Diego news organizations to back up brave reporters when they risk losing access to Tricky Dick and his corrupt cronies for reporting the truth.

To back them up when they ask TOUGH questions that the corrupt SDUSD leadership hate to answer…and be willing to call them out publicly when they refuse to answer.

When the SDUSD refuses to answer questions, put it in the headlines.

Unfortunately it is much easier, and safe, and financially beneficial for local reporters to become subservient hacks and pander and beg for access to news scraps from the corrupt SDUSD senior leadership and propaganda department.

What a disgrace to the news media profession and what a betrayal to ALL of their viewers/readers/colleagues.  And unfortunately a large number of those media types exist locally in TV, Radio and Print and mirror the corruption that they refuse to report

But here is a 4 step antidote to fake news and some hope to those local journalists who want to do the right thing in these tips from Transparency International, Fighting Corruption in the age of “fake news” along with our SDUSD interpretation:

1. Detect and label Fake News – When the SDUSD spews propaganda, call it propaganda, not just a “Barrera said” with no pushback.
2. Debunk and counter Fake News – Ask the tough questions based on facts, report the cover-ups, inconsistencies and the truth, report when you are shut out by the SDUSD propaganda department…the SDUSD Stakeholders will stand behind you!
3. Remove economic incentives – Expose ALL SDUSD financial mismanagement, cronyism and political support payoffs universally and consistently.
4. Make facts matter:  Do your investigative homework, expose the SDUSD when they refuse to cooperate with documentation to back up the lies, counter ALL the SDUSD lies with the factual truth.

We promise our readers and the San Diego news media to do our very best to meet those 4 standards.  Despite our criticism, we hope that the San Diego news media is supported by their management to do the same.

We are ALL on the same side…we are ALL for the truth and what is educationally best for our children.

Let’s get this done!!!

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