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Today in Sunday Reads we have compiled 3 seemingly disparate San Diego Unified School District related articles into an analysis of the deep corruption and dysfunction being deployed by the dishonest and corrupt district senior leadership.

To help our readers navigate through this extra long missive, we have segmented it into 4 basic sections/4 easy steps that describe the corrupt SDUSD process to maximize personal and financial benefits to the selected SDUSD Senior Leadership crew while betraying hundreds of thousands of SDUSD Stakeholders.  Feel free to read it one section at a time and come back to read the rest.

We have featured the complete Cal Matters article today in Sunday Reads with our synopsis and analysis along with many quotes from many additional articles.  We strongly urge our readers to click on the title and other links (in red) to read the full articles for themselves.

California Public School Enrollment Drops Below 6 Million Mark

BY JOE HONG

For the first time since the start of the century, California has fewer than 6 million students attending public schools.

According to new data released by the California Department of Education, enrollment in public schools continues to drop more quickly than it did before the pandemic, stirring fears of more budget cuts and long-term financial instability for schools.

Among key takeaways from the newly released data:

  • Statewide enrollment has dropped by more than 110,000 students to 5,892,240 during the current school year, a 1.8% dip from last year but less steep than the 2.6% decline during the first year of the pandemic.
  • Charter school enrollment also is down for the first time since at least 2014.
  • Kindergarten enrollment is up, though nowhere near pre-pandemic levels.
  • And 9,000 more students are enrolled in private schools, a 1.7% increase, but that doesn’t explain much of the exodus from public schools.

For the better part of a decade, public school enrollment was in steady decline in California mostly due to a lack of affordable housing, education officials across the state said. When the pandemic reached California, early job losses collided with that trend, making the decline worse.

Richard Barrera, a board trustee at San Diego Unified, the state’s second largest district, said families were moving out of the district, especially those in gentrifying areas, resulting in disproportionate losses for schools in those neighborhoods. Then workers started to lose jobs in 2020, and more families had to relocate.

“When we opened up the schools last year, those schools had lower in-person attendance,” Barrera said. “It’s just more expensive for people with kids to live in California.”

In the years before the pandemic, enrollment in traditional, non-charter public schools fell by about 1% a year. The first year of the pandemic, however, enrollment dropped by more than 3%, or about 175,000 students.

Even charter school enrollment slid, losing 12,600 students this year, a major reversal of historical trends. Since 2015, charter schools have seen only increases each year of at least 10,000 students.

Officials at the California Department of Education did not have a clear explanation for this sudden drop.

The California Charter Schools Association President Myrna Castrejón said this decline illustrates how charter schools “are facing the same statewide challenges as non-charter public schools.” She called for equitable funding for charters.

For non-charter schools, much of the enrollment drop during the first year of the pandemic was due to tens of thousands of parents opting not to enroll their children in kindergarten. Most school campuses were closed at the time and children were learning online.

This year, with school buildings open, kindergarten enrollment went up by more than 7,000 students, recovering slightly from last year’s 60,000-student plunge.

Enrollment numbers for first graders, however, dropped by 18,000 students this year — one of the steepest drops for a single grade level — suggesting that many students who were of kindergarten age in 2020 did not return to public schools for first grade.

California Department of Education officials would not comment on where those students went. Some school district officials said they also are looking for answers.

“It’s a problem across all grade levels,” said Barrett Snider of Capitol Advisors, a lobbying firm for school districts. “We just aren’t sure where they’ve gone.”

Because most of California’s public schools are funded based on a combination of enrollment and attendance, small school districts are especially feeling the pain. Just a few students leaving can mean large chunks of money gone from their budgets.

“We’ve had declining enrollment since the turn of the century,” said Linda Irving,  superintendent of Sebastopol Union School District. “As a school gets smaller, it gets more difficult to provide quality programming, like music classes.”

The 788-student district has been using one-time state grants to cover its costs, Irving said, but she needs a more permanent solution.

It can be depressing working at a school where the student population is shrinking, she said. Administrators have a marketing budget to attract more families, yet they are being forced to cut staff.

“I was driving home from the gym yesterday, and I heard another superintendent on the radio,” Irving said. “We’re competing against each other.”

Brett McFadden, superintendent of the Nevada Joint Union High School District, said a large portion of the residents in his rural community work in the service industry and had to seek other jobs when businesses closed during the pandemic. Others left more recently, as the state began enforcing masking rules and issuing vaccine mandates.

“It’s tough to do exit interviews, but our takeaway is that people left because of jobs,” McFadden said. “Or they left because private schools weren’t enforcing mask mandates.”

According to state data, Nevada Joint Union High’s enrollment was stable before the pandemic at around 2,800 students. As of Friday, McFadden said, enrollment is at 2,605.  He said he lost 197 students since the school year started, which translates to more than $2 million in lost funding.

“Declining enrollment cannot be fixed,” he said. “I think we have to recognize that declining enrollment is part of broader demographic trends that are happening in our state.”

Softening the blow

State leaders are floating measures to lessen the pain of declining enrollment.

In his proposed budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would allow school districts to use a three-year average attendance rate to calculate next year’s funding. This could be a substantial help, especially because attendance at most schools plummeted during this year’s omicron surge.

State Sen. Anthony Portantino, a Democrat from Glendale, authored Senate Bill 830, which would pay districts based on enrollment rather than attendance.

While the policy debate over enrollment versus attendance-based funding has been ongoing for years, Portantino said this is the right time to make the change because of the state’s surplus and the acute crisis of plummeting attendance and enrollment.

“School districts have to budget based on enrollment,” Portantino said. “It makes no sense to penalize them if you have absences throughout the year.”

Under his proposal, districts would still be funded based on attendance but could apply for additional money based on enrollment. The bill would require that districts use 30% of the additional funding to address chronic absenteeism.

While these proposals might ease the fiscal effects of ebbing enrollments, district leaders still don’t have a clear picture of why so many students are leaving. And they feel powerless to reverse the trend.

“Schools have been reacting to a public health crisis and trying to keep their lights on, so when kids disappear there’s not a lot of capacity to chase them down and see what happened,” said Snider, the lobbyist. “But I think that’s going to be a big focus as we climb out of this.”

District Deeds Synopsis:

We have to make a confession to our readers as to why we chose this article for Sunday Reads.   There were at least two other articles (we will get to them later in this post) that could have easily been featured.

PART 1 – Continuously pile lie upon lie

The big hook for this featured article was the big lie at the beginning by woefully corrupt SDUSD Board of Education Trustee Richard “Tricky Dick” Barrera.  And the author, Mr. Hong, took the bait hook, line and sinker…here is the excerpt:

Richard Barrera, a board trustee at San Diego Unified, the state’s second largest district, said families were moving out of the district, especially those in gentrifying areas, resulting in disproportionate losses for schools in those neighborhoods. Then workers started to lose jobs in 2020, and more families had to relocate.

“When we opened up the schools last year, those schools had lower in-person attendance,” Barrera said. “It’s just more expensive for people with kids to live in California.”

Other quotes in the article clearly show that Barerra is a liar:

  • California Department of Education officials would not comment on where those students went. Some school district officials said they also are looking for answers.
  • “It’s a problem across all grade levels,” said Barrett Snider of Capitol Advisors, a lobbying firm for school districts. “We just aren’t sure where they’ve gone.”
  • “We’ve had declining enrollment since the turn of the century,” said Linda Irving,  superintendent of Sebastopol Union School District.
  • “It’s tough to do exit interviews, but our takeaway is that people left because of jobs,” McFadden (superintendent of the Nevada Joint Union High School District) said. “Or they left because private schools weren’t enforcing mask mandates.”

The big lie by Barrera of “moving out of the District” to account for the massive exodus away from the SDUSD actually contans a small, unintended, grain of truth.

Yes, “families were moving out of the district” PUBLIC SCHOOLS for years…but NOT out of Charter Schools and Private Schools

Our theory is that, as the California K-12 Enrollment Changes chart above illustrates, in the first full year of the pandemic (2020/21), familes were moving to Charter Schools as an emergency response partly for the reasons given (“weren’t enforcing mask mandates”) and other reasons (ongoing miserable SDUSD educational performance) the first year and then, after finding out how some charter schools were not up to the task, they chose the best schooling option possible for their kids.  Those options included Private Schools and homeschooling, which caused the slight drop in Charter School enrollment in the current 2021/22 school year.

The local, state and federal education industry realization is that Local Education Agencies (LEA”s) like the SDUSD are massively LOSING student enrollment money and Charter, Private and Homeschooling entities, that produce no campaign money for corrupt politicians like Tricky Dick Barrera, are GAINING students.

The geyser of money to corrupt school board politicians and their cronies is drying up and they have to do something about it.

PART 2 – Eliminate all strong community leadership voices

After identifying the biggest problem, declining enrollment, the first action item is using taxpayer funded propaganda and absolute political power to try and eliminate the voices exposing their incompetence and corruption.  What better way to do that than to get a local voice for ALL Students, especially the most woefully underserved BIPOC Students, removed from a leadership position.

A series of Opinion pieces in the San Diego Union Tribune (SDUT) titled  Opinion: San Diego NAACP members demand answers after two local presidents suspended  provides the evidence of how community advocates are treated by the SDUSD and local, state and federal political machines if they step outside the super majority Democrat party line.

According to the opinion piece by the first local NAACP President removed, Mr. Clovis Honoré, the reason was clear:

I believe the real reason I was suspended was politics and the resolve of Black people in San Diego to serve our community.

On May 1, 2019, the San Diego Branch submitted a resolution asking the national NAACP to “[end] its call for a moratorium on public charter schools.” A resolution is “a formal request of the NAACP’s Annual Convention to change or amend the programs or policies of the NAACP or to establish new policies.”

In other words, the support of Charter School competition that would reduce the money flow to corrupt politicians like Barrera.

Ms. Francine Maxwell was condemned to the same fate for similar reasons.  But Ms. Maxwell’s “offense” was much closer to home.  As Mr. Honoré explained:

Francine Maxwell has suffered a similar fate. Here’s how.

President Joe Biden nominated then-San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten to become his deputy secretary of education on Jan. 17. Within days, the San Diego NAACP shared its disappointment with Biden’s choice.

Then, on Jan. 28, 2021, Derrick Johnson tweeted his support for Marten.

And…

The lingering question is, why would Derrick Johnson suspend two presidents of the same branch in succession? Why was there not any honest effort to work out the differences between the folks who represent Black people in San Diego and the Black people at the national NAACP? Why perpetrate this Black on Black crime?

One speculation is that political or financial forces that have a grip on the national NAACP pushed it to take these actions to silence dissent against positions that are “inimical” to the interests of Black folks but advantageous to the political and financial interests of the national NAACP. This calls into question whether the national NAACP is more loyal to the local branches who represent and work with the communities we live and work in, or to its financial and political allies.

District Deeds was the first to post over 10 of the local NAACP disappointments by Ms. Maxwell with the SDUSD on this blog.  The posts helped re-create the corrupt SDUSD political framework that has harmed hundreds of thousands of SDUSD Students.

PART 3 – Unethically and improperly eliminate all competition

As Part 3, the second article we almost featured was one of many regarding the Patrick Henry High School (PHHS) fiasco.  The best article of the bunch was by the SDUT Editorial Board titled Opinion: Patrick Henry High School should have had a full debate before dropping advanced classes .

The biggest thing about this issue is the puppetmaster treatment that Principals must endure under the current corrupt senior SDUSD leadership.  Despite having the title of Principals, they have virtually ZERO unilateral power over anything as important as eliminating multiple gifted, honors and advanced classes from a high school curriculum.  But Principals ARE required to take full responsibility for the half baked ideas imposed upon them to deploy by senior leadership.

This effectively guts the authority of the Principal and thereby eliminates any independent thought for fear of negative career repercussion (i.e.: Being fired)

One of our deeply embedded principal contacts gave us the following comment about the Irwin “decision”:

She did not make this decision on her own.  She did not make that decision without HR and Leadership 

Irwin did not make the decision…the SDUSD Senior Leadership made the decision and then left her hanging out with the consequences.  And the Parents and local media bought it.  We have no idea how good Irwin is as a Principal.  But we know she has no autonomy within this corrupt SDUSD chain of command.

And where was newly appointed Superintendent Lamont “Lovey Dovey” Jackson. Principal Irwin’s boss?  Was he beside her taking the heat?

Was he where he said he would be in the “Superintendent Search Committee Forum“?

Was he out at PHHS with the Parents “Knowing every student by name strength and need” while eliminating classes for those very same Students?

Was he “unapologetic” multiple times to all the PHHS Parents and Student for removing the classes?

As expected and predicted, Lovey Dovey Lamont was nowhere to be found. Not a single quote, not a single trademark crying episode for the Students.

Just an empty suit pretending to be Superintendent bowing to Tricky Dick doubletalk.

Evidence bears that out by the lukewarm, intelligible eduspeak response by coward Trustee Tricky Dick Barrera in another SDUT article:

“We believe in expanding access to opportunities for all of our students, and when we expand access … that doesn’t mean that we’re taking anything away from students who have already had access to those opportunities,” Barrera said.

“I understand parents are worried about that, and when they hear we’re making a change from … decades of existing stratification, and if your students are part of the higher stratification … of course you’re gonna be concerned about that. But that’s not what we’re doing.”

District Deeds Translation:  “We are removing classes from a large number of Students but we are not taking anything away.”

As usual, unintelligible doubletalk by Tricky Dick that somehow claims that taking away access to existing classes is just expanding access.  Another avoidance of honesty, transparency and accountability…another outright lie.

So how does this tie to lowered enrollment in the SDUSD?

Take it straight from a parents’ mouth from the same SDUT article:

“Parents who have the means to send their kids to another school are going to do so … because they’re losing faith that their kids will be prepared to be successful,”

In other words, what has exactly been happening south of the 8 for decades.

Does anyone remember STOP THE PRESSES! SDUSD Lincoln High School Parent: “They killed her Ivy League scholarship consideration”?

The interrupted AP Calculus class disrupted her entire schedule with only two weeks left in the semester. Altogether, it’s been of no consequence that deliberate and conscious decisions were made to hinder the education process because the decision makers at Lincoln have no value for the student body nor the surrounding community. All of my begging and pleading eventually got the class somewhat reinstated.

My daughter would not only have been short of credits, but also the weighted AP score towards her GPA, and the knowledge – you know, actual education- she needed at the most crucial time of her life. Her plan to attend a prestigious University would have ceased to exist. They successfully killed her Ivy League scholarship consideration, the fruition of my biggest fear.

How about “The “Lincoln 49” Middle College Disaster – Supt. Cindy “At Worst” Marten Needs to Resign“:

To recap the most recent Lincoln High disaster, in the Fall, 2016 semester, 96 students were enrolled in the Supt. Cindy Marten version of the Middle College program according to a Voice of San Diego article.  Although in previous semesters Students were given a choice of classes, in Fall, 2016, they were forced to take one class only…Math 96, a remedial class that would satisfy Graduation requirements.  30 Students immediately dropped the class bringing the total active Students in Middle College to 66.

We would like to see Marten and Hibbeln try that “force the students to take a class and eliminate all others”, strategy at La Jolla High or Scripps Ranch High….especially a REMEDIAL college class. In the Marten administration, that insult is only pushed on Title 1 schools south of Highway 8. 

Guess what PHHS? You can now join the “South of Highway 8” club, and do what they do when the SDUSD fails them.

Go to another option of Charter, Private or Home School…if they are still allowed to exist by the time you need them!!!

Part 4 – Always beg  for more money with fewer students

But wait…they may not be available according to the most recent legislation we urged our readers to oppose last Sunday, the SDUSD will be soon be able to severely limit the number of choices parents/guardians have with Charter Schools.

That legislation, when (not if) it passes with a Democrat super majority, will cut off many non-SDUSD educational choices.

And, as the featured article says, the plan is to change the LEA funding formula to another non-accountability standard by the Democrat supermajority Governor and Legislature:

In his proposed budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would allow school districts to use a three-year average attendance rate to calculate next year’s funding. This could be a substantial help, especially because attendance at most schools plummeted during this year’s omicron surge.

State Sen. Anthony Portantino, a Democrat from Glendale, authored Senate Bill 830, which would pay districts based on enrollment rather than attendance.

In the dysfunctional world of the SDUSD senior leadership, it is 4 easy steps:

  1. Continuously pile lie upon lie to avoid all Transparency, Honesty and Accountability (PHHS Fiasco)
  2. Eliminate all strong community leadership voices though powerful political party propaganda/influence (Honoré/Maxwell removal from NAACP)
  3. Unethically and improperly eliminate all competition through unethical betrayal of the neediest communities (Passing 13 pages of new rules to undermine all new and existing charter school “competition)
  4. Always beg  for more money with fewer students from political cronies (Gov. Gavin Newsom three-year average attendance rate scam)

SDUSD Nirvana

SDUSD Family and Student Educational Hell.

PHHS Stakeholders – Welcome to our South of 8 SDUSD World!

Now for our quote of the week dedicated to Trustee “Tricky Dick” Barrera and his “Unapologetic” minion, Superintendent “Lovey Dovey” Lamont Jackson

“Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to”

― Talking Heads 

IF

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