Since four school board trustees were served with a petition for
recall on Monday, CARE has been asked many questions as to why a
recall effort is being made.
EDITOR:
Since four school board trustees were served with a petition for recall on Monday, CARE has been asked many questions as to why a recall effort is being made. We would like to address the two most frequently asked questions.
• Since three of the four seats are up for re-election in November, why don’t we just wait?
After considerable review of the issues at stake, history of past decision-making, and current state of the Board, action must be taken as soon as possible to minimize further damage. There are numerous urgent issues pending before the current Board that require immediate responsiveness to the community prior to the November election.
These issues include, but are not limited to, re-establishing a positive relationship between the district, community, teachers and classified employees. We must also address containment of huge cost over-runs on all building projects and alternative strategies that can be implemented as needed, repair of the district’s reputation, establishment of, and adherence to, criteria for the extension of district level administrators’ contracts, fiscal responsibility, improvement of employee morale and teacher compensation/benefits.
If the current Board is allowed to continue down the path to which they have demonstrated a blind allegiance, they could do far more damage that will take many years to repair. Urgency dictates the timeline for the recall, not the remaining term length of incumbents.
• The recall will cost the district thousands of dollars that it can’t afford.
The cost of the recall (approximately $30,000) is small compared to the district’s $60 million budget. Current building projects are measured in tens of millions of dollars. By contrast, the cost of the recall will only fund one-tenth of one percent of a pay raise for teachers.
Meanwhile, the school board will, once again, pay the superintendent an automatic $5,000 annual increase on top of her $35,000 “bonus”, a raise and bonus for “effective” leadership (that has allowed overruns on Sobrato and other school projects have gone at least 30 percent over budget – $30 million plus over budget. (This kind of poor management would have caused private sector managers to lose their jobs.)
Teachers have only experienced a 1.6 percent pay raise in four years despite around 6 percent cost of living adjustments being funded by the state. It is obvious that the cost of “business as usual” is far greater than the cost of a special recall election. Without fiscal responsibility, the financial health and employee morale of our district will collapse. This recall is about the money our district will save, not the relatively small amount that an election will cost.
The education of our children is first and foremost, and can only be done with a good relationship between the school Board, community, parents, teachers, school staff, and administration. We want to ensure that the next school year begins with the best possible environment for our children. That will only happen with individuals and groups working together and trusting each other, not behaving with animosity and without good faith.
We do not feel that it is in the best judgment of our school district to give the four trustees further opportunity to perpetuate their mistakes, make additional poor decisions, and allow a lack of accountability to continue any longer than absolutely necessary.
Finally, State of California law dictates what is too close to the election and, since we are not disallowed by state law, CARE is proceeding with the acceptable and legal method and within the timeframe allowed to remove poorly performing and irresponsible elected officials.
Victoria Battison,
on behalf of CARE,
Morgan Hill
