In a reversal of an earlier decision, the School Board has
decided not to open a community day school to serve its population
of students that have been expelled from Live Oak High or Central
High schools. The board approved the community day school,
championed by Board President Tom Kinoshita, by a 4-3 vote during
their June 9 meeting. Trustees Del Foster, Jan Masuda, George Panos
and Kinoshita voted in favor of the district operating the school;
Trustees Mike Hickey, Amina Khemici and Shell
é Thomas voted against.
In a reversal of an earlier decision, the School Board has decided not to open a community day school to serve its population of students that have been expelled from Live Oak High or Central High schools.
The board approved the community day school, championed by Board President Tom Kinoshita, by a 4-3 vote during their June 9 meeting.
Trustees Del Foster, Jan Masuda, George Panos and Kinoshita voted in favor of the district operating the school; Trustees Mike Hickey, Amina Khemici and Shellé Thomas voted against.
“The fact is that I am disappointed, but I am also very pragmatic,” said Kinoshita who was the only trustee to vote “no” on the rescinding motion The vote was 6-1.
“This is a financial risk to the district at this time,” he said Thursday. “This is a very necessary program, and I think it would be better if we were the caretakers and owned the program 100 percent. But unfortunately this is not the time for the district to do it.”
For many years, the district has sent its expelled students to the county program the South County Community School (SCCS). As of May 15, there were 24 district students enrolled in this program. Ten additional students were enrolled in the Santa Clara County Office of Education independent studies program.
The school would have been located in two empty portables, which the district owns, on a site adjacent to the San Martin/Gwinn Elementary campus. The current program is located on the same site; the county rents the portables from the district.
The county-operated school will remain in operation there. It would have been open for students from elsewhere in the county if the earlier 4-3 vote had not been reversed.
Former Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers President and district teacher Mary Alice Callahan said she would have cautioned the district initially against attempting to start up its own program. At Monday’s meeting, she told trustees they would be making the right decision to rescind their earlier action.
“Often when you start something and start it badly, you often don’t have a chance to get it right,” she said. “It is a bad idea to try to put this together by the fall. Just because it has been put off for so long is not a reason to do it now.”
Callahan said her concerns were more about developing a curriculum and pulling together an experienced staff “for the most at risk population you can imagine” than about the finances.
But the reason for rescinding the decision to develop a community day school in the district at this time was given as financial. The administration brought the issue back to the board to rescind after it was discovered that there was a miscalculation based on an assumption of enrollment numbers.
Declining enrollment could cause a decrease in ADA (average daily attendance) revenue, with anticipated funding of $140,620 which was a part of the expected revenue for the school, in jeopardy.
The staff report described anticipating the $140,620 as a risk.
Rescinding the decision, which means students will continue to use the county program, will not affect the approved district budget for 2003-2004 because the $100,000 for the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Santa Clara County Office of Education for the program was built in.
Last year, according to a report presented by Assistant Superintendent Claudette Beaty and Director of Student Services Ray Houser, the county program cost the district $164,823, which includes $59,906 in supplemental service fees and $104,917 in lost revenue.
The projected costs and savings for next year were reported to trustees before the vote to approve the school as $682,090 in costs if the district stays with the county program and savings of $294,840 if the district established its own school.
Kinoshita and Foster have emphasized at earlier meetings that establishing the school would meet the first of the board’s goals for this year. The goal is to “Activate new and restructured alternative programs within the context of the K-12 Intervention Plan.”
“ I think everyone’s on board (with the idea of the district running the program),” said Kinoshita. “My fear is that this is not going to be put off for just a year or two, but five years, given the situation with the state budget.”
