Month: January 2019

Categories
News

SCUSD Budget Crisis Worsens: District On Track To Go Broke In 2019

For the first time, the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) adopted budget for the 2018-2019 fiscal year has been disapproved by the county Office of Education, and the district is expected to go broke by November of 2019.

SCUSD’s deteriorating financial condition met its final decline in August when the district’s budget proposal was rejected by the county Office of Education. This development in the state of the district’s budget was announced by Superintendent Jorge Aguilar and School Board President Jessie Ryan on September 6, through a video posted on the district’s YouTube account.

County Superintendent David W. Gordon disapproved the $555 million budget on grounds that while the district would make its minimum reserve requirement for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, it would reach a “negative fund balance” by the 2019-2020 school year, falling $21 million short, and subsequently another $40 million for the following 2020-2021 school year.

Gordon’s letter of disapproval designated “unrestricted expenditures” as the main cause of the worsening financial situation, “even though the district has been asked to solve its structural deficit problem.”

Following the letter’s conclusion that “the district begin making cuts immediately,” the district was assigned until October 8 to file a revised budget that would serve as a sufficient replacement to the budget that was previously submitted.

On December 5, the SCUSD announced in their video statement their final preparations to address their financial crisis, which would majorly involve cuts to employee healthcare.

In the video, Aguilar addressed his current position in the financial crisis, stating, “I’ve done everything in my power to keep cuts away from the classroom, and while I’ve made millions of ongoing cuts in expenditures, primarily in central office administration that is already one of the leanest in the region, unfortunately these cuts are not enough to eliminate our structural budget deficit.”

School Board President Jessie Ryan reiterated his point in her statement, “While the Superintendent has gone as far as he can in reducing costs we are now forced to look to identifying other areas to save money.” Both Ryan and Aguilar tirelessly restated throughout the video that “[their] continued goal was to ensure that students and their families aren’t impacted.”

Superintendent Jorge Aguilar and Board President Jessie Ryan suggested this was the only suitable path towards a solution, considering that SCUSD “pays far more for employee health insurance than any other school district in the region for similar benefits.” The statement mentioned that the proposed healthcare cuts would save the district between 11 and 16 million dollars a year.


As was formally announced at the Board of Education meeting on December 6, the district has received approval from four of five of its labor unions to begin healthcare cuts.

To do so, however, would require adequate cooperation from the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA). On December 7, the SCTA released an article addressing the district’s announcement to hold a press conference that would discuss the budget and healthcare management. The SCTA has since withheld their decision to participate in the conference.

In 2017, the SCTA agreed to partner with the California Education Coalition for Health Care Reform (CECHR) to work towards reducing health care costs without significantly reducing benefits or increasing employee costs. This partnership was most important to the SCTA because it promised that no changes would be made to employee healthcare plans without written, explicit agreement from the SCTA. The potential savings from working with CECHR could be up to $16 million.

According to the members of the SCTA, instead of picking itself up and starting the work with the CECHR in January 2018 as was agreed upon, the district “dragged its feet, to the point that in August and September it refused to pay CECHR for its work, despite the signed agreement.” In the same report, the SCTA stated that “despite the district’s delays, [their] work with the CECHR has already resulted in $5 million in health plan savings to the district.”

The district’s refusal to abide by the agreement has diminished the SCTA’s support, and their failure to follow through with the CECHR agreement has only emphasized the district’s inadequacies, even more than the seemingly unending financial crisis has done so far.

Categories
Opinion

From a Student’s Perspective: The SCUSD Budget Crisis

Superintendent Jorge Aguilar and School Board President Jessie Ryan in SCUSD's recent video regarding the budget crisis.
Superintendent Jorge Aguilar and School Board President Jessie Ryan in SCUSD’s recent video regarding the budget crisis.

 

As someone who has no real tangible thoughts about or comprehension of budgets and projections in terms of a school district; the only experience I have with budgets is trying to divvy up my paycheck to procure me as much coffee as possible, reading about SCUSD going broke and having a rejected budget leaves me dumbfounded.

The articles by The Sacramento Bee, Superintendent Jorge Aguilar’s letter, and even the district-released video on YouTube all about the district “going broke,” seem to be written (or spoken) in some kind of code. A code specifically formed to not let students in on what’s happening.

Each media release seems to tiptoe around the real problem, the video on YouTube is four minutes long—four minutes of Superintendent Aguilar and Board President Jessie Ryan talking and talking, but somehow not saying anything.

The video description states, “Superintendent Aguilar and Board President Jessie Ryan warned that these cuts will not be enough to entirely address the district’s structural budget deficit. Both leaders called on district employees to rise to the occasion and make shared sacrifices to eliminate the structural budget deficit.”

The fact that the district thinks it’s a logical and just plan to stop searching for other flaws in the budget, and instead turn to the backbone of the district, our hardworking teachers that care about us, is almost despicable.

By strongly encouraging teachers to “rise to the occasion and make shared sacrifices” is a major ploy to the teachers’ consciousnesses just so the district can dig themselves out of the hole they made in the first place. How dare they turn on the teachers, knowing that, for the most part, of course, they would take these pay cuts for the kids. It’s their jobs as educators to be there for students, to educate a new generation. And for some teachers, it’s their calling, what they feel to be their purpose in life, and the fact that the district wants to manipulate this for their own gain is disgusting.

Saying there’s going to be “shared sacrifices” implies that not only teachers will be taking pay cuts, but other administrators, and district officials as well. But this directly goes against what Superintendent Aguilar declared later on in the video inbetween his vagueness.

It’s funny, my whole life I’ve attended schools in the Sac City Unified School District, and  I’ve always been instructed to write specifics, never to use generalizations or vagueness unless absolutely necessary. I was taught that vagueness in writing was a sign of weakness, that nonfictional written works should be concise and to the point. And yet, in a time of great importance—the district couldn’t be vaguer.

By being vague, presumably, the district hoped to pull in attention, perhaps for a dramatic effect, or maybe even a sympathy grab at the citizens of Sacramento. But all they achieved is building a foundation for wild accusations and assumptions to form.

It almost goes unsaid that it seems like the district’s budget isn’t focused on going back to the “classroom.” Just by walking around McClatchy’s halls you could easily see the need for more resources, whether its paper, tissue, or other supplies, we probably need it. So is it wild to say that district officials and administrators are pocketing the majority of the budget and leaving the schools and people doing the real work, the teachers, high and dry?

This vagueness, vagueness about where the money has gone, why the budget is the way it is, and how the district aims to solve it (by “strongly encouraging” our hardworking teachers to fork over the little money they make, for the sake of the students) perfectly encapsulates the district as a whole, because after all this time, all of the trials and tribulations the district has enforced upon us, why on Earth would they shed us some clarity and show some decency?

In the video starring Aguilar and Ryan, there’s mention of how both district officials have kids in the district and that because of this, they’re struggling too. That these cuts will, by extension, affect them directly. They try and equate the fact that they have kids in the district to the real struggle of being a teacher and facing these pay cuts to an already minuscule salary.

But the fact that we don’t see or hear about him doing anything for the schools except sit in his office, make YouTube videos, and spend our money, doesn’t seem worthy of a raise to me. And after finding out that Superintendent Aguilar has a higher annual salary than the actual governor of California, I’m shocked my eyes aren’t permanently stuck in the back of my head from rolling them so hard.

While the state is the right for denying such a high budget, as it should be up to the district to get out of the debt they’ve accumulated, it’s not fair that the teachers are going to be penalized. The district workers and administration should be the ones facing repercussions for their actions, not the innocent teachers and other various faculty members who have no part in the district’s financial crisis.

Categories
Opinion

Studying Tips And Tricks

Studying is a drag, and getting into the right mindset to sit down and focus for hours on stuff you probably don’t care about can be a daunting task to tackle. With finals right around the corner, this can be a helpful list to go to when you’ve been telling yourself “Okay, in five minutes I’ll start studying,” for two hours.

  1. Organize your space – It can be hard to focus when your desk is a mess, so it’s important to keep it clean and organized. This also goes for however you keep your notes and work from classes. When you have loose papers in your bag it’s hard to find what you need, and you could potentially be missing something important. Organization makes all the difference, and affects how well you do on your test, and in the class all together.
  2. Create an outline – Now that you have an organized space, you need to know what you’re studying, so making yourself a study guide can be really helpful. Go down the list, look over your notes for each topic, and practice answering questions. You should set goals for yourself for each section, and set aside time every day leading up to the test to focus on one or two sections so you don’t get overwhelmed.
  3. Take breaks – When you’re studying hard and get in the zone, it can be hard to stop and then come back to it, but giving your brain a break is important. After maybe an hour of studying, set out time for yourself to watch an episode of a show you’re watching, go for a walk outside to get some fresh air, have a snack, take a warm shower, or anything else you need to do to chill out and have some down time, even if it’s only for a moment.
  4. Ask for help – If there’s something you get stuck on, it’s important to ask for help. Ask a parent, sibling, or friend to get a new perspective on something. If there’s still time, it can also be really helpful to talk to your teacher about it to help you get a better understanding of whatever topic you need to know.
  5. Drown out distracting noise – If you live in hectic house like me with lots of noise, it can be difficult to get anything done. Luckily, we live in a time where we have access to pretty much everything online, so pop your headphones in and listen to the sounds of rain, the ocean, or anything, without leaving the comfort of your own home. These sounds can help you relax and focus. I find that when I listen to music while working I get distracted and end up singing along or dancing, but if that’s not a problem for you, you can also just listen to music.
  6. Study consistently – Don’t wait until the last minute to study. Instead of cramming, spread out your time by going over a few sections every day and focusing on them. That way, by the day of the test, you’ll feel confident in your knowledge and skills after spending time every day studying.
  7. Get rest – When you’re worried about doing well, you might want to study all night, but getting a good amount of sleep every night (at least eight hours) is important. It will be harder to obtain information if you were up all night and are running on four hours of sleep, so go to bed at a reasonable hour.