Elisa Betancourt should keep talking about teacher quality in CVESD

Get ready to make some noise again Chula Vista! Salt Creek & South Bay 'Y' are holding focus groups tomorrow, June 4, 2009 and June 17, 2009 re: DASH/STRETCH.

June 4
5:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Here, you will get to speak.
Salt Creek Elementary School Auditorium
1055 Hunte Parkway
Chula Vista, CA 91914

June 17
11 - 12 and 12 - 1
South Bay YMCA
50 North 4th Ave., 91910


Earlier DASH & STRETCH posts are here.

The Dash & Stretch Story as told by a veteran DASH leader
San Diego Reader
By CVPFEP
Posted June 3, 2009
...Why wasn't Dr. Lowell Billings transparent with the parents and employees of the City of Chula Vista's DASH and STRETCH? That is a question that will remain unanswered as Dr. Lowell Billings will not comment on that...Double-Boarding a conflict of interest? Follow me: www.twitter.com/cvpfep


Care2 make a difference
While legally Dr. Lowell Billings & Pamela B. Smith may serve on two boards, namely CVESD & the YMCA's Board of Management, they were supposed to have abstained their votes on the March 10th, 2009 district board meeting as it was a clear conflict of interests.


Maura Larkins' response:

Here's what Robert Fellmeth, University of San Diego law professor and director of the Center for Public Interest Law, says, "[P]ublic officials should know better than to steer so much money to groups with which they have close relationships."

Shame on Pamela Smith for voting to give control of a school district program to a private charity she's involved in. (On the other hand, it helps explain why the YMCA would give her a "woman of distinction" award. But the web of longtime cronies involved in the DASH & STRETCH power grab extends beyond Lowell Billings and Pam Smith to Cheryl Cox, mayor of Chula Vista. Cox served on the CVESD board until 2006.

The DASH & STRETCH backroom deal is a small part of a much bigger problem.

Lowell Billings (like many other school superintendents) is paid big bucks to do whatever it takes to keep things calm and quiet in the school district.

He's also supposed to educate as many kids as possible while keeping things quiet, but when a choice has to be made between educating kids and keeping the power structure in place, the kids come in second place.

Mr. Billings seems to be good at covering up problems. This is why CVESD pays Lowell Billings one of the highest salaries of any public employee in San Diego County, while at the same time laying off the people who actually educate kids. (How much is Billings paid to do this? In the 2007-2008 fiscal year he was the fourth-highest earning public employee in San Diego County, earning $238,205. I would guess his salary was about $20,000 higher this past year.)

Like other school officials, CVESD board members are so paranoid that they feel threatened by every little complaint. They don't want issues addressed in a public forum; they believe democracy is the road to ruin. Voters must be kept in the dark because voters can't be trusted with the truth. They are the only ones worthy of being on the board, and they must do whatever they have to do to stay there, including ignoring conflict of interest and other laws.

You might not guess that arrogance and fear would be so closely intertwined, but both the arrogance and the paranoia are real.

Chula Vista Elementary School District has a particularly bad case of paranoia. Board members and administrators fear that their system would fall apart if parents, teachers or kids were allowed to express dissatisfaction. It's CVESD's reflex response is to silence complaints and to deny its mistakes. CVESD flounders for years covering up its blunders rather than solving its problems.

The deterioration of DASH & STRETCH at CVESD is an unfortunate event, but it's just a tiny part of the big problem in education: teacher quality. Politics, not competence, determines who teaches children. People love to moan about the problem of not being able to get rid of incompetent teachers, but the truth is that education wouldn't really improve much if each school got rid of its worst teacher and replaced that teacher with a barely-competent teacher. The standards need to be much higher.

Unfortunately, our society doesn't want to pay much for schools. One of Lowell Billings' jobs is to find a cheap way to put a teacher in every classroom (after first taking out plenty for himself and his lawyers, of course).

Adding to the problem, or perhaps, the very core of the problem, is that there is no effective system to evaluate teaching performance. Principals do observations, but they don't really know what's going on in classrooms, as reported in recent research.

Links on ineffective teacher evaluations:
Gotham Schools
Education Week
Voice of San Diego

As long as everything is peaceful and quiet, most administrators believe that everything is fine. And if kids end up as failures years later, very few people in the schools feel guilty. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, but most school officials are apparently fine with that.

Schools teach that if we keep a low profile and don't make the people in power angry, we'll be among the "contributing" members of society. I disagree. I think that looking the other way when wrong is being done damages society. I hope that Elisa Betancourt will keep speaking out. There's plenty more to talk about, Elisa. Don't go away!

Chula Vista's ballot information on Prop A is misleading

The sample Ballot and Voter Information Pamphlet we received with the Official Ballot regarding Proposition A, is very misleading. The pamphlet states on p. 4, that Proposition A would among other points:

"MAINTAIN after-school programs like STRETCH and DASH that keep kids away from drugs, gangs and crime." In fact, There is a pamphlet in the mailbox today in favor of prop. A, in which, among others, Patricia Aguilar, President of Crossroads II, states: "Prop. A will ........ maintain after school programs that give kids alternatives to gangs and drugs."

I have contacted Patricia Aguilar to ask her to specify exactly what after school programs will be maintained with prop. A. I'm waiting to hear from her.

Several weeks ago, the city of Chula Vista officially handed over the running of the after school programs in the 33 elementary schools where DASH and STRETCH is operating today to the YMCA as of the new school year starting in July. Nancy Kerwin, the Executive Director of Student, Family, and Community Services and Support, called me before the March 10th district meeting and told me that even if Prop. A passed, it wouldn't be nearly enough to save DASH and STRETCH. In fact, the money first goes into the general fund and is then dispersed down the totem pole. DASH and STRETCH are towards the bottom of that pole, besides, the City no longer has a say. When they withdrew their funds, they lost their voice.

The district has already officially voted to 'seamlessly transfer' the said programs to the YMCA. They have already contacted parents in multiple ways just to inform us that all is saved even without the tax initiative.

To date, the transition thus far has been anything but seamless. Some principals are pulling in DASH and STRETCH staff to tell them that they won't be here next year. Teachers are congratulating the two time award winning staff, only it's not for a job well done for these past ten years, it's for being saved. Only thing is, they haven't been saved. Children are confused and crying to their coaches, giving of their own money in an attempt to save these programs, while trusting parents are being carefully misled. We are tired of being misled.

I feel it is very important that the thousands of families whose children attend DASH and STRETCH, and others who support them, know all the facts before deciding whether to vote Yes or No on Proposition A. After all, we are the one’s paying the price with more than just our wallets.

Elisa Betancourt
Website
2009

A plea to YMCA in Chula Vista

YMCA skate park in South Bay, San Diego

Dear YMCA,

DASH & STRETCH - though you may keep the name, you are not keeping the staff that's been trained to do the job.

Let's be honest, to really KEEP DASH and STRETCH, the programs we all know and love, you would need to preserve their award winning curriculum, not change it, and take the entire staff too. No newcomers! Newbies do not have the training they need and they DO NOT have the time to acquire it in just a few months time. It is OUR children that are going to be directly affected by all of this. If you truly committed to "Saving" DASH and STRETCH, then let's get together and raise some money!

How can you say it will be the same when you don't even have the staff required to run what DASH and STRETCH were designed to do? I LOVE THE YMCA, but our school NEEDS both programs as they each serve VERY different needs.

Planning and preparing is fine and great. Your wanting to expand to more sites, fantastic! Ask yourself this, are you able to provide a 'seamless transfer'...? No, it's just not possible with new staff, little time, and little training.

If the school board is so set on giving DASH and STRETCH to they 'Y', then here is my proposal. Help us raise $450,000 to pay what the city cannot afford.

This will keep DASH and STRETCH running exactly the same WITHOUT interrupting our children's progress. Then take that entire school year to staff yourselves and to properly train your staff. THAT is doing what is in the best interest of our children and it is very doable.

I have a strong group of parents who are willing to help!

Elisa Betancourt
Parents For Enrichment Programs

http://sites.google.com/site/parentsforenrichmentprograms

Will YMCA get rid of the Dash and Stretch staff?

Dear YMCA,

DASH & STRETCH - though you may keep the name, you are not keeping the staff that's been trained to do the job.

Let's be honest, to really KEEP DASH and STRETCH, the programs we all know and love, you would need to perserve their award winning curriculum, not change it, and take the entire staff too. No newcomers! Newbies do not have the training they need and they DO NOT have the time to acquire it in just a few months time. It is OUR children that are going to be directly affected by all of this. If you truly committed to "Saving" DASH and STRETCH, then let's get together and raise some money!

How can you say it will be the same when you don't even have the staff required to run what DASH and STRETCH were designed to do? I LOVE THE YMCA, but our school NEEDS both programs as they each serve VERY different needs.

Planning and preparing is fine and great. Your wanting to expand to more sites, fantastic! Ask yourself this, are you able to provide a 'seamless transfer'...? No, it's just not possible with new staff, little time, and little training.

If the school board is so set on giving DASH and STRETCH to they 'Y', then here is my proposal. Help us raise $450,000 to pay what the city cannot afford.

This will keep DASH and STRETCH running exactly the same WITHOUT interrupting our childrens progress. Then take that entire school year to staff yourselves and to properly train your staff. THAT is doing what is in the best interest of our children and it is very doable.

I have a strong group of parents who are willing to help!

Elisa Betancourt
Parents For Enrichment Programs

http://sites.google.com/site/parentsforenrichmentprograms

CVESD and DASH and STRETCH program

Subject: The superintendent letter
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:22:21

We, the parents of children presently enrolled at Dash and Stretch strongly agree with the CVESD motto: "Each child is an individual of great worth." With that in mind and the fact that indeed each child has his/her own needs, we have decided over the years to send our children to Dash and/or Stretch.

While there are many other worthwhile programs available in Chula Vista, Dash and Stretch fulfilled the specific needs of our children over and above expectations.
We are thankful to the South Bay Y to be willing to take over the Dash and Stretch programs and provide the necessary funds the city is unable to provide at this time in addition to the $1.65 million that the school district previously provided and will transfer to the Y.

However, while the Y runs excellent programs that fit the needs of many other families and their children, we the parents of children in DASH and STRETCH want to make sure that these programs are preserved in their present forms. The only way we can ensure that these excellent programs, which brought results beyond expectations in our children, can be carried on in the same manner is with the present staff and training which brought those results.

Since the roughly 2/3 of the cost of the program is borne by the CVSD, it would not be unheard of, or asking too much for the CVESD to demand that with the transferring of these funds the program be kept exactly as is, including all the present staff as well as the continuation of the present, (continuously improved and updated) training program which has been proven to be so effective over the years. Not only parents but faculty members and administrators can attest to this.

Thank you for your concern and willingness to do everything possible to ultimately resolve this situation so that our children will continue to be taken care of in a way that is best for them.

Dash and Stretch Parents: