Trustees Allman and Williams Take Their Oath of Office
Trustee Williams Elected as Board President
Update Provided on One San Dieguito Initiative
Ethnic Studies Unit 4 Approved
District’s Budget Shows Large Operating Deficit
Trustees Allman and Williams Take Oath of Office
With the election results finalized, Jodie Williams, the newly elected Trustee for Area 2, and I both took our oath of office and were officially seated for our roles on the school board. The term for each of us is four years.
The next election for our Board will be in November 2026, when Trustee Areas 1, 3, and 5 will elect their representatives for the seats currently held by Trustees Rimga Viskanta, Jane Lea Smith, and Phan Anderson. There are no term limits for school board members, so anyone is free to run in our elections.
Trustee Williams Elected as Board President
Trustee Williams was elected as our new Board President. During her campaign she emphasized the importance of good board governance. Because of that commitment and her strong resume, I was pleased to nominate her and vote for her.
A brief news story on the appointment of our officers can be found here.
Williams Elected Board President
Update Provided on One San Dieguito Initiative
The Board heard from representatives of the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) regarding the One San Dieguito Initiative. As a reminder, this initiative was sponsored by Superintendent Staffieri to help improve the climate and culture on our campuses by providing training to staff and students. I have heard that these have been generally well received, but I have not seen the content or personally participated in any of these sessions. I have asked for more details for this training and for other professional development sessions, so that we can continue to improve our transparency with the public.
During this discussion, I was reminded that we reviewed student discipline statistics a couple of years ago, but the Board hadn’t been updated since then. I asked Superintendent Staffieri to schedule another update for an upcoming Board meeting so that we can review trends over the last couple of years and compare us to other leading school districts. One objective way to measure our success is by fewer reported student disciplinary issues.
Ethnic Studies Unit 4 Approved
The Board approved the content of the final Ethnic Studies Unit, known as Unit 4. Now that the initial content has been created and approved, the District will pilot this material in our 9th Grade English classes for much of the rest of the school year. The plan is to obtain feedback from the actual classroom experience and then offer an integrated 9th Grade English / Ethnic Studies class beginning with the next school year.
The vote to approve Unit 4 was 3-2 in favor, with Trustee Phan Anderson and me voting no. My primary objection with some of the lesson plans was the inclusion of social activism. In my view we should be teaching students the history of different ethnicities and cultures and the role they play in the American experience. There is a tremendous amount of rich and engaging content that can be taught, instead of current social issues which are often controversial and political.
My other concern is that by integrating a full semester’s worth of Ethnic Studies into 9th Grade English we will replace valuable content that has been part of our English classes for many years. I still don’t know what content will be dropped to incorporate a full semester of Ethnic Studies, but I do know that 9th Grade English is fundamental to students’ education, and I am reluctant to replace material that has been included and taught successfully up to now.
I mentioned (as did many public speakers) during the board meeting that a potential solution would be to offer students a choice. They can take the proposed 9th Grade English / Ethnic Studies combination class, or they can take the “legacy” 9th Grade English class and find a different path to meet the Ethnic Studies requirement. The District will have to create a path to meet the Ethnic Studies requirement for students who move into our District after 9th Grade, so why not provide this choice to all students? I was told it will be significantly more expensive to offer a choice, but I am not convinced that is true. I will ask for more details on this rationale.
District’s Budget Shows Large Operating Deficit
Finally, staff presented an overview of our budget update for the remainder of this school year and the next two school years. Unfortunately, our financial situation remains precarious.
We are forecasting an $8 million deficit for this 2024/25 school year in our unrestricted accounts, which will bring our unallocated reserves down to 8% of our total expenditures. The forecast for the 2025/26 year is a $5 million deficit, which would further reduce our reserves to just below 6%.
To put that into perspective, our Board-approved goal is to have 18% reserves, and if we were to fall below 3%, the County would take over our District. As I stated in the Board meeting, this budget is “too thin” for my liking. We simply must learn how to live within our means, and we cannot continue to run deficits year after year.
The next regularly-scheduled Board Meeting will be on January 23rd, although a special Board Meeting is likely to be called for early January to handle some confidential and time-sensitive matters.
A video of this last board meeting can be found here: