School Board Comments

Good Evening Board Members and District Administrators,

I would like to share a few concerns of mine. The first being, the state of the ELD program. In years past, the ACLU, OCR, and CDE have looked into some of the issues that were present in TVUSD and that I thought were behind us, but that does not seem to be the case. Some ELD parents do not feel welcomed at their children’s site. Some also feel that they have not been properly trained to be a contributing member of some parent stakeholder groups like ELAC, DELAC, and SSC. I am sure that you will begin to hear from parents, teachers, and community members in a variety of different venues and mediums. I am involved in several different committees and stakeholder groups that advocate for students, parents and teachers…so I am not saying this to be negative in any shape or form, but instead to inform and make you all aware of what is coming in the near future. I trust you will all do what is right, take corrective action, and to change what is within your power to change.

The second concern is more of a frustration with the handling of our budget. In the near future, some of us teachers are going to be asked to change our working environment under the guise of student learning or how it has been recently stated, creating student opportunities. In short, we could be asked to work more for less. Secondary teachers may be asked to teach 6 classes to the current 5 classes we teach now. We will be asked to do this to cut our deficit spending which we have no control over. Teachers did not increase the workforce when the LCAP was written and approved by all of you present here tonight. In the past, Board members have stated that they will not put the district in an insolvent position. What frustrates me as an employee is that some of you seated there tonight have been given salary increases anywhere from 22-28% over the past 4 years and your job duties will not increase at all. Those of you seated here tonight voted to approve these salary increases knowing that we were going into a deficit spending time period. Yet I expect I will be told there is no money to compensate me for the extra work that I will be stuck with for the rest of my 15-18 yrs of my career. I may be put in a position to accept the 6 period work day, increase my total student count with the impact of other teachers being given pink slips and eventually let go by TVUSD. I hope that is not the ongoing plan to cut the deficit. A responsible group of leaders would keep as many cuts away from the classroom as possible.

Thank you for your time.