Communities Organized to Support Adult School Meeting Notes January 24

COSAS MEETING 1-24-11

Notes by Kimi Honda

Attendance:  Kristen Pursley, Ken Ryan, Pat Miles, Inocencia Dacumos, Kimi Honda

B-BAEC (Adult Ed. Teachers of Oakland) attended the Oakland City Council meeting on Jan. 18.  Jessie Ortiz (Immigrant Education) told Janet that there is a proposal to ask the State to forgive Oakland School District’s debt. Proposal could help WCCSD who could also apply for debt forgiveness. 

Jan. 19^th, at the School Board Meeting, it was announced that Gov. Brown to extend the Funding Flexibility.  Ken says Adult Ed is only 1% of the total school budget. 

Letter Writing Campaign was agreed upon.  Kristen will provide names and addresses of legislators, Gov. Brown and other influential people.  Mayor Janet Abelson of El Cerrito wrote a letter of support last year .  CATESOL (Calif. Teachers of English Speakers of Other Languages) which is statewide, CCAE, Grey Panthers, United Teachers of Richmond, and other local and statewide organizations’ support are  needed.  Local City Councils all support adult education. 

The letter of support for the West Co. Senior Coalition and the City of Richmond Comm. on Aging and the letter to request that adult education be removed from Tier 111 Flexibility Funding and provided with a protected funding source were reviewed.  Both were well written by Kristen and should be used as reference and for basic information.

Maria Alegria, delegate to the Democratic Party and Faithwork proposed a Calif. Democratic Party Resolution in Support of Adult Education which was reviewed.

WCCUSD Community Budget Meeting Schedule from 6:30pm to 8pm:

1/24/2011:  Helms Middle School, 2500 Road 20, San Pablo

1/26/2011:  Hercules Middle High School, 1900 Refugio Valley Rd., Hercules

1/27/2011:  Kennedy High School, 4300 Cutting Blvd, Richmond

Citizens Budget Advisory Committee and the community will review, share ideas and suggestions about the worsening financial condition of the district.  Adult Ed. Teachers are encouraged to attend.

I had to leave at 5pm so more may have transpired after 5pm

Kimi

History of Adult Education in California

By clicking on the link below, you can read a book about the history of adult education in California.  Read the section on the Great Depression.  The state tried to close adult schools in the early Depression years, using exactly the same arguments you are hearing now.  Adult education has been in existence continuously since the mid 19th Century.  We had adult education before we had public high schools.

Here’s the link:

http://www.caadultedhistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=book

West Contra Costa Board of Education Meeting January 19

There was some very alarming news for supporters of adult education in the Governor’s Budget Update that was presented at this meeting:  The Governor’s Budget proposes extending flexibility into 2015. Flexibility is a supposedly temporary arrangement, an accounting measure that was part of the budget fix of 2008, which has proved devastating to adult education.  Until 2008, adult education was a “categorical” program, with its own funding that could not be used for other purposes by the school district. In 2008, adult education was put into Tier III of flexibility, meaning the district could now use adult education money with no restrictions.   This arrangement has already resulted in some districts eliminating their adult education programs altogether, while others slashed their programs deeply. Flexibility was originally supposed to end in 2013.  A two year extension means more adult education programs will be deeply cut and more may close. Supporters of adult education will need to come up with a response to this proposed extension.

The Governor’s Budget Update  painted a mixed picture of the possible effects of the Governor’s Budget on the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD).  The Governor’s Budget, though austere, attempts to spare K-12 education, and states a commitment to education.  The best news is that there will be no mid-year cuts for 2010-2011.

However, the plan to spare K-12 education further cuts is dependent  both on the legislature accepting severe cuts to other important health and social services programs AND on California voters approving the extension of several taxes in a special election in June.

Based on the various possible outcomes, there is are three scenarios, designated in the report as “Best Case”, “Worst Case” and “Much Worse than Worst Case”.  This may not be a standard use of English, but it eloquently expresses the state of California’s finances.

“Best Case” would only be possible if the legislature approves deep cuts to other programs and the voters approve the tax extensions.  If this were to happen, the district would still have to make some unspecified cuts, but K-3 class size reduction would be able to continue at this year’s level. The district is looking for ways to minimize the cuts.

“Worst Case”  would take place if the legislature adopts the cuts, but the voters don’t support the tax extensions.  In this case the district would lose $9 million and would have to lay off teachers.

“Much Worse than Worst”, the result of the legislature refusing to approve cuts to other programs and voters rejecting the tax extensions, would lose the district an estimated $16 million.

Because the elections about the tax extensions won’t take place until June, the district must prepare for the worst case scenario by sending layoff notices to K-12 teachers in June.  The layoffs will be rescinded if the taxes pass and the legislature approves other cuts. However, even if the layoffs are rescinded, the process will of course be traumatic and agonizing for teachers and other employees who receive notices.

The report mentioned that in the worst case scenario (not worse than worst), the district would also have to consider further cuts to adult education and several other programs.

Note: Adult education teachers will not receive layoff notices in March, even though there may be cuts to adult education for the 2011-2012 school year, especially in the worst case scenario.  There is no need for the district to send layoff notices, because adult educaton teachers are not under contract, and it is not necessary to give them any notice at all before laying them off. They will not receive layoff notices in March because they have less job security than K-12 teachers, not more.

The district will hold a series of budget meetings during the week of January 24.  These meetings will be open to the public.  All meetings are from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. The schedule is as follows:

Monday, January 24                Helms Middle School

Wednesday, January 26          Hercules Middle High School

Thursday, January 27             Kennedy High School  

In a bit of good news, though there is no relation to adult education, Lake Elementary will remain open after all.  WCCUSD and the City of San Pablo have made an arrangement that will allow the school to stay open.  Actually, there is a small relation to adult education, in that there is an adult English as a Second Language class at Lake which serves the Lake parents.  We hope to be back at Lake next year, too.  Congratulations to the Lake community, who fought so hard to save their school.

Board of Education Meeting of January 5

Here are videos of  adult education teacher Toni Favila  and two adult education students, Reyna Flores and Aroldo Rojas, speaking at the West Contra Costa Board of Education meeting of January 5.

Communities Organized to Support Adult School (COSAS) Meeting Notes January 3, 2011

Present:  Kathleen Good, West Contra Costa Adult Education (WCCAE) ESL teacher, Pat Miles, WCCAE ESL teacher, Kristen Pursley, WCCAE ESL teacher, Ken Ryan, WCCAE parent outreach teacher

Board of Education meeting January 5

The group reviewed the agenda for the meeting. There is nothing specific about adult education or the budget on the agenda, so those who wish to speak about adult education will need to sign up to speak during the general comments period.   Several teachers and students are planning to attend the meeting and speak so as to have a presence and stay informed about what the board is doing.

Rehearsing Short Speeches:

One member of the group brought a short prepared speech and rehearsed it for the group.  Afterwards the group critiqued the speech and performance.  The group agreed that there should be time allotted for rehearsing short speeches on every agenda, so that COSAS members can improve their public speaking skills and hone their arguments.

Supporting B-BAEC at Oakland City Council Meeting

B-BAEC, the organization that is working to restore Oakland’s adult education program, will make a presentation to the Oakland City Council on Tuesday, January 18,  and  they would like some support from COSAS.  We need to get a time and the address where the meeting will be held. Kristen Pursley will email Marilyn Noble to get more details and share the information with the group.

Brochure

The brochure is still a work in progress.  The group agreed to do some research to find language from  the  California adult education charter or the laws establishing adult education in California to include in the brochure.

Statement of Support from United Teachers of Richmond

COSAS would like a statement of support from United Teachers of Richmond.  Kathleen Good will talk to UTR about this

Student Involvement

The group discussed a suggestion by Lisa Raffel of Catholic Charities of the East Bay that COSAS hold one big meeting for students to increase student involvement.  Lisa envisioned a group comprising a leader from every class.  There was discussion about how to deal with the language barrier between students.  One possibility would be to recruit students who are intermediate or above English speakers so they can all communicate in English.  Another possibility would be to recruit a group of student leaders who could meet over a period of time to plan a very inclusive event for all students.  At the large event, students could form groups to work in the ways that are most comfortable for them.  The large meeting should probably take place on a Saturday, possibly at English Action Center in the afternoon, so that students in the morning Citizenship class can stay for the event.  COSAS will try to provide babysitting and lunch for the event.  There will be further discussion of this plan at the next COSAS meeting.

Next Meeting

The next meeting is a pot luck which will begin at 6:30 PM and end at 8:30 PM.  It will be held at English Action Center, 2369 Barrett Ave., Richmond, in the last office on the left, upstairs.