When Mike Nolan announcement in mid-July that he would run for the Davis School Board, it meant suddenly there were four candidates for three spots and the incumbents would now have to run for office and defend their records. That is exactly what Mr. Nolan was hoping for.
He told the Vanguard in an interview that someone needs to be to run, just in order for there to be a performance review. But he went further, first pointing out that he likes all three of the incumbents as people and calls them dedicated public servants who are worthy of respect and praise.
Mike Nolan is a lawyer who began his practice in San Luis Obispo. He now has four children who are all in Davis public schools. While he joined the PTA in 1999, he never went to a meeting until his oldest went to Junior High.
People were looking for someone to join the Superintendent-Parents advisory Committee. This was a body that would bring a lot of district-wide information to the Superintendent. He joined in 2006, at the end of the 2005-06 school year. And he has served four tumultuous years that have seen four different superintendents and several budget crises.
However, his first issue was a rather mundane one. There were no nets on the basketball hoops on school playgrounds and this was a source of complaint from a number of parents. So he took up the issue and it turned out there had been a college student who was playing on the courts and went up to attempt to dunk the ball and got his hand caught in the wire net and lost a finger. He sued the school district and the insurance company made the district take down the nets.
He was about to get cloth nets put into place when suddenly Superintendent David Murphy resigned and interim Superintendent Richard Whitmore had more pressing issues to attend to.
Since then more serious issues have plagued the school district, and in January 2008 the district was facing a huge budget deficit right after passing Measure Q. Mr. Nolan pushed immediately for another parcel tax, but the district, for a variety of reasons, was not ready to do that just yet. The Davis Schools Foundation was able to raise enough money to allow the district to continue to operate with minimal cuts, after a flurry of spring proposals that included the suggestion of closing Emerson Junior High.
Eventually the school district did consider a new parcel tax. Mike Nolan told the Vanguard that with him as PTA President, Willett PTA was the first PTA to support the new parcel tax in 2008.
Another point of concern he expressed was a situation that arose in late 2008, just after the voters had approved Measure W. The issue of school reconfiguration was placed on the agenda at 7:30 am on a Sunday morning. This was the issue where the district would consider whether to switch the configuration to include ninth grade in the high school and whether to change the Junior Highs to 7-8 or 6-7-8. The Sunday Meeting was advertised and supposed to be a workshop but there were a few substantive issues that somehow were also placed on the agenda.
Mike Nolan and a number of concerned parents came down to the meeting to see what was going to happen. Mr. Nolan was as concerned about the procedure as he was with the actual policy. The parents who came out at 7:30 on a Sunday morning waited for an hour as the board met in closed session. When they emerged, they took the issue off the agenda. According to Mr. Nolan, the issue of reconfiguration has never popped up since that day. He felt the whole event was a sign of disrespect, after all the parents and PTA members had done to pass Measure W.
However, the parents stuck around and saw what Mr. Nolan describes as micro-management, in which the district was firing its lawyers, apparently against the advice and wishes of Superintendent James Hammond. Superintendent Hammond wanted to consult with attorneys who were familiar with the school district, but according to Mike Nolan, the school board told the superintendent that he could now only call this new firm for legal advice.
Mike Nolan is also very concerned about the plans to have the next parcel tax in May as opposed to in November. This will push the issue from the November election, when the three incumbents will face the voters for re-election.
It will be determined in December how the parcel tax will be structured. Mike Nolan, however, believes that the public needs to be involved and organized before then, and that there should be a discussion not just regarding the amount, but also what the parcel tax should pay for.
Mike Nolan does not dispute that the parcel tax is needed, but he has two primary concerns about the timing. First, a May election is right before the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2011. That means that if there is a problem with the election or they lose for some reason, they have no opportunity to attempt it again. They will immediately have to enact massive cuts.
The second point is that if they instead ran it in November, the district would avoid the threat of having to pink-slip 100 people. He said that Board Member Gina Daleiden argued at a meeting that if there were no such impending crisis, the public would not vote for the measure. However, Mr. Nolan argued that in 2008 there had been no immediate crisis, and they got three-quarters of the vote without the threat of people being fired.
He called the current way of doing things a “brutal system.” When people get pink-slipped, there are many who leave in tears and most do not know if they are going to get their jobs back, so it is a heart-breaking time of great stress and uncertainty. And this has happened several years in a row. He described one ten-year veteran who knew she would be the first rehired and thus would have a job, but she had taught at the same school for ten years and might lose her classroom and her school because other teachers would get priority.
The idea that the district would have to fire hundreds of employees months before they know their finances is ridiculous according to Mike Nolan. And the worst part, he says, is that we do not have to go through this, this election could be done in November and then the employees would not have to face pink slips for a fourth straight year.
As he said, “If there’s a little screw-up in May, we’re in real trouble.” In fact, no one has tried the mail-in ballot. However, clearly it is cheaper in May to a do a mail-in ballot than it is in March to do a precinct election. However, he pointed out, it would be cheapest in November when the cost of the ballot would be shared by a large number of jurisdictions and office seekers.
He wants to fashion a parcel tax that will preserve our system now. However, he also wants to push programs for kids who are not going to go to college. He argued that we should be as concerned about kids interested in the manual arts and mechanics as we are about college-bound students. He believes it is a mistake to focus just on really brilliant students, and that we also have to provide for ones who really do not like school.
He also expressed concern about bolstering the support staff, who he believes really run the schools, and he wants to see more money made available to repair existing infrastructure.
The Vanguard will have exhaustive coverage of the school board race as things begin to heat up. The incumbents, due to the change in the school district’s election cycle, have been in office since 2005. The district faces huge challenges in the coming years and the public needs to be informed about the choices that they make.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Good article. One relevant detail that’s missing about parcel taxes is that ballot proposals have to be submitted ~120 days prior to the election date. The district offers its preliminary budget proposal as early as January, based on what the governor proposes at that time. In order to offer a parcel tax that responds to the latest, most solid state budget framework, May is the earliest election date.
A public complaint about the past two parcel taxes (Measures Q & W), both passed in November elections, is that the following January the district released its preliminary budget proposal announcing cuts that seemed a little out of sync with the most recently passed parcel tax.
Nolan makes a good point.
The key question here is: How much extra is the school district paying to have an election in May rather than in November?
The choice of a May election certainly seems odd.
I believe that the reason school districts in cities like Davis favor these out of cycle elections, despite the much higher costs they incur compared to a November on cycle election, is that they tend to be biased in turnout towards school supporters. In that sense, they are a cynical and manipulative use of elections, and generate justifiable contempt of election processes.
I think the key question, rather, is does the proposed parcel tax respond realistically to the needs of the district? That doesn’t happen as much when you go with a November parcel tax.
This past May, plenty of school districts proposed a mail-in parcel tax. Not all of them passed. The ones that passed were typically in more affluent, educated districts, same as often happens in a November election. One notable district that rejected a parcel tax done by mail-in ballot last May was the Santa Monica Malibu district.
The irony is that California is reverting back to the situation of funding inequities that the courts tried to correct in Serrano vs. Priest in the early 70’s.
He called the current way of doing things a “brutal system.” When people get pink-slipped, there are many who leave in tears and most do not know if they are going to get their jobs back, so it is a heart-breaking time of great stress and uncertainty.
Nolan seems to think that no matter what the economic realities are, that teachers should have some sort of employment for life guarantee. Does he think that taxpayers should be willing to pony up whatever is necessary to ensure that our teachers who are producing increasing numbers of functionally illiterate graduates do not have to suffer a reduction in pay or have to contemplate alternate employment options???
our teachers who are producing increasing numbers of functionally illiterate graduates
In Davis schools? On what basis do you say that Davis schools are producing increasing numbers of functionally illiterate graduates?
A teacher with 10 years seniority received a pink slip? That doesn’t sound likely or consistent with anything I’ve heard.
Most of Mike’s comments sound like second guessing decisions that really are judgment calls. Perhaps Mike does not know all the background and facts pertaining to each of these decisions, since I suspect he has not attended or watched every single School Board meeting that has taken place since these 3 people joined the School Board.
I do not agree with every decision these 3 incumbents have made, but I trust these hard-working, diligent, intelligent, ethical and well-intentioned public servants to make the best decisions for our district most of the time. It would take some pretty strong evidence to convince me that I should vote for anyone else when School Districts are in a continuing state of financial crisis because of the actions of the State and when we are in the midst of a transition with a new Superintendent and, hopefully soon, a new high school principal.
A teacher with 10 years seniority received a pink slip? That doesn’t sound likely or consistent with anything I’ve heard.
Kevin French, the DJUSD adminstrator who oversees human resources, announced last spring that pink slips would be given to teachers hired as far back as 2000-2001. Once those pink slips were issued, though, a retirement package was agreed to, and DTA agreed to furloughs for next school year. Plus DSF raised its money for the schools. So it’s highly unlikely that any teacher with 10 years of experiences lost his/her job involuntarily last spring. But Nolan’s story about the 10-year veteran teacher is not inconsistant with what was being discussed in school board meetings at the time.
wdf1: “In Davis schools? On what basis do you say that Davis schools are producing increasing numbers of functionally illiterate graduates?”
I’m guessing here, but perhaps UCD complaints that incoming freshman (including those from Davis) were so illiterate, UCD was required to have a number of English preparatory course sections on hand for students to take. I know I had to do a lot of home schooling bc my kids were not getting the basics in Davis schools (but it was also true of Virginia schools in the Washington, D.C. area where they also attended). Some of it depended on what teacher my children had; sometimes the unwillingness of the school to address learning disability problems; some of it on a lack of discipline in the classroom. But frankly, this issue of functional illiteracy is going on all over the country; and has roots in the way the educational system works. I used to be a teacher in the public school system, so I’ve seen it from all sides, and some of the things that go on at the administrative level are appalling…
I’m guessing here, but perhaps UCD complaints that incoming freshman (including those from Davis) were so illiterate, UCD was required to have a number of English preparatory course sections on hand for students to take.
I have taught college courses in Sacramento and assigned papers. Yes, the quality of writing was often atrocious and suggested a lack of adequate preparation in high school. I found DHS students, when they enrolled and I identified them, performed well vs. their classmates.
Last May/June I attended public project presentations for two different classes at DHS and thought most of the work showed college level critical thinking. The public speaking was generally very good to adequate for high school/undergrad level. I was also very impressed with the background and enthusiasm that the teachers brought to those classes.
My experiences, from direct observation in two types of instances, are inconsistent with the way wesley506 seems to characterize Davis teachers and students. Granted, I didn’t have the chance to see DHS students in the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s, so maybe they were more literate and articulate then than now. I wonder if that can be measured.
wdf1: “Last May/June I attended public project presentations for two different classes at DHS and thought most of the work showed college level critical thinking. The public speaking was generally very good to adequate for high school/undergrad level. I was also very impressed with the background and enthusiasm that the teachers brought to those classes.”
What you don’t know is if these students had a lot of help along the way from their parents. I know my children did, or they would have been functionally illiterate. One of my children got all the way through most of DHS not knowing what a simple paragraph was, which was shocking to me. So I sat her down and taught her basic English in a few short months. She ultimately graduated from UCD with highest honors in Physiology. Another one of my children w learning disabilites was shoved into Transition Academy at DHS with all the school’s troublemakers, which made his time at DHS a living nightmare. He was physically assaulted on a number of occasions in unprovoked attacks by either large bullies or gang members operating out of DHS (two times involving the police). He also graduated from UCD in Math. My youngest fared better, bc she had two outstanding teachers in 2nd and 3rd grade in Davis. But yet gang fights (both boy and girl gangs) in the hallways at DHS was commonplace during her tenure there. She graduated from UCD in genetics. My kids attended the schools here in Davis between the years 1987 and 2003.
From a personal perspective, I was never so glad as when my kids got out of the public school system and went to college. At college they were relatively safe, got top notch educations, felt much better self-esteem wise because they didn’t have the misery of dealing with discipline problems from fellow students and other such nonsense, got any assistance they needed with any learning disability problems and so forth.
How a student views their public education experience depends so much on what teachers they have, the way the school handles or doesn’t handle discipline problems, how committed the school is to make sure students learn the basics, if the school is truly committed to helping learning disabled students, how much support a teacher receives from administration for doing a good job, etc.
From another perspective, pink-slipping and then rescinding pink-slips at the eleventh hour is a demoralizing process for teachers to go through. But part of that has to do with the way teachers unions and the school administration bargain – it is not a pretty picture. The schools are generally top-heavy with adminstrators, who often are not supportive of good teachers. And teachers often do not get the help they need to handle discipline problems in the classroom from school administrators. I could go on and on about the problems in the public school system, so I’ll get off my soapbox for now! This is probably more than any reader wanted to read…
Elaine, You and I have gone back and forth on this narrative several times on this blog. I am sorry that your experience with DJUSD was negative. The only specific positive comment I remember from you on DJUSD was that Valley Oak Elementary had a great EL program, which you took as an opportunity to backhandedly criticize the EL program in the rest of the district.
I have been fortunate enough to see several very good, hard-working teachers make a positive difference in my kids and in the kids of others, including learning disability, and ELL issues. I have met and chatted with parents who have moved into this district from elsewhere who know that they’re getting a better deal here. I have see folks like wesley506 categorically trash all teachers in Davis and beyond, seemingly with little specific consideration for what is indeed working. You seem to tacitly agree. My response to wesley506 is that I don’t see widespread functional illiteracy that is clearly attributable to teachers.
DJUSD doesn’t have a PR or public affairs department the way UCD does; Davis residents would probably deem that an inappropriate expense, especially in these times. In honor and appreciation of the many hardworking teachers I have known and seen in our schools, I will stick up and put a good word in for them. Yes, we have had a couple of teachers that weren’t a good fit, but nothing for me to go demand their dismissal. I rather suspect that things have improved since 2003, by how much, I don’t know. Not perfect, but improving.
It’s a tendency to magnify problems in criticism by ignoring what’s working. To use a phrase you’re fond of, “be careful what you wish for.” And there are unintended consequences you may bring on.
I have posted before that California has a very low administrator to student and administrator to teacher ratio, below the national average. DJUSD is even below the California average. When dealing with DJUSD adminstrators downtown, you learn that each administrator is carrying multiple portfolios. I even think the administrative section is understaffed, but that’s a symptom of the times.
When 60% of California State University freshman need remedial coursework before they can be considered to be ready to enter college, I would say that is a systematic failure. California public school rankings have been in the bottom 5% nationwide for several years, yet we have teacher’s salaries that are in the top 5%. Within California, Davis High is ranked in the top 25% of all Calif high schools. I don’t think I would call being in the top 25% in a state that is ranked near bottom is much to be proud of.
My problem with teachers is that it it guaranteed lifetime employment. Just because you may be smarter than the 7th grade class you are teaching does not mean you are a competent teacher and deserve lifetime tenure. When the economy is tanking I do not think teachers should be immune from making the same sacrifices that every other civil servant must make.
I have a teenager who has been through North Davis, Holmes, is currently at Davis High, has been in the ELL program, and has had both very good teachers and very bad. The overwhelming majority of her teachers have been mediocre.
When 60% of California State University freshman need remedial coursework before they can be considered to be ready to enter college, I would say that is a systematic failure. California public school rankings have been in the bottom 5% nationwide for several years, yet we have teacher’s salaries that are in the top 5%. Within California, Davis High is ranked in the top 25% of all Calif high schools. I don’t think I would call being in the top 25% in a state that is ranked near bottom is much to be proud of.
I can believe that for the CSU system. I wonder what that percent would be for UC.
We also have those same teachers basically teaching the largest class sizes in the country, even accounting for class-size reduction programs. So it is plausible that some of that pay is commensurate with the number of students teachers must teach in California.
If you accept the criteria, DHS does rank well nationally:
[url]http://www.usnews.com/listings/high-schools/california/davis_senior_high_school[/url]
For decades it has been fashionable to criticize public education in the U.S., from the time of Sputnik when supposedly our poor public schools failed us in the space race at that point, to the “Nation at Risk” report of the early 80’s, to the present. Through it all, the U.S. has managed to thrive. That said, I do look for improvement. But it probably won’t come as fast as the voting public would like.