School Board Candidates Lay Out Vision for Future in LWV Forum Before Tuesday’s Election

The League posed two main questions: one regarding declining enrollments, and another about the state budget; both followed by questions from the public.

Mike Nolan moved here in 1998 for the purpose of sending kinds here for school.  He has a long term output for the school district.  Nolan was involved in the PTA at first as a representative and then became the PTA president.  Later Mr. Nolan was elected to the site council and became the council’s president.  He began to see the problems the district was facing and desired to become involved.

Gina Daleiden, elected five years ago, has a true passion for Davis Joint Unified which is “build on a lifetime.”  Mrs. Daleiden has been living in Davis her whole life, and is very proud to be a Blue Devil.  Mrs. Daleiden has been very active in PTA and district communities.   Mrs. Daleiden expressed promise for another four years of dedication.  Mrs. Daleiden also reminded the crowd that “some of the most critical decisions that will be faced in the next four years will not be expressed here tonight,” because the future is always uncertain. 

Sheila Allen first got on the school board because she “likes to help and likes to get involved.”  This was also five years ago.  She too was involved in the PTA, and is very involved in the community.  Mrs. Allen stated that she will “do everything [she] can to make sure that our schools are the very best that they can be.”  Mrs. Allen has three general categories that she constantly works on: Access to free education for everyone, Budget responsibility, and Communication.  

The first question the League asked was:  Do you think declining enrollments for the K-12 of the DJUS system is a thing of the past, or will have an impact in ADA funding in the future?  And how do you propose the school district deal with further decreases in enrollment?

Mrs. Daleiden stated, “I can’t tell you with certainty if enrollment declines are a thing of the past, but I can tell you that a thing of the past is the failure to plan for what will be changes.” 

When Gina, Sheila, and Tim came on the board, they hired Davis Demographic to do a modernized and updated assessment of Davis demographics based on ten year projections.  This is done so the board can keep their eyes on a moving target.  This comes into handy for planning, resources, and best ways to plan for students. 

In the last four years there has been a flat trend (varying slightly), with a decline in resident students and an increase in inter-district transfers.  The idea of this is that people may be moving out of Davis searching for jobs or affordable housing.  Given that the economy is still experiencing ‘bad times,’ there is uncertainty if this will be a repeated trend or not.

Mrs. Allen defined ADA as the Average Daily Attendance—paid in amount per student per year.   It’s set at the state level, but has been declining over the last few years, specifically because the state is paying the district in IOU’s.   Mr. Taylor stated that the ADA is really “the driver, economically, for the school district.” Mrs. Allen explained that there are currently 8,400 students enrolled this year as opposed to last year’s 8,526, primarily because there is a flat housing growth and homes in Davis are fairly expensive. 

The good news is that the high-quality programs make families want to send their kids here, so a number of transfers come to the area.  Mr. Taylor inquired that a good way to solve the funding issue would be to bring in more inter-district students, because the money follows them.

Mrs. Allen stated that, as far as dealing with ADA funding issues goes, “we really respond to the student that comes in, more so than we can change it.  What we can do…is bring students in from out of the district…because each of those students bring with them a full year of ADA.”

Clearly, it is important to keep high-quality programs, and this can done by making sure “to renew and increase the Parcel Tax…it’s the local revenue that protects the high quality programs in Davis that really aren’t seen in the surrounding areas.”  Mrs. Daleiden commented.    

Mr. Nolan stated that there is a problem in “the way the ADA has evolved. The district gets dinged from ADA for funding when students are absent.”  And because enrollment is slowly declining, there needs to be a long-term perspective or view.   Mr. Nolan added, “we may be surprised with developments in the future.  It’s easier to deal with a decrease in students than an increase.”

Mr. Taylor added that as far as the future goes, “We don’t know.  It’s somewhat of a crystal ball projection” with a lot of variability and uncertainty.   Mr. Taylor also said that at the end of the day, in any way you put it, a “declining enrollment is devastating.”

The Leagues second question was: What will the board be dealing with in the next round cuts from the State of California? What tact would you suggest should be used in the worst and/or “not best” scenarios brought about by the state budget that was just passed?

Mr. Taylor stated, “The budget is a very difficult problem…[sadly] the Sate of California has not seen fit to prioritize education in budgeting.”

The bottom line is that money coming in from the state is in IOU’s (at this moment about $8M in IOU’s), so cash flow management is an issue, and cash needs to be watched very carefully.  The district’s programs are currently running a lot because of one time money from the community and very generous sacrifices by employees who gave up pay.

Mrs. Allen reminded the community that, “we don’t have very much control with what’s coming from Sacramento, but more control on the community and local level…We’re going to do what we can locally to continue to have these great programs.”  Mr. Taylor also added, “[Davis is] the envy of every school district in the region because of local community support and prioritized education in a way that the state hasn’t done.”

Mrs. Daleiden stated, “we’re not really going to know what type of budget we’re dealing with until May.” The best case scenario is a $3M deficit and the worst case is $4-7M deficit.   The difficulty is to balance the budget and protect high quality programs at the same time.  The budget is an ongoing discussion that is dealt with almost every meeting. 

Mrs. Daleiden added, “all cuts have been incredibly painful, but the board must prioritize…[remaining successful will require]  taking a strategic approach, having the courage to prioritize, earning the trust of the community in doing that, and making sure we have schools that everyone wants to send their children to.”

Mr. Nolan argued, “I don’t think we can wait till May to see what budget will look like.  No one believes that Congress will give billions of dollars to education in California.”  If failure to budget effectively occurs, the legislature is going to have to find a way to cut money, and the IOU’s can be a great way for them to do that. 

Nolan, along with all the other candidates, agreed that “we have to start planning now, assuming the economy will remain sluggish, and make sacrifice so that everyone suffers a reasonable rate.”  Mr. Taylor said that one way to help budget correctly, the district will have to provide budgetary projections in the future to protect the class room.

The public was concerned about budget cuts and asked what would be cut next, if any cuts were to be made.

Each candidate agreed that this was a very difficult question to answer.  Mrs. Allen said, “We’d rather look at solutions rather than consider more cuts.” 

Mr. Taylor brought up a good point that lawns still need to be mowed and class rooms cleaned, so where else do you cut, and how do you do it, is a very tricky question to answer at this point.

Mr. Taylor also added, “I have not accepted a penny while being on this board.  It’s a small contribution but if re-elected, I intend to continue to do so.”

Mr. Nolan said that there needed to be more transparency, specifically for the Parcel Tax committee, so the public had some input.  Mrs. Daleiden corrected Mr. Nolan, adding that the Parcel Tax sub-committee is not there to collect information from the public to bring back to the board that is done with the full body of the board.  The sub-committee works with staff and experts so they can figure out what makes the most sense.  Community input is done at board meetings.     

Mrs. Daleiden stated that “there really isn’t a choice between people and programs, because people are the programs…at the end of the day, the most important thing we want for our child is one good teacher.  Doesn’t matter what kind of material they sit on or what kind of chalkboard they have…But the teacher cannot do their job without some sort of support.”

Another public concern was that the board meetings sometimes begin rather late, and Mr. Taylor, Mrs. Daleiden, and Mrs. Allen each commented that tardiness to these meetings is largely due to the closed sessions which are highly necessary and direly important (which are held right before the board meetings.) 

Mr. Taylor also mentioned, “I am really proud that over the past five years we have made these meetings so much more efficient and much shorter.  Sometimes meetings ran until 12 or 1 in the morning…and no one should be making decisions after 11pm.”
Mr. Nolan said that “the meeting wouldn’t be so long if there were more sub-committees.”  He touched on meeting times starting too early; one example was that a meeting was held on Sunday at 7:30am, which Mr. Nolan said indicated the board wasn’t being considerate of families and voters.

Mrs. Daleiden stated, “Closed session runs last sometimes, because we’re dealing with things you really wouldn’t want to be rushed…and sub-committees shouldn’t carry out work of the board because we need to make these decisions together” (the five of the board members).

Mrs. Allen also acknowledged that there are online agendas and policies so people attending the meeting or watching on TV can see what is important or what they are interested in.

The public also asked, what is the best way to deal with surplus property owned by school district?  Any plans to sell off surplus property to pay off short term debts? All three incumbents stand behind the decision to reverse the Grande deal and that now is not the right time to deal with it.

It is not smart to gamble away valuable assets, which is why, Mrs. Daleiden said, the land has not been sold yet.  You can only sell it once. 

The property are assets for the district, which Nolan thinks should be held onto until property value goes back up.  If they’re sold, the state requires that the money is used for limited purposes, and it’s problematic if the money would actually deal with anything.

Up until this year, the only onetime money the land would have provided would only be able to be used for facilities. This year, it could have been used for the budget, but then it would have severely restricted any funding from the state, which would have been a “double whammy”, as Mrs. Allen put it.

Mr. Taylor addressed his difficulty understanding “how someone could argue that the district hasn’t been transparent enough as far as its meeting times…and then indicate that the undoing of the original Grande was probably a bad idea” because that decision was incredibly transparent.  The reverse “was the right decision without question,” Mr. Taylor stated.

The last question the public asked was: what programs do you favor to prepare students for an environment that is rapidly evolving? 

Mrs. Daleiden thinks that the best programs are “programs that best fit the student–one size never fits all in education, so a strong variety of options for students is important.” 

Mrs. Allen said that, “our student are not only a test score, and need access to a range of programs (including music) is necessary.”
Mr. Taylor agreed with both Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Daleiden, but also added that it’s just as important to prepare students who are not going to college just as well as those who are.

Mr. Nolan thought that teaching kids how to deal with money is something that should be better emphasized. 

Outside of the core classes, foreign language, computers and technology, music, and agricultural are highly encouraged classes.

If you haven’t got  a mail-in ballot, you can go to your polling place, and if you’ve forgotten where you’re polling place is, you can call (530)666-8133.  Please vote this Tuesday, November 5th.

This is Samantha Lynch reporting.