COMMUNITY COMMENTARY:Responding to concerns about school board

Board member Martha Fluor is a regional director for California School Boards Assn., and member Judy Franco is an Orange County delegate for the same group. The school boards association is the premier lobbying group for educational change in Sacramento. It takes years of experience and influence to be selected for these positions. We are fortunate to have both members from the same board represent our interests.

Since not every student is going to college or university, why doesn't the district offer vocational classes to its students?

Through the Coastline Regional Occupational Program we offer scores of vocational classes; many are on our high school campuses.

Since you consider the teachers to be so well qualified and doing a good job, why shouldn't they be paid more?

We would love to pay the teachers and classified workers more; however, we are responsible for the finances of the entire district. To increase their total compensation over the 90% of the budget they currently receive, we would have to do away with class size reduction and increase all classes to 36 to 40-plus students. This means not renewing contracts with many qualified teachers. Surrounding school districts that pay more are a source of many of our new hires when they remove excellent teachers from their payrolls.

This school board is very active in bringing quality programs to the students of our communities.

Although the decision on the charter school appeared to be a negative, it would have been a $5-million disaster to approve the petition that was presented.

The two school improvement bonds were necessary due to the age of the schools, state propositions, and court rulings that changed funding sources since most of us attended public schools.

The strategic plan that this community twice developed and the school district uses as a living document, to the extent of aligning its budget to accomplish, is an effective method to bring progressively better education to our students.

The staff that is hired by the superintendent works as a collegial unit to provide the quality reports and programs so they can be approved by the school board.

Experience and the use of long term relationships pays dividends for this board by giving them input into decisions that are made at the state level. This is also true when board members have the knowledge, relationships, and influence to tap local funding sources. Short term school board members do not have this ability.

Although the emphasis of our curriculum is to prepare students for the best university and colleges in the country, we recognize that not all students will attend post secondary institutions and make available vocational and career training classes.

Our teachers and staff are second to none, so we provide 90% of our budget to their wages and benefits.