Editor,
After talking to a lot of our neighbors around town about our schools, I am astonished at the level of interest and information in circulation about what is working and what could be done better in local public education. I have a lot of my own ideas about it, but I have learned a lot that I didn’t know listening to parents, teachers, students and citizens who care about what goes on in the school district.
One pronounced need is for more opportunities with face-to-face dialogue and enhanced public participation in school board deliberations on curriculum, personnel and budget (revenues and spending). Increased reliance by school officials on unscientific selectively targeted online “surveys” is creating an institutionalized bubble of uncritical bureaucratic self-justification. At the same time the choreography of meetings in the conference room at school district offices leaves parents, students and the public alternately bored to tears or feeling mugged in the alley for daring to speak up.
Most regular meetings properly need to be conducted in the school board meeting room at the school district main office to create a reliable record of board actions. Still, special meetings, public hearings, study sessions and open forums can be conducted at each campus far more often, and child-care can be accommodated. Routine public notice can be augmented by enhanced advance promotion of more user-friendly agendas that draw more attendance, reducing the “show up or shut up” syndrome when formal regular meetings at school district headquarters is the only chance to be heard.
We also need to end the practice of evading state law open meeting rules for the important work of school board committees by relying on closed ad hoc “administrative committees.” More of the people’s business should be done by standing committees that must meet in public, as contemplated by the Brown Act in the state government code.
Finally, over a decade ago our school board incorporated the Crystal Cove section of Newport Coast into our school district. That may capture some high property tax revenues from homeowners there, but that community has not been integrated into our schools as well as Three Arch Bay, Emerald Bay and Irvine Cove. Perhaps one or two open forums in the community building on Reef Point Road in Crystal Cove would promote better rapport between the school board families and taxpayers in that under-served enclave of our public school community.
Howard Hills, Laguna Beach
The author is a candidate for school board.
One of the most frustrating things about past school boards and administrations in Laguna Beach was the way that students were denied a political voice. During the Social Host Ordinance (SHO) debates a few years ago, students planning a peaceful protest at the high school at my home were called by both a school board member and the principal and instructed that they would not be able to take their finals (mostly seniors and juniors who were planning on post-high school education) if they participated in protests.
Culverhouse later rescinded that statement (after it was discovered and after the students were disbanded), but I don’t recall ever hearing Lansiedel or the board properly rescind their action.
We have had plenty of students who would like to participate in school and city governance when it directly impacts them. We do ourselves a great disservice by not having a platform that gives them a voice and a way to organize themselves.
Encouraging the next generation to find their voice and participate, especially when we disagree and especially when it threatens our own interests as an older generation, may be one of the most profound and important things that a school and school board could provide students–a way to apply their civic philosophy in their own home town.