Letters to the Editor

CUSD is Broken Lets FIx it with Crazy Glue Not a Band-Aid.

Let me first tell you what the Band-Aid is, it is raising property taxes taking out bonds, threats that your children will be in a classroom of 40 students, teachers will loose jobs unless we borrow more and take more NOW, then we can pay it back in so many years when this lousy economy turns around and our children will figure out a way as adults to pay this money back, not our problem now as long as we borrow and take more. But in the meantime lets just borrow more and say that it will make a difference we get relief for a quick minute then the chaos begins again. To use Crazy Glue is to actually to make a change not just throw money at it but to make a fix in education with smart radical changes that will not put us in more debt and leave us with a problem we have to address 1, 5,10 15 years from now.

Carlsbad at one point in time offered a high quality education we used to have all sorts of wonderful programs at the elementary level. Now those programs have been cut and unless the funds come from out side of the schools budget you don’t get them. My children have a science on “special occasion”, they do not have a music teacher or music room in their school, they don’t have foreign language and I can go on and on. But what they have is continual cuts to their quality of education continual threat of changes, CUSD is is dire straights and even though all these props have been passed it still did not help, they told you it would but now they tell you it won’t.

Oxford and good Charter Schools provide a better less expensive option in education that we can have for our children. Also there is noway a charter school will open and take 50% or even close to that of out of district students. The fact is the charter wants to come in and help the students in Carlsbad not hurt the budget and be in a community that they are looked upon negatively. What will happen if the charter school comes it will run on less Carlsbad tax payers dollars, offer all of the programs that Carlsbad can’t due to their budget and really reach the ESL and Special Needs children that Carlsbad has not been able to help achieve their full potential. Two groups single handedly trying to keep out a school that has such high API scores compared to Carlsbad and offers programs on a weekly bases verses maybe twice a year or on special occasions. Why is Iheart and the PSAC and some PTA members against that?

The State completely supports Oxford and so do other local politicians who as we speak are writing up legislation to help more communities whether they are ADA or BA have charters. To hide behind the fact that we are a Basic AId district does not matter, no matter what the facts are and the financial evidence Oxford has put on the table you will ignore them. Financially this is just the same as if I wanted my child to go from Calaveria Elementary to Pacific RIm since Pacific RIm I believe is a better school for my child. This is the same case if a child moves from Pointsettia to Oxford, so with Oxford as an option at least parents are not leaving the community and district completely. Many of us are not happy with what Gov. Brown is trying to do with his redistribution of education funds to even the playing field, but charter schools are not the problem.

The district tried to make it appear that there is no interest in Oxford by their intimidating phone calls leading us to believe that if we said yes we would send our children to Oxford then there would be no room for our children the upcoming year since they have to plan for our child not to be there. That scare tactic worked when you see the results the district says they got when they called parents who signed the interest form. I support Oxford and went out into the community to gather support, I even said no since the school was not opened yet. Many parents took the risk of saying yes but when the numbers came out from the district office they were not counted. Some who said yes where told by their principal they had no idea how that happened. I want people to know that we are honest parents who support Oxford looking to make a good difference despite how the truth is being spun.

I watched the video yesterday of a few people trying to say how the signatures were gathered it was truly insulting to anyone who volunteered their time to reach out the the community and anyone who signed the form. To say that anyone was intimidated into signing the form and it was said to the County Board that is parents did not sign the the form they could not pass by to take their children to school is horrible. Also there were always Spanish forms and there are many signed by Spanish speaking parents. To say that Hispanic people signed forms they could not read is insulting to them, you can see all the forms if you would like in Spanish. To say Dr. Beam ever would say the finance people were out for 4 months is ridiculous, makes no sense and never happened how would a school run with having a financial office to talk to or be working on the financial end. If you want to see the positive budget they have ask, you will see no red only black numbers on the pages unlike CUSD. Oxford has a reserve, our district is so far in debt there is no way out.

CUSD Budget is prediction and unless everyone moves here we will pay more property taxes they never will be able to pay back the debt they are in. They are counting on more Mello Roos so if you plan to buy a new house in Carlsbad look for those high Mello Roos fees, that is what they are praying for. Most of us are paying Mello Roos and it is outrages to see how that money is spent and many of us are moving to get out from under the Mello Roos and high taxes we are paying in Carlsbad. Oxford has zero debt, so it is possible to run within your means and a budget. want. Seeing how my taxes have been raised I pay Mello Roos and I agreed to pay that when I bought my house and that was OK for the first two years of living here but now it is not OK. If we were getting a high quality education I would not be here but my children are not getting what we are paying for. The facts are facts spin them anyway you want to fit your agenda but when another grass roots Carlsbad parent group personally attack our grass roots group who want Oxford and our integrity you have gone too far as was implied at the hearing yesterday.

Maybe those who oppose Oxford should have gone to the Charter Convention last week if you really wanted to learn the truth and see what progress is being made in education, yes I used the word progress and education in the same sentence. You may choose to throw more money at our education crisis here in CUSD, which when CUSD says they can’t pay the bills next year I would call that a crisis. This is despite props, bonds, higher taxes, and all the Mello Roos we all pay. You have to look at other options and I want my children educated with structure from one classroom to the next, a methodology that all the teachers use and the students understand, less expensive and teachers and students are not constantly looking around the corner to see what they need to dodge next and have a school built on stable ground not quick sand.

If you want to see change and positive change look at other states and when change happens and most of it is being open to good charter schools, you see not districts but states change. Our state is at the very bottom, Sacramento sees that and we need to make changes to public education. Like I said do some research on positive change and see what you conclude but real research not what CUSD wants you to believe.

Not charter schools are good I agree with that and the CCSA is making strides to fix that. Oxford is not one of those schools, and to have Oxford here that is a real choice not moving form one Elementary to another within CUSD or pay for private school those are NOT options and although they can be considered a choice. The real choice we want to be able to make it that we want a different type of education for our children, a choice as to how we want our children educated and what programs they can participate in.

Another argument made is that the volunteer hours are endless and what if a family has working parents and can’t do their hours of volunteer time. The fact is that is is 20 hours per year per family. Those families who can not do that, then I will do it for them along with hundreds of other parents.

Also the district is where Buena VIsta fate lies it is in their hands, not Oxford. Every Oxford supporter does not want to close down BV, if they are happy they should stay happy. Lovely gave her speech yesterday and made sure to point out several times that BV is what Oxford specifically wants, she is saying that for a reason to keep BV parents worked up and it is working to her credit. A campus with easy access from the freeway would be nice since student who attend Oxford will come from all over Carlsbad. But nowhere was BV specifically mentioned, but BV parents do need to realize that this is not a battle with Oxford but with the many Carlsbad residence, if I remember right Iheart Carlsbad group was a large part of trying to close down BV last year. So now the focus has shifted from the community that wanted it closed to specifically Oxford.

All we as supporters of Oxford would like is that Iheart Carlsbad group, PSAC, and some PTA members do not get up and make statements that begin with” Carlsbad residences” or “I was told” or “we don’t need this because”, please do not try to speak for me and what many of us Carlsbad parents believe and want. This is same example as there are many teachers who do not appreciate the CUTA Pres. getting up and saying she speaks for all the teachers in the CUSD, she doesn’t but sadly out of fear and yes FEAR many good teachers can’t speak up. We as parents could not say yes we want to know about or have the option of going to Oxford, or our children may not have a place in their school the following year since they were not “planned” on attending the next year. This is all FEAR and 99.95 of us have learned that the hard way.

If need be this will go to State that is how dedicated we are as parents and the level of commitment we have from Oxford. Our district needs to change and not just its pocket book this is one of the great solutions that is available to us. PLEASE do not believe that there is no interest, that there will be a high number of out of district students who will take our Carlsbad students money, we are good people who have dedicated endless hours to helping solve Carlsbad problems in education. We work in our children’s current schools continuing to help daily. But we want to stop putting Band-Aids over the problem and find a solution that will hold up for many years to come and have a positive impact on the schools and city.

In this process what has been unfair is that we as people of this community have been bullied into paying higher taxes through fear and guilt. To say charter school laws are unfair in not a fair statement. What is unfair is that my children can not have the best education possible and they lack programs in their education that used to be there and now I can not afford to supplement it for them. All of this opposition is because we live in a Basic Aid DIstrict? If I was rich I would pay for the school I want, if I was poor I would be in a ADA district so no one would not oppose this education for my kids but since I am in a middle class community I am stuck. How is that fair? I am sure someone will come back and say move, and yes that is an option that if Oxford doesn’t happen then we will. But we will not be moving alone or take our children out of the district alone for many families in Carlsbad this is our reality. And for CUSD and those who oppose change they are chasing people literally out of town.

My response to Ms. Jones:
When my children move from their school to Oxford then they take their share of the BA pie, why when the opposition tries to explain it they want people to believe they are taking other students money away?? Then those are Carlsbad students transferring to another campus in district, so yes Oxford will get the funds just like the other schools for the Carlsbad students. Once again my example of moving from Calaveria to Aviara, no difference all in district. And 2006 was was 6-7 years ago where is your current data if you want to pull out facts about enrollment. I know of one 5th grade class at one elementary school that if you look at that class alone it lost two students to home school since the parents were so unhappy, now that is one classroom at one school, how many other are out there like that? Also not all schools went up in their API, and none have score no where near Oxford, so those are the quick and easy understandable facts. Oxford runs it budget and school on the here and now not on the hopes that the city will grow, higher taxes, more Mello Roos. Then put the debt solving problem on our children. Let’s just hope our students got a great education to solve this mess the CUSD and groups that do not want to make really changes have left for them.