Seth Rosenblatt

Seth Rosenblatt

Although non the most familiar refrain to Due west Declension natives, residents in the residual of the country know that while the summer rut may be tough to accept, it's actually the humidity that truly makes u.s.a. uncomfortable. Through the last few years of state budget crises, school boards across the state accept adopted an analogous mantra: "It'south not just the cuts, it'due south the doubt."

Of class, cuts to already underfunded schools are both terrible policy and painful dilemmas for local districts. But school board members who take their responsibility very seriously know that making difficult budget choices is part of the job, and most do everything possible to minimize the negative impact on their students.

But the problem does not cease there. If local school boards had some certainty around budget cuts, we would at least know our target. It would be painful, but reasonable minds could notice the "least worst" solution. Withal, our dysfunctional country system for funding pedagogy delivers the states a ane-two punch – nosotros know at that place will exist cuts (nosotros've had them for the last 4 years), but nosotros rarely know the magnitude.

Why? Before last yr, it was due to two main reasons: (1) The Legislature rarely finished its budget on time, and (ii) even with an established upkeep, it chronically overestimated the country's financial health, instituting cuts midyear. This is the "humidity" for a school district – a wet coating that weighs down its ability to make optimal decisions because it doesn't even know its target.

This yr the Legislature passed its budget on time, largely thanks to Proposition 25, which allows for a simple bulk to pass a budget and withholds legislators' pay if it isn't on time. Yet despite this on-fourth dimension budget, we ironically take less certainty than always. The budget has a contingency in case the governor'southward tax mensurate does not laissez passer in November – the "trigger cuts" to teaching. Our twelvemonth will be almost halfway over when nosotros know if these cuts will exist triggered, long afterwards our power to brand any substantive changes for the school twelvemonth. The biggest expense in a school district is people – teachers and other employees. At that place are very few levers a school district tin pull to reduce its expenditures in the middle of a school yr, and many districts have already decimated their reserves from the prior four years of cuts.

Then, how accept school districts planned their 2012-xiii budgets with this wet blanket of dubiousness? A survey done past the San Mateo Canton Schoolhouse Boards Clan showed that almost of the Acquirement Limit districts in the county have adopted a different mantra: "Fool me once, shame on yous … fool me twice, shame on me." In fact, we've been fooled multiple times, so many districts have budgeted assuming the tax measure will indeed neglect, and have already made cuts locally in anticipation. Some districts too believe that even if the taxation measure succeeds, greater cuts will happen than what is currently outlined in the budget because of the state'southward track record of overestimating its fiscal health.

But not all districts take the reserves to take this conservative approach. According the California School Boards Association, well-nigh 20 percent of all schoolhouse districts in the country take a "qualified" or "negative" certification from their second interim written report this past spring, meaning they may not, or cannot, meet their financial obligations through the next three years. These districts will be forced to make massive cuts and/or roll the dice hoping that the tax mensurate will pass. If information technology doesn't, we will see many more districts beyond the state facing negative certification or the possibility of land takeover. Even within our county (San Mateo), at to the lowest degree ane school district has already negotiated its own automatic trigger cuts with its labor groups (including reductions in salaries and a shorter school yr) if the state tax measure out fails.

In any instance, as we enter the summer months, I hope that our country legislators realize that local school board members would say that if they had to turn up the heat on school districts, we would at least prefer that it exist a dry heat.

Seth Rosenblatt is the president of the Governing Board of the San Carlos School District. He also serves as the president of the San Mateo County School Boards Association and sits on the executive committee of the Joint Venture Silicon Valley Sustainable Schools Task Force. He has two children in San Carlos public schools. He writes often on bug in public pedagogy, in regional and national publications too equally on his own web log. In his business career, Seth has more than 20 years of experience in media and engineering, including executive positions in both startup companies and large enterprises. Seth currently operates his own consulting firm for engineering science companies. Seth holds a B.A. in Economic science from Dartmouth College and an K.B.A. from Harvard Business Schoolhouse.

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