Dear MTUESD Community,
Oh boy… yesterday reminded me of that children’s story of the no good, very bad, horrible day or whatever it’s called. As you know by now, we got a double whammy yesterday. We did not successfully reach the threshold of 66% to pass Measure A. We won the majority, but that is not enough in this type of measure. Every vote really does count in an election like that. I am eternally grateful to the Board for taking my recommendation to place that on the ballot. We all knew it would be a heavy lift, but as we analyzed the reality of what our classes were going to look like next year, when taking my recommendation, the team felt it was important to let the community have a voice in whether to authorize funding at a local level. Nothing would’ve been worse in my opinion than having 30 kids in a class and not having let the community have the opportunity to decide about that in advance.
So what is it really going to look like next year? We have reduced our staff by two teachers. This means that we try to staff the schools at equal teacher to pupil count levels. Two teachers will be transferring down to Copper to meet that ratio. There will be larger class sizes in the 28-30 student range K-6 across the district with middle school at higher ranges.
The other unfortunate news that we received yesterday is that we were not funded on our Community School Partnership grant. I knew this was a great long shot going in because it was the last year of a four-year cycle and any district that had a planning grant ahead of us would be funded. For example, my last district where I wrote and received the planning grant, will receive funding for $2.4 million.
The other problem with our application that held us back is our unduplicated count was low. I know that’s a fancy term. but what it looks like is student socio economic data and other factors that are used as a compiled indicator of whether a school has economic challenges in the community. I know people feel that those lunch applications ask personal questions. I want to assure you I never look at them, a teacher never looks at them, they only go into the data entry system as a portion of one big number. But those numbers matter because when we apply for the state funding they look at that final number from the group data and make decisions about funding. They don’t look at your personal data. They look at the number as one large number. In order to receive the grant above, they were looking for a level of 80% or more of the community qualifying for the lunch program. I think we might be there, but I need people to fill out the form accurately. This program ends this year, so our opportunity won’t be present for this specific grant situation, but we can certainly hope to find other opportunities to apply for in the future. Please fill out that form accurately when we go back to school to help me, help your kids.
I want to take a moment to thank all the folks in the community that work tirelessly in their support of Measure A. There is a knee-jerk reaction sometimes to no taxes. I am a fiscal conservative myself, but I also understand how screwed up the state is in how we are leaving the Mark Twain students behind with our inadequate state funding compared to neighboring districts. We put that out to the voters and they said “no”, so now we have to just move forward ,and we will move forward.
I want to promise you that the progress that we have made this year will continue. The improvement in the cleanliness of the facilities, the culture, the behavior, and the excellence will continue. Our connection to taking input from the community and problem-solving as a team will continue, and most of all our true belief that all kids can achieve will continue.
We had one very bad day, but it was only one day out of 365. We will persevere.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at 650-996-3290.
Sincerely yours,
Louise Simson
Superintendent