California Educator

September 2014

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Advocacy The LCFF regulations consist of four parts: 1. The most important part of the LCFF/LCAP is the meaningful inclusion of the participation of bargain- ing units, administrators, parents and students in the district planning process. This is a requirement of the statute and is a cornerstone of the subsidiarity concept on which LCFF is based. 2. A local school district must demonstrate in its LCAP how supplemental and concentration grant funding will be used to increase or improve services for English learners, low-income students and foster youth. The regulations keep the flexibility to use districtwide and schoolwide programs, but with heightened scrutiny to ensure money is being spent to support those students. In addition, districts must include within their LCAP an explanation of how expenditures meet the school district's goals for its subgroups in the state's priority areas. 3. This one is a little technical. A proportionality formula is included to roughly measure whether services to the targeted student populations are increased or im- proved compared to services provided to all students, in proportion to the increase of funds districts received for those kids. The goal is to ensure that the intent of funding equity is being followed. 4. County superintendents do have to review and sign off on a district's LCAP, but only to ensure that dollars were spent according to the plan. They don't get to scrutinize the plan and say they don't like it or tell a district to change their plan. They are checking only to see if the district rationale matches the spending plan. The district's LCAP paperwork has three sections: 1. Describes the process used to engage the education community and how this engagement contributed to the development of the accountability plan. 2. Lists the goals for all students and for each sub- group, and describes whether those goals differ for any individual schools within the district, how those goals align to the state and local priority areas, and progress made toward achieving those goals. 3. Consists of the actions, services and expenditures that will be used to meet each of the district's identified goals to increase services to students. TEISHA HASE: We were not involved until the ver y end. In December 2013, the district created an email account for public input, and anyone could write in to suggest priorities for funding. The superintendent's administra- tive assistant actually wrote OSTA members directing them to not ask for any salar y increases. OSTA requested, then demanded, the opportunity to give input on the LCAP as required by law. This did not happen. OSTA was alarmed the school board was given a draft of the LCAP on May 8, since no input was sought from OSTA as an official stakeholder. We feared that other stakeholders may not have been properly consulted either. The first any OSTA members saw of the LCAP was May 13 at negotiations. Did you, as president, sign the LCAP? JIM BURFEIND: I was never asked to sign the LCAP. We don't agree with points in the LCAP, but we were listened to, and many changes we requested were made in the final LCAP. TEISHA HASE: No. What's the status? JIM BURFEIND: We are concerned that the specific amounts of money for the actions included in the LCAP were not in the draft until the last two weeks in June, just before it was adopted. We were surprised that the following ac- tion, "The district will have a competitive salary schedule that is comparable to districts identified in the collective bargaining agreements," had no money amount included, and most of the entire base, supplemental and concentra- tion grant monies are allocated already. TEISHA HASE: The district finally met with the bargaining team May 29. The official input we gave was hardly reflected in the LCAP that was submitted — basically, they cleaned up typos and made changes the county office of education recommended. I've shared how disappointed I was that OUHSD did not follow the intent (or letter) of the law to involve all stakeholders in the LCAP process. Even the county office of education seemed not to care. What lessons have you learned from this? JIM BURFEIND: We need to negotiate money into the LCAP much earlier in the year than we have thought to do in the past. For example, we may need to make sure compensation is discussed in negotiations as part of the LCAP in the first few months of the 2014-15 school year for the 2015-16 LCAP revi- sion. The basic state priority recognizes the importance of having high-quality educators, and that requires adequate compensation. TEISHA HASE: We may need to discuss the breakdown of the process with some other agency, like the California Department of Education. Teachers are experts who have valuable ideas about what changes need to be made in the classroom and to support all students, including English learners, foster youth and the socio-economically disadvantaged. Teachers are the best judges about what are rigorous and still realistic goals. I will continue to speak with the superintendent about the need to involve this incredible asset — teachers. THE REGULATIONS FOR THE LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA (LCFF) AND THE LOCAL CONTROL AND ACCOUNTABILITY PLAN (LCAP) ARE INEXTRICABLY LINKED. TOGETHER, THEY GIVE LOCAL EDUCATORS AND LOCAL CHAPTERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO FURTHER PARTICIPATE AND GUIDE DISTRICT BUDGETS. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW 29 V O L U M E 1 9 I S S U E 2

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