The last time San Leandro Unified School District sought a parcel tax to increase funds for classroom spending the measure won 61 percent of the vote but not the needed two-thirds.
In November Measure L will once again ask San Leandro property owners to pay more to underwrite local education.
The cost of the tax would break down thus and raise an estimated $2.4 million:
Seniors and disabled residents who receive federal Supplemental Security Income would be able to get exemptions.
Measure L would remain in effect five years. It has been endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and San Leandro Teacher's Association, among other groups.
"We have to get our schools out of the fiscal hole that Sacramento has put them in," Mayor Stephen Cassidy told the Oakland Tribune.
Follow this lnk to read the measure and the arguments pro and con.
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What kind of /bubble/ does one need to live in to find this hard to understand? :)
What seems more likely is that you are just making this up. Because to the normal rational person it would seem unlikely that a kid that lives in one of the areas of Oakland near BART would buy a bus pass so they could take a bus to BART from the HS (a little more than a mile away, a perfectly walkable distance), and then pay BART fare to go to Oakland ($2.30 round trip at the discounted student rate), when they could just stay on the bus and go all the way to Oakland.
School enrollment is completely flat over the past 10 years despite school age kids increasing 10%, scores are worse, spending is up and all they want is more taxpayers' money for more of the same. Schools don't get better with more money. They get better with involved parents, competent teachers, principals, and rigorous curriculum and discipline. Alameda schools are better? How about the school administrators convince us taxpayers that they learns something from alameda schools and they need $x to implement it. That's how things work in the rest of the world. These "professionals" can't even do that.
Do some research before you post your drivel here.
As for young people and families who commute far distances for a superior education - this seems to me exactly the kinds of high achievers and go getters that any school would welcome gladly, including San Leandro High School. As point of fact, however, I don't recall that SLUSD has such an agreement with neighboring school districts. Anyone care to fact check this point?
I agree with Morgan and other leaders in our community, we need to prioritize our kids and fight against any and all types of ignorance and neglect of poor families. The kind of willfull "blinders" that nay sayers advocate are utimately holding San Leandro's people and resources back. Think like these folks in bllinders, and we'll simply get left behind as our neighbors surrounding us prosper and strategize their own recoveries grounded in reality and proven educational enrichment for young people. San Leandro friends and neighbors, spread the word: Yes on Measure L!
What I'm stating is public information. For all the rending of garments about how SL's minority kids do terribly in school, the scores for black kids at SLHS and BHS are almost exactly the same (and to be fair to the garment renders, they're both terrible). For Latinos, BHS does a bit better, for Philipinos (a significant population in SL), SL does a bit better, and overall it's mostly a wash for minority kids between here and BHS. BHS's overall scores are higher because white kids (50%+ of the students there) do *very* well, indeed, much better than white kids at SLHS (who are only about 10% of the students anyway). Go look it up. I've posted it plenty of times on here.
Again, school-age population is up 10% over the past decade, public school enrollment is totally flat. How about SLUSD show that they're going to spend our money more wisely by giving us a credible plan for improvement. As an example, I recently received a fundraising call from the Catholic high school I attended. It started out with a description of the overall, impressive achievements of the recent graduating class. Then a description of recently funded, awesome programs like the robotics/engineering program they have. Then a request for funds for their next, soon-to-be awesome program involving more hands-on biology classes/research collaborations with local universities. Where in heaven's name is anything remotely like that kind of leadership around here? Again, they don't even *pretend* to propose to do anything but the same old **** that's taken the schools here from at least average/slightly above to the gutter.
We also need health and wellness programs for those families that need the scafolding for parent/student success. The last thing we want to do is neglect struggling families, for that is expensive, tragic, and morally corrupt. One doesn't have to travel to travel to Chicago or open the Catholic HS alumni news to see the writing on the wall, though. College educated families know where to go for locally relevant information, believe me. Check out http://www.gopublicschools.org/ (Oakland) or http://www.cityoflivermore.net/civicax/filebank/documents/7830/ (Livermore, Pleasanton, and Dublin) ...to gain a sense of the process of coming together as a community and the resulting positive changes happening now in Alameda County.
Isn't Bayfair located in that big empty blue area bordered by Hesperian and Fairmont? I may be wrong, but that's where Google maps locates it.