It ain't oil wrestling, but it's close. PUSD Board squares off with the Pasadena City Council in a kiss ass contest. Hey Mayor Bill, while they're planting lips on your butt, they're gonna be sneakin' a hand under your skirt.
What's on the agenda? Pablum. Soma for the masses. Not one thing that will make a difference to even one school child. Our elected leadership gets to make nice for the camera and pat each other on the back and talk about how wonderful it is to work together for the good of Pasadena's youth.
Madison's phoning it in from Rio or someplace like that. Did I hear martini glasses clinking in the background when he was talking?
OK. We're on in 10...9...8...7...
PREFIGHT WARM UP: Mayor Bill says it's an important agenda. I musta missed the important stuff when I looked at the agenda. Selinske asks the PUSD Human Resources Director to lead the pledge. Sounds like they get it right.
Mayor Bill pats Lizardo's back and congrats to Selinske for being president. Selinske's got this kinda badger look working for him. Mayor says Jane Rodriguez is retiring from being City Clerk in July. Selinske asks Superintendent Diaz to intro new staff members. Shelly James is Human Resources Officer comes from Sunnyvale. Steve Brinkman is new PUSD Chief of Staff.
PUBLIC COMMENT: Mayor says it has to be related to the agenda items. I guess that means no just plain bitchin' as my Gramma says.
STATUS OF JOINT PROJECTS: Everybody's gotta work together. City and PUSD staff will have a joint committee from department heads and important folks from both to talk about what can be done to improve City and PUSD. Melekian says people expect more than numbers and words. WE WANT ACTION, the Chief says. Diaz talks about cooperation and getting how they decide where they want collaboration. He starts with the budget and seeing where City can help with support and collaboration. There's that hand under the skirt, girls. Then they look at services to schools and see where the City and schools can cooperate. It's pretty much all gimme, gimme, gimme like always. He wants help with security, truancy, grounds maintenance and upgrades, secondary school reform that turns into internships somehow. Gordo asks about field maintenance and wants to put in artificial fields. Diaz talks about non-profit sports groups wanting to partner and Gordo says he's suspicious because those groups with money want field use in return for money for fields. Honowitz is all for artificial turf fields and wants to look at what Burbank did to build fields for their schools. Honowitz is one of the old line PUSD leeches and holds true to form again here. Airheaderlein wants to look at fields with lights for expansion. Do his voters know he's volunteering their peace of mind? McAustin talks on about fields too and wants to know about Altadena.
PUBLIC COMMENT: Mary Ellen Crook appreciates them getting together and she sees progress in support for schools. She wants public use at old Kidspace.
Madison talks about Linda Vista school park.
JOINT STAFF COMMITTEE: Need to have senior level committee to work out details of any partnership. Harrison wants to know where PUSD is going to save on partnerships.
PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: City's talking about taking over security. That makes sense, but shouldn't PUSD pay for it? Especially since we're all already paying for cops on campus? Melekian talks about City needs, too especially the ARTS bus. Phelps pimps some program HE TEACHES IN! Isn't that illegal, boosting your own income? Priorities are all about everything except students doing better in school. Honowitz whines about budget cuts and talks about City paying for security to make PUSD budget woes less. No mention of making PUSD operate better and cheaper. What about cutting consultants Ed? That could help a lot. Maybe if you stop paying Phelp's boss so much $$$ and all your other pals and political supporters. Closest they come is talking about career education. Geezers go along too. Mister Burns look-alike Babcock falls in line. Nobody mentions a school priority being better teaching and students graduating and going to college. Tyler thinks truancy is the top priority to improve statistical accuracy. That's what he said. Nothing about kids in school being able to learn something. They decide truancy, safety and internships are most important.
Pubic comment from Mary Dee Romney: Important to focus on quality. Says excellent work is being done at facilities. Need to address equity. Likes they're redoing tennis courts at Wilson but thinks Muir needs redone, not fixed courts.
They all talk about police and field maintenance as a priority and dance around the elephant in the room: bad PUSD performance in classrooms.
AFTER MEETING YAKFEST: Self congratulatory hand jobs all around. Man, there's more masturbation going on on public TV than I ever knew. Bogaard says they crossed a milestone in their relationship. He says having the staff committee means they're really doing something. What's that say about the elected people? Badger man adjourns the meeting.
POST-FIGHT WRAP UP:
Are some of these people as dumb as they sound? They dance around anything that really matters like how are the kids doing in school and talk about sports fields and recycling programs. It's funny when PUSD people don't understand why they're out of the loop in so many things. IT'S BECAUSE ALL YOU EVER DO IS ASK FOR MONEY! Maybe if you showed some improvement then asked for $$$ you'd get a better reception.
At least the usual suckophants weren't yakking for two hours about how wonderful PUSD is and how great their rich white kids are doing at their segregated schools.
How come when they have these joint meetings I always feel like they're jerkin' off and I'm getting bent over and fucked hard? Is there such a thing as Intellecticus Interruptus? Cause they did a major brain fart here. And it ain't even Friday.
Sorry kids, our leadership's done nothing much for you again tonight.
I'm having a big glass o' brandy and going to bed. 'night folks.
D.
Monday, May 12, 2008
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9 comments:
You didn't know that slang for these joint PUSD/Council meetings is "The Big Dais Jerk"?
Also, nice of Melekian to mention the ARTS bus.
You know, that public transit system they've been talking about expanding for over a year now.
You know, the bus system that has a shitty schedule, is never on time, and doesn't run late for those of us who have to work into the wee hours of the morning?
Gawd Almighty.
gosh and wasn't it interesting that peter professor drier didn't say a gosh darn thing all night? not one thing. looks they had it all sewn up and in the bag. no need to discuss things. UGH! when will we ever talk about what's really happening in our schools and how we're failing our kids????
I'm not failing our kids..but I'm paying for their failures with my tax money.
Stop giving the schools money, then they'll start producing: if they really care.
Give a man a fish..teach a man to fish. You know the drill.
My children have been enrolled in PUSD for the last 15 years. I have seen firsthand that the parents who are involved in the PTA,assisting in the classroom, getting their kids to school ON TIME (not letting them turn in to truants), and making sure that their students do their homework succeed at PUSD.
I have also watched the parents who never attend a Back-to-School Night, PTA meeting, conference with their children's teacher, or volunteer in the schools. Their children are late OFTEN, absent OFTEN, aren't required by their parents to study or do their homework, and disrupt the class.
Until the parents commit to being parents, you will continue to see the same result. The PUSD is simply not responsible for the failure of the kids who's parents simply birthed them and somehow think that society is supposed to raise their children for them and pay for it, too. Education is a partnership between home and school.
If the parents are lacking in parental skills there are plenty of FREE workshops to help them. If they don't go, then they raise another generation of illiterate thugs which become our problem.
It starts with responsible parents, folks, not the PUSD.
Good point. Parent involvement makes a difference. But it was not parents who were in charge of Measure Y money, for example. Can't blame the families for everything.
It's a combination of things.
Parents, the environments they grow up in, the school system - and - like we were discussing on Foothill Cities the other day: you ultimately choose your own destiny.
Good for Ms.Ulrich for making PUSD work for her family. She deserves congratulations.
Emblematic of the PUSD situation, from what I could see and hear during Monday's meeting, there was no discussion at all about classroom performance, accountability or student achievement. NONE! What does that say about priorities of PUSD and the City?
The fact is, engaged parents do foster a better performing student.
Likewise, faulty financial checks and balances, poor oversight of staff and lackadaisical accountability systems within PUSD have led to huge Measure Y waste. Lacking oversight, LEARNS staff were able to charge personal items at Target until a Target employee noticed the expenditures and alerted PUSD that LEARNS staff members were spending money inappropriately. And remember PUSD's reaction to the whole fiasco? I think one person lost their job.
Before anyone cries "old news" remember from news reports just this month: Lackluster oversight of classrooms translates into students graduating without the ability to succeed (even at community college), not to mention students graduating without requirements necessary to gain admittance to Cal State schools (not to mention UC or private universities). Absent oversight of principals and school administrators results in schools having to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars because no one counted how many students were in the seats.
PUSD also fosters migration to private schools where families can have a reasonable expectation that their kids are going to graduate and then go on to college.
There is a lot that could be done if someone would focus on classrooms and students and not fantasize that sharing field maintenance responsibilities of gong to improve PUSD.
I'm all for supporting public schools, but let's see some results in important areas related to education of children before we declare Diaz a success. Let's also give him some time to succeed before declaring him a failure.
And let's hope he's got enough sense to wait until there is something to measure in terms of progress before asking anybody to vote for a parcel tax for PUSD.
And let's note that the Governator's budget keeps public schools whole and gives them the required cost of living increases so nobody's broke at PUSD unless they've squandered more of our public money lately.
Anonymouse
Get a load of this
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/girls_gone_nuts/5968/
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