Category: Schools

  • School sexual abuse lawsuits explode

    I have been mulling over this distressing post for a month after reading the piece "Bay Area schools face historic wave of sexual abuse suits — with millions in potential costs" in the September 11 SF Chronicle.  The essence of this most disturbing situation is

    In an unprecedented wave of lawsuits, scores of people who attended Bay Area schools in the past half century are taking advantage of a landmark California law to confront educators they say raped or sexually abused them and the administrators who they say didn’t take basic steps to protect them.

    For schools, the accusations are a reckoning, and one that could carry a heavy price. The suits could trigger hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts by districts in settlements and judgments, experts say. Insurance costs for schools have already increased as a result.

    The Chronicle found 51 cases in the Bay Area with one in SMUSHD at Capuchino.  There are a few more where the school/district is unnamed.  One early award of damages topped $100 million for two students.

    School districts’ liability insurance costs for all types of claims has gone up 300%-600% in the past five years, said Dave George, CEO of the School Excess Liability Fund, which provides excess liability insurance for about half of California school districts.

    Meanwhile, California lawmakers are debating whether to further expand the ability of adults to sue over assault they experienced as children. Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and Assembly Member Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, introduced a bill that would end the statute of limitations for such claims, though it was amended to apply only to future cases amid concerns more lawsuits would cut into funding for current students.  Even with the amendment, groups representing school administrators and risk pools, including the School Excess Liability Fund, oppose the bill.

    “The current situation is becoming dire,” Craig Schweikhard, executive director of the San Mateo County Schools Insurance Group, told lawmakers earlier this year. “We are currently paying hundreds of millions of dollars into lawsuits.”

    I never gave much thought to the school systems' insurance policy–never had to, but when we are talking about this much money it should draw more attention than it has.  Per the SMUSHD web site budget page, the total 2023-2024 budget looks to be right about $220 million.  You don't have to be an accountant to see that something isn't going to work over the long-term–or perhaps even in the short-term.  I'm not sure if Mr. Schweikhard was talking about the San Mateo County system or California systems in general, but either way this is troubling on all fronts.  

  • Volunteer Profile: BCE President Jen Faber

    I recently had a chance meeting with the current BCE president, Jen Faber, and after a pleasant conversation she agreed to do more of an in-depth "interview" for the Voice.  Afterall, why let "Mark at the Mic" Lucchesi have all the fun profiling people in town?  We talked for about an hour about her background (molecular biology and history), why she passed up a chance at med school, and worked in a medical lab and for J&J.  But BCE was the topic du jour and you can find more details here.

    Once your kids are out of BIS and especially after they are out of BHS, you tend to lose touch with the organization.  I have.  I still believe it is a critical contributor not just to the school system, but to the overall quality of life and our shared investment in B'game.

    As the mother of three boys, Jen started as a BCE donor, then volunteer and eventually became a board member.  She was a site director at Hoover which is often a jumping off point to further BCE involvement.  As Covid hit and some people moved out of B'game, BCE experienced some turnover which may have contributed to Jen taking on the presidency after only four years in town.  See what can happen when you raise your hand?

    The main function of BCE– raising money and granting it back to the schools–is pretty stable.  With a fiscal year starting July 1, the funds granted have been between $2.6M and $2.7M for the last three years –the Covid years.  There are expenses and the endowment needs to be maintained in case there are more economic disruptions.  The grants have funded 19 additional teachers which is why multi-year stability (or better yet growth) is important.  The additional staff are teaching music (7), PE (5), language (2) and five other assignments.

    Jen revealed that she has a "challenger" mentality–probably why we got along right off.  She sees the BCE board and presidency as a political position in the sense that one needs to know how to influence other bodies like the District, the Trustees and the City while understanding where to pick one's fights.  We didn't get into that too much, but if and when one arises, I will know who to ask about it.  Here's our selfie taken during the interview in case you want to say hi when you see her around town.

    Jen and Joe

  • BHS Gym bites the dust

    Having been removed from the BHS community for more than a decade, big changes that the community is alerted to early can be news to me when they actually happen.  So it goes for the BHS gym–and I am not alone.  Several people pinged me to say how they were caught by surprise at the demolition of the old gym.  Not saying it wasn't time, just that it was a surprise.  If anyone knows where the gym-based sporting events are to be played, please weigh in.

    This is the scene were the gym once stood.  Compared to other developments, a gym should go up pretty quickly.

    BHS gym gone

    Courtesy of the B'game Historical Society here is a photo of the first BHS gym designed by Ernest Norberg from the early 1930s

    BHS gym Little Big game 1932-33

  • San Mateo High: Averting violence

    A reader posted this comment on three different SMUSHD posts all of which are lengthy so you would have to scroll and scroll and scroll to read it.  I'm reposting it here for easier reading and commenting.

    Regarding the recent stabbing incident at San Mateo High School: I’d be interested to know if the students involved had any prior history or reports of violence and threats in their student records? The news reported there were knives and a gun on campus. This reminds me of the pregnant teacher who spoke at the board meeting last year, begging the Superintendent to remove violent students from her class. What are we waiting for? Are my kids going to be the next victims? The Administration needs to do a better job of protecting our students. What are we waiting for? Are my kids next?

    I'm guessing no public disclosure of any students' records will happen, but the SMUSHD Board and/or Superintendent should certainly take that into account and issue some statement about their position–past and future.

    P.S.  People can use the editor email link on the right frame to ask for something to get an original post.  No guarantees, but we will likely be agreeable.

  • Getting into a UC from B’game

    The Comicle is trying, trying to bring some bits of data to bear on its news articles.  The latest initiative looks at UC admissions rates by high school using a graphing tool here.

    The rates are for admission into the 2022 fall semester, which The Chronicle paired with each school’s senior enrollment during the 2021-22 school year.  About a quarter of public-school seniors in our dataset (27%) applied to the UC system last year. Among them, about two-thirds were admitted (66%), and slightly under half of admitted students (48%) enrolled.

    The BHS and Mills numbers are most of interest to us:

    From BHS, 228 of 447 seniors applied or 51%.  145 of those 228 were admitted for a 64% admission rate.

    From Mills, the percentages are notably higher.  166 of 291 seniors applied (57%) and 123 of the 166 were admitted for a 74% admission rate.

    I'm sure we have a few readers who are active in the system now who can opine on this differential.  I've been away from it for too long to have any real insights.

  • BSD: Where’s Johnny today?

    Things are a mess in our education system nationwide.  Today's WSJ has a Stanfoo economist estimating that missed learning in K-12 from lockdowns will cost the typical kid $70K in lifetime earnings.  Yikes.  Closer to home the story is not much better.  The Daily Journal has a piece that compares absenteeism rates around the County and while Burlingame is "better than average", things are still not good.

    A higher number of San Mateo County students were chronically absent from school in the 2021-22 school year compared to years prior, according to newly released state data, revealing the sustained effects of the pandemic on public education.  At the state level, about 30% of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10% of the school year. Students from most ethnic and challenging socioeconomic backgrounds experienced even higher rates of absenteeism.

    The new interim B'game superintendent, on the job for two weeks as noted here, has some comments

    Burlingame and San Carlos school districts fell into the medium category, San Carlos with an absentee rate of 5.7% and Burlingame with a rate of 9.2%.  Recognizing the challenges of providing a robust education to students who are under more pressure to stay home when sick, Marla Silversmith, Burlingame School District interim superintendent, said her staff worked hard to connect students with their classwork while remote, whether through paper packages or online platforms.

    Students who did complete the work were given attendance credit, helping to reduce the district’s absentee rate. Just more than 9% of students were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year, about 4% greater than the 2018-2019 figures.

    I put "better than average" in quotes because having about 10% of all kids miss 10+% of school seems like a dire situation to me.  In a 180-school-day year, that's missing three and a half weeks or more!  San Mateo-Foster City, San Bruno Park, South San Francisco Unified and Redwood City were all above 20% — or missing at least seven weeks of school!  Maybe instead of 87,000 new IRS agents, we should hire 87,000 new truant officers?

  • Interim Superintendent at BSD

    In a mid-school year change, the DJ is reporting

    Burlingame School District Superintendent Chris Mount-Benites is taking a leave of absence for an undetermined amount of time, leading to Assistant Superintendent Marla Silversmith to take on the role in the interim, officials announced in an email Friday.

    “Ms. Silversmith has been with the Burlingame School District for five years and has acted as interim superintendent previously. We know that our community is in great hands under her guidance and leadership. We are grateful to Ms. Silversmith for stepping into this role,” the email statement read.

    I wish Marla luck.  There is no lack of issues at hand at BSD from budgets to "workforce housing" to whatever the winter may bring Covid-wise to planning for major inflows of students from the roughly 1,500 new units of housing coming on-line in B'game.

  • School warning: Get protected

    I have a bit of background in the computer security arena–just enough to know it's complicated and hard to defend oneself.  I also have some background advising various levels of government agencies on their technology decisions.  For the most part, they are trailing edge shops with limited budgets and older technology.  So when I read this Calmatters.org piece on schools being unprepared, I was not surprised in the least.

    If Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest school district, can be hit with a ransomware attack, how prepared are California’s public schools for the increasing threat of cyberattacks?  It depends, according to experts working in the field of cybersecurity and information technology in the state’s public schools. Some districts might have a handful of cybersecurity professionals on staff, while others don’t have any. On top of that, there are currently no statewide guidelines for digital security at school districts.

    Public schools possess confidential data ranging from Social Security numbers to health records and financial information. While the Los Angeles Unified attack has drawn national attention, Loftus says this prominent case is just the latest example of public education’s vulnerability to cyberattacks.   “Education is a mash-up of multiple different sectors,” he said. “We are transportation providers. We provide food and nutrition services. We have school nurses and so much more.”  And as school districts and the state took steps to close the digital divide during the pandemic, more students online means more blindspots vulnerable to cyberattacks.

    The shame of the whole scenario is that BSD, SMUSHD and even the city of B'game and the county spend a lot of energy on things that are far less important.  Some of that is forced upon them like going to district-based elections.  But a lot of it is self-inflicted.  If we put as much effort into hardening our tech as we do forcing the march to an all-electric future we would be a lot safer.  I really hope our misplaced priorities don't end up costing the taxpayers a ton of ransom money.

  • SMUSHD: Suspensions Avoided, Litigation Continues

    We have another page in the long-running saga of what happened between a Mills teacher and her student over a test and alleged threats to the teacher.  The focus shifted mainly to what the school and district administration did or didn't do about it.  You can read, and read, and read some of the background here starting last August.  The DJ is reporting on the maneuvers that go all the way to the Attorney General's office

    Former Superintendent Dr. Kevin Skelly; Dr. Kirk Black, deputy superintendent of Human Resources and Student Services; and Pamela Duszynski, Mills High School principal, faced suspensions of their education credentials due to mismanagement claims brought by a Mills High School teacher.  Following an investigation, the Committee on Credentials, the investigative arm of the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing, recommended suspensions of 120 days for Duszynski, 30 days for Skelly and 14 days for Black.

    But an appeals process that went all the way up to the Attorney General’s Office reversed that decision. In short, district spokesperson Laura Chalkley said in an email, Attorney General Rob Bonta referred the matter back to the CTC that then opted against prosecuting the administrators.

    That's all a bit interesting.  The state's investigative arm finds cause for suspensions, but the AG picks up the flag and punts it back to the CTC.  Perhaps we will get some more details about that call.  If I were the investigator, I'd be feeling miffed right about now.  But the story isn't over

    While the case before the CTC may be complete, (Mills High School teacher Patricia) Peterson said she is still pursuing her legal battle against the district, noting the core of the matter is the well-being of students.  “I’m disappointed and still seeking justice through litigation,” Peterson said. “I’m bummed that the AG’s decision condoned such practices perpetuated by the administrators. … It’s disappointing but we’ve got another case.”

    With a lot of litigation moving at a snail's pace in the County, who knows how long this might go on?

  • “Mill housing” for B’game teachers?

    Bad ideas tend to spread here in the Bay Area especially when the time horizon for revealing the flaws is years away.  "Mill housing" was a common approach to subsidizing employees' rents especially back in Massachusetts (my home state) in the 1800's.  Now we have the idea that the B'game School District can and should build subsidized housing for teachers.  A sample of 31% of BSD employees found plenty of interest in subsidized housing.  And why not?  You can find lots of support for subsidized anything when you are using OPM.  That doesn't make it a good idea.  The Daily Journal piece doesn't get to any of the flaws–just the cheerleading:

    Workforce housing could be one of Burlingame School District’s next big projects but only if community members show support for financially backing the initiative, school board trustees agreed during a meeting last week.

    Three sites were identified as being potentially feasible for housing, the 0.3-acre district office site at 1825 Trousdale Drive, a 2.8-acre lot of land between Burlingame Intermediate School and Franklin Elementary and a 4.5-acre undeveloped hillside above Hoover Elementary.  But after further review, only the first two would be developable, Jennings said, noting that the hillside plot is greatly sloped and has access constraints.  (Ed:  that's an understatement). Despite the substantial lot size differences between the Trousdale and BIS sites, Jennings said both could only welcome a 22-unit project.

    At the Trousdale site, Jennings said units would be incorporated into a six-story apartment building with underground parking. Initial estimates show the development could cost the district more than $17.8 million.  Alternatively, about $15 million would be needed to develop 12 townhomes and a two-floor flat stacked apartment building with 10 units at the BIS housing site. That configuration would maximize the land use while adhering to single-family zoning policies in the residential neighborhood.

    Funny how endangered the concept of "single-family zoning" has become in such a short time.  You can click through to the whole article if you want to read about the various funding options–none of which are realistic.  Instead, let's ask a few basic questions.  Why isn't the giant subsidized housing project wrapped in black netting on Park Rd. enough to handle the less-tenured teachers?  I thought that was the motivation.  Or we could take the view of this resident (whom I don't know) in a letter to the DJ:

    Instead, let’s focus on ensuring district employees are paid enough to live here (if they choose) at market rate. They deserve the autonomy to make their own living choices. Let’s pay them a much better rate and stay out of the housing business.

    Esther Kim,  Burlingame

    Good idea especially with the Inflation Production Act about to kick in and construction and/or financing costs skyrocketing.  The Fed will make those million-dollar estimates look small soon.  Does the District really want to get into the prevailing wage debate?  Are they remotely capable of managing this without more high-priced consultants on board?  Heck, the election campaign to raise the funding probably costs more than it takes to assist a lot of teachers for a couple of years.  The last time I looked at the data (in 2020) it wasn't clear that staff turnover was much worse than it's been for the prior decade.

    Lastly, what new wrinkles would school-subsidized housing add to school administration?  Who are the lucky 22?  If you remove an underperforming teacher, are you also making them homeless?  Who's got the huevos to do that?  Who is doing income verification?  Does a significant other's income count?  What about summer income?  Do we think all teachers sit by the pool all summer?  Is it ever smart to do what EssEff does?  I doubt it.  How about working on student achievement and figuring out where we will put all the new students in town while staying out of the housing business. 

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