An ANTI asks, "Why do poor children do badly on tests? Don't their parents care?

Mean Mom, your racism is showing. You wrote "the illegals don't care about improving the lives for their children" so what's your point? Only white European women like you love their children? Lovely.

As to why poor children do not do as well as children from higher wealth households, economically deprived children suffer a host of disadvantages that our children do not have.

The constant stress of money issues makes doing homework seem a bit less important not to mention many poor children have NO PLACE to do homework because there is NO SPACE in their crowded homes and bedrooms. Many times WHOLE families live in one bedroom that they 'rent' from almost as poor tenant in a tiny hovel or apartment. Here in Vista (Townsite area) I have seen whole families renting and living in a single car garage.

Each day at school the children must wonder, will I be living in same place next month if the rent can't be paid? Their parents are gone from the 'home' they live in fair more hours of the day than most middle class parents. The low income parents must work two or three jobs six to eight hour a day jobs including weekends to support the household. The families have no health insurance and not enough money to pay for optometrists, dentists, and doctors so children come to school with toothaches, or undiagnosed vision problems or hearing problems or sick.

Imagine trying to concentrate in class when you are hungry, have a tooth ache, can't see the blackboard, etc.

And to MikeinCA, YES, YES, YES, I would like a government run health care system as long as the current Republican party members do not set it up.

No Child Left Behind was advocated, passed and the rules set up by a REPUBLICAN president. The Lake Wobegon effect where every child has to score above average is impossible in real life was a poison pill put in seemingly on purpose to guarantee failure. The anti public education, REPUBLICAN apparatchiks who wrote the impossible regs for NCLB knew this. Our current Republican friends with their anti-science, anti-history anti-FACT based education bias want public education to fail or at least appear to be failing. Then all that is left is private fact free indoctrination schools. (NOTE: I am a Republican from the old school before our party was run by haters like Limbaugh et. al.)

So far the apparatchik's NCLB plan for public school failure appears to be working. Too many of the uniformed see 'sanctions' and think that the school is an awful place to send children to learn. NCLB needs to be and will be changed to reflect obtainable goals. Then I am sure Fallbrook High and most other public schools will have the same good scores, they always have had.


By the way when are the private hate filled fact free schools that the current crop of Republicans favor, going to take the same tests as the public school students? That's right. NEVER! Because whenever public and private school students take the same tests, the public school students cream the Cult of the Con private school students who were given pathetic FACT FREE education.

ANTI blogger says: The VTA just makes excuses for teachers not doing their jobs.

ANTI blogger Vista Watchdog posted the following in the North County Times:

"VTA blames the economy, the parents, the socio-economic status of students, the race and ethnicity of students, the general public, the minority board members"

Vista Watchdog posted this very negative blog in response to an article that tells about test scores going up in VUSD. Imagine what VWdog would say if they went down.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/article_5282d28e-eb28-567f-820a-0a9cbaa41493.html?mode=story

I responded asking VWdog to: "Please document ONE time ANYWHERE that any spokesman for the VTA or even any officer in the VTA or even a single teacher member of the VTA has ever done what you accuse them of doing in your post"

His response to this challenge:

"I don't even need to try to "prove" the claim, as it is the primary excuse used since NCLB was enacted."

Sad, really the depths our ANTI friends have sunk to.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I responded to VWdog by giving him an example of the kind of hard work our students and teachers were doing in the elementary grades and inviting him to come down and help. It has been eight hours since my post below. So far he has not responded.

VWdog speaking of children needing help and school district students not doing well on standardized tests, why don't I give you an example from a test given to all third grade students in VUSD in the last two days (if the teacher is following the MANDATORY pacing guide).

You should know that have been in third grade only three weeks and currently about one fourth of these 'new' third grade students are seven years old. About three fourths are eight. They have had less than a week to learn the concept of rounding. Here the rounding problem (Number 10 on the test). See how well you would do.

Baseball cards come in packages of 10, 15, or 20. David bought 35 cards in three packages. Which size of package would he have bought?
(a)15 and 15
(b)20 and 15
(c)10, 10, and 10
(d)10, 10, and 15

Seems pretty easy, right. Do you see the "trick" answer that fooled at least one nice little girl? She thought she had it right because she knew the answers should add to be 35. She made sure her answer did, but that "trick" answer had only two numbers in it, not three.

Now imagine taking that test in German when you only speak English at home.

And yes I am saying speaking a different language at home does affect performance at school. Being poor also affects performance if the girl's parents did not have money for the dentist to get her sore tooth fixed or provide her much food last night for supper.

However, here is the key VWdog. I am NOT the VTA. I am NOT a spokesman for the VTA. I am NOT a member of the VTA. Others who note that our VUSD students on average have more "handicapping factors" to overcome than say the average student in Poway or Encinitas are NOT "the VTA".

When you accuse an ORGANIZATION of an action, then you should have evidence of that ORGANIZATION collectively, or its spokesperson, or at least one of its executive officers taking that action. Otherwise you just come off as a grumpy old man who does not back up accusations with specifics.

So how did you do on the problem?

The trick answer for children just learning this was (b).
The correct answer was (d).

Seems easy, right. But do you remember third grade? Do you remember just learning to read BIG words like 'something'? Look at how much more our students are expected to know than was expected of us. Each year of testing the standards are increased. Next year the standards for passing will be higher than this year. A score that was easily passing last year is failing this year.

I am very impressed with the teachers in our public schools. They are doing a wonderful job.

So if you found that problem easy, how about coming down to school to help before or after school with a small group of students who need help with math and/or reading skills? A little help from you and perhaps next year when the scores come out you can feel 'good' about having played your part.

Only ONE teacher strike in the nation. AND IT IS NOT about salary. It is about reducing class size

Our ANTI friends accuse us over and over of being thugs because we choose to be in a union. Name calling is really all they have left.

But speaking of NOT being THUGS, out of ALL of the 50 thousand or so public school systems in the United States, there is only ONE on strike and it is NOT ABOUT MONEY. It is about class size. The "evil" teacher "thugs" of our ANTI's paranoid fantasies are one strike so that the children can have a chance to learn more in smaller classes. Wow, those public school teachers sure are evil, NOT!

WA union official: Tentative agreement reached aimed at ending nation's only teacher strike
09-13-2009 08:16 PM PDT
KENT, Wash. (Associated Press) --
Contract negotiators reached a tentative agreement Sunday night aimed at ending a teacher strike in Washington, the only such walkout in the nation, a union official said.

The accord came around 7 p.m. Sunday during weekend talks between the Kent School District and union negotiators, union spokesman Dale Folkerts said.
"Our bargaining team has been working day and night trying to get a compromise agreement," Folkerts told The Associated Press.

Officials say the district _ the fourth-largest in Washington _ witnessed the only school strike in the country last week.

More than 26,000 students have been out of their classrooms in 40 schools for the past two weeks as teachers held out for smaller class sizes.

Folkerts refused to disclose any elements of the contract, saying details would be released only after the district's 1,800 teachers were informed.

Tentative approval followed a judge's warning after the district went to court over the issue. The judge said that each teacher will have to pay $200 per day in fines if they are not back in school by Monday.

Folkerts said the elementary through high school instructors will vote on the tentative contract Monday morning at Kentlake High School. If approved, classes will resume on Tuesday, he said.

The agreement drew cheers from dozens of teachers who rallied in downtown Kent as Kent Education Association President Lisa Brackin Johnson formally announced the accord.

The strike was not centered on wage and contract issues like most labor disputes. Kent teachers were instead fighting for smaller class sizes, arguing that the district should spend some of the $21 million it has in reserve to alleviate overcrowding.

The district maintained that it needs to hold on to the reserve funds during such poor economic times and that classes are not as crowded as teachers claim. Some teachers have complained that they don't have enough desks for students, with more than 30 students in some elementary and middle school classes.

Grateful to have a job even with 14 hour days

For many teachers in VUSD particularly, at the elementary level, the work day has become virtually every waking hour not spend driving to and from work. Teachers are routinely at their desks at 5, 6, 7 even 8pm. Few wish to complain, having a job is far too important. Some teachers have had their family income cut in half as the non-teaching spouse loses a job. Who can push back?

Bales busywork grows and grows and grows. Yes we must grin and bear it. Smile and Salute.

If you were feeling like it was only you. Don't. Here is a column by Ellen Goodmen that might indicates pretty much all workers in America are in the same boat:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/goodman/article_19a5cefa-2794-5e8b-ad8d-2819da120a1b.html

GOODMAN: Just grateful to have a job?
ELLEN GOODMAN -- Boston Globe Posted: Monday, September 14, 2009 12:00 am
BOSTON ----

There was a New Yorker cartoon last spring picturing a nearly empty galley ship with only two slaves still pulling their oars under the grim eye of the master. In the caption, one of the slaves says to the other: "At this point, I'm just happy to still have a job."

It turns out that this is the mantra of the new economy and its icon: the grateful worker. When I Googled "grateful to have a job" ---- this is how I quantify trends these days ---- I came up with 3.7 million hits. Gratitude is in.

I thought of this reading the statistics boasting that productivity was up again, this time by 6.6 percent. This "good news" means that more work is being done in the same time.

But this doesn't say anything about the people working harder and whether they are engaged in what economists call a "speed-up" with all of its Charlie Chaplin implications for our own "Modern Times." Nor does it say how many workplaces have four people doing the work once done by six or eight.

The spotlight of the Great Recession has been properly on the nearly 10 percent of workers who are unemployed. But there has been far less said about the collateral damage on the 90 percent who "still have a job" but are looking at the empty seats. Fearfully. Gratefully.

In many workplaces, of course, fewer widgets ---- or cars or clothes ---- are being made, requiring fewer widget makers. But there are, after all, just as many cases to be managed by fewer social workers. There are just as many floors to be cleaned by fewer janitors. There is no less news to be covered by a smaller newsroom. And I don't even want to think about regional airlines.

The government doesn't track how many are doing the labor of their former co-workers. Nor does it quantify economic anxiety. The closest we get to numbering the grateful worker is in the figures showing that job-leavers ---- those who voluntarily quit ---- are at an all-time low. Trust me, they aren't all staying because they suddenly love their bosses.

And while we're on the subject, I'm willing to wager that many people on those unpaid furloughs are actually working at home. And a whole lot of stunningly productive workers aren't putting in for overtime.

In what economist Heather Boushey calls the "gloves-off economy," even those with jobs are feeling powerless, unable to say no. "This really puts employers in the driver's seat," says Boushey, "and the backseat driver can't even suggest putting on the brakes."

The most immediate effect is on families. The dirty little secret is that workers with families ---- make that moms ---- are still seen as "less productive." "Discrimination against mothers is still the strongest and most open form of discrimination," says Joan Williams at UC-Hastings College of the Law. "When employers have to cut, they turn to the underperformers who may be readily confused with mothers. People who see them targeted are afraid. "

It's not a coincidence that the number of pregnancy discrimination complaints went up by 12 percent in 2008. For that matter, the number of workers calling the Hastings WorkLife hotline with stories of being targeted for caregiving has doubled. We have even seen a decline in births in California and Florida, where the housing crisis hit hardest.

The talk of work-life balance has fallen as fast as a 401(k). There is still a stigma attached to flextime, and only half of workers get a single paid sick day. As Debra Ness of the National Partnership for Women and Families says, worried workers are "less likely to ask for benefits and less likely to use them if they have them." Indeed, if fear is more contagious than the swine flu, what's going to happen when workers choose between putting their health on the line or their jobs?

After the dot-com bubble burst, we got a jobless recovery. Will the Great Recession and the grateful worker end up with a benefit-less recovery?

In Mel Brooks' famous routine about the 2,000-year-old man, he's asked what they used for transportation in the old days. His answer: "Mostly fear." The fear that he was being chased by an animal.

Well, fear is what keeps a lot of people productive. Fear is what makes many of those still working become averse to change when we need it most. How will we know when the Great Recession starts to lighten up? Maybe when gratitude begins to grate.
ELLEN GOODMAN writes for the Boston Globe. Comment online at nctimes.com or contact her at ellengoodman1@me.com.

Could it be that easy? High quality child care equals high test scores

Here is the article. Could it be that easy. We as a society provide high quality child care and the children achieve more in school? What do you think?

High-quality child care leads to academic success for low-income kids

Boston College

Boston College professor says high-quality care can negate poverty impact
Chestnut Hill, Mass. (September 15, 2009) – For low income parents, finding high quality child care not only boosts the performance of their children in school, but actually combats the effects of poverty, according to a new study in the journal Child Development.

Children who spent more time in high-quality child care in the first five years of their lives had better reading and math scores in middle school, according to researchers from Boston College, the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Samford University, who studied 1,300 middle school students.

Looking deeper, researchers found that low income children who received high-quality child care achieved at similar academic levels as their more affluent peers, even after taking into account factors such as levels of parental education and employment.

"The real takeaway here is that even minimal exposure to higher quality child care protects children from the harm done by living in poverty," co-author Eric Dearing, an associate professor of applied developmental psychology in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, said. "When it comes to early child care, quality matters more for children in poverty than for affluent children in promoting the long term academic achievement of the former up to similar levels as the latter."

The researchers looked at reading and math achievement of more than 1,300 children in middle childhood from economic backgrounds ranging from poor to affluent. They used information from the longitudinal Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, which was carried out under the auspices of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

S.M.A.R.T. goals are not smart for VUSD teachers

Another year another set of goals to be written by teachers and approved by administrators. Again this year our district admin is pushing S.M.A.R.T. goals. Goals that are testable. Goals that are achievable. Goals with percentages in them. Goals that can be used to dismiss teachers if student class achievement does not reach some arbitray percentages.

How can we as teachers know how well a brand new group of children will do in our class this year? How can we be expected to predict future absenteeism? Or predict which children will move into or out of our classrooms. The change of a few high achievers in or out of a class can make a huge impact on overall class progress and percentages that meet any particular goal. There are just too many variables over which we do not have control.

Remember under the provisions of our previous contract, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WRITE S.M.A.R.T. goals. Your goals are your own. No matter what pressure your site admin exerts, no teacher is required to write percentage type S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Since we have no new contract, ALL the provisions of the last contract stay in effect. The only way teachers can be required to write S.M.A.R.T. goals is if our contract changes. For the contract to change, we have to have a new contract and we do not.

One teacher's take on Lindamood Bell

I talked to one district teacher about LMB today. Here is what she had to say (at least to the best of my abilities to take notes)

Our LMB coordinator was very nice, very hardworking but did not have a credential so the LMB program had to hire hourly teachers to actually teach the LMB concepts and then train those teachers.

The entire districts K-5 teachers were trained in LMB before school on a Buy Back day last August. Expensive kits were bought for all teachers. Teachers were supposed to go back to their classrooms and implement the program more fully. Especially in the schools and grade levels that were selected for the most help. Teachers were told to Visualize and Verbalize with the students 30 minutes a day using the LMB materials.

Teachers pushed back saying there was not enough time as it was to get through all the other materials in the core subjects without losing another 30 minutes a day. So LMB said ok do it at least 15 minutes. Teachers tried. But of course it really took longer than 15 minutes.

But really weird thing is when teachers asked about doing it this year they are told not to worry about doing it, but especially do not do it when the San Diego County DAIT team is at the school evaluating.

Is that because the program is not on the Approved List of Interventions?

Last year students were pulled by LMB coordinator at any, old time during the day and the students often missed Core Academics. The LMB hourly teachers tried to make up for it by asking the pulled out students to come in early to give them help with core academic areas they had missed in the school day. Of course some parents did not bring their kids. Besides how does a student make up the classroom time lost with the full class instruction and manipulatives for a complex elementary teaching topic like rounding numbers?

Obama speech--banned in VUSD?

Rumor One flying around the district says the first Robo call from Joyce Bales was to forbid the showing of Obama's speech at any VUSD school. Then when she got blow back from parents and principals and other rationals or so the rumor goes. She then back tracked on her first inclination and then robo called all parents saying that the speech would be heard but children could opt out.

Rumor two--several principals in our district, RBVHS is mentioned, did not show the speech to any student in the school even thought students protested.

Could either of these rumors be true? Could there really be that kind of Luddites running our district and some of our schools?

I will try to confirm and re-post. Gee who do I know at RBVHS?

ANTIs declare Teachers are Thugs

In the blog after the article about Lindamood Bell threats to blackmail our district in today's paper, one of the ANTI posters repeated the off made claim that teachers are thugs. Our poor ANTI friends have nothing left but lies and name calling.

As a public service I will post the ANTI name calling rant followed by my response. As usual wear eye protection and do not read an ANTI crazy charge before going to bed, as it may disturb your ability to get a good night sleep. Giving dedicated teachers do not deserve name calling.

ANTI blogger Vista Watchdog posted this: Unfortunately, those hurt the most by the politics played out by you and your Union thugs are the children. Too bad you and your Union thugs put your own personl desires and goals ahaed of the needs of the children: like REAL Education!


Gee Vista Watchdog

I expected more from you. All you have got left is name calling. Thugs, really? The average VTA member is a forty some year old middle age woman. Yeah boy, that is my image of a thug.

The VTA along with a broad coalition of parents, business people, retired folks, and the other non VTA union members in the district and in the community got together to return this district to normalcy in 1994 when we recalled your ANTI Public Education majority. We returned our district to traditional FACT based education.

But you folks did manage to "win" a few school bond issues by getting slightly more than one third of the VUSD voters confused enough to vote against our previous attempts to pass a bond. Your MINORITY prevented Prop K, Prop L, and Prop LL from passing and needed schools from being built for TWO DECADES but we finally won with Prop O. Now new PUBLIC schools have been built here in Vista. And this makes you angry enough to call names?

Do you even know what a thug is? or where the term comes from? Yeah right, the teachers all got into the profession to worship the Indian god, Kali.

ANTIs say: Teacher retirement is excessive

Dear deluded ANTI blogger here is the truth:

After 25 years as a public school teacher in California classrooms including one year as a superintendent/teacher of a two room school in a one school district, my grand total of retirement pay is $2100 a month.

There is NO district retirement pay. There never has been.

I have NO medical insurance of any kind. I do not even qualify for MediCal as California teachers of a certain age were kept out of the program.

VUSD has NO insurance benefits for any retiree except we are allowed to pay FULL price to join the VUSD medical plan until we reach 65, then we are turned loose. NO more insurance no matter how much in premiums we offer to pay. NOTHING.

There are NO other benefits.

Better marry a rich spouse if you want to retire as a teacher in California.

ANTI asserts: Gibson's son used LMB to learn to read

Below in red is an ANTI pro-Gibson post after the article in the North County Times entitled:

VISTA: School board balks at reading program

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_669d07a7-14a4-5f7d-9983-fd7f45ce7227.html?mode=story

I think it is important to get to know the enemy of public education by reading their words every once in a while.

CAUTION ANTI BILE TO FOLLOW. YOU MAY NEED EYE PROTECTION.

As usual most of the comments are from Con No More with the blarney he distributed while with VUSD and now pleasantly retired with VUSD $$$. All that aside he is incorrect in the statement that Gibson knows nothing about the success of LMB. Gibson's son used LMB to learn to read and COMPREHEND what he was reading and to this day thanks LMB for that ability. It DOES work and has been proven time and time again. On the agenda of Thursday's meeting it was stated that the DAIT team accepted LMB as a program for use in the schools which had requested its use. This is purely a union backed effort to thwart actually teaching poor and slower students from learning to succeed in all the venues necessary to become a successful student. By doing this the teachers (union) can ask for more teachers and consequently more union dues. It's as plain as the nose on one's face! More teachers, more money - forget the children! The union bought board saw that the program could succeed and have been busily concocting some method to route it out of the lineup of intervention. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Aren't you proud of yourselves!

I do not know if the LMB program acceptance by DAIT was on the school board agenda. I presume it was from this ANTI post. I was not there.

Even if it were, it does not change my statement in a previous post that teachers at schools that have not chosen LMB have been told not to use it when the DAIT team arrives.

I was given that information by a teacher in this district. This teacher like ALL teachers in the district had been trained at a Buy Back Day before school opened last year (August 2008) in the use of LindaMood Bell. Last summer she also had been given very expensive LMB materials purchased by the district. Last year she had been directed to dedicate at 30 minutes a day to the LMB skills of Verbalizing and Visualizing. When she and and another teacher asked two weeks ago about using LMB in their classrooms this year, they were told that they did not need to bother and certainly should not be using it when the DAIT team showed up.

My posted replies in the North County Times to the above ANTI attack:


So mis-lead. So full of hate. You have my sympathy.

My $2100 a month retirement comes from a state fund called STRS, not from district funds.

There are more than five elementary schools is VUSD. Has DAIT accepted the use of LMB at those schools?

LMB is NOT on the state approved list for helping students with remedial reading.

LMB is a fine program. It helps kids learn to read. The question we should ask, is it cost effective? Are there other remedial reading programs that are cheaper and just as effective programs?

Also why shouldn't the parents who ACTUALLY HAVE THEIR CHILDREN in OUR VUSD SCHOOLS who are on the School Site Councils and the teachers and administration at a site be allowed to pick a program they think is more effective?

AND

You said that one of Jim Gibson's children had used LMB to learn to read. That's great. I am so glad. Are you implying that his child used LMB at one of our fine VUSD schools?

Just one question, which VUSD school did that child, that YOU BROUGHT up, attend?

I do not want to pry or give away any secrets that should be kept but I have been told that all of Jim's children have graduated from high school so it should not be any problem naming the VUSD school his child attended, should it?

But LMB is a good remedial reading program

The following was my response to North County Times blogger, Lucki, who teaches LMB and insists it is a good program.
----


I am sure you are a fine teacher. LMB is also a fine program. It can be useful to help underachieving students.

BUT

When the folks who have the most to benefit from good results are the ones picking the students to be "helped" and the ones who compile the data, we should look with suspicion on the data.

Even very honest people will have an unconscious bias that will push results in their favor. There are terms for this observer bias, selection bias, allocation bias, the Hawthorne effect aka study effect and the re-interpretation effect. All of these biases and effects happen without any intent, but they do happen.

For the LMB results to be unbiased and valid, there must be control of observer, selection and allocation bias at the very least.

VUSD out scores La Jolla school district using LMB cherry picking techniques

Yes, we can. How? Use the same cherry picking of students to be tested that our LindaMood Bell folks use. Here is what I am told happens:

LMB consultants and LMB hired hourly teachers reserve the right to dismiss any child from their "cohesive group" who started having behavior problems at the group session. AND students who the LMB folks found they could not handle WERE DROPPED from the LMB program and sent back to the classroom.

Wouldn't it be nice if classroom teachers could pick and choose which students they wanted to teach? If VUSD teachers could cherry pick students, this district's scores would be as good as some of the more wealthy districts in the county and state.

LindaMood Bell not on State Approved Interventions list

Further LindaMood Bell is NOT on the California Approved List of Intensive Interventions!*

Why are we spending money on this program and not on one of the other fine programs that was good enough to be approved by the state? If LMB does not meet the requirements to be on the approved list, let's get a reading program that is.

LMB is only on the strategic aka "supplemental" list of reading programs. Every program out there is considered strategic/supplemental. There is no lower category.

Why is the district spending money on something that is "less than the best"? Why does Jim Gibson think this program is so good?

Teachers have been told in our district not to be using materials from LMB in their classrooms when the county DAIT comes to evaluate their school. Why?

Is it because LMB is not an Approved Intervention?*


*See confirmation of this point about LMB in testimony by David Brashier, Director, San Diego County of Education who is VUSD DAIT liason given during the VUSD Budget Advisory Committee 2008-2009 Meeting and recorded in the minutes of that meeting found here:

http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/Departments/BusinessServices/BAC%20Meetings/BAC%20Minutes%202-12-09.pdf

LindaMood Bell collects data and finds that LMB is succesful. Surprise!

Next funniest part of the article is that by statistics collected and compiled by LindaMood Bell employees LMB is helping students show reading improvements. Wow that's a big surprise. Not!

Classroom teachers are NOT allowed to select students to be helped by LMB consultants. No, the LMB folks take the students of their choosing, then do further "assessments", then the LMB folks come up with a "cohesive" group of students to "help". Interestingly no behavior problems are picked. No children who have a hard time sitting still in class are picked. The lowest children are never picked. The only children picked by LMB are children who will sit quietly and who are "on the cusp" of moving to the next reading level on California Standards Test. When there are only five levels reported on CST and you can easily move students from one level to next your statistics look really good.

But the children who need help the most. The lowest children who need one on one. The child who is unfocused in a large class of students with lots of distractions but who might do better in a small group, these are the students never picked by LMB folks.

This cherry picking was INDEPENDENTLY observed by elementary teachers all over the district. Teachers at each site at first thought that the cherry picking was only at their site but when teachers from different sites got together for buy back days or at VTA meetings and talked about the program the same pattern was found.

Jim Gibson knows that LindaMood Bell works, Tee Hee

The following is a response to the article in the North County Times

VISTA: School board balks at reading program


http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_669d07a7-14a4-5f7d-9983-fd7f45ce7227.html?mode=story

Funniest part of this article was the line "Jim Gibson said he knows the program works". Tee Hee

How would Jim know? Is he a teacher? Has he used this program to teach children? Has he ever been to a school site and asked teachers how it worked?

In fact Jim Gibson who gets PAID by the district for his "work" as a trustee and who has full family insurance coverage from the district (worth thousands of dollars) never seems to have time to actually do his job by going to the schools and finding out first hand what is happening in the classroom.

Good joke, Jim, now you "know" what works and doesn't work even though you have done nothing to find out for yourself.

The one trustee who is "too busy," according to his supporters, to visit VUSD school sites regularly like Jaka, Chunka and Herrera do is now the "expert" in what works at the school sites with our students and what does not.

Robo phones and fundraising--two things that should not be mixed

School robo phone used for ADS! No one listens.

How can we expect our parents to listen to our important messages about days off, new programs, outbreaks etc., etc. if the same person who makes the important vital recording for the robo phones also calls with school fund raising promos. We need our parents to pay attention to important school announcements. Many of our children lose papers sent home with them long before the parents see them. It is crucial that the robo phone calls are only made for matter of vital importance or at least use a different person to make the fund raising calls.

Elementary Classroom control trick--one, two, three

New Trick for easier classroom control for elementary

Many elementary teachers are using a simple rhyme to regain their pupil’s attention. We all know that even with our good students and classes, there are times when outside distraction—a visitor, a message from the office, a PA “important” announcement can make our students lose focus. We all need “tricks” to get them back. Here is one.

The teachers says, “one, two, three; eyes on me” and train students to respond in unison, “one, two; eyes on you”. This may sound a bit hokey but it seems to work with K-5 and may work in junior high. In one Vista elementary school, virtually all K-5 teachers use this simple trick. The kids all know it and respond well. Suddenly they are focused on the teacher again.

Technology Titanic and no life rafts, just more Bales busy work

Technology Titanic

Overwhelmed with new technology the district has “given”, some teachers feel they are on the Titanic and going down fast. But all the district is offering is more Bales busy work. Now we have literacy coaches who want to “facilitate” meeting grade level meetings by taking over the meeting for their “make work” exercises, not to mention “homework” assignments they put in our boxes. The ship is going down and instead of handing us life rafts the district gives us “interesting” papers on ice bergs to read as the water rises.

Who is not overwhelmed by having to learn new programs and new applications without any inservice time and no planning time to learn and implement all the craziness. How many hours are we to spend at school? Even the best elementary teachers are forced to give up at least two hours a day for free to the district above and beyond their seven and a half hours of paid times. Are we supposed to sleep at school, too? What more can the Bales and the district office demand of us?

District to teachers—“Shame on you teachers for thinking that you should have any time at home with your family.”

Who at your school is the unpaid technology person? You know that one person who knows everything about computers and that everyone else goes to after school. He or she has papers to grade and lessons to prepare but instead they are stuck helping all the other staff members for free. No pay from the district. No thanks by the district. Use 'em up, throw them away and never never do anything to help teachers be more effective in the classroom or give them time to prepare or extra pay for all their extra work.

Why doesn’t the district HIRE a technology guru?Or at least finance inservices on the new technology? AND why weren't these inservices given BEFORE school started in August?

Why is there no compensation for the poor guy or gal who has a multitude of other responsibilities who must try to explain how “new” stuff works to the rest of us? What happens at a school where there is NO ONE to help the less computer/technology savvy teachers? Where in our job description is it written hours of free unpaid time for figuring out complicated, complex and uncooperative computer technology is expected from every teacher?

New stupid Bales requirement--New technology like grade pro or some other way to get grades on report cards just so the printing “looks neat”. RIDICULOUS!!!!

Who compensates teachers for the time to learn and practice the program? Who pays them for the extra time to transfer grades?

New math like envision math has computer components and online components comes with a stack of CD roms that all have to be installed. Good luck with that. Installing CDs on our computers is like getting a camel through the eye of the needle gate in the Jerusalem wall. Impossible. But who at the district Taj Mahal on the hill cares about or even VISITS a site? What are district admins AFRAID to dirty their pretty little shoes by showing up at school site and talking with real teachers directly?

“New” copy machines that are broken down or jamming 70% of the time. Who can spend their entire recess and lunch time waiting in line for a chance to get to a machine that will not work when your turn comes? Some teachers going to Kinko’s after their work day and spending twenty thirty dollars of their own to make homework packets for their children.

All the poor teachers in their rooms hours and hours after school. One custodian on a giant campus is the only person who might hear them if a “bad guy” shows up. How safe is it for the district to demand teachers learn and put into practice all these programs during AFTER school hours? How fair is it?

Parents and students have more control than any group of employees

Parents and students have more power than any union in any district.

(1)The parents can join and be active in the PTA. The PTA wields tremendous power at any site. No principal is going to ignore what the PTA wants. No teacher may dare ignore a principal without fear of dismissal for cause--insubordination.

(2)Any parent can have their child moved into another teachers classroom at the school.

(3)Any parent can also chose to take their child to another public school in the district, a magnet school, or to a charter school (charters operate almost like a separate district), or even get an inter district transfer to another school district.

(4) Every child is worth thousands of dollars in state funds. No district can ignore parents who might take their children out of district schools.

In VUSD VTA has been just one small part in our community's long struggle against extremist who do not support public education. The teachers and the ever changing union leadership have given hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours after a long hard day of work to getting a school bond passed and electing board members who respect FACT based education.

VUSD is the better for VTA and its brave and courageous members.

Who really took over VUSD?

There was only one take over of VUSD and that was done in 1992 by a group of ANTI public education folks who did not believe in FACT based science, history or sex education. One of their members once told me, "facts once given can never be taken back"

As Plain Truth should know only after the take over by the extremist ANTIs did the community of VUSD including the two different school labor unions get involved with politics. The entire community including business leaders, students, taxpayers without children, Realtors joined in the recall of the ideologue fanatics in 1994.

What happened in 1994 was not a take over, it was a return to normal stopping the reign of error of the 92-94 ANTI board majority. In that two years of ANTI rule our LOCAL VUSD district made the front pages of NATIONAL news papers including the New York Times, LATimes and San Francisco Chronicle. Since the recall, VUSD had not made the front pages, back or middle pages of any national paper.

Gibson after wasting millions thinks a few thousand more no problem

Gibson has real nerve talking about wasting tax payer money.

Jim Gibson's opposition to a cheap, fully graded, and level piece of land for our third VUSD high school forced the district to go to the runner up location on Melrose and Highway 76. The purchase of the land alone at the secondary location cost 17 MILLION DOLLARS MORE! Seventeen million! The secondary location was also very hilly. It had never been graded. Millions more had to be spent to grade and level the land. The secondary site was located in the City of Oceanside instead of Vista which resulted in petty political hassles and a huge increase in permit, grading fees, street construction costs.

By my very conservative count, Jim Gibson intransigence cost VUSD taxpayers at least 40 million dollars.

What should have been a 50 to 60 million dollar high school built five years ago on the cheap, level, fully graded, Kawano property is now close to 100 million dollars and still not open.

Thanks a lot. Jim. Keep looking for that speck in the other guy's eye while ignoring the moot in yours.

VUSD contract lawyer not expensive enough, Gibson wants to spend more

VUSD like all school districts in the State of California has a contract with a legal representative called the County Counsel. This contract is not free. It cost the district money. Gibson wants the district to go outside to hire someone else? What is it about taxpayer money and Jim Gibson? Does Jim think taxpayer money is his to waste?

When the district has a paid legal adviser, you use the paid adviser.

Haven't you wasted enough taxpayer money already Jim? Considering the waste of 40 million dollar you cost the district for the building of the third high school, aren't you embarrassed to asking for more to be wasted?

By the way the contract with the VTA president has already passed legal muster with previous legal counsels. These kinds of contracts are legal throughout California and have been for decades. So why bring it up? Oh yeah next year is election year for Jimmy.

Also note that if the VUSD board is forced to ask our cheaper, already contracted, legal counsel to re-plow the same ground, there will be a small additional fee for that as well. County Counsel time is not free, but at least it is not as outrageously expensive as Jim Gibson "full employment for outside lawyers demand" would be.

Gibson attacks VTA, lies about legality

Jim Gibson is seeing the specter of next year's election looming. He knows he is in big trouble.

The most recent school board election resulted in a clean sweeping away of all of his ANTI public education allies by thousands of votes. Now he sees next year's election looming. Suddenly he faces being retired from the school board like Guffanti was. He knows that his actions on the board have cost taxpayers tens of million of dollars.

His only hope for re-election is to get his name in the headlines and create a phony scandal. If he runs on his record, he loses. If he runs an ANTI public education campaign, he loses. If he tells people his political agenda, he loses. No wonder he is trying this new desperate attack. he is now calling the VTA's president's salary 'illegal'. How strange a board member for over a decade like Jimmy does not know what is legal and not legal. He should know that the policy that permits VUSD to pay the VTA's president salary differential has been passed all legal reviews in all school districts in California for at least two decades. Not to worry about all that precedent, Jimmy doesn't care about facts, only about getting elected again. If lies and smears is all you have, then if you are Jimmy you use them and use them early and often.

Gibson thought the ANTIs had the strongest slate of ANTI public education candidates ever in November 2008--a incumbent medical doctor, a college professor, and an Hispanic mom. But they did not. All of the ANTI candidate lost and lost BIG! By thousands of votes! Jim has lived in terror ever since. You see Jimmy's life for the last twenty years has been all about getting elected to public office using the VUSD board position as a stepping stone to better and bigger things. So far it has not worked well. He lost the election for Temecula State Assembly person. He lost the election in 2008 for Oceanside City Council. He also lost his chance to be appointed to Oceanside City Council when there was a vacancy a few years back. He worked the other four council members hard but they ignored him. If he now loses his stepping stone on VUSD board, how will poor Jimmy get an even better elected position?

So now you understand Gibson desperate acts attacking a legal policy that actually helps the district.

Here is the article telling about last night's VUSD Board Meeting and little Jimmy's bid for attention:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_c9e6be3a-c966-5c67-9dbd-d6744ed46385.html?mode=story

VISTA: School board trustee wants review of union chief's pay
Gibson asks for lawyers to examine salary issue


A school trustee in Vista is questioning whether the Vista Unified School District is illegally using public funds by paying the salary of a full-time teachers-union president, while the union reimburses the district for a less-experienced, lesser-paid teacher to assume her classroom duties.

(I am betting the VTA reimburses the district for a full time equivalent position. Who the district hires is up to the district. The VTA president has no right to her old teaching job or classroom when her term is up. Lot's of other teacher slots are held open in case a teacher returns form illnesses, surgery, or a district office job. It is routine to hire temporary teacher replacement. Temporary does not mean unqualified or inexperienced. It just mean that they are taking the place of someone else.)

Jim Gibson, a frequent critic of the union, is proposing that the district ask lawyers to examine the legality of the arrangement that is part of the district's contract with the Vista Teachers Association.

(Why and outside EXPENSIVE lawyer when the district already has a contract for legal representation from the San Diego County Counsel? Does Gibson think taxpayer money is his to waste?)

The contract calls for the district to pay the salary of the union president ---- which since 2005 has been veteran teacher Jan O'Reilly ---- while the union pays for a replacement teacher. But because the replacement is usually a temporary teacher with a lower salary, there's a discrepancy between the district's expenses and the union's reimbursement.

For example, during the last six years, the district has paid $413,202 ---- nearly $70,000 a year ---- for the union president's salary, while the teachers association has paid $266,923 ---- nearly $45,000 a year ---- to hire replacements, district officials have said.

(What is the problem here? One teacher is out of the classroom, another FULLY CREDENTIALED teacher replaces her and the VTA pays it. Long time teachers get more pay then more recent hires. VTA presidents happen to mostly be long time teachers. So what is jimmy babbling about? Ridiculous complaint.)

Read the rest of the article Jimmy got his buddies in charge of the North County Times to "suggest" that poor Stacey Brandt write at the URL above.

Guffanti's job = locum tenens

It does not seem too terribly important now, but I think I have finally figured out what Stephen Guffanti's job was.

His supporters called it "substitute doctor". We were left wondering why he couldn't hold down a job. First he was an emergency room doctor up on the central coast than a workers comp doctor in San Marcos, etc. It turns out that there is a term for what he was doing. Our physician friends call it locum tenens, standing in the place of another.

None of this matters now that he is thankfully off our board and no longer damaging our children's education or our children's chances to be in fully functioning, uncrowded, new schools. We should all be patting ourselves on the back for our important job of retiring Guffanti. It was a job well done. Let's hope no one else like Guffanti is ever elected again.

We have only one ANTI public education member on our board left, Jim Gibson. With a bit of good luck we can rid ourselves of him a year and two months from now. In the meantime, Gibson by himself, can no longer damage our abilities to purchase land and build new schools.

What a stupid California law that requires four out of five trustees to acquire property by eminent domain!

When Guffanti was there to vote with Gibson, the two of them were able to block the purchase of the cheap, level, fully graded fifty acre site behind Strawberry Hill. The next best site was the hilly, 18 times more expensive land at Melrose and Highway 76.

Gibson and Guffanti cost VUSD taxpayers at least forty million dollars if we count increased grading costs, increased construction costs, permit problems, at the Melrose site that were not problems at the CHEAP Strawberry Hill site.

Let's all be glad Guffanti is gone and Gibson can harm us no more.

Here is the article describing what a locum tenens physician does:
Read the article in its entirety at the URL below:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/707979?src=mp&spon=38&uac=86387MV

Here are the first few paragraphs:

From Medscape Family Medicine > Physicians Are Talking About...
Doctors for Hire -- The New Case for Locum Tenens
Nancy R. Terry
Published: 09/01/2009

Plagued by issues of managed care, mounting paperwork, malpractice costs, and diminishing reimbursements, a percentage of physicians are stepping away from traditional practices to explore alternative career options. Some have chosen to hang out a new shingle: doctor for hire.

In previous years, locum tenens (a Latin phrase meaning "to stand in another's place") positions were typically filled by early career and semiretired physicians, but recently more midcareer physicians are choosing temporary assignments. A 2008 survey of 12,000 doctors, most of them primary care physicians, reported that 7.5% expected to work as locums in the next 3 years.[1] In 2009, the number of physicians working as locums is anticipated to increase by 16% over that of 2008, according to a report by the Braff Group, a healthcare merger and acquisitions company.[2]

For some physicians, working as a locum is a bridge between full-time assignments or a way to experience how medicine is practiced in various parts of the country before choosing to move to one area. For others, locum tenens work is a way to supplement retirement savings hit hard by the recession. Yet, for a growing number of physicians, locum tenens work is their preferred form of medical practice.

Contributors to Medscape's Physician Connect (MPC), an all-physician discussion board, talk about the pros and cons of temporary medical work and what to expect when doctors take their skills on the road.

One MPC contributor turned to locum tenens work because he became disenchanted with the medical politics he encountered in his hospital position. "As an independent, I'm attended a significantly greater degree of freedom to concentrate on patient care."

For an obstetrician/gynecologist, locum tenens work offers greater job satisfaction. "I've spent a lot of time in the Midwest, mostly at small hospitals. The assignments help me remember why I chose to be a physician."Locum tenens provides a flexibility of schedule and an opportunity to travel that some physicians find appealing. One MPC contributor comments that 6 months out of the year he works a steady job and the other 6 months he travels the world. "The pay is far less for the latter, but the life experience outweighs it."
"The travel to and from your home town becomes a drag after a while," comments a critical care physician, "especially if you have a family or a significant other." The obstetrician/gynecologist agrees that being away from her husband can be trying, but adds, "The flip side is we continue to feel like newlyweds."

READ THE REST AT THE WEB ADDRESS FOUND ABOVE.

Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools

As No Child Left Behind becomes ever more onerous to students and teachers and the penalties ever more draconian, we in VUSD and across the country struggle with more and more students who have no security at home. No place of their own to study in. No assurance that when they go home from school they will be living in the same place as when they left in the morning. This great uncertainty intrudes constantly on the child's thoughts making listening and learning in schools ever more difficult.

Read more in the New York Times. Here is the first couple of paragraphs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/education/06homeless.html?_r=1&hpw

Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools
By ERIK ECKHOLM September 6, 2009 New York Times

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — In the small trailer her family rented over the summer, 9-year-old Charity Crowell picked out the green and purple outfit she would wear on the first day of school. She vowed to try harder and bring her grades back up from the C’s she got last spring — a dismal semester when her parents lost their jobs and car and the family was evicted and migrated through friends’ houses and a motel.

Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures. The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the federal mandate — to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.

ANTI LIE: VTA stole district insurance funds

ANTI North County Times blogger "Plain Truth" posted on August 25, 2009, 11:33 am after the Richard Kirk attack piece this lie or paranoid fantasy, “within a few years after taking control of the board the union plundered the insurance premiums.”

Gee Plain Truth where is the truth? Plundered the insurance premiums? Oh really? On what planet paranoid is that possible? Insurance premiums go to insurance companies.

If you mean the teachers had health insurance that cost too much? Probably. Because we all think insurance costs too much.

For much of the 1990s we had only two insurance companies to negotiate with. They quoted very similar rates to our umbrella trust/insurance company called the South Counties Employer Employee Trust. This was the trust that our district obtained all it benefits through—medical, dental, optical, life insurance. A trust is kind of like a Co-op that is being talked about now in Congress by the Republicans. VUSD through our trust, SCEET, really had little choice about what we paid for insurance because of the lack of competition. But all insurance premiums went to our insurance companies or we would not have had coverage and we did have coverage.

Also you should know that the greater the insurance premium we were charged by the monopolistic FOR PROFIT private insurance companies, the lower the teacher pay became. Why, you ask?

Because in the mid 1980’s Pete McHugh one of our district assistant superintendents decreed that all contract negotiations would be base on TOTAL COMPENSATION not just on salary.

Total compensation included the massive cost increases in our insurance coverage. These massive increased costs from the FOR PROFIT insurance carriers had to be deducted from teacher salary under the TOTAL COMPENSATION contract negotiation system forced on the VTA. Before that total compensation negotiations, insurance coverage was always a given--a right that every worker had from his or her employer. At that time only salaries were included in negotiations.

Guffanti Built Schools in VUSD. Oh really?

The blogger who calls himself Plain Truth blogged the following plain lie on the North County Times blog following the article about the Magnet High School opening temporarily in free classrooms at Washington Middle School.

VISTA:Magnet high school opens at temporary site.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_b0098020-4818-5d12-80ab-d35e127d11da.html

Plain Truth repeated one of Guffanti's greatest lies. The lie that he somehow should have credit for schools funded and built while he sat on the school board doing all that he could to sabotage funding for these schools.

The lie "nearly half the schools in the district were built while Guffanti was on the board" Tee, Hee.

Just which schools did Guffanti lift one finger to help get funded or built?

In my life time men landed on the moon, does that make me an astronaut?

You do know that Rancho Buena Vista High School was built with developer fees--money charged per house built inside VUSD? But did you know that Guffanti voted against raising our VUSD developer fees to the California state cap? He did not want our VUSD "government" schools to get the full amount possible. Sadly with not much empty land left in VUSD, developer fee money is a tiny fraction of what it was, too bad we did not capture all the money when it was possible, now sadly it is too late.

I remember he was on the board for the construction of Sierra Vista High School-built using money from a consortium of surrounding school districts. VUSD contribution was the land. The other districts provided the funds. Special Needs students from all the North County districts that funded the construction attend that school. What did exactly did Guffanti do?

Maybe he should get credit for the tiny mismanged VLACS charter school that he supported so vociferously from his seat on the school board. Guffanti was a board member of the VLACS charter AND a sitting VUSD school board member AT THE SAME TIME. Can you say conflict of interest?

Wait ,Wait it gets better. According to a PTA source, Guffanti sold VLACS his self published Rocket Phonics program to use as their reading program while he was a BOARD member of VLACS. Hmm could this be a bit of a criminal conflict of interest that benefitted him financially? I am not a lawyer but perhaps.

Interesting to note that VLACS was first closed after being found in violation of The City of Vista Building Code. There were numerous code violations in the 'classrooms' that Guffanti helped pick out for students to attend. The only charter in Vista that was ever closed by the City of Vista for code violation.

Finally financial irregularities and mismanagement ended VLACS. Guffanti's helping VLACS, a tiny charter school with only a few hundred students at its largest, really was a big help with the terrible overcrowding that VUSD suffered. NOT!

Prop O schools were all built while Guffanti was on the school board. He lifted not one finger to help getting the bond passed. He made not one phone call. He knocked on no doors. He did not send one letter to the editor to the newspaper in favor of Prop O. Nor did he write one forum piece in favor of the Proposition. The only forum piece he did write concerning the vote for placing Prop O on the ballot was in favor of REDUCING the size of Prop O which would have greatly REDUCED the number of schools built. In addition after Prop O passed, he forced the district to spend tens of thousands on looking for additional sites for the new high school. Worse Guffanti's opposition to the cheap level already graded fifty acre Kawano site resulted in the district spending tens of millions more for the next best site, a far less centrally located, completely ungraded, hilly piece of land on Melrose.

More ANTI Accusations--from their lunatic fringe

ANTI blogger, "Plain Truth" also posted the following the article announcing that a new dual magnet high school was to be opened at Washington Middle School.

Plain Truth's plain lie: "The union came to the board and said they didn't want the magnet high schools because it was too much like a charter school. The union board just followed orders."

Hundreds of good union members and other community members worked for TWO DECADES to get a third high school in our district. We would have taken any high school, in fact we did, there is RIGHT now a dual MAGNET high school being completed on Melrose.

Did you read this article?

The MAGNET high school HAS ALREADY opened in a temporary location. Hopefully in January the permanent site will be ready. It would have been built and full of students FIVE years ago if Gibson had not opposed the CHEAP, LEVEL and GRADED fifty acre Kawano site.

Next Plain Truth's plain lie was:

"The last bond, Prop O, had a provision to open the new high school in September 2002 on land already owned by the district. The union board members voted to swap the magnets for Vista Focus Academy."

The district owned no land of fifty or more acres needed for the third high school. We had a chance to own the cheap level Kawano 50 acre property, but Gibson's nixed that.

Vista Focus Academy was for 8th grade students who did not qualify for high school. It was located on land next to Washington middle school owned by the district. The site was maybe seven or eight acres in size at most.

ANTI attacks on VUSD, a short history

North County Times, ANTI public education "Plain Truth" blamed the considerable loss of income and benefits suffered by the good teachers in our district on union activity. Ridiculous! Obviously the VTA has been the one thing that has kept this district from slipping into utter disaster. "Plain Truth" is however correct that the teachers of VUSD have lost a lot. He is just wrong has to who caused the problem. Below I have outlined a short history of the ANTI attacks on public education in VUSD that have cost our good students and teachers so much for so long.

A SHORT HISTORY OF ANTI ATTACKS ON PUBLIC EDUCATION IN VUSD

Delays caused by a small group of ANTI public education folks from our district caused the delay of much needed school bonds resulting in escalating land and labor costs. Further delays by the two person ANTI minority on our school board and the ridiculous super majority of four out of five votes needed to acquire land allowed the ANTI board members to waste taxpayer money and escalate costs after a school bond was finally passed. This and the next two posts give a brief history of last two decades in VUSD.

But the reasons have to do with a small but very vocal minority in our district who are ANTI public education. Our ANTI friends managed to "defeat" three needed school bonds which could have built our desperately needed new schools as early as the 1980s for millions in taxpayer's saving over the cost of these same schools that were built in the last five years. There was empty land available and labor and construction costs were cheaper. Our ANTI friends, without conscience, make no apologies for this waste.

Sadly our ANTI friends defeated this bond, Prop K, even though almost 60% of the VUSD electorate voted for it. The ridiculous need for 2/3rd approval in California thwarted the clear will of the majority.

Then the ANTIs "defeated" school bond, Prop L, even though the heroes in our community VUSD community gave it nearly 63% approval. They followed up with a “stealth campaign” and our ANTI friends electing an ANTI board majority in 1992. The 1992 board majority’s antics caused such chaos that VUSD became a NATIONAL laughing stock.

That 1992-94 ANTI board made the front page of New York Times, LATimes and San Francisco Chronicle. The good people of VUSD recalled that board in 1994.

We attempted another bond in 1999 that received the needed 2/3 vote in every single precinct on Election Day but "lost" because of a few hundred ANTI absentee ballots.

The parents of two thousand of our students in the highest performing schools left our district following the 1999 bond defeat.

Finally in March 2002 the good folks of VUSD passed school bond, Prop O allowing the building of new schools. But our ANTI friends were not done with their petty attacks on public education. The two ANTI board members (Gibson and Guffanti) publicly opposed the purchase of cheap, already graded, land at Strawberry Hill for our new high school. Four of five board member votes were needed to purchase the land. Two ANTIs were enough to stop it. Finding and funding the building of the third HS cost the district a delay of five years and tens of millions of dollars for additional costs of land and labor at that site.

The lost of two thousand students and the income they generate by state per pupil spending along with the greatly increased costs of land and labor have drained our district of the resources to better pay our hard working teachers.

Thankfully our ANTI friends are a diminishing minority whose evil influences on our school district have nearly ended.

Only one ANTI board member is left on our district board, Jim Gibson. While Gibson still has the power to create controversy, to mislead the gullible, to waste board time and lengthen meetings, he cannot, without his henchman, Guffanti--defeated last November--, any longer block school construction and waste tens of millions of additional tax payer dollars.

Our VUSD district is back on track. We again focus on educating students instead of fighting political battles with folks who do not believe in public education or "government schools" as they term our good district schools.

Thank God.