2007 Year in Review--10 Biggest Vanguard Stories of 2007

As the first full year of the People's Vanguard of Davis comes to completion, we will countdown the top 10 stories from year. This is the second year we have done this.

Last year we counted down the 10 Biggest Stories in Davis.

This year we countdown the 10 biggest stories that we followed on the People's Vanguard of Davis.

We continue with the 2nd biggest story: The Closure of Valley Oak.

The issue of closing a school is always very controversial. However, the issue of Valley Oak was more than just a simple decision on whether or not to close a school. There was a whole range of socioeconomic and even racial issues here. Valley Oak is a school that is the only majority-minority school in the district. When the District made the decision to open Korematsu in the more affluent Mace Ranch, the fate of Valley Oak was likely sealed. Nevertheless, the school district commissioned the Best Uses of Schools Task Force to make the tough decision of whether and which school to close.

The key issue was projections that predicted declining enrollment.

In early January, the projections looked bleak:

"Thursday's school board meeting brought a heated discussed as the District unveiled new projections. The projections show around a 400 student drop from 2006 to 2016 with around 200 of those being in elementary school enrollment."

However, these projections are subject to interpretation, and many challenged their veracity.

"Fred Buderi, a Valley Oak neighbor, raised a very important point about the potential residential development of the PG&E site that could bring many additional students to Valley Oak. But this development is not factored into the future enrollment projections prepared by the Davis Demographics & Planning. His remarks were dismissed by the board saying that they should not take into account plans that are not yet approved. On the other hand, Baki Tezcan points out it is "ironic that after counting for Covell Village in building Korematsu, now they say they cannot count for something that does not exist even though it will not require a city-wide vote and will probably happen in due course and produce new students in need of a school to go."

By late February, the Task Force recommended closing Valley Oak.

"The Best Use of Schools Advisory Task Force has voted by a 6-1 margin to recommend the closure of Valley Oak Elementary. A full report will be drafted and presented to the Davis School Board at the March 1, 2007 meeting."

On March 2, 2007, Chair of the BUSATF, Krik Trost presented to the school board his case for closing Valley Oak.

"Chair Kirk Trost presented the Task Force’s methodology and findings for nearly an hour and a half Thursday night. He expressed deep sorrow to have to report their recommendation for closing Valley Oak Elementary School.

The Davis Joint Unified School District contracted with Davis Demographics and Planning, Inc. (DDP) to update and analyze demographic data and make projections as to future population. The assumptions and methodology were sources of great controversy within the community—especially those in relation to scope and magnitude of future development. However, their findings suggested that over the course of the next 10-15 years, the district enrollment would fall by 400 students and that nearly 250 of those would be in elementary schools.

That would leave the optimal number of elementary schools at around 7 to 7.5. They quickly settled on the eight schools as the optimal strategy.

One of the key issues that they addressed was transportation and how far students would have to walk to school. Their statistics and projections suggested that closing down Valley Oak Elementary school would have virtually no impact on the number of Valley Oak students who would be within one mile walking distance and the number of students within one and a half mile walking distance from their school. That means that for current Valley Oak Students, on average, the walking distance using those two metrics would be virtually unchanged.

Board President Jim Provenza asked about looking at half a mile distance, and Trost suggested that they had not looked at that and suggested that this was a distance standard used by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the Center for Disease Control, and various walk-to-school organizations. He also pointed out that if they used a tougher standard it would not be uniform throughout the district.

The Task Force also strongly suggested the need for schools in the 420 range in order to have full facilities and program options that they considered optimal.

Finally, they made the argument that if Valley Oak remained open a very large percentage of students attending Valley Oak would be Title I students—between 60 and 70 percent. Whereas the Valley Oak Closed Option would result in the greatest amount of socioeconomic diversity and balance across the District with only around 30 percent of any school being Title I."

On March 5, 2007 the Vanguard ran a full criticism of the BUSTF report.

One of the big criticisms is that the report read like a lawyer's brief, arguing one side rather than presenting an array of options to the school board.

"While the group spent an admirable amount of time and energy working on its report over the last two years, the group has nevertheless produced a product that in the end falls well short of what both the school board and the district needed. The chief complaint is that this report reads like a lawyer's brief arguing for one viewpoint rather than presenting the school board with an array of options and evidence on which they could make an informed decision.

One of the first things that struck me about the presentation last week and the report as a whole was its format. The report and the presentation made an argument. Those things that fit into that argument were presented. Those things that did not fit into that argument were not presented. That may be helpful for a lawyer's brief, however, the purpose of this task force should have been to provide the school board itself with options, not to advocate one position or another. As such, the best format may have been to present fully all reasonable alternatives and then perhaps make a recommendation based on those alternatives. However, that is not what this report did.

That is not what the school board wanted. The school board is now stuck in a very difficult position of either accepting findings that they may or may not agree with, or going against the work of a volunteer group that has spent two years working on this. If they choose the latter, they fall prey to the question--why did they create the task force in the first place if they were merely to do what they wanted to do anyway."

On March 15, 2007, the school board heard a lengthy response from the Davis OPEN group, who were the activists dedicated to keeping all nine schools in the district open.

One of the big issues here was demonstrating that walking distances would increase if Valley Oak closed. The BUSTF report showed that if you use a one-mile distance, the students would be largely unaffected by the school closure. But most young children do not walk a full mile. By looking at a smaller radius, the data would have shown us that in fact, closing the school has a negative impact on walking distances.

"First of all, this data conclusively demonstrates that closing the school would have a negative impact on the specific students that attend Valley Oak regardless of the standards for the rest of the district. Second, many students at Valley Oak have transportation issues since they are Title 1 students and this close would be a larger burden on them than on students in other attendance areas going to other schools."

Doubt was also cast on the methodology for projecting future declining enrollment.

"Baki Tezcan presented evidence that cast some doubt on the methodology used to come up with the projections. His presentation was impressive enough to prompt Task Force Chair Kirk Trost to come back up to clarify their findings with numbers that did not seem to match the numbers used by Tezcan.

Baki Tezcan pointed out as we did the change in the projections from December 2006 to January 2007. The key difference was the use of Mobility #3 in December to using Mobility #2 in December and that shifted the finding from a stable +/- 186 K-12 students to an approximate decline of 400.

Tezcan said that method #2 compared all students in each attendance area from year to year while method #3 had a sampling of students. He suggested that sampling was the more preferred method for projecting and that it was the Task Force rather than DDP that made that call to switch to Method #2.

Tezcan then presented three sets of projections, the third one being "October projections" based on 2005 student data. These data show an actual small increase in enrollment. Tezcan demonstrated that the projections using this methodology more closely were demonstrated by actual numbers than the preferred methodology of the Task Force. When he averaged those three studies, he found a slight increase rather than decrease in enrollment over the next few years."

In the end, the school board by a 3-2 vote accepted the findings of the BUSTF.

"One exchange in particular kind of summed up how this evening would go--Board Member Tim Taylor would mention that there were differing interpretations of the enrollment projections and he asked Mr. Whitmore which he should believe. Mr. Whitmore pointedly said that none of the staff were demographers, but that the Task Force had worked long and hard with the demographic data and he would tend to take their findings strongly into account."

It was a long evening that began with a young protest march (click above to see pictures).

"The day began with a show of force--the force of dozens of small school children laughing and screaming in the hopes of saving their school as they slowly marched from Valley Oak Elementary School to Council Chambers. It was a distance of nearly a mile and remarkably it seemed to take 45 to 50 minutes for their small legs to cross the distance."

The school board then would vote to close the school with stipulations.

"In the end though, it seemed that the board, or at least Tim Taylor, while believing nine schools was unfair to the other eight, fiscally irresponsible, and unsupported by the demographic data, could not deliver the final death knell. He offered a massive motion which would do the following:

1. Open Korematsu as a K-2 school for 07-08.
2. Keep Valley Oak open in 07-08
3. Open Korematsu as a K-6 school in fall of '08
4. Close Valley Oak in fall of '08
5. Place on the ballot a second parcel tax to fund Valley Oak in November of 2007 provided that the first parcel tax passed.

This was too much for Keltie Jones who pushed hard and was very fearful a second tax bill would doom their first. She got Taylor to water down even the compromise language so that a poll would be taken and the second parcel tax would be put on the ballot only if it wasn't going to doom the first. Now perhaps what Jones was forgetting is that by putting them both on there and tying the fate of Valley Oak to the first parcel tax, they are in essence recruiting 50 to 100 dedicated parents who have a vested interest in doing the grass roots work to get them both passed. If only the first parcel tax were on the ballot--none of those folks would work to get it placed on the ballot. So in actuality it might be more likely to pass because it is tied to Valley Oak than if it were not."

It was clear from the start that the second parcel tax would not be viable. Indeed later polling showed that there just was not community support to pass th additional tax and keep Valley Oak open. The strategy shifted to charter school.

In late September, the structure and basics of the Charter School were laid out in front of 60 people at the Valley Oak Elementary School multipurpose room.

The Valley Oak Mission statement:

"Valley Oak Charter School is a learning community of students, staff, families and the larger community that challenges each member to reach full potential. We draw upon a rich history as a neighborhood school that recognizes the strengths of a diverse population, welcoming all into a culturally-rich environment with high expectations for all students. We believe community-based cooperative governance makes for optimally responsive and innovative education."

They presented four key focal points:

* "Coordinated school-wide schedule of flexible small-group instruction to address individual needs.

* Participation of the greater school community in pursuing the educational mission of the school.

* Integration of arts, technology and community service tools into all aspects of learning

* Bridge the digital divide through utilization of educational technology by the larger VOCS community, both on campus and at home."

In early November, the Charter passed the signature requirement threshold.

The Valley Oak Charter School has now passed the signature threshold for both teachers and parents. According to the charter school law, a charter needs to demonstrate sufficient interest by obtaining signatures from half of the number of teachers that are projected and half of the number of students that are projected to enroll in the school.

The Valley Oak Charter has been keeping a running tally on their website. As of last night, they had crossed both thresholds.

The Charter projects 13 teachers, so they are required to obtain the signature of 7 teachers. To date, 19 teachers have signed to teach at Valley Oak.

They also project 305 students, which means they need the signature of 153 parents who have an interest in their child attending the Valley Oak Charter school. They just passed that threshold last night with 169 signatures.

The Valley Oak charter has now demonstrated more than sufficient interest required by law to go forward and be submitted.

On Monday the Valley Oak charter will be submitted to the District Office.

By law there are only a few reasons by which the charter can be denied by the school district, budgetary concerns are not among those.

* Charter school presents an unsound educational program
* Petitioners are unlikely to successfully implement the program described
* Petition does not have the required number of signatures
* Petition does not include required affirmations
* Petition does not include comprehensive description of 16 required elements

However, this did not stop the district from attempting to torpedo the proposed charter.

On November 15, 2007, the school board got to hear the presenters presentation and subjected them to a series of tough questions on a variety of concerns.

"There were many tough questions that were asked by the school board during this process--rightly so as this will have a dramatic impact on their budget and their planning. This was not their formal response to the charter, only a questions at a public hearing.

What is important to understand despite their tough questions was that according to the education code, there are only a few reasons by which the board could deny the charter."

...

"Concerns from the board appeared primarily centered on admission policies, enrollment numbers and overall concerns that if Valley Oak either failed to attract enough students or failed to attract students from outside of the district, that the district would have other problems with which they needed to deal with."

Board President Jim Provenza directed board members to wait until the staff report came before making comments.

This came in early December.

In harsh terms, the district staff drafted a resolution--not just a staff report but an actual resolution--that would deny the Valley Oak charter based on three of the criteria for denial fleshed out into nineteen separate points. Most of these points could have been resolved by a simple negotiation and a quick edit. Nevertheless the report was placed into resolution form.

The petition drafters responded to these criticisms in a firm manner than attempted to hold back obvious frustration at the tone of the response.

Bill Storm, science teacher and proponent of Valley Oak Charter School said:

"The draft resolution severely distorts both our proposal and the requirements of the Charter Schools Act and makes serious errors of fact in denying the petition... We continue to be willing to work with the district in resolving any legitimate issues. Such work would require that all parties act swiftly and in good faith... f the Davis school board acts to deny the charter, we are confident that the charter will be authorized through the appeal process outlined in the Charter Schools Act... We have made presentations, provided drafts of the educational plan, governance design and budget presentations (to the district), and have repeatedly requested meaningful dialogue and feedback. Instead, last Friday (the district) posted a draft resolution to deny the petition for the Valley Oak Charter School."

On December 6, 2007, a big battle was brewing and it appeared that confrontation that would be lengthy and heated was inevitable.

Several board members were alarmed at the tone of the report. However, once the meeting came forward, cooler heads prevailed and newly hired Superintendent James Hammond struck the necessary tone of moderation.

"New Superintendent James Hammond was first to speak. All week long we had read in the papers the staff report, the lawyer's report, and we were prepared for the worst. But James Hammond took control of this meeting. Instead of having staff present their report, instead of allowing them to set the tone for the meeting, something very different happened.

James Hammond spoke in very general terms and then suggested that they had options, that they did not have to make a decision this evening. And that gave Board President Jim Provenza, in his last meeting, the opening that he needed. And he suggested that if it were possible that the district could meet with the petitioners and that they could hash out their differences.

So instead of conflict from the start, the tone was set that compromise and reconciliation was a possibility and the rest of the board to their credit followed this lead."

Concerns by board members were laid out however the agreement was to come to a resolution and compromise rather than seek confrontation. So as 2008 arrives, the process still looms however with hope.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting