Commentary: Why I Strongly Support Measure W--The Parcel Tax

I have been thinking about writing this commentary for several days now, ever since I put the work into the two articles last week on the parcel tax. As I was putting together those articles, I questioned myself. Why was I going through all this effort in support of this measure? This is not generally what the Vanguard does. The Vanguard covers the dark underbelly of Davis, exposes malfeasance in government, protects people from the excesses of governmental power, shines light on subjects not often covered enough. Why this issue?

As I was pondering this question, the answer of course was right in front of my face. The answer actually came to me last week during my interview with Jann Murray-Garcia.

Some people have used the closing of Valley Oak as an excuse to vote against the parcel tax. However, I think they have it backwards. You see, no one supported keeping Valley Oak open more than I did. I will match my 70 articles on or about Valley Oak, the late night meetings, the special coverage, against anyone's passion. Unless you sat on Davis OPEN itself, you will not win. And even then, I'll take it to a tie unless you are a certain dragon and the lovely lady who stands inside there come rain, heat, or fog.

No folks, if you believe in Valley Oak and the Valley Oaks of the world, you need to support the parcel tax. If you are worried about the achievement gap, then you need to support the parcel tax. If you do not want future parents to anguish over what school their kids will go to, then you need to support the parcel tax.

You see, unfortunately, and I am not casting aspersions at anyone, it's just the way things are right now, but when the economy goes south, when funding gets tight, the first things that go are funding to special programs and unfortunately by special programs I mean minority schools in Davis.

When I first saw the budget cuts list last winter, one of the things that drew my attention was cutting the climate coordinator position. I have been critical of the climate coordinator. But I also know how hard and how long people struggled to get that position created in the first place. The Human Relations Commission had a townhall meeting with former Superintendent David Murphy on the issue of bullying and racism, hundreds of parents came, students came forward with horror stories, it took a lot of work. Superintendent Murphy was at times intransigent. But in the end, the HRC and the community won out.

And now it was going to be gone in one fell swoop. It is not because the position is not important, it is not because the school board was against having the position, it is simply that when you have a choice because cutting elementary school science and the climate coordinator, it is not really much of a debate. And yet I know full well why that position was created in the first place and it will hurt a lot of kids if it is canceled.

I remember the meeting in 2007 when they were discussing the report from the Achievement Gap Task force and their recommendations, and how Tansey Thomas stood up and pointed out a very similar report from 1990 that was put on the shelf as soon as passions cooled and times got tough. I remember that in 2007, every single candidate running for the board brought up that as one of their goals--to help close the achievement gap. I do not know if I have heard the word uttered in 2008 and you know why? Because they are fighting to keep from firing 100 teachers.

At the end of the day, I believe in my heart of hearts that when budget times get tough, the first people to suffer are those who can least afford to suffer. Those who are the most vulnerable. It happens in all walks of life. The people who suffer the most are the most recent ones hired, those at the bottom end of the totem pole, those who are least able to create a safety net.

In Davis, I believe that the children of affluent middle class backgrounds will thrive regardless of whether or not the parcel tax passes. Are they better off with better schools with more challenging programs? Of course. However, they will prosper regardless. It is the children of those who are less fortunate who will not prosper under more difficult times with programs cut. These are the most vulnerable kids. These will be the ones to suffer the most. The children who go to the Valley Oaks of the world who had a school where they were thriving only to see it closed due to budget considerations. And yes, I am convinced that there are other schools that are very good in this district, but I do not believe you can replace that sense of empowerment and sense of community that was at work at Valley Oak Elementary School.

And though Valley Oak is now closed until further notice, there is still much to fight to protect, which is why I cannot in good conscience punish other children for mistakes made by the school board.

People have talked about fiscal mismanagement as a reason to vote against the parcel tax. I know something about fiscal mismanagement in this district as I spent a good four or five months researching what had happened in the district under Superintendent David Murphy and Budget Officer Tahir Ahad.

A few things about that I want to share. The first thing is that I did this investigation with full and complete cooperation from the school district and several of the board members. This investigation would not have been possible without their assistance. Moreover, the district went above and beyond the call of duty in assisting me. They absolutely wanted the public to know exactly what had happened under the previous administration. Two of the board members went on the record to discuss it with me.

The second thing is that the new school board, elected in 2005, cleaned up most of the problems that had occurred under the previous administration. Tahir Ahad left the district and eventually was replaced by Bruce Colby as the new chief budget officer. David Murphy left the district and eventually was replaced by James Hammond as the new superintendent. Frankly, James Hammond alone is reason to vote for this parcel tax, I cannot think of a better person to do this job than Dr. Hammond. I talked to him the day after the board decided not to support him on the charter school and all he could talk about was how sorry he was that he did not have another week to convince them to take the chance on it. He was genuine about that loss. No blame, no political posturing, just sincere compassion for those students.

The fiscal problems in this district are not the result of the actions of the current board. Not one single member of this board was around when the decision was made to put the facilities bond on the ballot. Not one single member of this board was there when the decision was made to hire Tahir Ahad or David Murphy for that matter. And not one single member of this board was there when the deadline was missed for matching funds to Montgomery.

But the majority of this board was in place when every single one of the FCMAT recommendations were carried out, when a new CBO and Superintendent were hired, when the Montgomery funding was rescued by a concerted and joint effort of the board and the interim Superintendent, when the fiscal ship of this district was righted. This board deserves the trust of the voters in handling the taxpayers money and giving the board the resources to continue to make this district one of the best in the state.

Finally folks, people are complaining about raising taxes again, one year after the previous parcel tax was passed. People are complaining that the number is $120 rather than $80 which would have been more likely to pass. I can appreciate both of those concerns.

However as far as the $120 goes, the district is asking for the amount of money that they believe they need in order to continue to fund the programs that have been listed here.

I have been critical of the city's overindulgence of certain public employee salaries and t he risk of raising more taxes to pay for their fiscal irresponsibility. Moreover, the amount of money people will pay in water rate hikes will dwarf the meager $120 annual tax increase. We are talking about up to $200 per month for water rate hikes compared with $120 per year for the parcel tax. This is on top of other fees, taxes, and possible rate hikes. There is really no comparison. Moreover, if I am going to pay out more money, I would choose to give money to help children be educated and help teachers earn a better living. Those are my priorities.

My biggest fear in all of this is that people may use the wrong reasons to not support education in Davis. It is not the children's fault that the previous administration made a series of very serious errors. It is not their fault that you may feel overburdened in your taxes, overwhelmed by a poor economy, a bad housing market, high fuel prices, etc. I understand all of that. But at the end of the day once again, we only get one shot at educating the youth in this community, they get only one shot at childhood, and for some kids, they need all the help they can get.

I hope for their sake and theirs alone you will consider supporting this tax as a modest investment into the future of these children, this community and this country.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: DJUSD Cut of Climate Position Threatens To Set Back Efforts by Two Decades

Within the course of cutting $4 to $4.5 million from the school district's budget, you know that the cuts are going to - for the most part -be deep and painful. In fact, that is one reason I have mostly avoided hitting this topic head-on. I have a full understanding that there are going to be painful cuts for all.

That being said, with proposals now on the table, I think we also have to think about the bigger picture and along those lines I have some concerns about some of the cuts.

However, I will start with perhaps some good news, without being too flippant or speaking too far out of school. On the other hand, this is the Vanguard and people have perhaps come to expect a bit of irreverence and even honesty that you will not find elsewhere.

Personnel matters are tricky, in fact, as I would suggest, I think state law goes too far to protect the privacy of top level employees. It is one thing to protect the private records of assistants and custodians and other classified employees. It is another thing not to disclose that a top level public official such as a Superintendent or City Manager has been fired and not explain why that occurred. When you have huge amount of responsibility and large salary, I do not think you have the same privacy rights as those making $30,000 per year.

Yesterday's Davis Enterprise reveals that Ginni Davis, the associate superintendent for educational services is leaving the school district.

In a somewhat contradictory release at first it says

"she decided last month not to renew her contract when it expires in June. Her decision is becoming public now, as part of the district's plans to reduce staffing in many areas to correct a growing budget deficit."

She's quoted as saying:

"I'm part of that proposed $200,000 in reductions among district office administrators."

As is often the case there is something happening between those lines.

While I cannot say for certain what happened, I do know some board members have had deep concerns about her for a good deal of time. At the end of the day however the Superintendent was going to be allowed to make his own personnel decisions. I have no direct knowledge of what happened here, but I suspect that this was not merely a budget move.

I first became aware of Ms. Davis during the case of the junior high school student who was bullied on the Harper Junior High campus largely, because he has two gay fathers. It was Ms. Davis, who became so intransigent during talks with the family that it turned from simply a complaint to a lawsuit. This was in late 2006 and early 2007.

More recently word has it that the truancy issue became a far bigger problem with the school district last fall due to decisions made from her office not to fully disclose to the school board what was occurring. Indeed, Pam Mari who was newly appointed as Director of Student Services, was hung out to dry in that meeting, believing that the board knew of this policy and she was merely providing an update for them. The board had no idea what was going on and Ms. Mari was left in a very bad position.

Finally, it was Ginni Davis who authored the resolution that opposed the Valley Oak Charter School. This resolution in December was very antagonistic and set the stage for what would happen in January. At that time, the Superintendent had to step in and put forth a large amount of work to reconcile the district's position with those of the Charter Petitioners. Prior to that point the district was very reluctant to meet or help out with the charter petition and it seems that Ms. Davis played a large role in that as well.

At the end of the day, Board President Sheila Allen issued a statement:

"We want to thank Ginni for her leadership during these difficult times, and we wish her luck in [her] next endeavors. I think she knows a lot about the educational process; that's a strength she brought to the position."

I am hopeful that when this budget emergency passes, the school district will find a new associate superintendent of educational services that will work well with the new superintendent to serve all of Davis' students.

I am less hopeful about the cut of the School Climate Coordinator position.

This position arose out of very serious concerns in this community about the "climate" on campus especially with regards to race relations and bullying. Indeed in 2004, several hundred parents and students came forward at a Davis Human Relations Commission meeting held at the Veteran's Memorial Center to press for changes to district policy on bullying and racism.

One of the outcomes of the changes was the creation of the then part-time School Climate Coordinator position which is now held by Mel Lewis.

In the fall of 2006, in the wake of events that centered on the anti-gay harassment of a junior high school student, one of the proposals put forth was to expand the climate coordinator position to full-time.

The Vanguard wrote on November 21, 2006:

"During the meeting last week, the school board asked Mel Lewis, now the district's School Climate Coordinator, to draw up an action plan designed to reduce or eliminate harassment not just at Harper but at all Davis schools.

Lewis at the meeting pointed out he was doing a 1.5 time job on a half-time salary. The school board seemed to agree that the Mr. Lewis needs to be better sourced as did the father of the student, Guy Fischer. Fischer said "this is a full-time problem. There are a lot of things that could be done."

What followed in 2007 was a series of events on the Davis High School Campus and in the community that underscore the need for a continuation of that program.

Instead what we see is that as soon as the budget gets tight, this will be one of the first things that go. Nevermind the recommendations that have come from a whole variety of studies that the district has invested time and money into. Nevermind the continuing complaints about disparate treatment for students of different races with regards to discipline policy. Nevermind the stark findings of the Achievement Gap Task Force or the DHS Catalysts for Social Justice Student report. Nevermind that last year Tansey Thomas stood up and told the school board that in 1990 they had done a "Racial Climate Assessment Report" and at that time the district struggled with the same problems that they are currently struggling with. Those recommendations were put on a shelf and never acted upon. Let us shelve promising new programs such as the school ambassador program, because we simply are out of money.

I understand that we need to cut money. I also understand that we cannot cut money from core programs if possible, and that these cuts will be painful to all. But if we set ourselves back we are literally setting ourselves back another 18 years, because these programs will not come back until the next incident occurs. And, we will once again wonder why it is that we never acted upon the recommendations of the 2007 Achievement Gap Task Force just as we never acted upon the recommendations of the "Racial Climate Assessment Report."

When we cut programs for the most vulnerable students, the students who we have long since determined are at-risk, we risk truly damaging the students.

For all of the people who have said that this school district is irresponsible and we should not approve a parcel tax until they demonstrate they have their house in order, I disagreed. I disagreed because these are students, they are kids, and I do not believe we can play politics with the education of students.

At the same time, we cannot merely cut programs for at-risk kids, because we have a budget crunch and it is "easy" (and I know it is not easy) money to cut. Too much work went into establishing this program and this position in the first place to merely throw it out the door.

We need to have the same commitment to school climate and helping at-risk kids as we have for core curriculum because for some kids, without this work and these programs, there is no core curriculum. The achievement gap will grow. Students who are at-risk will not graduate, they will not go to college, they will not succeed in life. That sounds harsh, perhaps too harsh, but in my mind that is what we are facing here.

I'm sorry, but I think we have to find a better way than to balance our budget on the backs of the most vulnerable in our schools just as at the state and federal level we cannot merely balance our budget on the backs of the poor and the working class.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

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 7th biggest story: Racial and Other Strife on the High School Campus.

Last year there were a series of incidents and stories involving the Davis High School Campus. One of the strangest incidents was an honors student who ended up getting suspended for giving a speech about Malcolm X that may or may not have challenged the authority of a teacher.

The incident started with the student asking if they could bring a poster of Malcolm X to to math class. The teacher had posted a number of political posters in the classroom and they had agreed.

As we wrote at the time:

"On the poster appeared the phrase very prominently, "by any means necessary" along with other phrases from one of Malcom X's most famous speeches.

This is a phrase comes from this context:

"We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."

The next day, the student came back and found that the poster had been taken down and in front of the class and was told that it was a "terrorist" message.

A few weeks later, this same student was asked to give a speech in front of the school during Human Relations Week about a civil rights incident that he had experienced. He was given a choice and decided to do it on this specific incident. He then gave them an advanced copy of the speech which they approved. He was told that he could not specifically mention the teacher and he agreed to this.

He then delivered the speech, he did not mention the teacher's name. Apparently the teacher however walked out during the speech, he and his parents were called in by the Vice-Principal."

The text of the speech was approved apparently by the powers that be. However, according to some, the student changed parts of the speech and made critical remarks to the teacher.

Because of the criticism of the teacher in the speech, the student was suspended for three days.

According to the student, this is a copy of the text of the speech that was actually read during the assembly.

Versions of the incident vary depending on who you ask. From my perspective, a three day suspension for an offense that does not include physical danger or illegal activity is inappropriate. A further problem is a school policy that is in the process of being changed, whereby students are punished academically for being suspended. This is problematic since most students suspended are academically at risk to begin with.

This leads us to another concern from the high school campus and really beyond--the achievement gap.

The basics of the achievement gap are well-known by now. Each candidate for school board expressed great concern for it. At a fundamental level, white and Asian students perform consistently and statistically significantly higher than do African-American and Hispanic students.

In fact it is worse than that. The most chilling statistic is that when you control for education level of the parents, and you look only at children of college educated parents, the achievement gap still remains. This means it is something beyond merely economic or educational differences between black and Hispanic families and white and Asian families.

Last spring, Davis High School Catalysts for Social Justice presented research on a number of tough topic including achievement gap, suspension rate differentials, and lack of minority hires.

That presentation is summarized here.

Early in May, Tansey Thomas, a community leader stood up before the school board and spoke at length about a "Racial Climate Assessment Report" that was done in the early 90s. This report laid out a series of concerns and problems that existed at the time. It made a series of recommendations.

Here are some of the specific recommendations made:

"The District should establish... no later than the 1990-91 school year, a district-wide multicultural curriculum committee... [that] should oversee and assist in implementation of the plan within the District. The responsibilities of the committee should include developing staff training programs, curriculum materials, and other similar matters."

"The district needs to employ a specialist in multicultural education who can provide assistance to the administrative staff in the areas of staff development and development of multicultural curriculum materials."

"To promote teacher input, a committee of teachers should be established at each site."

"Job responsibilities of all school personnel should include being knowledgeable of, and attentive to, the educational needs of students from diverse cultural backgrounds... Training should be broad, covering all aspects of human relations and multicultural education."

"The district should promote follow-through, such as peer coaching, where teachers can have other experienced staff observe, evaluate, and provide feedback concerning the implmenetation of teaching principles and methodologies covered in the training."

"A strong consideration in the selection of Mentor Teachers in the District for the next several years should be their skill in multicultural education."

"As part of its affirmative action program, the District should focus on strategies to attract and hire qualified applicants with diverse cultural backgrounds who are trained in multicultural education."

"The district should offer more kinds of programs such as Global Education in which teachers learn about different cultures within the United States and in other countries."

"The District needs to develop ways to help students realize their academic potential... a State task force recommended that local school districts review their policies to deliberately expose minority students to a strong academic background and prepare them for higher education."

"Assessments every two years or on an annual basis, as needed, should be made to evaluate the progress the District is making in improving the racial/ethnic climate in Davis schools."

The big concern of course is that this report could have been written today. And in fact, what happened was it gathered dust on a shelf. It was never implemented. The school district has gone to great measures to really just reinvent the wheel.

It does us little good to have studies, to discover that the same problems exist, but not to follow through on those recommendations.

Unfortunately these are just a few of the issues that arose during this year.

We also had a group of parents in frustration threaten to boycott the district's STAR testing.

And the Interim Superintendent Richard Whitmore was concerned enough about this threat to personally respond on the Vanguard.

There was also conflict within some of the parents and students at the high school that led to the shutdown of the Black Student Union. This led to protests and marches.

Finally, just when it appeared things had calmed down after a long summer break, school started again, and the district began a crackdown of truancy at the same time the police began a crackdown on underaged students giving rides to other students (which is against the law). The combination led to mass confusion until everything was sorted out.

The Vanguard would run a four-part series on the truancy issue.

The first installment focused on the meeting itself. Newly promoted Director of Student Services, Pam Mari was put into an awful position at this time. She later told me that she was under the mistaken impression that the school board actually knew what was going on. They did not. Therefore, the lack of material and information fed into the confusion by the school board.

This was coupled with a fundamental misunderstand of what the term "truancy sweep" meant. Most of us took it to mean that the police were going around the community to round up students. What we would later learn is that they were using the term "sweep" as the police would to mean an operation that has a specific focus and goal, in this case to get the 15-20 worst truancy offenders back into class.

However, that is not what it looked like in mid-September when this story broke.

The confusion was perhaps best summed up by Amanda Lopez-Lara, the student representative on the school board.

"It was when the student representative on the board spoke, Amanda López-Lara, that it became more clear that what was being described by Pam Mari looked very different from the student perspective.

"Today was probably the first day most students were actually told these rules. We had never heard of them before, we were not aware of them. I agree it is very good to kid the kids into class again, because I do know there’s a problem at the high school especially with a lot of kids just skipping class and going to parks. But one concern I do have is that a lot of people appreciate Mark Hicks, and I know a lot of kids who are at-risk students who really respect him, but one concern that I had is that I know today during lunch, the whole high school was scared. We were scared because we went to lunch, we weren’t necessarily scared but we were made nervous, because we went out and I don’t think I’ve see that many cop cars at the high school. I saw one across the street, and two and each entrance, and then once I went down the street I’ve had my license for a year, so I wasn’t nervous, but what did make me nervous is that there were cop cars going up or down and I know that there were some students pulled over. I know one student who actually had his license for year and there was a misunderstanding between himself and the police officer. But I do know that a lot of students afterwards were feeling very nervous and had a lot of apprehension towards the police officers."

Furthermore she stated:

"I’m an A student, I have no truancy problems, and I know that made me nervous.""

School Board members Jim Provenza and Tim Taylor expressed concern about this type of seemingly overly broad approach to fighting truancy.

At one point, Board Member Taylor in frustration summed up his concerns:

"Pam with all due respect that is interesting, but Jim’s point is that a student with all the reason in the world to be going to the bank, shouldn’t be stopped… It doesn’t matter that once their stopped and police run a check on them that fifteen minutes later they are let out of police control, the problem is the being stopped in the first place. I have a huge concern about it… [He stated he is supportive of the mission to reduce truancy] but there are limits, and I think the limits that Jim is identifying in his question are the ones that I am concerned about.”

Here's the full article on the first meeting itself.

It was not until later the next week after a conversation with Davis Police Lt. Darren Pytel that it became clearer that what was conveyed at the school board meeting was not the entire story (fortunately).

Meanwhile the Vanguard met with a number of students who demonstrated the confusion and concerns that students had with the confluence of two policy decisions that appeared to the students to be one and the same.

By November 2, a new meeting laid out to the board what was really going on--telling the board in a way that should have been done in the first place. This time, in addition to Pam Mari, the Davis Police, the District Attorney's Office, and other agencies involved were there to provide additional information.

"To her credit, Pam Mari, Davis Joint Unified School District Director of Student Services admitted that the previous conversation did not go as well as was hoped. However, she suggested that communications have drastically improved.

As so often seems to be the case, there was a miscommunication about expectations. She seemed to believe that the board already knew what was going on with regards to truancy, when in fact they clearly did not. It should be noted of course, that this was her first presentation in her present position. Nevertheless, the entire incident underscores the need for communication to occur at a high level.

Unlike the September meeting, Pam Mari was flanked by Lt. Darren Pytel of the Davis Police Department who was able to clarify the role of the police as it relates to issues of truancy. Also present were Trease Peterson, the Youth Intervention Specialist, and representatives from the Yolo County Probations department and the Yolo County DA's office (Patty Fong).

Lt. Darren Pytel made it clear to the public that the use of the term "sweep" meant something different to the police than to the public. To the public the perception was that they would go around town and attempt to round up youths who might not be in school. "We have no intent to do that." Instead, they have found that a lot of high school students, when being truant, end up hanging around in the park next to school. If this is the situation they encounter then they approach the students with a consensual stop and ask them where they should be. According to Lt. Pytel, most students are fairly honest about what they should be doing."

The bottom line here is an illustration as to why communication within the district and between agencies would have spared a lot of people, a lot of grief.

Things would calm down after this, but it was a tumultuous year on the Davis High School Campus.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

School Climate Report

Last night at the city of Davis' Human Relations Commission, Mel Lewis, the Davis School District's Climate Coordinator with assistance from Pam Mari, Director of Student Services presented a brief overview of the results from the Yale School Climate Survey.

For those of you who are long time Vanguard readers, you will recall back in May, we were critical of the use of this survey for the purposes ascertaining school climate. There were four versions of this survey: Elementary and Middle School, High School, Parent, and Staff. Last May we were able to obtain the Parent version and post it on the Vanguard. Mr. Lewis informed us that the results of this survey are proprietary, and therefore they cannot post the results of the survey. This is basically a $30,000 survey purchased at public expense that cannot have the full results posted--a problematic aspect to begin with.

They were able to show us summary and graphical results.

There were 17 major categories of questions. The first graphic to the right shows the 17 categories and their distribution within the surveys. The first six are incorporated into the Elementary and Middle School Survey. Categories 2 through 7 are incorporated into the High School Category.

The big findings are represented on the second and third graphic. These pictorially demonstrate a consistent pattern that on most questions, "Black" and "Latino" students rate their school climate less than their "White" counterparts.

To Mel Lewis, this was clear and convincing evidence that the school climate was not perceived the same for all students and it was systematically more difficult for minorities than for white students, according to this survey.

Mr. Lewis stressed that this data will allow us to move away from assumptions to reality. In other words, we do not have to assume that these problems are here, we have evidence and we can now deal with them. As a result, we can improve communication and awareness. And this will help in the formation of various programs that we have discussed such as the Safe School Ambassadors program, the Unconscious Bias Training, among others.

One of the questions that had among the lowest ratings was the question: "I can talk to my teachers about my problems." Overall, only 42 percent of students agreed, that number dropped to 6 percent among black students at one Junior High, 15 percent at another.

Before I proceed with this, I want to stress, that to me Mel Lewis and Pam Mari are very sincere on this issue. They have concerns and I think they are sincere in wanting to address these concerns.

Nevertheless, even though I am sympathetic to the results of this survey, I remain troubled by some of the interpretations of the findings.

First, as a social scientist, I question the interpretation of the results. There is a consistent pattern that shows a difference between minority and white respondents across the board. However, without having the actual figures those differences appear small numerically. Furthermore, given the low sample size for minorities, I am not certain how robust these results are and how confident we can be that these differences are not due to mere chance and random variations.

Let me give a clear and simple example. Let us suppose that there were only 10 black students at a school and 7 told us that they did not feel they could talk to their teachers. That, would be 70% percent. A one student difference in the results would drastically change the results. If one extra student said they felt they could talk to their teachers, the number would drop to 60% or if one fewer student said they could not talk to their teachers, that number would rise to 80%. In other words, one random change in the responses could swing the results by 20%. Even if you have 19 students, as was the case in one of the surveys at a Junior High, small random variation can lead to drastic change in results. Are the differences in the results between whites and non-whites, large enough to overcome the potential for random variation? If they are, they are what we would call statistically significant. If not, then they are not. From the results that we see, it is difficult to tell if they are.

So again, while I might believe the results, I have difficulty having confidence in the process.

Secondly, while I think the results are instructive, I am still far from sure that they asked the key questions. As I was skeptical in May, there were few questions that I would consider actual climate type questions. Few that asked about racism. Few that asked about race relations. Few that talked about harassment, discrimination, differentials in punishment, bullying, etc. The key issues that we have faced over the past few years are not covered by the survey. So yes, we may have stumbled onto some results here, but we might still not be asking the critical questions that will really show us where the problems lie.

Finally, as several told me following the meeting, it is far from clear that the questions asked here are much different from what was found nearly 20 years ago. We do not necessarily need more surveys. We have had surveys. We have developed programs. What we have not done is follow through on these programs with any type of commitment. In May, we talked about the "Racial Climate Assessment Report" that was done nearly 20 years ago and yet could have been written today.

Long time activist Tansey Thomas asked the school district in May:

“I don’t know why we want to start over again, everything that was a problem then, is a problem now. It’s like we’ve gone nowhere… That we form another study group, start another cycle, and it goes nowhere.”

As one person said last night, we've studied this enough, time for action.

The key question is whether these programs will solve the problem and whether the new board and the new superintendent will have the tenacity to follow through with these reports and implement these programs and ensure that programs will do what we are saying they will do. Short of that, we are engaging in academic exercises for no apparent benefit.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

History Repeats: "Racial Climate Assessment Report" Reads as Though it Was Written Today

As we discussed last week, the school board listened to District Climate Coordinator Mel Lewis discuss the climate action report that he was implementing. Not surprisingly it called for a number of new programs, courses, surveys, and a number of other recommendations to deal with some of the issues of racism, discrimination, bullying, and harassment that the district has now faced for a long period of time.

As many in the room remarked, the programs suggested and the goals themselves are laudable. It was an impressive presentation. We already spoke at length about a pilot program called the safe schools ambassador's program. This was just the beginning of a long series of recommendations for improvement in the school climate.

We had expressed concerns about the Yale Survey that was mailed to the houses of parents and also sent home with students. As we discussed at the time, the survey really did not appear to address the key issues that were facing the school district. Our inquiry into the rationale by the district produced an explanation for this, but did not alleviate our concerns. The survey has been implemented as a generic survey that will yield the district some information that can be compared at the national level. The district personnel did not feel they had the resources or the expertise to design their own and more comprehensive survey. Still, as suggested at the time, this does not address the key issues of racism, discrimination, bullying and harassment and instead asks a series of generic questions that aim to ascertain the condition of the schools and rapport that the principals have with the teachers.

Nevertheless, those reservations aside, there was little in the school action climate plan that one can criticize. That is until Tansey Thomas stood up and spoke about the "Racial Climate Assessment Report" that was prepared for the Davis Joint Unified School District in 1990.

Ms. Thomas, a long time community activist, pointed out that this report made a number of great recommendations, but it was never implemented by the school district. In fact, the school district for the most part flat out refused to implement it or even adhere to its voted on policies. The result of this failure of follow-through and implementation is that the only thing that has changed since the report was written was the statewide passage of a law that prohibits affirmative action in public schools-—the finding and recommendations are all there and just needs to be updated to include Prop. 209 (end of Affirmative Action).

As Ms. Thomas said, “I don’t know why we want to start over again, everything that was a problem then, is a problem now. It’s like we’ve gone nowhere… That we form another study group, start another cycle, and it goes nowhere.”

Reading through the report, it is very easy to see where Tansey Thomas' skepticism came from.

Here are some of the specific recommendations that the 1990 made...

"The District should establish... no later than the 1990-91 school year, a district-wide multicultural curriculum committee... [that] should oversee and assist in implementation of the plan within the District. The responsibilities of the committee should include developing staff training programs, curriculum materials, and other similar matters."

"The district needs to employ a specialist in multicultural education who can provide assistance to the administrative staff in the areas of staff development and development of multicultural curriculum materials."

"To promote teacher input, a committee of teachers should be established at each site."

"Job responsibilities of all school personnel should include being knowledgeable of, and attentive to, the educational needs of students from diverse cultural backgrounds... Training should be broad, covering all aspects of human relations and multicultural education."

"The district should promote follow-through, such as peer coaching, where teachers can have other experienced staff observe, evaluate, and provide feedback concerning the implmenetation of teaching principles and methodologies covered in the training."

"A strong consideration in the selection of Mentor Teachers in the District for the next several years should be their skill in multicultural education."

"As part of its affirmative action program, the District should focus on strategies to attract and hire qualified applicants with diverse cultural backgrounds who are trained in multicultural education."

"The district should offer more kinds of programs such as Global Education in which teachers learn about different cultures within the United States and in other countries."

"The District needs to develop ways to help students realize their academic potential... a State task force recommended that local school districts review their policies to deliberately expose minority students to a strong academic background and prepare them for higher education."

"Assessments every two years or on an annual basis, as needed, should be made to evaluate the progress the District is making in improving the racial/ethnic climate in Davis schools."

This report also activated numerous committees and bodies with oversight power over the implementation most specifically the Davis Joint Unified School District's Human Relations Committee (NOT to be confused with the Davis Human Relations Commission chartered by the city). The DJUSD HRC was given the authority to oversee and implement these programs and changes and to monitor progress. None of these recommendations were ultimately followed and many of the recommendations on this list have been launched anew this year in the latest report.

There has not been sufficient follow-through on the racial/ethnic climate issues facing the district. By 2003, the district was forced to confront this issue once again in the face of an angry mob, the result of a long meeting between the Davis Human Relations Commission and the school district, where hundreds of students and parents came forward to press then Superintendent Murphy to deal with issues of racism and bullying at the high school. It was only then that the district would become serious again about these issues and it formed its Climate Coordinator position--a half time position--in response.

As we see currently, the district is doing the exact same thing in essence it did in the late 1980s and early 1990s--developing multicultural curriculum. Mel Lewis discussed last week the development of curriculum, programs, and in fact there is a new course that addresses this topic, “Race Relations and Social Justice in U.S. History,” that has been approved for next year. They are still trying to increase the diversity of the certificated staff--the number of minority teachers remains alarming low despite the acknowledgment of this problem 17 years ago. They are trying to implement and improve mentoring programs.

The achievement gap which will be discussed at length next week as the task force gives their report continues to be a huge problem despite the realization of the problem 17 years ago.

One of the major problems facing the 1990 report was the lack of historical continuity and institutional coherence. There is constant turnover in district personnel, elected officials, and even activists. At the meeting last week, very few seemed to be aware of the existence of this report, in fact, only five years after the report was written, the same could be said. The DJUSD Human Relations Committee was charged with overseeing and monitoring school progress on this report, but that fell by the way-side because by 1994, none of the members on that commission even knew of its existence.

In short, had the district simply implemented the policies from 1990, they would have been in much better shape much faster than they are now.

There is nothing wrong with the recommendations made last week, many of them were made in one form or another in 1990. The question remains will the school district have follow-through on these through changes in the elected board members and through times when this is not a hot-burning issue on the forefront of the public's consciousness. That remains to be seen, unfortunately, history has a tendency to repeat and in Davis, the history of race relations has indeed proved that aphorism to be true.

The one burning question we all must ask is how do we ensure that these recommendations--which all seem good and beneficial to the school climate--get implemented, enforced, and that future bodies engage in active fall-through? That seems to be the most daunting task that a collective of well-intentioned people in the school district and in this community must grapple with.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Innovative New Junior High School Program Targets Bullying

At last week's school board meeting, Davis Joint Unified School District Climate Coordinator Mel Lewis discussed the innovative new program that is being piloted at the Junior High School level--the safe school ambassador program.

A partial grant in the spring of 2007 was used to implement this program at Holmes Junior High School. This was a one-time grant for the training and it is only at Holmes. Mel Lewis recommended it to the district for the use at all junior high schools.

This was an idea that Board Member Keltie Jones had picked up from the CSBA meetings.

"This actually one of the things that I got most excited about at CSBA and got on an email list and got an email about this grant and forwarded it to the district office and that's what got this going. This program was developed by someone in Santa Rosa... And it was developed in response to Columbine where he is a psychologist and an educator and really started examining why those kinds of things happen and how can we really effectively prevent the kind of abuse that our students go through daily in the hallways...

It's kind of nice, because at this point we are really benefiting from many years of what works at other schools and what works at other environments. And also I liked it because its individualized where each school, each community can kind of make it their own with families of teachers who are willing to be on board. So I'm very very excited that you're doing this work. And my own daughter at Holmes has noticed the changes as well."

The cost of this program was around $3900 for one-time training. Some of the follow-up training they can provide on their own. Certainly an affordable program that can have good benefits to the student culture. This is a program that is designed for grades 4 to 12.

A teacher and two ambassadors came to the meeting to give a presentation on the safe school ambassador program.

They had a training in March at the teen center--intensive training for two days. As the teacher explained, "What's really good about this program as opposed to others, I feel, is that we're dealing with students who are the first on the scene, who can react much quicker than teachers can, because we hear it from them if they tell us, and they are the ones that can quietly deal with the situations that arise on our campus."

They selected forty students with "social capital" in their peer groups, it is not just the straight A student or the perfect student, but rather students who have actual influence within their peer groups that have been selected. It is a broad cross-section of all groups. Five teachers have volunteered to participate--family leaders--who meet with eight students every few weeks to discuss any interventions that they have had with students. Each of the teachers have committed to be involved for two years in this program (if funding is enabled to continue).

There will be a follow-up training in the fall where the newly arriving seventh grade students will receive training to replace those who are ninth graders.

As the teacher made clear,

"This is not something where if there is a serious situation that a student had to deal with, they are not going to deal with it on their own. They know there are certain lines that they can get to and then they need to go for help. They can go to the family members, they can go to the counselors... They are not the undercover cops that can kind of deal with everything, they know when they get to the line and they need to pass it on."

Two students came forward to talk about their experiences. They work behind the scenes within their own groups to help stop bullying. For example, if they see a friend put down someone else, they intervene and try to tell the student it is not the best thing to do and they also help comfort the victim.

The big thing about the program is that students are there where the teachers cannot be. They see what the teachers cannot see and can be involved in that capacity.

One of the students witnessed for example an incident where one kid pushed another kid off his bike. One of the ambassadors confronted the kid to ask why he had done this, while the other ambassador made sure the kid who was pushed off his bike was okay.

The female student described typical types of interventions:

"Most of what we do also is just like put-downs like 'oh that's so gay,' 'you're so stupid,' 'what type of dress is that oh my gosh,' so what we usually do in those type of circumstances, talk about what we did last night, like that really good movie so that they stop thinking about it or talk about what that person might have that is good. But if it's something like 'that's so good' or something like that, we tell them that that's not right, you shouldn't say that, that's..."

Board Member Provenza asked:

"Do you find that effective in changing the way students are relating to each other?"

The male student responded,

"My view really changed after I went to that ambassador training. And when I went to that ambassador training, I realized how wrong that was."

The other student added that most of their friends have stopped using those kinds of words around them and she hoped that would change their habits in general and that would carry over to their other conversations as well to change the school.

Another component of the effectiveness of this program is that it is not a situation where the students are in uniforms and designated as authority figures. In fact, they have not told the other students about this program and instead are trying to work behind the scenes to change the culture of the school from the inside.

"I really do think that students, obviously they do have a lot more pull with their peer groups than teachers do. We're there to educate, we're there to be positive role models, but as far as interacting with each other, one we don't see it all and the students do and they can really do the on-spot corrections... These discussions between themselves can have a huge impact."

They have also had less than positive responses to their interventions, but the support group is in place that they can bring it back to their "family" and discuss better ways that they could approach a certain situation.

As Mel Lewis suggested:

"I like it because its relevant to what the kids are dealing with now. It's not a package program that just stays in an old binder, it really comes to relevancy of what the students are dealing with."

There were concerns raised that many of the Columbine type situations, and the most recent one at Virginia Tech are perpetrated by loners, who are not in any social groups.

As Tim Taylor said,

"I agree with that approach [finding leaders of the subgroups], that approach is easier said than done, so to the extent that they are accomplishing it, that's a pretty big thing to find the subgroups and all this who are out there. What it doesn't catch though is the individual, if you think of some of these incidents that have been so prominent in the news, and those are individuals that don't identify with any group."

Mel Lewis however suggested that one of their duties is to try to reach out to these type of students and hang out with students who seem to not have friends. They go and sit with them, and they have lunch with the students who do not necessarily eat with anyone else.

Tim Taylor agreed that was a good approach.

Will this program ultimately succeed? It is hard to say for sure, but there are several promising aspects of it. First, it works within the peer social structure. One key question is whether the knowledge of the existence of this program will work to undermine it, however, by working within that social network, it has a chance to succeed.

Second, it is not a police program, rather it aims to change the interactions of students through positive peer pressure.

Third and most importantly, we know from social psychological research that bystanders rarely intervene. In fact, there have been numerous studies on crowd's failure to intervene when a woman was attacked to the failure of people to prevent atrocities in Zimbardo's study on prisons. What this type of program does is empower bystanders to intervene. It gives them the tools to do so. The social support to do so. And more importantly, it raises the awareness that they need to do so, which would seem to be so vital.

In fact, one of the questions they had during their training at the conclusion was what would they change when they got back into campus.

According to the teacher, many of the students said, "I'm not going to be a bystander, so that was a powerful message because they are teens, they would view something that was happening and they would look the other way. They said they wouldn't be a bystander, and I think our ambassadors are proving that."

This program seems to hold some promise to help with situations of harassment and bullying that have been burning issues for a long time. It is not going to solve all of the problems, but it seems to be a powerful tool that can help.

For more information on this program, please click here.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

"School Climate Survey" Missing Key Issues

In response to the Harper Junior High School incident last fall where a student was repeatedly harassed based on his fathers same-sex relationship, the district developed a number of programs including the school climate action plan as a means to assess the school climate and begin to attempt to teach students about diversity. One of the items on tonight's agenda will look at the steps needed to be taken to address the needs of a diverse community. This includes such important issues as hiring teachers and other staff who reflect our student demographics. This seems to be a strong and positive step that address some of the key concerns that have been presented here in recent weeks.

However, just before that item, another item appears on the agenda tonight at the Davis Joint Unified School Board meeting which will inform the school board on the climate action plan which includes the "school climate survey" which contains 41 questions and was supposedly mailed out to all of the parents in the school district.

According to the agenda:

"This Action Plan has been developed and reviewed by principals, the District School Climate Council, and site staffs. The Yale Survey has been delivered to each site, Holmes Junior High has obtained a grant and has held Safe School Ambassador training, assemblies on school climate are being presented, and many more complementary activities are happening to implement the actions in this plan. This is continuous work that will be focused in the future on the new comprehensive survey results.

The Yale Survey will be administered during the first 2 weeks in May, and the results returned prior to the end of the school year. The results will be shared with the district and at the sites through staff meetings, within classrooms, Site Councils, PTA, and School Climate Committees. Further actions will be developed from these results."

While I increasingly believe that a lot of the problems stem from the lack of responsiveness and poor handling from school administrators, I think that a good school climate survey could be a very informative means for the school district to assess the problems that exist in the schools.

The operational word here being "good" and the operational phrase being "climate survey."

An enraged parent delivered a copy of the survey for me. Perhaps the district has a different sense of what "school climate" means than the rest of us because not one question relates to the issues of harassment, discrimination, race relations, bullying, diversity of faculty, or any of the major issues that we have been dealing with this school year.

I even checked to make sure that this survey was intended to test the kind of "climate" issues that the climate coordinator was hired to handle. From the agenda item and the response I got, I believe the answer is affirmative.

What is on the survey? Well there are five questions about the appearance and/ or condition of the school buildings. I do not recall the condition of our schools to be a huge issue.

There are questions about participation by parents, standard of work, the way the principal treats the students, whether the students at the school enjoy reading, whether the school has a high standard of work, etc.

It is not that some if not many of these questions are not important. It is that there are clearly questions that are left out and those are questions which deal with the key issues that have been addressed this year and those are the key issues that the school district specifically created the climate coordinator position to address. To not have any of those kinds of questions on the survey, calls into question the entire survey and the entire program.

There is simply a lot of information that the school district needs to deal with issues such as race relations, bullying, discrimination, harassment, and the like, that they will not get from this survey.

I would like to know who was involved in the selection of this survey. The agenda item mentions principals, climate council, and site staffs. It leaves me to wonder if the school board looked at this survey before it was approved and sent to all the parents in the district. From the responses I have gotten, I would suspect not. And I would like to know what oversight is available for such matters because those who I talked to were unaware of the survey's existence even, much less its content.

It is my hope that the community and the board get some key answers to this tonight at the school board meeting. I would encourage any parents involved in these issues to come to the board meeting and ask questions.

To read the full survey with all 41 questions for yourself, please click here.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting