Friday, August 15, 2008
North County Times
State sides with VUSD in dispute over site money
State officials have sided with the Vista Unified School District in a disagreement about who has final say over how school site money is spent.
In a decision released last month, an official with the California Department of Education denied six appeals filed by members of the school site council at Casita Center for Technology, Science and Math in Vista.
A site council is a group of parents and school employees that puts together a budget on how money set aside for school improvements should be spent.
Lisa Hoffman, a member of the council and librarian at the school, said she doesn't expect the Casita group to appeal the state's decision, though she was surprised and disheartened by it.
"I'm not happy with the way the state did this," she said, adding that state workers didn't fully investigate the situation and simply took the word of district officials.
Up until recently, school site councils in Vista put together budgets for their schools, and the district's board routinely approved them without much discussion.
Now, school officials are saying the way each school is spending money needs to be aligned with board goals, which include expanding the Lindamood-Bell reading program and SuccessMaker math program as a way to reach struggling students and improve test scores.
The Casita site council filed a complaint with the district in March and with the state in June, saying that district officials had meddled in how some of the school's money was spent and weren't communicating properly with the site council.
The argument basically came down to who had the final authority in deciding where the school-site money goes ---- the site council or the school board.
According to the state's decision, the school board has the last word.
"The district has the option of not approving all or some parts of the school plan which is recommended by the school site council," the letter from the state office states.
The feud between the site council and district started with disagreements over Lindamood-Bell Reading Process, the reading program that district officials have pushed to expand in recent years. Some parents have complained about the cost of the program, arguing that the money could be put to better use.
District officials wanted to use the site money to beef up the program at Casita and hire Lindamood-Bell workers, while the site council wanted to hire part-time reading teachers.
In June, after the group had filed the complaint with the state, the council and district administrators struck a compromise.
The deal gave the council more than $35,000 to spend as it sees fit, and set aside the rest of the school's nearly $180,000 in site money to pay for Lindamood-Bell workers and someone to oversee a new program for students learning to speak English.
District officials are working to create a policy that would clarify the role of the school site councils.
"We want our school site councils to be effective," Superintendent Joyce Bales said. "There's a lot of money that's coming into the district, so we want to make sure that it's impacting the classroom and supporting the classroom teachers."
Contact staff North County Times writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 901-4009 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.