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Pasadena Unified Board Passes Budget, Approves Measure TT Projects

Parents continue to complain about Madison Elementary School principal

Published on Friday, July 1, 2016 | 5:00 am
 
Pasadena Unified Board Members Patrick Cahalan (L) and Adrienne Ann Mullen at last night's meeting.

With only hours to go before the end of fiscal year 2015-2016 and the beginning of the 2016-2017 fiscal year, the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education successfully passed a new budget.

The Board also passed a number of related items in a long, busy agenda Monday evening, including the approval of its Local Control Accountability Plan, a Special Education annual budget and service plan, a Special Education local plan revision, as well as approval of a Fiscal Stabilization Plan for 2017-2018.

The new budget reflects a new school funding formula put into place in 2013. This new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) overhauled how the state California funds K-12 schools.

According to the Pasadena Unified website, The LCFF is a major change to how California has supported local educational agencies. Through the local control funding formula, the state is providing new decision making power to local educational agencies to act based on the needs they see for students. In addition, this shifts California from treating funding as an input to support students, to a resource that is linked to performance expectations.

Complementing the changes to state funding made by the LCFF is a newly required Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP). The LCAP is the LCFF’s vehicle for transparency and engagement. It is the way that local school districts are expected to share performance data, needs, actions, and anticipated outcomes that guide the use of available LCFF funding. LCAPs are three-year plans, updated annually.

The $210,120,822 total general fund original budget represents $116.2 million in certificated and classified salaries, $49.2 million in employee benefits, 8.4 million in books and supplies, and $35.2 million for services, among the major expenses. Salaries and benefits represent nearly 80% of the total expenditures.

The board also approved more than a score of projects to be designed, constructed or completed using funds from the $350 million Measure TT bond initiative passed in 2008. The projects ranged from new restrooms at McKinley, improvements to the scoreboard, a new theater and other modernization projects at John Muir High School; a modernization of the gymnasium at Pasadena High School, as well as new projects at Jackson and Washington Elementary schools, along with improvements at Linda Vista and San Rafael Elementary Schools.

Meanwhile, the board continued to hear complaints from angry parents regarding the ongoing situation at Madison Elementary School, where 18 teachers and staff members have transferred out of the school since the appointment in Spring 2015 of Principal Juan Ruelas by Superintendent Brian McDonald.

“Eighteen people from Madison have left,” said school parent Joe Bautista. “That’s almost all the staff. What more proof do you need?” Wife Laurie Bautista added, “I can’t believe how low the culture there has become. Please consider the data. Please do something.”

Some parents and teachers have complained steadily about Ruelas over the past year, since he was transferred in as principal from Roosevelt Elementary School.

According to Assistant Superintendent Mercy Santoro,  Ruelas was assigned to the underperforming Madison by Superintendent McDonald based on Ruelas’ “proven successful record” after he improved Roosevelt Elementary School. Ruelas has worked for the district for 20 years.

 

 

 

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