The Los Angeles School System can GO FUCK THEMSELVES! Warning: Parent venting thread
 

Now they are trying to cut out the positions of Assistant Principals from the LA schools!

They have cut back so much on education funding and the schools are a mess as it is.

I will once again go to the very front of the picket lines as I have done both in LA and Washington D.C. on other educational issues in years past.

Just a few facts:
$8,000 each year just to put my kid in preschool for 2 years

having my kid feel the weight of 'no child left behind' and she has to work on certain levels that other kids need so 'everyone passes the grade',

parents and gift money paying just to have a library, and holding bake sales and auctions just to raise money for gym equipment and computers...

and all of this goes into a 501c3 non profit 'parent organization' so the school board can't take the money we raise and put it into their 'school fund' that funds what? pizza ovens?

spending hours volunteering in the classroom and other school needs to supplement the lack of school staff.

Oh yea, and our school is in the TOP 5 OF ALL OF LA SCHOOLS - and it's because we all pitch in.


I'm sorry...where were my tax dollars going again?

I spend a lot of time teaching my daughter about life, esteem, confidence, handling situations, talking her through things for full perspective of understanding (and of course teaching her strategy and negotiation ;) and so on...but what next? Do I become a teacher in a classroom too?

If anyone has a kid in the LAUSD - let me know and I will give you a copy of my opposition letter to use that I sent to every board member in every LA district.

The rate this economy is going, it will cost me a $1M for college when she goes in 10 years.

Ok, I am done bitching. You can say good. ;)

But to the LAUSD, Governor 'Terminator' and to the City of LA... You have my permission to go :321GFY:321GFY:321GFY:321GFY
oh yea, and to :321GFY:321GFY:321GFY:321GFY oh yea and to anyone who posts slamming my thread, I will have to unfortunately say ahead of time :321GFY (but only once ;)
to those that actually read this... Thank you.

I agree with you, this is fairly corkscrewed. But good on you for caring enough to educate your daughter and instill some useful real-world experience. Most people don't give a fuck about doing that.

Kids don't wanna learn anymore. Most just wanna do drugs and make babies. That's why the government doesn't give a fuck about spending money on educating them.

It's a beautiful burn out.

Your tax dollars are going to the Illegal aliens and there kids. The money that's left over goes right in the pockets of the politicians.

Not true. They would want to learn if they learned how important it is. That is the real domino effect if parents don't stay in tune with their kids and best interests of their future.

Agree 100%, were going through some crazyness with our private school, and new search

LASD charges for pre-school?

while i agree with what you said for the most part, it doesn't really explain the need for an assistant principle.

Not dissing on them but what exactly do they do ?

Wouldn't this be a positive thing ? i.e. if they dont have to pay 80k a year for an assistant prinicple they could use the money for equipment , computers etc

infact they could buy every school a computer lab full of computers by cutting the a.p.

they could buy 80 pimp systems for that cash ( assuming a vp makes 80k )

I was extremely active at my kids elementary school [received awards for it, got them a couple grants], everyone knew me and I knew most of them, but I will be damned if I can remember who the assistant principal was.

just looked it up, i was a little off but pretty damn close.

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The median expected salary for a typical Assistant School Principal in the United States is $74,972. This basic market pricing report was prepared using our Certified Compensation Professionals' analysis of survey data collected from thousands of HR departments at employers of all sizes, industries and geographies

when i was in jh and hs the assistant principle was always a boozer who you rarely saw

You have to pay wages for sin as well
 

You don't really want an education porn girl.

"In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God? ? Letters of Charles Darwin

"I may here also confess that as a little boy I was much given to inventing deliberate falsehoods, and this was always done for the sake of causing excitement. - Letters of Charles Darwin

You are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father you will do - John 8

near as I can tell into buy food and and paying armed guards.

problem is that California has cut back on funding for computers and libraries and so much more.

We even have volunteer gym teachers and music teachers! And we are in the top 5 of LA schools - can you imagine the schools that don't have such active parents spending time and money to help out?

Our Asst. Principal has been vital to our school not only in education but in giving attention to the students on emotional, supportive, encouraging levels. She is the 'mother' of all students.

What she contributes on these levels, especially in this economy and world today that stresses out families and the children are feeling the effects at home... she is more important than ever in the school environment.

she is worth supporting because she supports my child on all levels.

People like her in schools are priceless.

i feel ya my beautiful friend. i have organized fundraisers and volunteered literally thousands of hours since my daughter was a kindergartner. couple of the things that just kill me:

1. the CA state lottery was sold to us partially as an answer to funding education. when it went through we did get a tiny portion of the money but the gov't made an equal cut from another fund for schools. so it was a lie, go figure

2. our Country has gone to shit and we continue to cut the school systems budgets each year by millions. how fucking ignorant is our gov't (rhetorical)? these are the very children that will one day run this shithole and they want to turn out idiots??? our only salvation is the brains of the future to fix this mess and they don't want to put a dime towards our kids.

3. other Countries kick our ass in the education dept. and then the graduates come over here and get our kid's jobs

i could go on all day but i will stop here. it is a very sad state of affairs indeed :(

Sorry, but I can't see paying $80k a year to give kids a mother. They come with one. If she was truly a "mother" to these kids she would be doing it for free.

Here is a tip to get those things that are no longer in the budget . . . grants. Surely some of the parents at your kids schools work for corporations that love giving out grants that are properly applied for. Those monies can not be used for budgeted school items.

I am responsible for my kids school having a computer lab. Not only did I put it together for them and train the kids [and teachers] to use them, but I got the grant to pay for it.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

We are mothers to our children, I am talking about in the school environment where they are during the day and parents are working--she is our backup. She contributes beyond anything the position would require and beyond the hours of the job. she has been with the school for so many years and has help take it from the bottom of the school system to the top 5.

as for grants and such, our school raised $45K just in the last silent auction and 'spring fling' and that money is put into a 501c3 so that the school board can't get it and then we distribute the money to continue to build the school and buy what is needed such as computers, building new library, books, and such. We even pay for the school buses out of our own pockets to even take kids on a field trip to learn about new things.

We have the green team to help learn about environment and recycling, the walk to school program, the reading and be kind to others programs, everything that is well rounded.

I have already made a motion that should the vote pass, that the funds we furiously push to get through contributions, gifting, grants, anything...that we allocate some of these funds to keep her on regardless of what the school board does. And if we choose to take money from the 501c3 for her, the school board cannot do anything about it.

The parents at our school are some of the most active, involved and progressive parents around. They are already beginning to work on the junior high in the area that is one of the worst so that by the time our kids get there, it will have begun to change just as our elementary has over these years by the efforts of the parents in the area.

We are doing our best. It's just the overall constant budget cutbacks every year. They are slowing taking everything away from the schools and the kids. It's painful to watch--and it will have consequences down the line for all the new kids who will be going to school and for families who are doing their very best to give their best to their children.

I appreciate your input, and I highly agree, when there is a will, there is a way. Thanks Baddog!

I think you are missing the point, i agree schools are underfunded , they should have enough for everything , but reality says they don't. Reality says they are given how much they are given and if they didnt have an assistant prinicple they would have more to give. Gotta have priorities, do you want a "mother" for students or a computer lab for students IF you cant have both . In an ideal world we would say both.

Heres a much more reasonable request, why dont they leave it up to each school to decide if they want 80k extra in funding or a vice principle.

granted it is much easier to have a bake sale for computer equipment than for a vice prinicple :winkwink:

I don't think we had an assistant principal in grade school... if we did, I cannot for the life of me remember who it was.

Anyway, have you considered private school? Or maybe you could try homeschooling? LOL.

Principal

the bake sale was for computers but we will take that money and fund our asst. principal, that is the whole point. There is always a plan B. One step ahead ;)

point is, why do we have to have a bake sale to buy computers in schools to begin with?

I thought I had heard something on NPR a month or so back on this issue. One of the things mentioned (memory a bit hazy, so could be mistaken) was that in California you had passed a referendum on property taxes. My take on it was so that propery taxes were not used to fund schools.

I'll have to see if I can find that story, but the jist of it was explaining why California used to have the best schools in the country. Now they are complete shit and how a number of law changes, tax structure or funding changes had cannibalized the system. As well as that 2/3 agreement for the legislature in Cali to pass budget or whatever.

:2 cents:

Makes more sense than using the funds to pay for an assistant principal. :2 cents:

Even more reasons why charter schools should be allowed, school vouchers... competition creates a better product ie education experience.

Computers are $1000 a pop... the money has to come from somewhere. We are in a new age where "school" is much more expensive. If a school needs 100 computers, that's $100,000 extra every couple years to keep those running and up to date. That's $30,000 a year more per school than what was budgeted just 10 years ago. And then you need the network infrastructure for the Internet, you need a team of district support techs, you need the bandwidth, etc. etc. etc.

If a bake sale can raise the money that you need to afford those computers as opposed to raising property taxes... I would much prefer doing the bake sale.

because if we used tax dollars to buy those same computers, the school would hire a computer assignment coordinator and a vice coordinator and 10 liasons and fund a study on what computers to use , then they let someone cousin use kickbacks to have him supply the computers , and by the time the kids actually got the computers it would cost the tax payer millions of dollars and the kids would end up with vic-20's that are broken

The U.S. spends the most in education, but is dead last (out of western world countries) in eduction quality level...

however they judge that shit.

Pretty sad when you look at eduction, medical and some other key factors between western world countries.
:2 cents:

Trust me... you do NOT want to become a teacher. Had that job before, and it was one of the worst (if not the worst) job I've ever had.

The biggest propagator of the myth that schools need high funding to teach are the teachers themselves. People associated with the construction industry also play a big role in helping to get school tax referendums passed.

GreatSchools.net says $9,600 per student in Los Angeles Unified School District.

The schools in my district get $7,000 per student and a lot of parents have moved here just for the school system.

More desirable is a district about 20 minutes from me that spends $9,800 per student (just slightly more than Los Angeles). They have one of the top high schools in the nation.

And I hate to turn this into a blunt race issue, but the fact is that the higher the black and Mexican population in a school, the worse the school appears to be if you look only at testing scores.

In many cases. In some cases race seems to have nothing to do with it.

Money does.

LA school district educates a lot of poor, idiotic parent's children. kids turn into their parents. these kids are just idiots in the making and the government is too afraid to offend people these days.

It's public schooling... can't expect much from it anyway. Even if they have nice shiny macs and great gym equipment, they are all learning irrelevant things. Take a 6th grade canadian, and a 6th grade american student and have them compare...

Just because YOUR AP is good doesn't mean the school system as a whole can afford one for all the schools.

My son's HS became a charter school because of all the crap the county was throwing them. They were voted one of the top 5 schools in the country with a 100% graduation rate and a 100% college attendance rate and the highest SAT scores in the state for public schools and even beating out some private schools. There was some serious money in the school - several CEOs from company names you'd recognize, pro ball players, etc. and at least 90% of the mothers were SAHMs. I was working for myself at home at the time and was able to do whatever they needed me to do for volunteer work. There were always about 30 parents a day at that place. And since it was still financed by the county they got a lot more leeway than private schools. For instance if a child had taken all the available courses at the HS, the county would pay for college classes as well as transportation there and back.

Try setting in motion being able to obtain charter school status. RE ads where there are charter schools in GA will start the ad with "In Suchandsuch school district!" because they are so much better than the "normal" public schools.

School funding has nothing to do with half the student population dropping out. As you said, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Those kids were going to continue down the wrong path regardless of what school they went to.

Something I like to say is what would happen if you switched the students in Beverly Hills High with the students in a Detroit high school? Do the Detroit kids, now in Beverly Hills, suddenly start to do well? No. They still drop out, because they are losers. The Beverly Hills kids, now in Detroit, may not be happy with the building and lack of supplies, but they are still getting into college at the same rate. School funding has nothing to do with it.

I should have been more specific. I meant the monetary backing of the parents of the children, and the people behind the individual student.

That's why the US dropped the whole giving of jobs to minorities even if they were unqualified next to other applicants. You can't GIVE idiots a bunch of great tools and expect them to do what the other kids can. They are idiots, born from idiots and probably won't accomplish much.

There's a lot of feel good movies and books that argue that point... but I'd bet if every kid had what the best students in the world had, they would still not do as well as the top grade are.

Wish I could read this thread in 500 years.

I'm curious where you live? Where you live plays a big part in it. Teachers in my area, which is a smaller city, are not going to make as much as teachers in a city like Los Angeles or New York. The property value and maintenance and other workers involved are very different as well. So $7,000 in your city may be perfect for your students, but in Los Angeles it's difficult to say whether $9,600 is enough.

There are so many factors. There cannot be a "general rule" across the country because everyone needs different things.

I do know though that a lot of private schools charge significantly less per student than what it would cost the city... I'm specifically thinking of small Catholic schools in this situation. They also get additional funding from the various parishioners and other fundraisers... but it still brings up a good point. Money is not the only answer.

Okay, I just checked out my districts spending... it's about $8,300 per student. Another $1300 per student in a major, expensive city, seems like a tight fit... very tight fit.

as a LA / OC native by birth, I'll say this. Private school. I went to Carden Schools from Grade 1 -> Grade 8. During these "formative" years as educators call them, I remember clearly hearing from my parents and anyone else in my neighborhood what a horrible school system the public schools were, and how lucky I was to be at Carden.

point is, it was bad then, it sounds horrible now, yet the solution sounds the same. Send your kids to private schools. If more kids do it, maybe things will eventually privatize for schools.

and kids don't really need computers from the school, those classes are a joke at best, and since teachers don't understand how to utilize them for teaching most of the time, its just another form of money down the drain.

if you a kid really needs to learn how to facebook, a 400 netbook should be more than enough for that.

schools are horrible b/c everyone including parents are passing the buck.

Well, here is the updated info sent to me.


This is a public meeting, folks - and a good time to make our feelings
known BEFORE Tuesday's Board of Ed meeting. Cortines has stated the
need to cut over $800 million from the District's budget for 09-10 and
the plan is to cut the central office by 30% and each of the local districts
by 50% in addition to a likely layoff of hundreds if not thousands of employees from offices and, possibly, school sites.

The federal stimulus money will be here within weeks and may be used to
backfill some of these losses but the process has not been transparent and
parents must demand to be a part of the process.

my uncle is a teacher in cali.. i heard him say that the 'no child left behind' is a joke

This is happening all across America not just California, our education system is so FUBAR'd. From top to bottom is need to be completely overhauled but there are too many laying/lying interest in the current set up ($$$) to make the necessarily changes, and who ends up suffering? the kids

Not to mention that fact that 28k a year for the person that will EDUCATE them.. Fuck if you paid teachers 100k a year to start you would be getting people that are smarter and care more.

I'm from Nor Cal and when I moved to So Cal for college and nanny'ed, I was SHOCKED at how different the school system is in LA...The public schools in the Silicon Valley are pretty top notch, and I went from 1st grade all through HS.

The New Adventures of Old Christine cracks me up because that's exactly how it is...Kids competing for placements in private junior high schools, high schools -- Seems really stressful when you're 9 or so!

It is a joke. :2 cents:

Our assistant principal was the one we saw when we were in trouble. I honestly do not ever remember seeing the principal. When you have a school with thousands of students, you need an assistant principal or two.

It totally sucks to be sure....but you're just feeling the effects of the housing bubble popping.

Schools are funded mostly through property taxes. Property values have plummeted, and so have tax receipts. Add to that the number of vacant homes on which no taxes are being collected and it gets even worse. More so in California than almost anywhere else.

I hate to sound like an ass, but unless you and 50% of the other parents are willing to vote yes on a tax increase, there's not much you can do.
If they don't cut school funding, then they have to cut police, fire, or hospital funding.

There's no easy way to fix the problem. :(

If any of you know people who are principals in the LAUSD, you understand that it's not a one person job and without the assistant principal, they'd be completely overwhelmed. Think about how time, labor and money intensive it is to run a school... more so than almost any type of corporation. And you think that a major corporation should have a CEO and that's it to handle things? No CFO, no CTO, not even a VP of Operations?
Seriously.

Obviously didn't go to you're education. :2 cents: