Seth Rosenblatt’s Blog

Although not officially over, it looks like updates to the vote count have not been kind to Measure S. There was some glimmer of hope that late-counted votes would give us an extra percentage point and bring us over the 2/3 supermajority needed. However, the latest returns actually have that percentage going down. The latest results show the Yes vote is down to 65.1%, and it is basically near mathematically impossible for the measure to win. There are updated results to be posted tomorrow as well, but I don’t expect much of a change.

So, what went wrong? Do we really believe the citizens of San Carlos don’t support our schools? No, I don’t believe that. However, as essentially the only school measure in the Bay Area that didn’t do well, we must assume that “external factors” did not play a part in our loss. Meaning, it is unlikely due to the economy, voter turnout, other measures on the ballot, the length of the ballot, etc.

If I had to place a bet, I would say our loss was mostly based on a perceived lack of urgency in the community — most did not see an impending crisis our schools. This is a bit ironic, because our prudent management of reserves allowed us to avoid major cuts this year. So, the School Board was actually trying to get ahead of the problem BEFORE we had a crisis. Now we will likely face such a crisis in this budget cycle, as the State budget news only gets worse.

Perhaps due to that perceived lack of urgency (or the flip side, which is overconfidence that it would pass), I don’t think we energized the parents (and teachers) like we have done in past parcel tax elections. It’s not that the parents didn’t vote for it — I think they did — it’s more that we didn’t get enough volunteers getting the word out to non-parents in the community. Also, our ballot language didn’t express that level of urgency.

A second, albeit probably more minor, contributing factor was that the parcel tax was perpetual, and given we were alone in the Bay Area in having that, perhaps that made a difference for a handful of voters.

So, to be frank, cuts are likely for next year, and that may ironically trigger this sense of urgency and immediacy. Although it pains me to say that “fear sells,” maybe that’s what we really needed, and what we will need for a future measure. The School Board will now begin the discussion of if and when to place a new measure on the ballot. I encourage you to attend Board meetings and express your opinion.

When I was running for School Board, a past board member said to me: “may you not have to face the decision to change boundaries among schools.” Apparently it’s quite the school district legend that few decisions are more controversial and politically charged than changing school boundaries. My sense is that this stems from a history in many school districts where you have the “good” schools and the “bad” schools. Certainly if you are a parent or homeowner, who wants to be redistricted out of the “good” school area?

Fortunately, we do not have this problem in San Carlos. All of our schools are excellent — not identical, but offering equally good educational experiences for our children. However, we are facing capacity issues in our schools. First of all, there is a mismatch between the demographics in each of our school boundaries with the capacity of our elementary schools, with one or two schools always butting against capacity (and often doing a lottery for kindergarten students to get in), while one school always having extra slack. In addition, both of our middle schools are at or above their practical capacity.

We had a special Board meeting a few days ago to discuss these issues and potential solutions. It would take way too long to describe the whole meeting, but I found it to be an interesting and lively exchange among the Board members, and we also had some great imput from community members. You can read the enrollment and boundary subcommittee report here, but we talked about issues ranging from:
- The current boundaries and the impact of any change
- What happens when you have a lottery for kindergarten students
- Our past practice of accepting out of district “charter” students to manage capacity utilization and our ability to continue to do that
- Policies with regard to sibling preferences for enrollment
- Adding temporary or permanent capacity at the schools and/or creating “quality space”
- All of the above’s effect on the district finances

So, needless to say, this is an extremely complex and multi-faceted problem. However, as I expressed at the Board meeting, I believe that boundary changes are an invetiable outcome of this discussion. I don’t imagine we will fix this for the upcoming school year as kindergarten registrations begins in January, but I suspect we will have a change before the following school year.

I am also a firm believer that, by and large, parents and homeowners will support this change. Although there may be an instinctual reaction when the border moves from one side of your house to the other, I think that most San Carlans understand the equity among our schools really makes these “legendary” concerns irrelevant in our town.

As you may have noticed, in this blog I shy away from commentary on national and state politics — not that I don’t have strong opinions — it’s just that I want to focus attention on what directly affects San Carlos schools. So, in that spirit, I won’t comment on the presidential election and California state ballot inititiatives (except for one which does affect schools) — plenty of people are already doing that.

So, how did election night turn our for San Carlos Schools? Well, not so good. Mainly, it appears like Measure S is headed for defeat with only 65.6% of the vote. These are the “semi-official” results, which mean they do not include provisional ballots or last minute vote-by-mail ballots. Measure S failed to reach the 2/3 majority required by about 1%, or roughly 100 votes. As a point of reference, I checked back to last year’s election when I ran for School Board, and there were actually 1,700 more votes counted between the day after election day and the offficial “certification” of the election one month later. Of course, I have no idea how it will turn out this time, but I fear we may have lost this one.

This is extremely frustrating and disappointing to say the least. Notwithstanding all of the hard work by so many volunteers, we obviously did not get the message out to enough people. In contrast, the three other school measures in the county (Belmont, Millbrae, and Daly City) did pass easily, and I congratulate them on their success in supporting their schools. I am not yet prepared to give an analysis as to what went wrong, but in any case we must look forward. Our potential options include putting this measure, or a modified version of it, back on the ballot in the Spring or some other time. That will clearly be a topic for a future School Board meeting. In the absence of additional funds, we are facing some severe cuts in our School District — there is no pretty way to paint this picture.

On the good news side of the ledger, two other votes have the potential to help our schools, most likely in the longer-term. First, State Senator Joe Simitian, an unwavering supporter of public education, was re-elected to the State Senate by an impressive 75% majority. Also, Measure 11 — the State Proposition to change the way we draw state congressional districts — looks like it is about to pass. It is close, but it is leading with 50.5% of the vote. This should put an end to gerrymandering and hopefully push the State legislature to make true budget reforms which would provide a stable source of funding for education.

I will obviously keep everyone updated as we get final numbers on all of these races.

Although I imagine many of you have already voted, I certainly couldn’t let this weekend go by without reminding everyone how crucial it is to vote YES on MEASURE S. Already woefully underfunded, our school district was severely impacted by this last State budget crisis (and, by all accounts, the situation will actually get worse as the State is already talking about further cuts to education). In addition, we had to absorb a half-million dollar hit because of the mismanagement of the San Mateo County Treasurer of all of the public agency funds in the county.

So, passing Measure S will certainly not be a panacea — it will just get our heads above water and give us a little more wiggle room to invest in teachers, technology, and crucial programs in our schools. And the cost is modest — only an additional $75 per year per property owner (one can imagine that the positive impact to the local property values for having strong schools will easily be more than that!)

But, the measure needs a 2/3 majority to pass, and in a small town like this, every vote makes a difference. Similar measures in other towns have lost by a single vote! Four years ago, a school board contest in San Carlos was decided by 8 votes! So, please, please, please, tell everyone you know to get out to the polls and support our schools.

Thank you for your support!

I sent an e-mail to my personal list today giving a summary of the events of the last four months — please download the letter to read more.

With all of the debate over the last week about the recently passed $700 billion “bailout” by the Federal Government — and I certainly don’t wait to debate the pros and cons of that — a lot has been focused on the affect on “Main Street” — how it affects homeowners, small businesses, etc. However, what may have been missed was that the current financial crisis has had a very direct negative affect on local schools as well.

Steve Mitrovich recently outlined the situation in his Superintendent’s Newsletter on September 30. School Districts are required to invest most, if not all, of their working capital — which includes their reserves as well as the cash they’ve received from the State — with the County Treasurer, who then invests the pooled money from dozens of public agencies in the County. The entire pool is about $2.7 billion, but unfortunately almost 6% of it was invested in bonds in the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers. Due to a writedown of this entire holding, EVERY public agency (including every school district) in the county lost a lot of money. For the San Carlos School District, we lost over $600,000.

What is even more disturbing about this situtation is that despite the claims of “surprise” coming from County officials, it was clear to a lot of people a long time ago that Lehman was in trouble. Even a very cursory look online led me to an article on April 1st that talked about Lehman having its days numbered. It doesn’t require an advanced degree in finance to know that investing 6% of any portfolio in any single company is a bad idea. Then not seeing the warning signs with Lehman Brothers specifically is frankly unbelievable. And, to top it all off, the stated goals of the fund are capital preservation first, liquidity second, and yield third. These are supposedly professional investment managers here.

Unfortunately the problem may not be all behind us. Over 80% of the County’s fund is invested in Financial Services — again a shocking lack of diversification.

As the Superintendent’s note stated, the San Carlos School Board did meet on October 2nd to discuss our options. Although I can’t predict yet what will happen, we are clearly not the only people upset by this. Many school districts are consulting attorneys to understand our options here. We also need to find a long-term solution to either take money away from the control of the County Treasurer and/or influence their investing decisions to be more diversified and truly focused on capital preservation.

I will keep you informed as events develop here.

What do these two things have to do with one another? Unfortunately there is a fairly direct line between the politics played by our elected officials in Sacramento and how we decide to fund public education.

Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating electoral district or constituency boundaries for electoral advantage. In other words, draw the map so that any given district will consistently vote one way. Well, that is what has happened in California, and this has basically shielded incumbents from any challenge from the other political party. So, what this do? It rewards extremism by both parties — since you know you’re not going to get any serious opposition from the other party come election time, you tend to pander to your base. Competition only comes during the primaries, not the general election.

For example, the Republicans in the state legislature have all said they would never support new taxes, because even if a majority of Californians supported them, their “base” in their gerrymandered district would vote them out of office for another Republican.

Combine this problem with a need for a 2/3 majority in the legislature to pass a budget, and you have a recipe for disaster. No party makes up 2/3 of the legislature, so there are never any real compromises, just stonewalling and trick accounting (For example, the latest budget proposal includes raising money by actually changing payroll withholding, but not the actual tax! That’s just borrowing from next April to pay for something today…that’s shocking to me).

So, short of re-districting and/or removing the 2/3 supermajority required to pass a budget, I see no path in the medium-term where California can create a stable revenue base and have the money to truly fund public education to even a minimum level required.

Yet another reason why San Carlans need to take matters into their own hands and vote yes on Proposition S.

Yesterday I attended the first class in a once-per-month, ten month program sponsored jointly by the Redwood City, Belmont, and San Carlos Chambers of Commerce. It is called Leadership Redwood City/Belmont/San Carlos, and despite it’s not terribly creative name, it looks like an extremely interesting program. it was recommended to me by some members of the school board and city council.

It is a program designed for anyone who wants to learn more about the ins and outs of local civic issues, and each month’s class is devoted to a specific topic. Some of those include transportation, education, housing, economics, health care, city and county government, etc.

The first class yesterday was mostly an introduction, but I was impressed with the cross-section of attendees…including elected officials, legislative aides, community college leaders, educators, police and firemen, public works officials, youth program managers, and local businesses. I’m sure I’m not doing justice to the amazing work that a lot of these folks do.

I also got some interesting statistics. In San Mateo county, by 2010, 19% of the population will be 60 and over. By 2030, it is projected that 29% will be 60 and over, while the population of folks ages 25-49 is projected to go down by 10% during that same time. This will make for some interesting issues as it relates to housing, transportation, and the our tax base in the coming decades. More detailed demographic projections from the state can be found here.

Other interesting tidbits:
- 41.5% of all households in San Mateo county speak a second language at home
- South San Francisco is the most diverse city (ethnically speaking) in the County, while Portal Valley is the least.

We also got to see a fascinating movie produced by the County in 1939 to attract people to move here. Apparently San Mateo County was quite notorious from the late 19th Century all the way up to 1940 for being one of most corrupt counties in California. You can learn more at the San Mateo County History Musuem.

Today is the first day of school, and there was an amazing energy to it (and it wasn’t just from the espresso cart in front of Arundel for the parents to get their morning caffeine). Kids are excited (maybe a little nervous, but still excited) — they have the anticipation of their new teacher and their new classroom, seeing friends they may not have seen all summer, and also the feeling that they’re growing older (of course, kids — unlike adults — like that feeling). Parents and teachers also seemed very excited. It’s good to remember that with all of the issues surrounding running a school district, it always comes back to kids — kids who are excited to learn, teachers who inspire them, and parents that support the schools.

It reminds me why I got involved with the school district — giving our kids every opportunity we can, and that starts with an inspiring education that will make them life-long learners. So, in the upcoming months when we will discuss issues like the November MEASURE S parcel tax, we must remember it’s all about kids. These kids will one day grow up and probably take care of us, but now is our time to take care of them.

Tonight at a special board meeting (where I actually dialed in from New Orleans — on a business trip), the School Board unanimously approved placing a measure on the November ballot to increase the existing parcel tax by $75 per parcel, for a total of $185. In addition, this measure would not have a set term, which is frankly what the most successful school districts have done.

Next steps — an independent campaign committee will be formed (technically, the school district or the school board can no longer officially do any work to promote the measure — although we all could certainly act as individuals in our own time). The campaign committee would raise the required money and run the campaign.

What you can do to help:
- Donate money to the campaign (more info on this soon)
- Volunteer for the campaign
- Tell all of your friends to do the same
- Vote YES on the measure in November

This November promises to be an exciting election for many reasons, and it’s absolutely critical that we pass this parcel tax measure to ensure that we’re doing the most we can for the kids of San Carlos. This money will go to new programs and to attract and retain excellent teachers. In addition, it will give us a stable source of income which is crucial given how unstable state funding has been (and will likely continue to be).

I will contiue to update you more as this process moves forward — but in my humble opinion, this is probably going to be the most important issue we tackle this decade! Because without the resources, all of our dreams of an inspired education for our children are just that — dreams.