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MyspaceIt isn’t entirely in the clear yet, but after more than a month of late night board meetings, worst case scenario speculations, and passionate “save our school” rallying calls, Cesar Chavez Charter School’s future became a whole lot more secure this week. Faced with a freshly fired principal, an expired charter, and a host of district administrators adamant that the school doesn’t qualify for renewal of its charter-and as a result the very real possibility of a mid-year shut down from the state only a few weeks away-the popular dual-language-immersion elementary school got some much needed breathing room Tuesday night. The Santa Barbara School Board narrowly approved, on a 3-2 vote, a resolution extending Cesar Chavez’s charter through the remainder of the school year, essentially buying time so that the school, working with strong oversight from the district, can figure out its next move.
Due to the crowd of several hundred people who turned out for the meeting on November 24, it was held in the auditorium of Santa Barbara High School instead of the District’s downtown headquarters. The board revisited a debate that has been dominating its meetings since October: Does CCCS meet any of the four state-mandated performance standards that allow a district to grant a charter renewal? According to Superintendent Brian Sarvis and his staff, the answer is a clear and definite, albeit apologetic, “No.” On the other side of the fence, the school’s supporters-its students, their parents, Cesar Chavez’s Governance Council, and a few dual-immersion experts brought in by the school to opine on the subject-insist that the picture painted broad-brush by state test scores does not tell the whole story.
Sarvis, resolute in his interpretations of the school’s test-score track record-and mindful of recent rumors that California is considering pulling the plug on charter schools that test in the lowest five percent (currently CCCS is at the 4.7% mark) as the state tries to qualify for a windfall of funding from the federal Race to the Top program-introduced a resolution on Tuesday night that formed the basis for the one the board passed, but with one important difference. Sarvis recommended extending the charter for the rest of the year with radically ramped-up district oversight to try to improve test scores. The resolution left the door open for the school to re-invent itself before the start of next school year as either an entirely new charter school (something which requires substantial funding, hoop-jumping at both the district and state levels and lots of legal leg work) or a school of choice within the district.
Paul Wellman
A nearly full house in the S.B.H.S. auditorium for Tuesday night’s School Board meeting
However, much to the displeasure of the CCCS community, which has been committed to seeking renewal of its existing charter, Sarvis’s plan stated unequivocally that the school does not qualify for renewal, a statement that many felt was a certain death sentence for the school as presently composed. “No one wants to close this school. I certainly don’t want to close this school: But there is no question, you cannot renew their charter,” explained Sarvis. In his view, the only way forward was to abandon all efforts at renewal and begin focusing immediately on developing a new program for the board to vote on sometime next spring, so as to allow for a smooth transition at the start of the next school year.
In the end, the board majority, working off of a motion made by Cordero, took the basic premise of Sarvis’s proposal but gutted the language such that specific mention of the school’s substandard academic performances and failure to meet renewal requirements were removed entirely. This leaves the option of renewal still very much on the table should the school wish to pursue it, while also leaving the door open for the entirely new charter option to be explored in the coming months. Cesar Chavez has yet to officially petition the board for renewal but when and if it does, should its petition be denied, the school can appeal the decision to the County of Education and then on to the state.
Paul Wellman
Cesar Chavez School supporters gathered outside S.B. High School before the school board meeting Tuesday 11/24/09
The nuanced change was not without its detractors. As boardmember Susan Deacon, who with Kate Parker ultimately voted against the revised resolution, put it, “I’m worried that we are putting something off we are going to have to do anyways. We are a nation of laws and we have to follow what the state has written…I really think a new charter is your [Cesar Chavez’s] best hope.” Ironically, even the board members that approved the resolution-Bob Noel, Ed Heron, and Annette Cordero-all seemed to agree, each of them opining to varying degrees that the new charter option, though a “tough row to hoe” as Noel put it, appeared to be the school’s best shot at continuing next fall.
Cordero, who helped found Cesar Chavez when the school opened nearly 10 years ago, took it one step further, telling the remaining crowd at the close of the four-hour meeting, “I do think it is really risky for the school to retain a strong reliance on only the renewal option. This school is too important to lose.”
For the school’s part, Lee Fleming, Cesar Chavez’s Governing Council President, said late Tuesday night, “That [the new charter option] might be the best thing for our community but we’ve literally had 24 hours to consider it:We need time to investigate.” And now, thanks to the board, that is exactly what they have.
Previous Month
Comments
"We are a nation of laws and we have to follow what the state has written"
And if our nation had been enforcing its immigration laws this type of educational/ethnic/nationalistic conflict represented by CCCS would not be arising. What percentage of the CCCS parents are illegal aliens? How dare they tell us how to run our schools.
revisionist (anonymous profile)
November 25, 2009 at 7:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Come on, Revisionist! That's completely unhelpful.
It sounds like the board made it clear that the school doesn't qualify for renewal without taking an actual vote on that. I suppose Cordero was trying to help them save face. Hope that strategy doesn't backfire.
Pimms (anonymous profile)
November 25, 2009 at 7:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
it's no surprise, yet still appalling, how people post comments that are essentially racist in nature when the issue has nothing to do with nationalism but learning a second language.
Anywhere else in the world students are taught second languages from a very early age in school. The US lags behind in this and the result is that our students are ignorant about the world outside our borders (and often about the diversity inside our borders).
If you want your student to learn English only then you can put them in an English only school. This is for parents/students who value multi-lingual education and the enrichment that brings.
Please leave your racist attitudes out of this dialogue because it's really not relevant to the issue.
poetcrab (anonymous profile)
November 25, 2009 at noon (Suggest removal)
I agree 100% with poetcrab in regard to his remarks. We hosted over a hundred international students who came to improve their English, not just learn it but to improve their language skills. These kids came from Germany, France,Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Russia,Khazistan, Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia , India,Khatar,Korea,Japan,China,Taiwan,Brazil,Argentina and Chili, and some other countries I have probably forgotten.
They had all studied multi languages from an early age.One Swiss student wrote and spoke seven languages and planned to be an international journalist.
They were delighted to be in our multi cultural home and be exposed to not just English and American ways, but Latin music and customs as well. Music itself is an international language and we all benefitted from our shared experiences.
There was no racism in our home, but our visitors did experience it sometimes in the community if they "looked" different. What a pity that our guests had to be exposed to people like revisionist with unbecoming attitudes towards others.
Many took trips across the country to experience the vastness of our country.Some now write to me in better English than Anglo students I tutored at SBCC years ago.
I do hope a solution is found to keep this school available to those who wish their children to have this richness of education in their early years.
bajamama (anonymous profile)
November 25, 2009 at 1:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
You can take the hood off revisionist everybody can see what you are with what you write.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
November 25, 2009 at 2:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good job to the school board who stuck to their guns but did it in a very civil manner. If the parents and teachers of this school want to continue they can, but will have to do it in a different way that will meet up to standards. Its not over unless they want it to be over.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
November 25, 2009 at 2:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Since we are talking about Latino culture shouldn't we have the dual language immersion in English and LATIN as opposed to Spanish?
Furthermore, we should add Canadian to the list of languages we learn so that we cover communications with people from both north and south.
sixdolphins (anonymous profile)
November 25, 2009 at 9:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Canadian? Is that like learning chinese or native american?
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
November 25, 2009 at 9:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
AS2SB: You would be surprised at the number of Canadians reporting that they meet people in the U.S. who compliment them on how well they speak English. I have also heard people comment on people speaking "Mexican". Even Obama referred to "Austrian" as a language. (Listen to following link) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr7zhn...
sixdolphins (anonymous profile)
November 26, 2009 at 5 a.m. (Suggest removal)
It's interesting that sixdolphins brings up Canada. Canada officially has two languages to pander to Quebec's latent nationalism. French linguistic chauvinism in Quebec has crippled that province's economy and led in the 1970s to a mass exodus of Anglophones to Ontario and a near-revolt with tanks on the streets of Montreal. Even in 1995, Quebec nearly voted for independence with a Gore-Bush type majority of 50.1% of the province voting against the referendum. Quebec is generally an economic and social drag on the rest of the country. The Quebecois also engage in a "pur laine" form of ethnocentricism that is similar to that of the "Viva La Raza" crowd.
Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm warned that California could become a Hispanic Quebec. At least Canada does not have France as a next-door neighbor, so Quebecois nationalism is somewhat suppressed. As the ethnolinguistic bullying from the CCCS parents and their many political supporters show, we are already there. This whole argument is far more over nationalism than race -- the Quebec experience shows that language and resentment over a lost war can divide a people just as surely as skin color.
revisionist (anonymous profile)
November 26, 2009 at 6:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I know what you are saying revisionist. When "La Raza" was a minority that was discriminated against I wished for the numbers to change and we could be able to have a voice. Now that we have the numbers and a voice I see the same type of discrimination I felt as kid for being from"La Raza" being geared by "La Raza" to others; it is a shame. It definitely was not what I envisioned. I wanted respect and recognition for our culture and the part we play in the U.S. Now we have a lot of people walking around with huge chips on their shoulders and no progress is made because of it. Mexicans who want to treat people the same way they were treated when they arrived, Anglo's who don't like the shift in the numbers and want the power they used to have against the Mexican. While everybody is out there trying to "even the score" we are all losing the game because of our ethnocentrisms, and nationalisms. Mexican you aren't leaving back to Mexico you are Americans now, get with the program. Americans, Mexicans are not leaving, the Immigration reform policy ship has sailed, the people who are here are not leaving.
AZ2SB (anonymous profile)
November 27, 2009 at 12:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
AZ2SB hits the nail on the head. I would add that the civil rights movement of yesteryear was about bringing people together and recognizing that literacy among oppressed demographics was the most powerful weapon against racism. Today, it's about ethnocentrism which makes people vulnerable when they cannot articulate in speech and in writing their thoughts in the primary language of the land in which they live.
Fluency in English is the Mexican immigrants biggest weapon against racism as well as exploitation by those claiming to represent them.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
November 27, 2009 at 7:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I forgot to add: When slavery was the law of the land, it was illegal to teach a slave to read and write thus supporting my point above.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
November 27, 2009 at 7:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)