Comments by il_miglione
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Posted on November 1 at 1:05 p.m.
There never was a good feeling about Diaz among teachers, and most programs cut in the spring have NOT been restored. Contract negotiations with teachers were acrimonious from the start, and Diaz brought with him from Oxnard a reputation poor relations with faculty. Foreign language instruction at junior highs--to take just one example--is a mere shadow of what it was a year ago. Santa Barbara Junior high now has only one teacher doing foreign language part-time. Goleta Valley no longer has seventh-grade Spanish. Students at La Colina can no longer take any language for a full school year. Good riddance, Mr. Diaz, and please, take Mr. Sarvis with you.
Posted on October 4 at 3:51 p.m.
Mr. Sarvis presents himself as a victim of this budget mess, but as superintendent he is responsible for it: Mr. Wolf and the dubious Mr. Diaz work--or worked--for him. Moreover, it is difficult to dismiss the idea that the bad budget numbers were really an obfuscation on Sarvis's part aimed at punishing teachers for demanding and winning a much-deserved raise despite his intemperate objections. It will never be possible to attach the word "trustworthy" to Mssrs. Sarvis and Diaz again, and for this reason alone they should be replaced as soon as possible. The fact that they remain unable to give the public reliable budget numbers even now only makes their dismissal more urgent. Any other employer would have fired them months ago. As for the board, it obviously should have been following Mr. Noel's lead on this issue from the beginning. I continue to find their tolerance of incompetence--if not malfeasance--incomprehensible.
On Superintendent Brian Sarvis on Budget Woes, Mini-Victories, and the Noël Factor
Posted on September 6 at 4:38 p.m.
Thank you Mr. Noel for saying what needs to be said about the ongoing school district budget fiasco. As the parent of a SBHS student, I have been baffled by the board majority's inaction in the face of the district's stunning incompetence.
Why are Mr. Diaz and Mr. Sarvis still on the payroll? If the school district were a publicly traded company, they would now be under legal scrutiny. Why haven't the programs they told the board to cut been reinstated? Why has there been no independent investigation? What is everybody afraid of?
This is only the latest in a series of expensive and embarrassing blunders on the part of our school district administration. It's time we had a thorough house cleaning. Confidence will not be restored until we have new district leadership and independent budget management.
Meanwhile, the spring budget cuts must be reversed. It would be dishonest to retain budget reductions that were made on the basis of wildly inaccurate information.
Posted on August 17 at 4:17 p.m.
Actually, Jessica, the drunks who pee and puke on my street every weekend do so while walking to their cars! There's a spectacular wreck about once a month, invariably on a Friday or Saturday between around 2 a.m.
Posted on August 17 at 1 p.m.
It's hard to put any faith in Mr. Diaz and his colleagues at district headquarters after this fiasco. In fact, it's hard to see why they still have their jobs. Board members will also deserve replacement if they don't reinstate programs that were cut under what have turned out to have been false assumptions. The independent would do well to interview some of the students and teachers who have been affected by these unwarranted program cuts. The human and educational costs have been large.
On School District Cutbacks Bemoaned in Light of Budget Surplus
Posted on August 13 at 11:59 a.m.
I live right downtown, two blocks from the bars, and drunks do vomit and urinate on the sidewalks here every single weekend, despite the fact that the police are everywhere, doing everything they can. Big downtown events like fiesta and solstice are often followed by violent crimes here committed by people from out of town. Yet the city is spending a fortune patrolling this neighborhood and the area continues to be gentrified. New residents are not going to tolerate all this mayhem. The only solution is to reduce the number and concentration of clubs serving alcohol. If they only allowed one club per every city block or two, it might help quite a bit. You wouldn't have as much of a scene and the city would save a lot of money.
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Posted on April 24 at 7:17 p.m.
Given the terrible budget situation, the board has done pretty well so far. The librarians are essential: they do a lot more teaching than the public and the superintendent seem to understand. Moreover, law requires that certificated personnel be present when students are in the library, and media technicians are not certificated. (If they were, the would command teacher salaries.) So without librarians, libraries would have to be closed whenever a teacher was not present. The reduction in class size for 9th-grade math is a significant loss, although the reduction did not apply to accelerated student in mixed 9th-10th grade classes anyway. On the other hand, anybody who thinks we can do without the little medical & psychiatric care we have now in our schools hasn't been reading the newspapers for the last decade. The parity idea seems only fair, but it's never a good idea to raise class size anywhere if it can possibly be avoided. There are no painless cuts to be made. The State needs to repeal the Governor's crazy DMV fee cut. That would balance the budget at a stroke.
On School District Cuts $4 Million