Bridges deserves more space
2011-02-10 / Letters
CVUSD meets the needs of its diverse student body by creating magnet schools and enrichment programs at its schools.
CVUSD leaders have often stated, “We’re here for the kids.” Bridges Charter School, with more than 210 students, is also meeting needs, those of families who decided that our school’s type of learning is best suited to their child.
Yet when Bridges opened in August we did so with limited space and resources. We have no access to a kitchen or a full day’s access to an auditorium. The teacher workroom and our music room share one space.
Our sixth- and seventh-graders have no gym, library or lab. Despite our limitations, however, students share recess and lunchtime together as if they were already brothers and sisters and look out for one another.
They work in their garden or walk the labyrinth they helped build. Our educators strive to meet the needs of the whole child, implementing innovative strategies that differentiate for varied learning styles and communication methods that enable kids to have a voice.
Each day parents go beyond their volunteer commitment by supervising children respectfully, leading small groups in the classroom or by developing engaging activities such as art lessons, a talent show or a science night on campus.
The Bridges community is thriving. As President Obama said in his State of the Union address: “In America, we do big things.”
Well, at Bridges, we are doing big things. And our families have every right to desire this type of environment for their child.
Providing adequate space for a growing school community shouldn’t be something we are arguing over. It should be a matter of collaborating and thinking, “How can we work together so that more people will engage in this kind of mind-set, be it at Bridges or elsewhere?
“How can we build upon each other’s strengths so all public schools can more effectively meet students’ needs?”
I hope CVUSD will act as collaborators in the education of children and not as our adversary. They should be there for the kids and grant the space needed to educate our students. Lori Peters Newbury Park
Peters is education team leader at Bridges Charter School.
acorn ltr 021011
ReplyDeleteIs wood chip pile a hazard?
2011-02-10 / Letters
What’s up with that?
PILE IN QUESTION—These mounds of wood chips at Wildwood Park caught the eye of a concerned resident. Park and fire officials say there’s nothing to worry about.
‘I hadn’t been near the old fort in Wildwood Park lately, although I knew it had been torn down. It’s amazing to me that the city would tear it down and then leave the timber in piles neatly arranged for some whack-job to just toss a match onto and light up half of Wildwood. My wife and I couldn’t believe our own eyes.
“Please alert the city to this major hazard and see if someone can have a crew at least spread the stuff around or something.’
— Steven E., Thousand Oaks
With homes surrounding the park, your concern is understandable, Steven.
However, Tom Hare, administrator in the parks and planning division of Conejo Recreation and Park District, said the wood chips you see on the site of the old fort at Wildwood Neighborhood Park are “standard.”
“It’s no different than any wood chips we have at any other park,” Hare said. “It’s better than dirt so we don’t have to put turf out there. We’ve got them throughout every single park that we have.”
Hare said the wood chips are not from the fort, whose timber was carted off the site, but from a tree service that provides chips to the district.
Built in the mid-1960s, the old fort was torn down in January 2009. The intent was to replace it with a 30-by-30-foot concrete picnic pad. But some neighbors didn’t like the idea, so the park district tabled the discussion, Hare said.
In the meantime, native landscaping was planted where the fort once stood and wood chips were put down to control weeds and dust.
They also help conserve water. Wood chips are usually used in planters or areas where it’s difficult to grow grass, Hare said. The district has recently been tearing out turf in open space areas and putting in wood chips to save on irrigation costs.
When asked if the district is concerned someone could drop a match or a cigarette onto the piles and start a fire, Hare acknowledged that could happen—just as it could on any dry land.
“You could do that pretty much anywhere in open space,” he said, adding that many homeowners, himself included, use wood chips in their landscaping.
Ventura County Fire Capt. Ron Oatman said much the same thing: Wood chips are as natural as pine and eucalyptus trees—both of which can be fire hazards. And while it’s something to consider when trying to defend one’s home from fire, he said, the department generally doesn’t view wood chips as a big problem.
Oatman added that wood chips tend to hold a lot of moisture and would be difficult to burn. The main issue for firefighters, he said, comes during brush fires.
“If we had super windy conditions and we had a brush fire and embers were to land in those wood chips, those wood chips could catch on fire and become embers themselves,” he said.
Oatman suggested that concerned residents call their local engine company—in the Wildwood area, Station 34—to report potential fire hazards and have them checked out.
Station 34 can be reached by calling (805) 371-1111, ext. 34.
Typically, the wood chips are dumped by a tree service and then park district staff spreads the chips around with rakes and shovels. Hare said the last time wood chips were dumped at Wildwood was about a month or so ago, which is why they’re still in piles. Park staff would be spreading them out in the coming week, he said.
—Carissa Marsh
Send ideas for “What’s up with that?” to tonewstip@theacorn.com.
Some cuts just aren’t worth it
ReplyDelete2011-02-10 / Letters
While we are all aware of California’s fiscal crisis, it’s horrifying to think that the governor’s plan to balance the budget depends on us eliminating vital support from the people in our community who need it the most.
In 1969, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed landmark civil rights legislation to provide basic supports to people in California living with a developmental disability.
This would eventually allow people to leave state-run developmental centers and receive basic life-sustaining services in the community at a significantly reduced cost to the taxpayer.
How is that possible? Put simply, there are two ways to serve someone living with a developmental disability in California: You provide basic services to them in state-run and staffed developmental centers at an average annual cost of more than $300,000 per person, or you choose to serve that person in the community at an average cost of approximately $15,000 per person.
If the current proposal is approved, more than $1.2 billion will be taken out of the system that provides these cost-effective lifesaving supports.
It would also be the third major cut to the system in as many years and will result in the closure of many of the nonprofit agencies that provide these services.
Not only will this mean that there are fewer people in the community available to support those with a disability, it would also harm our local economy.
While I think we all agree that if we are to work our way out of this fiscal crisis we are going to have to “give till it hurts,” I wouldn’t agree that crippling an entire system while destroying the lives of our community’s most vulnerable citizens is the way to accomplish that goal.
When considering what I have just said, let’s remember the words of people like Ghandi, Churchill, and Pope John Paul II, among others, who echoed the sentiment that every society is judged by how it treats the least fortunate amongst them. How do we, as a society, want to be judged? Aaron Kitzman Newbury Park
Kitzman is vice president of adult programs at Villa Esperanza.
Decision is costing CVUSD big money
ReplyDelete2011-02-10 / Letters
Dr. Baarstad and the Conejo Valley Unified School District trustees have voted to approve yet another shortsighted policy.
Public school districts are paid by the state for every child they educate. Income to California districts is about $6,000 per student per year.
California law clearly states that while a district such as CVUSD does not have to lease space to a charter school for students from outside its district, it may elect to do so. Smart, wellmanaged districts do just that because every nondistrict student admitted to a charter school takes a space that would otherwise be occupied by an in-district, revenue paying student.
Bridges Charter School has received applications for more than 40 new non-CVUSD students it cannot admit because Dr. Baarstad refuses to lease Bridges space for those students.
Resultantly, those 40 openings will be filled by CVUSD students, for which the district would otherwise receive state monies. This will happen not just because of Dr. Baarstad’s fiscally imprudent lease decision, but also because the school board voted 4-1 to locate Bridges on the Glenwood campus rather than at the requested University site, where the charter school would have had adequate room to grow.
Together, these two decisions will cost CVUSD roughly $250,000 in lost income next year alone. And that loss of income will continue every year that those students go to school at the charter.
Over the six-year course of their elementary school education, CVUSD will lose nearly $1.5 million for those 40 students— a loss Dr. Baarstad and the CVUSD school board can still prevent by reversing course on their lease decision.
If they choose not to do so and later plead poverty to Conejo Valley taxpayers, telling us that we have to accept yet another round of teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, and/or shortened school years, or decide to cut even deeper into adult school programs to make frayed district ends meet, ask Dr. Baarstad and the trustees why they refused the additional revenues they could have earned by leasing Bridges space for non- CVUSD students. Jim Floyd Thousand Oaks
TO ACORN 02242011 LTR CVUSD is abusing its power
ReplyDelete2011-02-24 / Letters
When it comes to management of our neighborhood schools, every decision should come down to what is best for children.
For too long, though, the Conejo Valley Unified School District has been more interested in exerting and consolidating its own power at the expense of our children.
The CVUSD trustees see themselves not as stewards but rather as owners of the schools they administrate.
They see those of us who choose home schooling or charter schools as outsiders.
The fact remains that all children residing in the Conejo Valley are potential public school students and part of our district. All are entitled to share in the facilities that have been purchased and improved with our taxes and other public monies.
It is on this point that Tim Stephens, Betsy Connolly, Pat Phelps and Peggy Buckles are out of touch with their constituents.
We as taxpayers pay income and property taxes to purchase, construct and maintain our school facilities. The district doesn’t “own” the school sites but rather holds them in trust for all of California’s public school students, including charter school students.
Charter law was implemented to guarantee the choices in education that parents desire. When local school districts are unable or unwilling to provide those choices in an efficient, cost-effective manner, parents now have the option of turning to charter schools.
Parents obviously like the choices charter schools offer. Charter schools like Bridges and MATES are filled to capacity and have waiting lists.
Virtually every CVUSD elementary school faces declining enrollment, and the vast majority are serving only 50 to 90 percent of the student populations they were built for. Why? CVUSD is simply not providing students the education their parents demand.
This is partly due to financial mismanagement. Instead of building computer and science labs to educate children, the CVUSD board spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction costs to co-locate Bridges on an occupied campus when University was (and still is) sitting virtually empty.
Simply put, this district faces declining enrollment because the CVUSD trustees prize their power more than they do our children. Helle Rasmussen Newbury Park