As voters prepare for November 8th when they will decide who runs the school district in Emeryville, the Tattler is providing a space for the candidates seeking a term on the school board to tell the voters who they are and what ideas they have for our schools.
Since the Tattler's editor, Brian Donahue is one of the four candidates, we have laid down ground rules applicable to all. Each candidate's statement is to be no longer than 300 words and each statement was due October 8th. To ensure the editor didn't have an unfair advantage by seeing what the others had written, he agreed to write his statement first and photo time stamp the statement so the three other candidates can be assured there is no advantage.
Despite this opportunity to educate voters and despite the safe guards to ensure fairness, the three incumbents, board members Regina Chagolla, vice president Brynnda Collins and president Susan Donaldson (all running as a slate), have all declined to provide candidate's statements for the benefit of the voters.
Emery School Board Candidate Brian Donahue's Candidate Statement:
I'm Brian Donahue and I’m running for Emery School Board, the only candidate with a child enrolled at Emery. I’ve lived here for over 40 years.
Emery is failing. We spend more money per pupil than any district in the East Bay but we have the worst academic performance.
Spending the most money while delivering the worst outcome should not be rewarded with your vote.
With the three incumbents in charge over the last years, Emery schools have been driven to the bottom among all the districts in the East Bay academically.
Eight years ago, Emeryville's school district was ranked 12th among Alameda County’s 16 school districts. Now, Emery is ranked last.
Emeryville voters have repeatedly approved property tax increases to provide the school district with more funding. Emery’s revenue per student is the highest in the East Bay, by far. The school district budget per student is $27,613 -- far more than any other district.
Just 23% percent of our students are proficient in math. In reading, 37%. In Berkeley, where they spend $9,478 per student LESS than Emery, the figures are 62% and 68%, respectively.
How can this be? Emeryville's school district has used the new tax money to spend millions of dollars on consultants and administrators, at the same time providing its teachers with paltry salary increases.
On November 8th, Emeryville voters will select three new school board members. Seated on the board as a new voice, I will see to it the era of failure and reckless spending on consultants and lack of accountability ends at Emery Unified School District.
If elected,
1. I will curtail the out-of-control spending on administrators and consultants.
2. I will increase teacher retention through salary increases.
3. I will shame large corporations like Disney/Pixar to fulfill their promises of financial support for the schools.
Emery School Board Candidate Regina Chagolla's Candidate Statement:
Declined to participate
Emery School Board Candidate Brynnda Collins' Candidate Statement:
Declined to participate
Emery School Board Candidate Susan Donaldson's Candidate Statement
Declined to participate
I was a teacher full time for seven years and part time for about three years, My beef was permanent that vocational teacher where not given authority on their curriculum instead had to swallow those ranking with surplus of academic credentials. NO practical experience in trade who would counsel vocational folks " how to " taken from arm forces in the
ReplyDeletemaintenance of weaponry drills as a mockery of war time manual
Home schooling is the preferred option yet unpopular when parents are
both employed, I offer no solutions.
Well, we know what 'solutions' won't work: those that have been used over the last four years. Those only make us the worst district in the East Bay. I say try something new. When you're in a hole, the best thing to do right away is stop digging. We should try the 'empower teachers' route. They're the one's in the trenches, who know how to educate children. We should try deferring to them for a change. Anything to break the terrible cycle Emery is in.
DeleteDon't the teachers endorse the incumbents?
DeleteInsofar at the teachers are endorsing the incumbents, some might wonder why the person running who is promising to increase their pay doesn't get endorsed as you seem to be. I'm making a campaign promise to increase their pay while the incumbents are saying there's not enough money to pay teachers more. One explanation to this conundrum might be as Board member incumbent Brynnda Collins recently explained at the League of Woman Voters Candidate's Forum, 'the teachers are happy with their pay as it is'. But they are paid so little, many can't even afford to rent a one bedroom apartment in Emeryville. So that seems very unlikely.
DeleteThe more likely reason is fear. Many teachers are probably bargaining I won't get elected and if they singularly or collectively endorsed me, there could be retribution against them by the school board victors. This is quite common actually. Many may be secretly hoping I win while publicly supporting the incumbents. This is what is happening in Washington DC now with many Republican members of Congress; they're publicly backing Trump but secretly hoping he fails.
Being this most likely case, the Emery teachers needn't worry however. If I do win, I will not retaliate against them for not supporting me during the election. I'll just work to increase their pay.
Good for you for telling the truth about Emeryville schools. Its been like this for years and we always get people running for the board telling us how its great and getting better. Voice of truth with you though. Cant solve a problem if you can't admit a problem.
ReplyDeleteVoice of truth...lol! Look into the facts, there is no truth written here!
DeleteThanks for the comment. You sound confused about the facts. No need to feel like you need to defend the district by going on the attack with spurious charges. There’s no mystery here. Being a part of the government, school districts are required to keep accurate information about their effectiveness. Emery has done this. So it’s easy to see for yourself. You can go the the State of California Department of Education’s website. You’ll find a lot of pertinent information about how Emery is doing with its charge to educate our children, That’s where I got the facts for this story.
DeleteIf you do a cursory look, you’ll find even more information than what I reported. A deeper dive reveals a district that is failing to adequately serve the students of color:
Emery Unified School District
Total Revenue: $18.9 million
Average Revenue Per Student: $27,613:1
State Average Per Student: $14,811:1
Of Emeryville’s revenue, 72%, comes from local sources (our parcel taxes) compared with the State average of 39%.
Emery Spending-
Instruction: 19%
State average: 52%
“Other Spending” -
Emery 67% (consultants)
State average:12%
Math Test Results-
Emery total: 23%
State average 40%
Black students at Emery: 16%
Black students state average: 21%
Asian students at Emery: 38%
Asian students state average: 74%
English Test Results-
Emery total: 37%
State average: 51%
Black students at Emery: 29%
Black student state average: 33%
Asian students at Emery: 33%
Asian students state average: 77%
So you can see Emery is failing its Black students but even more, it is terribly failing its Asian students.
All these facts and more can be gotten from the California Department of Education. Attacking in bad faith and gaslighting a messenger of the bad news does not help our school district educate our children. Telling the truth in all its embarrassing details is the first step to try to do better by our children. As they say, the truth hurts. Now let's try to help fix this.
As you say, "Spending the most money while delivering the worst outcome should not be rewarded with your vote" I agree. My vote will not go for that.
ReplyDeleteNo discussion of COVID safety policies? Adequate ventilation, filtration? Outdoor lunch areas available? Vaccination clinics on site? Sick pay & return to work policy if COVID+? Testing required?
ReplyDeleteWhat is your Covid safety policy? We need to require adequate ventilation and filtration standards in schools; Kids need outdoor lunch spaces available; testing and return to work policy for staff and teachers if Covid positive with guaranteed sick pay until no longer contagious; free masks available for students and teachers and staff, etc. what is the candidate stance? What is the school board policy?
ReplyDeleteThese are questions for the school board but they're not talking to the electorate as you can see. As far as I go (as a candidate), I'm powerless but I would say that even as Covid winds down, we need to be be vigilant against another variant winding it back up or indeed a whole new virus rising up. The story of the 21st Century is going to be the story of pandemics as humans venture farther and farther afield into virus breeding areas. Emery and all school districts need to make safety paramount and responding quickly second nature.
DeleteHOW are you going to accomplish answering all these Covid related questions though? I understand that you’re against this board, but how will you work WITH them to make our school safer if elected? Answering any of those questions above would be helpful. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI was a science major so I am impressed when there is a consensus of epidemiologists. I would listen to them and the Alameda County Office of Education and accept what they say as an acceptable guide for public policy. My votes on the school board would reflect this worldview. To the extent some of your questions aren’t necessarily directly covered by that, I’ll go through them one by one: There already is a vaccination clinic on site at ECCL. Yes, I would insist on adequate ventilation in the classrooms. Yes to encouraging outdoor dining when feasible, yes to protecting worker’s safety (including sick pay), yes to free masks (even if covid is completely beaten).
DeleteOf course, if elected, I will be only one voice. I would try to convince fellow board members of the importance of this. And speaking to that, I’ll say every elected official is charged with working with every other elected official. By ‘working with’ I don’t mean ‘agreeing with’. Where there are disagreements, it is implicit in the agreement an elected official has with the constituents to come to each vote with an unbiased posture. Meaning, previous fights must not bring hard feelings into future fights. To do that is to fail the servant part of being a public servant. I can’t speak for the other four school board members that would be my colleagues. To the extent they have shut down parents with different visions for the schools that have attempted to speak at board meetings in violation of the Brown Act (as they have), I will say it doesn’t bode well. They might not have as much of a progressive vision of public service and public education as do I.
I am confused by your statement that we are ranked last academically. I looked at the CDE as you suggested and see that San Lorenzo also has 23% of their students meeting the math standard and 49% not meeting the standard, while we have 45%. I also see that Oakland has 50% not meeting the standard.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments. It’s nice to see a school board member commenting on the Tattler! Now if we can only get you guys to return parent’s emails or phone calls.
DeleteTo your point: I can see why you’re confused. Your numbers don’t add up. Dividing up into “meeting the standard” and “not meeting the standard”, together those two numbers need to equal 100%. Your San Lorenzo numbers equal 72. Moving on… true, San Lorenzo shares the lowest score in Alameda County with Emery specifically on math scores (23% proficiency) but San Lorenzo students also suffer from far less funding than Emery ($12,772 per student compared to $27,613). This disadvantages students at San Lorenzo in terms of students per teacher (31 compared with 16 at Emery), a high number being a well documented source of learning disadvantage. Try as you might to show otherwise, Emery is failing compared with other school districts in the East Bay. Our funding should be showing much better results. Instead we have the shame of being the highest funded with the worst outcomes. Our best chance to turn Emery around is to face the facts of where we are.
I didn't include "nearly met" which is 28% percent. But thanks for thinking I'm a school board member and also that I'm bad at math!
DeleteThere is a sign on the front of Emery High that says we won the College Board AP District Honor Roll for increasing course offerings and academic success. Also that we have the highest growth on standardized testing in Alameda County for ELA in 2019. That sounds like some progress is being made?
ReplyDeleteSure, every district can be found to be good at something using some arcane metric. But to highlight those, you are obscuring the greater point, aren’t you? It is unseemly having school board members grasping at straws trying to deny the truth of a culture of failure at Emery.
DeleteThe per pupil spending does seem like a lot - but our district is so small there just seems like no way around it? The next biggest district is Piedmont with 2596, almost 4 times the size of ours, and most other East Bay districts have between 9500-36,000 students so I do think it's very hard to compare our spending to theirs. And we pay our teachers well comparatively - the average salary with benefits is $133,000 so that must contribute to our high spending. (Not that that is "well" objectively. They still can't afford to live here)
ReplyDeleteThe fact is Emery teachers are paid about average for the Bay Area (slightly below). The spending give-a-way is to be found buried in the numbers. Of Emeryville’s revenue, 72%, comes from local sources (our parcel taxes) compared with the State average of 39%. Emery spends only 19% on instruction compared with the State average of 52%. So called ‘other spending’ which includes the millions we spend on consultants amounts to 67% for Emery compared with the State average of 12%. That’s where the bulk of our spending goes.
DeleteAgain, thanks for commenting. Emery school board members are always welcome to comment here at the Tattler. I've invited every school board member to write a letter anytime. Those will be always be posted verbatim and unedited. Comments or letters, all elected officials in Emeryville have carte blanche access to the people of Emeryville through the Tattler.
Let’s look at a comparable district in terms of numbers of students since you’re claiming that as so imperative. Emery at 743 students is the smallest but Reed Union School District in Tiberon is close at 1362 students. Emery spends $27,613 per student while Reed Union spends $17,413. So you can see, Emery’s revenue is still far above comparable districts with similar student populations. FYI, Reed Union’s proficiency is 79% for math and 84% for English all with a 16:1 student/teacher ratio (same as Emery).
DeleteI would hardly say that Tiburon is comparable to our district!?!? Demographics are quite different !!! 5.6% socially disadvantaged and 3% English learners vs 80% and 24% in our district!!!!! Those students require more funding. Come on…
DeleteYou should get off Team Emery and onto Team Democracy. You’re not doing anyone any favors by being an apologist for government disfunction. Remember, there are real children being negatively affected by the disfunction at Emery. We need to acknowledge there is a problem before we can hope to fix it.
DeleteYou’ll recall it was YOU that stated it is not possible to find fault with Emery over the fact that the district funds students at the highest rate in the East Bay all while delivering the worst academic outcomes because Emery is so small. So it’s district size that’s critical to being able to determine how well a school district is doing said you. Then when I met your challenge to show a comparably sized district, now suddenly it’s not the size that matters, rather it’s the student demographics. But I already showed how school districts with comparable student demographics are doing much better than Emery.
This is the bargain of the apologist for a failing school district; there is no way to measure how well the district is doing you say. We must keep our heads in the sand, keep giving Emery our money and we must all be cheerleaders for Emery. I reject this cynical approach to government accountability. I say, yes we CAN look to see how Emery is doing with its charge to educate our children. And when we do that, thanks to the California Department of Education, we find Emery is failing on all the metrics that matter. We need to have accountability if we can ever hope to do well by our children.
Tiburon is NOT Emeryville. It is just NOT comparable. There are challenges living in Emeryville that Tiburon does not have. It seems you’re betting on voters having the same rage you have with this Emery board. I guess we’ll find out if every parent is as angry as you are.
DeleteTiberon’s school district IS comparable to Emery. They are both very small. That’s what YOU asked me about; small school districts in the Bay Area. Emery and Tiburon are among the smallest. Now you don’t like the answer. Because when we check Emery against districts with similar demographics we also get the same answer: Emery is on the bottom. You’re angry that Emery is on the bottom and so am I. The difference is I think we need to acknowledge the problem before we try to fix it. You don’t seem to be interested in fixing Emery.
DeleteThere are challenges living in Emeryville, true. And one of the challenges parents have here is the question of where to send their children to school. We know that because most Emeryville parents send their children out of district. They are angry they can’t send their children to their local school district. That is understandable; anger is the correct emotion. Other parents are not as angry…because they don’t know all about Emery. And that’s why the Tattler is here: to report on the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable (to those in power). There’s very little parental knowledge about how this School Board mismanages our little district. Parents and other citizens have a right to know because they’re certainly not going to get this information from Emery. The School Board is going on and on about how great Emery is, trying to positively spin it, sometimes by spreading outright falsehoods. We’re here to correct the record (even if it makes you angry for whatever reason you’re not divulging).
The similarities between Emeryville and Tiburon start and end with both being small. Tiburon is a wealthy community, it’s residents have to make a lot of money to live there. They could afford one-to-one tutors for their kids, we can’t. But as a parent to another parent, have you done anything to help our school right now? Have you offered you’re writing skills to help kids with their writing after school? Have you volunteered your time to help this district in any way? I ask cause I don’t know. As a voter, all I hear is how you hate the school board.
DeleteOK, we’ll drop using district size as a metric to determine if Emery is doing right by the children. FYI, I think that’s a poor metric anyway. It sends the message that Emery is no good because it’s small. I personally think small size has some advantages. But Emery isn’t leveraging that.
DeleteThat leaves us with demographics, which as we know, shows Emery continually on the bottom.
You ask, what have I given this school district? I’ve given them the most valuable thing there is: my child. A functioning school district needn’t rely on parental assistance. A functioning school district is fully capable of educating the children on its own. In fact, that’s one of the primary reasons for public education; to take the burden off parents.
I don’t hate this School Board. That’s too strong a word. I am dismayed at their incompetence and their tribal nature once critics start criticizing. They are literally paid to take criticism from the community but this crew cannot abide by it. That and the general incompetence is beyond the pale for me. We pay for excellence at Emery and we have a reasonable expectation of reviving excellence in the education of our children.
I’m not saying we’re no good because we’re small. But if you’re comparing us to Tiburon, there are obviously other factors that makes us lag behind them. I mean, why should I vote for you, what are your credentials? It seems the only reason we should vote for you is because you live in Emeryville, your kid goes to school here, and you don’t like the school board. What good have you already done for the school community?
DeleteYou were saying we’re small and that’s why we’re no good. That’s why I checked it for you. Other small school districts are much better than Emery. I agree with your new assessment: Emeryville’s school district is bad but not because it’s small. It could be small and good. It’s bad because of incompetence. The incompetence is so pervasive that even $27,000 per student per year spent cannot make a difference. Clearly a change is needed.
DeleteMy credentials? They’re the same as School Board members Brynnda Collins, Susan Donaldson, John Van Geffin and Kimbery Solis. You could argue that I’m not quite as qualified as EUSD board member Regina Chagolla because she’s a teacher. Ms Chagolla is a credentialed teacher (at another district) but her power comes not from that. Her power at Emery comes from the fact that she is a School Board member. The power lies in those with those with more credentials than what teachers bring to the table.
Community members should be careful to put too much credence into expert credentials. Because those are the people who got us into this hole to begin with. The credentialed experts at Emery, the Superintendent and the rest of the administration thinks it’s a good idea to keep spending millions of dollars on educational consultants (who BTW are also highly credentialed). These ‘experts’ are more credentialed than school teachers. Year after year the School Board has been listening to the highest credentialed people and for the last six years it hasn’t helped lift Emery from the bottom of the pack. What we need is a dose of empowerment of those without the highest credentials. If elected I will make paying teachers more and stopping spending on consultants my highest priority. What we’ve been doing, listening to the highest credentialed people, is not working.
You seem to have a different set of values beyond the facts that animate you. I don’t think you want what’s best for the children at Emery Unified School District. I can’t reach everyone. Some people are impervious to the facts. You appear to be one such person. It sounds like you think the best thing to do is to keep voting for the people that got us into this mess. Vote how you want to vote.
Alright, man. Good luck out there. All I asked was for you to tell me something good about yourself, not another bad thing about the opposition, and you gave up on me.
DeleteThanks for that. I didn’t understand what exactly you were asking.
DeleteI’m a 42 year Emeryville resident. I’m obviously a parent with a child at Emery. I’m a big believer in government transparency and accountability. I’m a building contractor…blue collar, college educated. I’m a homeowner (only because I bought my home 32 years ago when Emeryville was affordable). I don’t believe it when corporations tell me something. I think material interest tends to make people lie. I also don’t believe government always tells the truth. I tend not to listen to what they say, rather I look at what they do. In a town like Emeryville, with no newspaper keeping them honest, I always take what they say with a grain of salt. I always need verification. That’s why I started the Tattler. To verify. That’s also why I don’t accept any money and it’s corrupting influence for the Tattler and never will. I’m a skeptic.
Here goes Brian again trashing the schools. Haven't you realized what you are doing is making Emery worse by all your negative BS? All you do is trash people and everything. Now you are back at it with the schools spreading the dirty laundry around for everyone to see. You are the worst thing about this school district! The sooner you and your child leaves the better.
ReplyDeleteDear Blah-
DeleteHere's some free advice- if you're trying to get people to side with your point, don't slime somebody's child. It's pretty much universally accepted (at least on this side of Republican Party politics) that attacking someone's child makes the attacker look bad.
They aren't sliming your child, they're sliming the child's father that is constantly picking fights with everybody. Nowhere in that comment did Blah say anything bad about your child.
DeleteThat's it. Enough of this kind of politics. We don't want this in Emeryville. Attacking people's children to score political points is unacceptable. Brian is trying to protect his child who goes to the Emery schools. He wants to improve the schools. He's right. Disagree with his opinions or not, there's no excuse for attacking his child. Shame on those who engage in this.
Delete