Emery Schools Worst in Bay Area: Falling Behind

Emery at Bottom of Urban School Growth

Emeryville children get only 3.8 years worth of education for 5 years of schooling 

Alarming New Stanford Study: Bottom 6% Nationwide 

Emery Unified School District is revealed to be dead last among Bay Area school districts in academic growth over a five year period and in the lowest 6% of all school districts in that metric nationwide according to a new study conducted by education researchers at Stanford University.  It's another  bombshell for beleaguered little Emery Unified, still reeling from a terrible showing on the State 'school climate index' and revelations that the district's falling test scores have dramatically dropped Emery's ranking among rival districts as revealed in October.  The new study strongly hints that Emery's poor school climate can account for the plunging academic performance.

The data shows Emery starting out low and then moving lower over five years, counter to what would be expected according to a December 5th New York Times story on the Stanford study.  Emery represents a low performing outlier cohort in a story that highlights how urban school districts with high rates of poverty can overcome that seemingly debilitating existential condition and produce high rates of growth over time, commonly higher than affluent suburban districts.  Unfortunately, the Stanford data proves Emery goes the opposite direction and serves to reinforce negative stereotypes about under performing districts the Times story seeks to disprove.  However the story and data also show how a district such as Emery could turn things around, given better leadership.

Notably, Ravenswood Unified School District in East Palo Alto, the only district with lower test scores than Emery in the Bay Area shows an impressive 4.5 years growth on the five year chart and owing to the fact that testing occurs before the end of the school year, that district is shown to be growing at a good rate, right on par with expectations independent of its high enrollment of disadvantaged students.  Emery's low test scores combined with it's negative growth proves it lags far behind Ravenswood when viewed holistically and therefore it can be fairly surmised to be the worst school district in the entire Bay Area.

It has been long debated whether test scores measure school quality or poverty.  The better measure now being offered by Stanford is one that lists students’ growth rates.  This new database looks not at how students do on a single test but how much growth they achieve over time; five years.

This new measure does not look at where kids start but at where they finish.  This measure gives the advantage to schools that serve students that start out below average, as they have the most room for growth.  And that makes Emery's sharp move down from a low start even more alarming, but conversely, with a change in school climate, more hopeful.

The Times story focuses on Chicago Unified, a similar albeit larger urban school district to Emery with declining enrollment, three in four students coming from low income homes and a tight budget.  And yet Chicago and many other urban districts large and small buck conventional wisdom and their students achieve high growth over time, sometimes leaving rich white suburban districts in the dust, at least as far as growth is concerned.  The study clearly shows the possibility of "separating socioeconomics from what's actually happening in the schools" as the Times story relates.

The data from Stanford doesn't purport to prove what dynamics result in the high growth of these urban school districts however the Times story does indicate at Chicago and other high growth districts, school 'climate' is critical.  It's the culture of student connectedness to their schools that provides the space for academic growth.  As one Chicago principal put it, despite grinding poverty at home for these students and all the dysfunction that goes along with it, at school her students feel "this is where I belong".  Contrasting with Emery, where student alienation is near total; the 'school climate' California Department of Education study showing Emery ranking in the bottom 1% on student/school connectivity.  That study showed how retaining veteran teachers is critically important for helping student connectivity, and at a 37% teacher loss, Emery ranks at the worst of all school districts in the Bay Area.  Emery's worst in the Bay Area teacher retention ranking is a result of Schools Superintendent John Rubio, a three year employee at the district and his shake-the-district-to-its-core, near pogrom on educators.

Emery: at the Bottom of Bay Area Districts

Emery children shockingly only receive 3.8 years worth of education for five years of schooling. One would expect an average student to make five years of growth after five years. The data identifies 4.8 years as the median growth level, which is consistent with expectations as testing usually occurs three to four months prior to the end of the year.

From the Stanford Study
(Emeryville's median income is $74k according to the Census Bureau) 

Emery is Failing to Support & Care For Children Says California Department of Education

Study Shows Emery Fails to Engage/Support Students

Children Don't Have an Adult on Campus They Feel Cares About Them

Children Don't Feel Safe at ECCL Says DoE

A new study released by the State of California shows the schools at Emeryville's Center of Community Life failing to provide students with a safe campus and Emery Unified School District failing to support and engage students there.  The study, called the School Climate Index (SCI) and conducted for the Department of Education reveals Emery failing students in 'overall support and engagement', scoring single percentile digits against other school districts in the state.  But Emery is doing above average as far as providing a campus with low violence and low substance abuse among students the study also shows as revealed by surveys and interviews with students, parents and teachers.
Since 2011 however, the first year Emery participated in the statewide SCI survey, there has been a steady downward trend in student support and engagement.

For 2017, Emery High School emerged with a SCI score of 198 out of 500 in the domain of 'overall support & engagement' putting it in the bottom 2% of all schools statewide.  When compared with schools of a similar demographic, Emery rises but only just to the bottom 6% of schools statewide the study shows.  The two worst scoring sub-domains for Emery in the Index are 'high expectations and caring relationships' and 'school connectedness' both of which placed the school at the bottom 1% statewide or the bottom 2% when compared with schools of a similar demographic.  According to the study, it can be shown definitively that a clear majority of students at Emery don't feel there is an adult at the school that cares for them, they don't feel close to anyone at the school and they don't like being at the school.

Emery Unified isn't alone to blame for the bad numbers however; the District's partner, the City of Emeryville helped shepherd the Center of Community Life and that built facility net a SCI score of 228 for '[student]perceived school safety'.  That puts our new bond funded $200+ million campus in the bottom 8% for perceived safety among students statewide, hardly a ringing affirmation of the 'community' part of the ECCL.  Either through the campus as built or the programs run by Emery Unified School District or a combination of both, the students attending school every day on the new campus don't feel safe, a likely contributing factor in Emery's low academic achievement numbers.
Another contributing factor in Emery's low student support and engagement SCI numbers is the extremely low rate of teacher retention since Superintendent John Rubio was hired.  Supporting documents for the study indicate high teacher turnover, especially among veteran teachers alienates students and drives down student/school connectedness and engagement, both critical for effective student learning.  Accordingly, the Tattler has reported on how Emery's slide in academic achievement since Mr Rubio took over has translated into the District becoming the second worse ranked school district in the entire Bay Area.

The School Climate Index documents Emery's fall since 2011 in overall student support and engagement when the high school scored higher than average.  That year Emery ranked 77% compared with 25% this year and most of the fall has been in the student support and engagement domain.  The biggest fail has been in the category of 'caring relationships' where children feel there is an adult on the campus that cares about them; that has fallen from an above average 359 points in 2011 to just 200 now, and that translates now to the bottom 1% ranking (2% as compared with school districts of a similar demographic).

The SCI shows the District is clearly failing in its charge to educate and care for our children and the School Board will take up discussion of the disturbing trends revealed by the Index starting Wednesday but it is unlikely they will take action since the majority of members have repeatedly shown they will stand by Mr Rubio.  They have shown no propensity to be moved by the constant stream of bad numbers hitting the District and hence the children, be it teacher retention, academic performance or school ranking generated by the Superintendent since they hired him.

Emery scores for 2011 and 2014
Broken out are the categories in the two domains (overall support/engagement
and violence/substance abuse).  Together the combined score is called the SCI score.

Emery SCI scores for 2011 and 2014.

Emery scores for 2017
Broken out into categories

Emery Scores for 2017As translated into percentiles.

RULE Survey: Emery School Board Candidate Christian Patz

Residents United for a Livable Emeryville (RULE), a public community activist group that works for Emeryville resident empowerment, interviewed all four candidates running for the Emery School Board in the November 4th election.  Below, the Tattler presents the fourth in a four part series presenting the Emery School Board candidates participating in the RULE survey.  The four were highlighted in alphabetical order.

Emery School Board Candidate Christian Patz

Christian Patz is currently an Emery School Board member, having served since his June appointment, replacing former member Josh Simon. This will be Mr Patz' first time facing Emeryville voters.  The voters are to pick from three of the four candidates running.  Readers may peruse Mr Patz' candidate website HERE.  

Here are Christian Patz' answers to the RULE survey:

1)  What is your view of charter schools? How should the District respond to any applications it might receive to create a charter school within District boundaries?

My view of Charter Schools is not positive.  Overall I am against them, as they take away funding from traditional public schools.  Charter schools lack oversight of academics, finances, and administration. They pay teachers less (the average charter school teacher's salary is about $32,000 vs. the average traditional public school teacher's salary of about $34,700, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research report).  This can lead to higher staff turnover.  The biggest reason I am against Charter Schools is that they do not serve all students.  They can send a struggling student or student with an IEP [Individualized Education Program] back to their home school.  Traditional public schools cannot and do not do this.  It can be another blow to that student's morale and grades.  Traditional public schools serve all the students that live in their area, without regard to their status.

I would only support a charter school if it would be a benefit to Emery USD.  Most of the Charter schools in the East Bay do not.  Instead they pull students out of local schools and decrease the amount of available funds to serve kids.  Especially in a District as small as Emery's, it is hard to imagine a Charter school coming in that would benefit Emery.

2)  What, in your view, is the primary mission of the District?

The mission of public schools is to create lifelong learners that are ready for fulfilling lives and productive careers.  Schools help communities accomplish their collective goals and promote common good.  It is the most effective way to reduce inequalities and increase the number of responsible citizens.

3)  As an individual trustee, how would you want to interact with teachers? Would you want to meet with teachers as a group, individually, and if so, how frequently? Or would you primarily rely on the superintendent or public Board meetings to communicate with teachers?
Balance is critical; it is the role of the superintendent to meet with staff members on an ongoing basis.  As a Trustee, my role would be to listen to teachers when I am on campus and hear their individual voices.  I hope to talk with ETA [Emery Teachers Association] regularly to hear their collective voice.  I want to see not just hear what teachers are doing.  I want to hear their voice when ETA speaks, when the Superintendent speaks, and when the Board votes.

4)  What is the appropriate role of standardized tests? How would you use the scores? Should scores be used to evaluate the performance of administrators or teachers?

These are three very different questions.

1. Standardized test are here to stay. America’s move to Common Core and smarter balance provide a vast improvement to the bubble and score tests of the pasts.  Testing is a federal mandate.  That means that public schools are in the testing business and will be held accountable for their scores.  The district cannot afford to lose out on Federal funds, so the roles of the tests are to ensure that the funds keep coming to help our students.
2. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.  I wish I could use test scores to adjust the tests to ensure they are measuring what we want them to measure.  Barring that, we use the scores to assess how we as a district are doing.  If we find a pattern, we can focus our attention on how to improve in that area.  For example, when I co-taught biology, we used the STAR scores to identify a certain concept that the students were struggling to understand.  The whole science department brainstormed ways to improve the unit.  A hands-on lab was developed that demonstrated the concept.  Student scores improved, but more importantly, instruction and student understanding increased.
3. Data used incorrectly is not only unhelpful but detrimental, so I do not support its use for teacher evaluations.  The data set is too limited and out of date.  For administrators, it is a different story. As data sets get larger, they provide a clearer picture of situations.  Schools will be judged on their test scores, so they have to be part of the equations.  The annual school climate survey is another tool for evaluating administration.

5)  In recent years the District has fired or reduced the hours of some staff in favor of outsourcing school services such as the breakfast and lunch programs. When is it appropriate to outsource an existing school service? What factors should guide these decisions?

Schools and government are inefficient by design.  The services they provide are too important and too ripe for corruption so they have to be done in a deliberate fashion.  The scope of work done by a $10 million dollar entity has to have a set of criteria for what can be done in house and what has to be outsourced.  The closest I can come to a guiding principle is: tasks done every day should be done in house and things done irregularly should be outsourced.

6)  What role should a Trustee play in District fund-raising from businesses, non-profits, and grant-making institutions?
This is not an area of strength of mine, so I would not be a good person to do it.  In a district of the size of Emery, they should be doing it.  This is something that can be outsourced.

7)  The District controls three properties. How should it allocate resources amongst these properties? Assuming the completion of the Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL) in 2016 and the use of the San Pablo Avenue site for K-12 instruction and administrative offices, what should the District do with the Anna Yates and Ralph Hawley sites?

I am still learning about the district plans and what are the options for the sites.  I attended one of the planning meetings and was not impressed with the choices presented.  When I am at Ralph Hawley, I ask myself, why are we renting space from Oakland when we could have classes here?  I clearly need more information, as I assume there are structural issues.  As a special education person, I would love to see the district house programs that benefit kids with unique needs.  It is a positive way to generate income and keep the sites focused on education.

8)  Should Emeryville schools receive contributions directly, or should they be managed by a third party?

Directly, I hate paying commissions

Election 2018: Emery School Board Candidate Susan Donaldson

School Board Election 2018

Candidate Questionnaire

The Tattler presents the 2018 Candidates Questionnaire; School Board edition.  Five candidates are running for three seats, making this a very consequential election that will constitute a majority on the five member Board.  The order of presentation for this series was chosen randomly.  Only one candidate's answers will be posted on a given day but regular Tattler stories might be interspersed in the sequence of candidates and there might be more than a day between candidate postings.
Readers may use the search bar to see the candidate's answers as they are posted by typing in 'School Board 2018 Candidates Questionnaire' or the candidate's name; Katy Brown, Ken Bukowski, Brynnda Collins, Susan Donaldson or Sarah Nguyen.
We thank all the candidates offering their services to the benefit of our school district, the parents and children.

The election is on November 6th.

web: facebook.com/susan4emeryschoolboard
email: susan4emeryschoolboard@gmail.com

Susan Donaldson
Mother/Business Owner

Name the top three problems with EUSD right now and what are your suggestions for how to deal with them?

Lack of stability - Unstable conditions that have lead to a cascade of problems: Low teacher morale, poor student achievement, poor community engagement, declining site maintenance to name a few.   The new leadership feels like it has made huge strides in stabilizing the district and hopefully a new board will be another step in the right direction. 

Lack of resources - We need to grow, sustain and align our resources to support the needs of our students.  Our schools need more money and Emeryville is a community rich with resources.  The board should absolutely advocate for, support and execute on fundraising for the our district.  There is nothing but opportunity for strengthening the relationships with donors and particularly businesses in our community and I think the board should take the lead on this.

Transparency, Engagement, Focus - What are we doing, where are we trying to go, how are we going to get there?  There has been so much confusion over the last few years and everyone involved in the district feels it.  Families leave the school, teachers leave, neighbors are confused about how the “Center for Community Life” serves them.  We all want clarity and to feel like we can finally move forward together toward a common goal.

How do we know if a school superintendent is doing a good job?  Is there any way to measure it?  Are there objective components?

I believe we will know if the superintendent is doing a good job by subjective and objective measures.  Teacher retention, test scores, growing enrollment - these objective measures are indicative of a superintendent that has created an atmosphere for success. Subjectively I think we will see a positive reflection in the community as well - from parent engagement to student and staff morale.  

Would you be willing to consider examining the idea of melding EUSD with Berkeley Unified if they would be amenable to that?  Why or why not.

I am always willing to consider an idea however it is my understanding is that this particular idea has been considered and rejected by Berkeley Unified and the community at large.  

EUSD has had the worst teacher retention record of any district in the Bay Area for at least four straight years.  Former superintendent Rubio said that was a feature of his tenure, not a bug….a sign he was doing his job.  Do you agree that was needed and if so, was Superintendent Rubio the right person for the job?

I do not think Rubio was the right Superintendent for us.  My impression is that strong teachers left and also that there has been an atmosphere of distrust and contention.  

Are you aware of EUSD’s academic ranking among Bay Area districts?  Has it been trending up or down? 

According to the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, we have more lower performing students than the rest of the county.  We are consistently ranked lower than other students in the County and State and our performance has trended slightly down from 2016.    

Between parents, teachers or the administration (Superintendent, managers); who should play the leading role in general at EUSD and specifically in the formation of policy?  

The administration plays the leading role in the formation of policy: As leaders, they must be advocates for their stakeholders, and hear the ideas and concerns of the parents and teachers. The administration and staff work together to implement the policy day to day.  

When was the last time you voted?  How would you describe your political views? 

In the 2016 elections (my ballot wasn't counted in the primary this year due to a mail-in error).  I describe my political views as progressive.  

How do you feel about School Resource Officers at ECCL? 

I am not in support of SROs at ECCL.  I agree with Mayor John Bauters that in the United States, we have a problem putting children of color in a pipeline from school to prison and that SROs contribute to this problem.  

Have you ever attended a school board meeting in Emeryville? PTO meeting?  Met with district administration?  What involvement have you had with the school?  How familiar are you with its management?

I have been a very involved parent since my daughter began school in Kindergarten at Anna Yates in 2013.  I have been an active member of the PTO since then and became the Vice President and Secretary, serving for the past 3 years.  I have attended many board meetings as a representative of the PTO and also as a concerned parent.  I frequently meet with administration and teachers and would say that I am very familiar with the management of the school.   

How much money do you plan to spend on your campaign?  Do you plan to fundraise?

I plan on raising and spending under $2000 for my campaign.

What is your first goal (or goals) when you take office?  

Work with the school’s new leadership to refine the long-term vision of the district and set a clear path for helping our students achieve their highest potential.

Foster a functional, cooperative, board that ensures a positive climate and encourages the best from staff.

Fundraise in order to grow and sustain resources to meet the needs of the students, teachers and community.

Early Release of Test Scores Reveals a Failing Emery School District

Prospects for African American Students 

Dim at Emery

Teachers Warning of Consequences of "Racist Practices"

Appear to be Vindicated

Black Students "Not Served"

News Analysis
Emery Unified School District released an early peek at last season’s yet to be officially released state sanctioned student test scores at Wednesday’s School Board meeting revealing a school wide drop in academic achievement and a district with vexatious problems educating African American students specifically. The disturbing figures come on the heels of a June 15th School Board meeting where nine teachers rose to give warning of such negative consequences as a result of “racist practices” implemented by School Superintendent John Rubio.
 At the Wednesday night meeting, high school principal Jessica Goode said the numbers she called “repugnant”, showed that African American students “are not being served” at the beleaguered school district despite an attempt by Mr Rubio to spin the data to show the opposite.

The presenter of the data at the meeting, Dr Kell, an Emery administrator, indicated the District has formulated a plan to deal with the plunging test scores involving "integrating horizontal and vertical coherence" and a call to "improve the organizational climate" among other ideas. The three Board members attending the meeting Wednesday night seemed to take the bad news in stride but member Cruz Vargas said he was happy the District had come up with a plan to turn the numbers around for next year.

School Board Member
Cruz Vargas
A self described "numbers man",
Cruz didn't say anything about the low
test score numbers but he's happy
there's a plan to turn test scores
 around for next year.

The taxpayer investment of $100 million in a new school campus last year had no affect on a persistent pattern of falling test scores at Emery since Superintendent Rubio was hired three years ago. Despite a decade of promises that the gleaming new facilities at the Emeryville Center of Community Life would help bring up scores on their own, the bad numbers revealed Wednesday were seen by the Superintendent as a chance to countervail the charges of racism from the teachers by using the data to show a rising African American student cohort as compared with others even as test scores within that cohort still showed a decline.

District Spins Racial Achievement Gap 
The achievement gap is measured as the difference between the highest achieving racial cohort, traditionally Asians at Emery and their inverse, African Americans.  Mr Rubio took pains to show a closing gap between academic school year 2015-16 and 2016-17 by using plunging test scores of Asian students, an 11% drop, contrasted by African American student’s drop of 4% netting a 8% drop in the achievement gap in English Language test scores.  The exercise in abject legerdemain by Mr Rubio net a 9% drop in the math achievement gap using the same tactics, leveraging a 12% drop in Asian student test scores against a 3% drop for African Americans.  If the Superintendent was queasy massaging the numbers to show student success by highlighting one group of student's relative uptick by leveraging the failure of another group, he didn't show it.

Rubio Celebrates 'Student Success' 
While the Superintendent unveiled his brand after he was hired by the Board in the form of a new slogan for Emery, “Partners Power Student Success”, Emery Unified’s state testing results have deteriorated since the implementation of the new slogan, this year’s being the worst yet. The preliminary data given Wednesday proved 75% of students did not meet the state standards in English Language Arts.  Last year less than 1 in 3 students met the English Language Art Standards.   Only 30% of the students were proficient or above in ELA, tied with Oakland Schools.  Now down to 1 in 4, it’s possible Emery has dropped below Oakland.  In Math, the story is even worse.  About 1 in 5 students met the standard for mathematics.  Only 79% of the students failed to meet the standard. Last year, Emery was 1% higher than OUSD causing speculation about if that stays true, or given the trajectory, if Emery is now already at the bottom of Alameda County Schools.

A Brief Rise Before Rubio, Then Return To Failure 
The goal of building the Emeryville Center of Community Life was to build on the success that Emery achieved after coming out of receivership.  From 2007 to 2010, Emery improved its academic achievement each year.  Testing was suspended by the state as California transitioned to the Common Core and computer based ‘Smarter Balanced’ assessments.  Testing resumed in Mr Rubio’s first year with the district and that’s when the progress stalled, then reversed.  Each subsequent year as test scores are released, Emery struggles to paint a rosy picture and urges patience until a new plan takes effect for the next year.  Last year at a presentation by the new high school principal, Ms. Goode, she described her plan to improve math performance.  One Board member at the time, Christian Patz (currently a City Council Member) questioned how the new plan was different from the previous plan.  Ms. Goode did not have an answer.
The same could have been asked of the newest plan, rich in arcane academic jargon but lacking in detail, regardless of the excited exclamations from Board member Vargas who as a self described “numbers man” has said he understands that ‘rebranding’ matters and the use of words like ‘innovation’ are good tools to flash.

Black Students Not Served
There were some positives in this year's test scores, white students improved their math and language arts scores by 5%.  Interesting since Mr Rubio worked hard to change Emery’s previous mission statement which included the phrase, “To End Racist and Classist Practices.” Since that change, outgoing staff have told the school board about their concerns about how people of color are treated on campus.  Now the achievement gap, the difference between the how students of color do versus white has grown, despite the Superintendent’s attempt to obscure that fact.  White students attending Emery were twice as likely to have met the standards in math than African American students.  The gap was even larger in English Language Arts.  The achievement gap at Emery is significantly smaller than the gap in state test scores (based on prior year tests) because white students in Emery score well below the state average, as do African American students.  Asian students in Emery had the biggest decline, dropping double digits in both Language Arts and Math.  English Learners remained about the same, while Latinos, the fastest growing group at Emery and the state, matched the District’s 5% drop.

It should be noted that the scores reported come from the district’s presentation to the school board on September 13, 2017.  The state has not yet released scores to the public.  Comparisons to other districts or the state for this story were made using last year’s scores and the numbers just pre-released by Emery.

Emery School District in Hot Water Over Bottled Water Vending Idea

The Emery Unified School District has drawn the ire of members of the public and at least two City Council members over a scheme made public at tonight's School Board meeting to raise revenue by installing bottled water vending machines on the school campus.  The plan, presented by Food Services and Wellness Director Juliette Dunn, would raise approximately $10,000 per year in revenue she said.  But vending machines selling plastic water bottles to students would also run counter to the District's own waste stream reduction goals, a duplicity not lost on Council members Christian Patz and Dianne Martinez, both of whom wrote trenchant letters to the Board.  
The Board did not take action on the plan that member Cruz Vargas called "great" but vowed to discuss the idea further at a future meeting after noting Councilman Patz's letter.

Mr Patz's circumstantiated and pointed letter to the Board and Superintendent, intercepted by the Tattler, is presented:

 

Dear Emery Superintendent and School Board,

In reading your AgendaOnline for Wednesday August 22, I was shocked to see that your nutrition plan was investigating vending machines for disposable water bottles.  The goal of the plan was to raise $10,000 per year.  Please reject this plan. Instead, sell branded reusable water bottles.

There are a number of things wrong with this plan, but my top three are,

1)   Raising money off your majority low income students drinking of water

2)   Adding 13,000 to 40,000 water bottles to the waste stream

3)   Teaching students that disposable water bottles are acceptable

The environment and social good should come before revenue.  If it were not against state law, I suspect the plan would have been for the vending machines to contain soda and candy.

To generate that level of income, the school would need to sell anywhere from 13,000 to 40,000 bottles per year depending on cost and sale price.  Assuming the total cost per bottle is $0.25, including cost and maintenance of machines plus staff time to deal with the day-to-day usage, the school would need to sell 13,000 bottles at $1.00 to net $10,000.  The number of bottles increases to 40,000 if the price is $0.50.

Approximately seventy percent of your students have been identified as socially economically disadvantaged.  The projection of $10,000 of income means student spending more than that amount.  Emery has about 700 students, meaning each student would be spending between $20 and $30 per year.  That assumes that the student would purchase at the same rate.  It is more likely that the middle and high school students would be the ones making the purchases, increasing the cost per student to $50 to $100 per year.  That is one bottle every two days.

Studies show that water bottle get recycled at less than a fifty percent rate.  About fifty percent of recyclables are never recycled. Using the smallest number of bottles sold, 13,000 at $1.00, only 3,250 would be recycled.  The remaining 9,750 bottles would end up in the landfill or worse, the ocean.  A plastic bottle takes 450 years to decompose.  Double or triple those numbers if the price was lower.

As educators, we are role models.  Students at Emery are learning life long habits.  Making water bottles easily accessible sends the message that they are acceptable.  They are not.  The new facility has quality tap water and bottle fill stations.  There is an opportunity for students to take pride in reducing their waste stream.  Council Member Martinez has worked hard to partner the school with the Alameda County Waste Management

Authority to teach composting, recycling, and responsible citizenship.  Build on that by rejecting disposable water bottles.

A better option for students is a reusable water bottle with a school logo.  We can probably find a sponsor to cover the cost of the bottles.  Ideally, we would distribute them to students sell them to parents, and gift them to partners.  A quick search showed that a nice metal bottle with the school's logo would cost less than $2.50 per unit.  Selling them for $5 per student (700 students), $15 per parent (300) and community members, only 300 would need to be sold to community members to earn the $10,000.  Even fewer if there was a sponsor, which should be easy to find.

Thank you,

Christian Patz

“A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute and the number will jump another 20% by 2021, creating an environmental crisis some campaigners predict will be as serious as climate change… Fewer than half of the bottles bought in 2016 were collected for recycling and just 7% of those collected were turned into new bottles. Instead most plastic bottles produced end up in landfill or in the ocean. Between 5m and 13m tonnes of plastic leaks into the world’s oceans each year to be ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms, and by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish” – The Guardian, June 28, 2017

Brian Carver's MOU #3 City Council Statement

The following statement was read aloud by Emeryville resident Brian Carver at last Tuesday's momentous 'MOU #3 Council meeting' .  Mr Carver's statement, televised on ETV-Comcast channel 27, is reverberating around town and the Tattler has received requests to post it from many Emeryville neighbors.   The document Brian Carver refers to in his statement is the proposed MOU #3, a controversial agreement between the City of Emeryville and the Emery Unified School District that will quadruple the operating expenses for Youth Services and otherwise endanger the City's finances.

Here then is the July 2nd statement that's causing such a stir in our town, posted with permission from Mr Carver: 

"Good evening Mayor, members of the Council, my name is Brian Carver. I live in the Triangle neighborhood.

The document before you tonight is not a memorandum of understanding. It is a suicide pact.

The District promised us increased efficiencies and economies of scale from the Emeryville Center of Community Life, but instead, as your staff report points out, this document finally reveals that these are broken promises. Joining this project under these terms is going to cost the City dearly, in amounts that Staff are currently not even able to predict. What they can predict amounts to significant increases in annual expenditures that would require far more careful study than can be had in this single meeting.

If the State ultimately succeeds in taking away the nearly 22 million that has been the subject of the litigation described in the staff report, then this agreement would require the City to cover the District anyway—to “make them whole.” I am far less optimistic about the City’s ability to keep this money out of the State’s hands. It is an enormous gamble to take, because this could go the wrong way. When that happens, say goodbye to any hopes for a bike/ped bridge across the railroad tracks, forget about an Art Center, or a dozen other projects that might be important to Emeryville residents. All our resources will be allocated to this single project for a long time.

It has become clear to those of us following this process that the School District will stop at absolutely nothing in order to achieve its misguided vision. When 70 stakeholders signed a letter to the District asking that they not move the elementary students from Anna Yates Elementary and into this K-12 on San Pablo Avenue, the District was unmoved.

When Emeryville’s assessed valuation dropped and adequate bonding capacity was unavailable to seek a conventional bond for its fourth bond series, known as Series D, the District turned instead to a controversial Capital Appreciation Bond that will cost Emeryville taxpayers nearly $70 million over the next 32 years and eight months in order to receive just $17 million for the project today. With a total payback price tag now at nearly $150 million, many of us will be long gone before Emeryville taxpayers can pay off the enormous burden the District has placed on us.

Even at this cost, the District admits that there is not enough money to pursue an environmentally-responsible set of buildings that could achieve LEED certification as Emeryville’s municipal code requires of public agency buildings. So, the District had to seek a special exemption in order to become part of the problem of climate change rather than an example of its solutions.

The Emery Unified School District has rejected legitimate community concerns, abandoned any semblance of fiscal responsibility, has shown a willingness to run roughshod over the environment, and in general has shown that there is nothing that will dissuade them from this ill-conceived and poorly executed project.

But tonight they want this Council and the entire City to join hands with them as they gleefully jump off a fiscal cliff. This Council should finally be the responsible party and say no.

But if you’re not ready to do that, then I implore you to at least send this out to relevant advisory committees and give it more study, fill in more details, and get a better deal."

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Brian Carver is a parent of two children in the Emery Unified School District, was the Chair of the Center of Community Life Measure J Citizens' Oversight Committee from March 2011-2012, and has been critical of the School Board's moving of the elementary students from Anna Yates School to the Center of Community Life site on San Pablo Avenue.  An attorney and Assistant Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information, Mr Carver is an occasional contributor to the Tattler.

Anti-Palestinian Connection Found in Emeryville Democratic Party Delegate Race

Specter of Anti-Palestinian Politics in Emeryville ADEM Race

Breaking News

The Tattler has found an anti-Palestinian, Gaza genocide denying funding and influence connection in the local ‘ADEM’ Democratic Party delegate race reported this week.  Four Emeryville residents are running in two posing slates as the Tattler reported.  One of the two slates, called the ‘Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate’, is paid by ‘California Jobs and Justice’, a Sacramento lobbying entity that itself is funded by the ‘Democratic Majority for Israel’ a Washington based lobbying organization that is Gaza genocide denying and anti-Palestinian.  Emeryville residents Sam Gould and Regina Chagolla are both part of that slate.

The other slate in the ADEM race is the ‘People’s Slate’ and is the more progressive slate of the two, despite the word ‘progressive’ in the Housing and Climate Slate title.  Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez are among the People’s Slate members.  Mr Priforce is an Emeryville City Council member and a current ADEM delegate for the 18th District.  Regina Chagolla is an Emeryville school board member.

The 18th Assembly District Democratic Party delegates are charged with setting the Alameda County Democratic Party agenda and so it has been considered a powerful position and one that reflects East Bay Democratic Party values.  The anti-Palestinian connection has not been reported openly by the Housing and Climate Slate, probably because that is not a popular position for East Bay Democrats.  

Democrats are urged to vote online by January 31st at ademelections.com   

Paid for by.....
That tells you what you need to know.

The top contributors are anti-Palestinian and Gaza genocide deniers.

Pro-Israel Lobby Take Over of Local Democratic Party Delegate Group Despite Emeryville Councilman Priforce ADEM Victory

'Progressive Populist' Priforce Manages to Beat Back Conservative Tide in Local ADEM Election

Northern Alameda County Democrats have selected Emeryville City Councilman Kalimah Priforce to serve as a delegate for the state party in Assembly District 18, the lone progressive among a field of 13 other winners backed by Washington DC based Israel lobbying concerns.  Mr Priforce was the only candidate to win from the ‘People’s Slate’, a group of 11 progressive candidates in the 18th District ‘ADEM’ race.  The other group of candidates, called the ‘Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate’, was backed by the pro-Israel lobby.  A much more conservative slate than the People’s Slate, the ‘Housing’ group won every delegate seat except Mr Priforce, a marked difference in the race run two years ago when the Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate won only one delegate to the People’s Slate's 13, a near total victory for progressives.  In 2022, Assembly member Mia Banta, an elected official characterized as a 'corporate Democrat' by some, endorsed the losing conservative slate. 

Emeryville City Councilman Kalimah Priforce
Progressive Populist Winner in ADEM Election Again
The sole progressive and independent to win the
18th Assembly District ADEM election. 
The rest of the winners are endorsed 
and supported by the Israel lobby.

White Faces

Council member Priforce will sit on a much changed 18th Assembly District ADEM delegate board moving forward.  Notably, he will be the only man of color on the new 14 member delegate board representing northern Alameda County, a remarkable change over previous 18th District ADEM boards.  

The near total victory for the white conservative slate this election, compared with the near total victory for the progressive slate last time, calls into question the influence of the nation-wide Israel lobby inserted into local Alameda County politics. 

The remarkable two year shift to the right demonstrated by District 18 Democrats as characterized by the vote this year has been challenged by at least two voting Democrats; a rank and file member, Paola Laverde, as well as David Weintraub of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club Coordinating Committee, both of whom registered complaints with Democratic Party of Alameda County honchos highlighting campaign irregularities that would tend to benefit conservatives in the election.  Responses to election integrity complaints have not been widely distributed by party officials if they came at all. 

The ADEM boards control what the Democratic Party statewide will prioritize, and as such, they are considered very influential within the party that controls politics in California.  The ADEM delegates help select the Democratic Party platform, among other duties.  Here, they serve under the statewide Assembly member representative Mia Bonta, for District 18. 

Illegal Campaigning and 
Unattended Ballots 
The conservative slate placed campaign
flyers directly on the table where voting 
happened, a violation of the rules.  Also, ballots
are not filed and are out in the open. 
Progressives registered complaints about
the rules violations, after the fact.

The Tattler reached out to Emeryville resident Sam Gould, who ran with the Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate and won, but he didn’t respond to our queries.  Mr Gould was selected as a new Planning Commissioner last Tuesday by the City Council in a 4-1 vote (Priforce dissenting).  Emery School Board member Regina Chagolla, who also ran in the “Housing” slate, also won an ADEM position.  Emeryville City Council member Courtney Welch ran with the conservative Bonta backed slate in 2022 and lost, as did Ms Chagolla.

Council member Priforce, having won the delegate race in the two lopsided elections, speaks to his ability to transcend partisan politics, at least outside of Emeryville.  Here in highly partisan Emeryville, Mr Priforce has been frozen out by his more conservative Council colleagues, even suffering a censure and a sanction for violating Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) rules, the same violation as the anti-Priforce Mayor, David Mourra, who also violated FPPC rules.  The fact that the anti-Priforce majority on the Council has not censured and sanctioned Mayor Mourra for the same violation, is particularly informative as to the partisan culture that has seized control of and degraded Emeryville politics.

The 18th Assembly District is comprised of Oakland, Alameda and Emeryville.  It is considered one of the most progressive assembly districts in the United States.   Emeryville, now having three ADEM board members, is represented far over its population in the District it should be noted.

The Democratic Party election just completed for ADEM representatives for the 18th District, is now represented by seven men, six of whom are white; the highest albedo level for an 18th Assembly District ADEM board in more than a generation.

Emeryville Democrats Urged to Vote for 18th District 'ADEM' Delegates

Four Emeryville Residents in Two Slates of Candidates Seek Local 'ADEM' Positions

Democratic Party members in Emeryville, which make up 59% of the voters, are being asked to vote for party delegates for the 18th Assembly District to help set the direction of the Democratic Party in the future, a race that includes four Emeryville residents.  The agenda delegates, referred to by the acronym ADEMs (Assembly District Election Meetings), are divided into two slates, a conservative and a progressive and the four Emeryville residents running are split into both slates.  

The progressive slate, called the ‘People’s Slate’, is comprised of 11 members including Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce (a City Council member and existing 18th District Delegate) and Sarah Perez, while the conservative slate, called the ‘Housing and Climate Progressive Democratic Slate’ is comprised of 12 members including Emeryville residents Sam Gould (who recently lost a City Council bid) and Regina Chagolla (a School Board member).  

The conservative slate, despite its name with the word ‘progressive’ in it, is noted for its corporate backers, notably the Real Estate Investment Trust lobbying group YIMBY California.  They put stripping local housing policy to make way for more corporate landlords at the top of their to do list.  Also notable is the fact that zero men of color are represented; very unusual for an East Bay election slate.

The progressive slate lacks corporate underwriting and concerns itself with traditional Bay Area progressive ideas like anti-gentrification, tenant protections, climate justice and a labor-led clean energy economy.  

The Tattler reached out to the four Emeryville candidates for comment but only Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez responded.  

Mr Priforce said, “For far too long, 'we the people' have been confronted with a false choice - a vote between fascism on one side and corruption on the other.  The Democratic Party needs to change by winning back the people's trust.  As an elected delegate representing Emeryville to the California Democratic Party as part of Assembly District 18, I'm once again a member of the People's Slate because of our diversity and working class progressive values that place people over profit.”  

Ms Perez stated, “Unlike others whose work is based on self-interest, my commitment for social change is personal and therefore dedicated to people who need help.  I stand in solidarity with the People's Slate. Please vote for all of us because this fight is for you.”

Democrats are urged to vote online by January 31st at ademelections.com 

UPDATE: A mistake in this story regarding the acronym ADEMS has been corrected.  Thank you to the reader for catching our mistake.

The People's Slate
Featuring Emeryville residents Kalimah Priforce and Sarah Perez

The Housing and Climate Slate
Lot's of White men!
Featuring residents Sam Gould and Regina Chagolla