District to investigate school closures – and new parcel tax
Alameda’s Board of Education has directed Superintendent Kirsten Vital to begin planning for the potential closure of one or more schools at the end of the 2010-2011 school year – and to look into putting another parcel tax on the ballot in the spring of 2011 that could help stave off the closures and other [...]
MEASURE E: Failure means shorter school year, fewer schools
In the wake of Measure E’s defeat at the polls last week, the Board of Education is moving forward with plans to increase class sizes and shorten the school year for 2010-2011 – and beginning the process of shuttering schools after this school year is over.
At a special meeting to be held Tuesday night at [...]
Alameda Unified budget outlook: Grim, grim, grim
Alameda Unified staff are set to paint a grim picture of the district’s fiscal outlook at tonight’s Board of Education meeting, laying out a series of cuts they will have to make over the next two school years if their cash flow doesn’t improve.
District leaders are set to offer an update on Alameda Unified’s finances [...]
MEASURE E: Who pays?
Perhaps some of the most persistent questions around Measure E are who pays - and how much.
MEASURE E: A bit on the budget
The Board of Education's decision to put a new parcel tax on the ballot - Alameda Unified's third parcel tax request in a decade - has prompted questions about how much money the school district has and how it is spent.
MEASURE E: Businesses and the bottom line
Debbie George says she and other business and commercial property owners who have been fighting the school district’s Measure H and Measure E parcel taxes aren’t opposed to the idea of a parcel tax. They say they just want a tax that’s fair.
School board to get rundown on governor’s budget proposal
Alameda’s schools could face about $2.4 million in state funding cuts for the 2010-2011 school year under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most recent budget proposal, school district officials are set to tell the Board of Education tonight. And they said they’ll be asking the school board to consider an additional $300,000 in cuts for next year [...]
MEASURE E: Parents get political
Even before Shivaun McDonald’s family joined Otis Elementary School, she and her kids used to sit on their front porch in the mornings, drinking tea and watching other children walk by.
“We came to Alameda because we heard the schools are good, and it’s a very family-oriented community,” McDonald says.
ALAMEDA SCHOOL FUNDING SUIT: Plaintiffs say state over-requires, underfunds
As we reported Thursday, the Alameda Unified School District and eight local public school students (and students-to-be) were part of a large group of folks suing the State of California because they believe the state’s system for funding schools is unconstitutional and needs to be remade.
The plaintiffs make their case in a 59-page complaint filed [...]
UPDATED: ALAMEDA UNIFIED SUES STATE FOR MORE FUNDING
Updated at 1:37 p.m. Thursday, May 20
Alameda Unified and a group of other school districts, parents, students and educational associations are asking a state court to declare California’s system of school funding unconstitutional and to force the state to set up a new one that better funds schools.
“Today, we are here to announce a historic [...]
School board okays cuts, layoffs
The Alameda Board of Education okayed $7 million worth of cuts for the 2010-2011 school year Tuesday night and pink slips for 130 teachers, administrators and support staff.
“This is just devastating, I know,” Trustee Tracy Jensen told the handful of people in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting.
Jensen said that the district has handed out pink slips [...]
