Santa Barbara School Board hires $1,000-a-day consultant for Cesar Chavez Charter

By JOSHUA MOLINA — Dec. 16, 2009

Less than a month after the Santa Barbara School District wrested control from the embattled Cesar Chavez Charter School, the board voted Tuesday night to hire an outside consultant – at a cost of $1,000 a day – to help overhaul the troubled dual language institution.

The board voted unanimously to hire Pat Morales, retired Peabody Charter School Principal, at a maximum cost of $40,000. Although the district will pay for the consultant up front, Cesar Chavez School is expected to reimburse most of the money.

The decision to hire the consultant is the latest move in a flurry of bold steps aimed at saving Cesar Chavez from near-certain closure. The school has been under fire for failing to meet minimum academic standards necessary to renew its charter.

Just a month ago it appeared as though the five-member school board was on track to shutter the school, but instead moved to keep it open through at least June, but with major school district oversight.

“If there are changes to be made, they need to happen now,” said District Superintendent Brian Sarvis. “I am anxious to get someone in there.”

Created in 2000, the charter school at the time was an innovative idea. The founders sought to take students from diverse backgrounds and teach them two languages and cultures. Supporters say that dual immersion teaches students to be bilingual, bicultural and bi-literate, grooming them for professional success beyond college.

Critics, however, contend that two languages at that age does not work and that students should first learn English. Because Cesar Chavez is a K-through-6th grade program, opponents say that Cesar Chavez students are behind their peers who attend traditional schools, once they go to junior high school.

More than 300 public schools across the nation teach students based on a dual immersion model, which is widely popular in other countries.

Although much of the blame has been placed on the leadership at the charter school itself, the district too has been criticized for being asleep at the wheel. The lagging test scores only became a major public issue in recent weeks, prompting some board members and members of the public to wonder why the district didn’t spotlight the issue before the charter expired. The district is supposed to review charter renewals every five years.

Much of Tuesday night’s meeting centered on the cost of the consultant and the type of work she would do. As it stands now, the consultant would “study and implement instructional program changes,” ultimately aimed at improving the academic performance of the students. Much of the work would focus on students who learned Spanish first in the home.

Officials with the charter school raised concerns that the school would have difficulty paying for a consultant. In fact, the school’s governance committee this week agreed to a 5.7 percent across-the-board pay cut because of their own financial concerns.

Even though the district is forcing the charter school to pay for the consultant, Morales would be a district employee.

“Why aren’t we negotiating directly with the consultant and paying the consultant ourselves,” asked second-grade teacher Michael Macioce, who has emerged as one of the more vocal and effective activists for the school.

Some of the school board members expressed concerns about charging Cesar Chavez School.

“We spent a lot of money critiquing them,” said board member Bob Noel. “It might be nice to spend some money helping them.”

In the end, the district agreed to pay as much as $4,000 to help offset the charter school’s costs, but Sarvis hinted that the district would pay more in the near future. He said his intention is to bring in another consultant, at the district’s expense, to help lay out a broader, more expansive play to overhaul the school, with the goal of either renewing its current charter or adopting a new one.

The controversy has shined a light on the issue of language, culture, and academic performance, sparking deep divisions and passionate feelings among people on all sides of the debate.

On one hand, parents, teachers and students heavily praise the school. They say it embraces both English and Spanish equally, and allows young students who learned Spanish first, to learn English, without losing their native language.

The goal of the dual immersion school is to teach the students equally in English and Spanish, so that they become fully bilingual and bi-literate in both languages.

But the school’s weak test scores suggest to some that students are not fully prepared to learn in English once they get to junior high school and beyond.

Despite the turmoil, supporters of the school are excited about its future.

“The effort going into this, and the optimism, and just the energy, is really something,” said board member Ed Heron.

Teacher Macioce agreed.

“We aim to be nothing less than a flagship model of dual immersion in Santa Barbara,” he said.

Comment on this article

Subject:

Body:

Poster:

Enter text seen above:

Waste management : 12/16/2009

Let's blow $40,000 on a school which does not meet state requirements - BRILLIANT!!
Reminds me of Wile E. Coyote - super genius!
Maybe someone should offer Morales $40,000 pesos.

Shut it down

---

I'll do it for $20,000 : 12/16/2009

Shut Cesar Chavez School and put in a Marijuana dispensary. Perhaps this could pay for more teachers and classrooms and better student to teacher ratios. It's all about love : )

Inchronic

---

1,000 bucks a day?? no speaka englesh : 12/16/2009

Sounds like a fine idea. Make sure not to teach responsibility for your actions, multiculturalism has been the downfall of many countries around the world. forcing different peoples to live in close quarters can lead to all sorts of problems. The huge corruptions south of the border is one reason we have a flood of illegals here now, I dont want to blame the people. Just pawns in a world government divide and conquer plan of control. next is collapse of the dollar and foreign troops on the street, thank god they are here? but wait they dont speak english either. Thanks Obama

Guns and butter ? Google Prisonplanet.TV

---

Get a Real Headline : 12/16/2009

Nowhere in the article do you explain how this contract equates to $1,000 a day. Why the need to sensationalize this? $40k isn't unreasonable if the time commitment there. The rest of you should try a little compassion and understanding. Tis the season, eh?

---

Astonishing! : 12/16/2009

A thousand dollars a day to do what?? How about a thousand pesos, indeed. This is such a grotesque reminder of the wasteful mess this country is in. No wonder taxpayers are ready to go to the streets with guns. We are so tired of being ripped off by governmental incompetence and absolutely stupid misuse of resources.

Abigail F.

---

Just admit why the school is failing : 12/16/2009

Enforcement of immigration laws would be a more and directly effective use of those tax dollars.

---

Educational decline : 12/16/2009

I'd rather have high intelligence and low test scores than low intelligence and high test scores. But then again, whoever said public education was intelligent.

sb

---

Off the Charts : 12/16/2009

If others were paid $1000 a day we'd have principals making just shy of a quarter of a million dollars a year, teachers making $185k, and district people making a quarter of a million. She is paid more than anyone else in the district. Is this absurd or what?

Do the math

---

Wasted Funds : 12/16/2009

Gee, and we wonder why Santa Barbara District has been in such a financial mess for so many years. Maybe it is finally time for Brian Sarvis to step down so a more effective leader can replace him and bring our schools up to the learning level of where they should be.

Sickened Taxpayer

---

Why doesn't it work? : 12/17/2009

Can you identify why this doesn't work? That should be the first priority! Since these students, as you say, already speak Spanish, try immersion in English for the first half year then proceede in the dual language format. At a much older age I entered a school in Germany which taught only in German. There were students from many countries speaking many languages but all could soon communicate in their only common language, German.

They speak Spanish, teach them English first.

---

: 12/19/2009

Why not pay her $20,000 up front? Then, pay her the difference if her plan and ideas come to fruition. She is a sometimes forward thinking person and might support this new kind of retainer!

---