Great News About Education in Tustin Unified!
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January 2012
The
Center for American Progress study entitled Return on Educational Investment: a
district by district evaluation of educational productivity concluded
that the Tustin Unified School District (TUSD) was one of only two
Orange County school districts and only seventeen in all of California
to be in the highest productivity category, an honor won by fewer than
5% of the districts included in the study.
This conclusively
and statistically demonstrated what most of us already suspected
intuitively: that TUSD produces more academic proficiency and student
success per tax dollar entrusted to us than 95% of school districts!
We also congratulate the Tustin Tiller Football team on winning the CIF championship and their coach Myron Miller on being named Football Coach of the Year!
And if you are on Facebook, look up "Tustin Taxpayers for Quality Schools (TTQS)" and join the group for regular updates!
Lynn Davis
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September 2011
Every year, most of TUSD's schools see improvements, and the district overall certainly does, in the level of student achievement accomplished by students of various grades in various subjects. Once in a while, it is quite amazing to look back over a longer period of time to see how far we have climbed in our journey!
For example, since I was elected to the school board nine years ago, the number of 9th grade students - high school freshmen - scoring at the "proficient" or "advanced" level (e.g. on track for the University of California or equivalent four year schools) has GROWN by OVER 650 STUDENTS!
That is more than an entire class of high school freshmen. Imagine what that means for each of those students and their families! Imagine what it means for their futures, and for their future families! It is a blessing that will grow over time touching many thousands of lives!
And that is not all. Our academic success is increasingly being shared by students of all ethnic groups and social, economic and/or educational characteristics. To give one example, for the school year in which I was elected, only 12% of our Hispanic/Latino 8th grade students even attempted Algebra I. Last year, 84% of the same group took Algebra I - a SEVEN FOLD increase. Because we are consistently the fastest growing district in Orange County, that meant a NINE FOLD increase in the number of Hispanic/Latino 8th graders taking Algebra 1. And the percentage that scored "proficient" or "advanced" improved over those years from 31% to 42% - a 35% improvement. The result?
The number of Hispanic/Latino 8th Graders scoring "proficient" or "advanced" in Algebra 1 grew by more than a factor of TWELVE from just 21 in 2002-03 to 278 in 2010-11.
Considering the importance of Algebra I in math, science, engineering - the very areas our region and our nation need to make gains in - this is an amazing jump in a short period of time. And it is not just 8th grade students or 8th grade teachers that played a role to accomplish this. No, it took preparation: Students had to learn just enough more in 1st grade, so that they could learn just enough more in 2nd grade, and so on to the point that they could take Algebra 1 successfully in 8th grade and be prepared for even more advanced mathematics, science and technology in high school, and later in college.
Our entire TUSD student body, teaching team and staff deserve credit for this amazing improvement over time - as does our TUSD community, which has twice demonstrated its strong support for high quality education here in our neighborhoods. And it is paying off in more success for our students, their families, and also their future families and generations yet to come!
I thank EVERYBODY who plays a part in these successes by doing their part to support our educational process as parents, students, tutors, teachers, aides, librarians, principals, school secretaries, nurses, custodians and everyone else at TUSD, as well as each and every member of our community who has taken the time and effort to SUPPORT TUSD SCHOOLS over the past decade!
Lynn Davis
2011 President, Tustin Unified School Board
P.S. I do regret you inform you that Mayor Jerry Amante led the Tustin City Council last month in filing yet another lawsuit against TUSD and your local schools, continuing their waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. This was compounded by sending out a political mailer at taxpayer expense to certain Tustin neighborhoods containing misleading photographs and false claims about TUSD.
Meanwhile, TUSD has still never received a single response to its settlement proposal sent to the City officials last April. Requests for settlement negotiation meetings seem to have fallen on deaf ears. City policy seems to have fallen victim to the political needs of Jerry Amante and his henchmen, rather than being conducted in the best interests of City residents and taxpayers.
TUSD stands prepared to discuss settlement of these costly lawsuits whenever the City is ready.
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Today, Friday, April 22, 2011, the City of Tustin posted notice on their web site of an emergency City Council meeting for THIS COMING MONDAY, April 25 at 7 pm at Council Chambers at 300 Centennial Way in Tustin.
We need every supporter of the Tustin High School construction projects (THS Science Center, Quad and new Sports Pavilion) to attend and OPPOSE two proposed grading ordinances that will add requirements to the 50 year old Grading Ordinance intended to delay, interfere with and add substantial costs to these projects.
PLEASE CONTACT THE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS AND ASK THEM TO OPPOSE THESE NEW ORDINANCES!
Emails: Deborah Gavello <deborah@deborahfortustin.com>, Beckie Gomez McKeon <rebgomez@aol.com>, Al Murray <mrharleyd@cox.net>, John Nielsen <jniel1225@aol.com> or contact the entire city council at CityCouncil@tustinca.org
(Mayor Amante’s email is not listed here, because he is clearly the instigator of this covert effort to hinder school construction projects.)
PLEASE ASK YOUR FRIENDS TO JOIN YOU AT THE MEETING AND ALSO ASK COUNCIL MEMBERS TO VOTE AGAINST THESE PROPOSALS!
Please forward this email to as many people as you can! To keep up to date, track http://www.LynnDavis.org and/or http://www.StopTheRedTape.com (Updates will be posted starting Saturday morning, April 23.)
BACKGROUND:
1. About 50 years ago, the City of Tustin adopted its Grading Ordinance. Both Tustin and Irvine modeled their Grading Ordinances on the County Grading Ordinances, and ALL THREE contained a specific exemption that kept public school districts from having to get Grading Permits, since school construction is regulated, approved and inspected by State authorities (particularly the Division of the State Architect).
2. Until 2009, all Tustin Unified School District grading plans were informally reviewed and approved by the relevant municipality in all parts of TUSD. But in 2009, the City of Tustin insisted – alone and for the first time – that TUSD projects, including those at Tustin High, needed to meet additional requirements, pay substantial additional fees, and be subject to additional costly inspections from City bureaucrats.
3. In early 2010, facing the loss of millions of dollars in savings on attractive bids, ten acres of federal land, and other potential penalties, TUSD asked the County Superior Court to stop City interference in its projects, and proceeded with several construction projects, saving several millions of taxpayer dollars. The City in turn asked the Court to stop these projects and give the City substantial control over them.
4. In December 2010, just before the question was to go before a judge, the City of Tustin requested that TUSD agree to a six month extension of the court hearing to engage in settlement discussions. TUSD agreed.
5. In January 2011, substantial agreement was reached on several key points of a settlement between City and School District officials. A draft of the agreement was to be created by the City and provided to TUSD by early February.
6. On April 8, after several requests, the City of Tustin finally provided a draft settlement agreement to TUSD. It in no way resembled what had been discussed. In an attempt to keep the public from ever finding out what was REALLY happening, Amante sought to impose a “gag order” on all elected officials involved, preventing them from giving anyone in the public any information other than what would be in a sanitized press release approved by both sides’ lawyers. Penalty for violation of the gag order was set at $250,000 or higher! This is unprecedented in settlements of disputes between public agencies.
7. On April 14, TUSD provided to the City a settlement proposal that would save both sides countless of dollars of taxpayer funded legal fees.
8. On April 20, less than two weeks before the postponed court date, the City of Tustin legal counsel informed TUSD that the City refused to respond to the TUSD offer, and was unilaterally ending settlement talks.
9. On April 22, the City of Tustin posted notice of an EMERGENCY COUNCIL MEETING to be held on Monday, April 25 at 5:30 (closed session) and 7 pm (open session) at which it would unilaterally amend the 50 year old Grading Code so it could for the first time eliminate the public school exemption!
Meanwhile, equivalent construction projects continue at TUSD schools in the City of Irvine (e.g. Beckman, Orchard Hills, Hicks Canyon) and in the unincorporated County area (e.g. Foothill) with the exemption being honored and NO resulting problems!
The proposed new City ordinances would needlessly delay projects and be very costly to area taxpayers, who have twice voted to fund these important school construction projects with large supermajority votes!
Amazingly, all FOUR of the City Council members listed above attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the THS Sports Pavilion project that the City now proposes to interfere with by stripping the TUSD exemptions and more on Monday night.
Both in terms of the Tustin High construction projects, which City officials well knew were underway, and in terms of the Court date now scheduled for Monday, May 2nd, these are LAST MINUTE DESPARATION MOVES by Amante and City bureaucrats to change the rules AFTER the game is underway!
Not only that, choosing to use SPRING BREAK WEEK to cut off negotiations and EASTER WEEKEND to call a LAST MINUTE emergency Council meeting clearly demonstrate an intent to engage in a sneak attack at a time they hope that Tustin’s students and parents will not notice and object to what they are doing!
Please do the following:
- EMAIL the four City Council members stating your STRONG objection to any last minute, costly changes in grading ordinances applicable to school construction projects!
- COME on Monday to the Emergency City Council meeting by 6 pm on Monday, April 25 at the City Council chambers.
- EMAIL YOUR FRIENDS AND ASK THEM TO JOIN YOU IN TAKING THE ABOVE TWO ACTIONS!
THANK YOU for your consistent support of these necessary improvements to our high quality neighborhood schools here in Tustin!
Sincerely,
Lynn Davis, President
Tustin Board of Education
714-665-9591
http://www.lynndavis.org
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| Tustin Unified School District Board |
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February 23, 2011
GREAT NEWS! The Center for American Progress recently published a study of the "Return On Investment" of various school districts across America. Because Tustin Unified receives far less than the average revenue per student while consistently producing among the best educational results, whether measured by test scores, graduation rates, or success of students in college, Tustin Unified School District was named one of the 17 HIGHEST RETURN ON INVESTMENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS in California!
Considering that there are about 1,000 school districts in our state, that is quite an accomplishment!
The Tustin Unified School
District has long been regarded as one of California's best managed school
districts. Student achievement is very high. Tustin Unified is one of the fastest growing districts in Orange County each and every year. These facts contribute greatly to
excellent property values in our community.
TUSD has a great team of people including our teachers, support staff, principals and administrators, parents, volunteers, homeowners, and community all working together in support of all of our students.
For eight years as a school
board member, I have successfully advocated for fundamentals – quality
phonics-based reading instruction, strong professional development, basic
skills instruction, rigorous standards, clear accountability, prudent budget
decisions, needed facilities improvements and quality new schools to meet the
needs of our fast growing district. We opened Beckman High, Hicks Canyon and
Orchard Hills schools, and will have three new science centers.
The result is even more
excellent schools contributing to strong neighborhoods. Students achieve steadily improving
test scores and admission to respected colleges.
We have had 17 California
Distinguished Schools in the past five years. Nearly half of our elementary schools score in the 900’s - almost twice the county average. Every
middle and high school earned a “9” or “10” statewide or against similar
schools. Our high school seniors have a 99% passage rate on the California High School Exit Exam. 90%+ of graduates pursue higher education.
I am a former corporate
chief financial officer. Auditors
and examiners give TUSD the highest ratings for prudent fiscal management.
We work hard to protect
taxpayers, maintain safe schools and support increasing excellence in our
school district.
Thank you for your support!
Lynn Davis
FIVE FACTS ABOUT TUSTIN UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT:
TUSD is:
1. FASTEST GROWING among school districts in Orange County.
2. MOST EFFICIENT in providing outstanding education at moderate costs.
3. SERVING OVER 23,000 STUDENTS in Tustin, North Tustin, Santa Ana & Irvine.
4. OPERATING some of the OLDEST facilities in O.C. which we are working to modernize.
5. SENDING 90% of its graduates on to college!
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