The Burlingame Voice

BSD: Where's Johnny today?

Things are a mess in our education system nationwide.  Today's WSJ has a Stanfoo economist estimating that missed learning in K-12 from lockdowns will cost the typical kid $70K in lifetime earnings.  Yikes.  Closer to home the story is not much better.  The Daily Journal has a piece that compares absenteeism rates around the County and while Burlingame is "better than average", things are still not good.

A higher number of San Mateo County students were chronically absent from school in the 2021-22 school year compared to years prior, according to newly released state data, revealing the sustained effects of the pandemic on public education.  At the state level, about 30% of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10% of the school year. Students from most ethnic and challenging socioeconomic backgrounds experienced even higher rates of absenteeism.

The new interim B'game superintendent, on the job for two weeks as noted here, has some comments

Burlingame and San Carlos school districts fell into the medium category, San Carlos with an absentee rate of 5.7% and Burlingame with a rate of 9.2%.  Recognizing the challenges of providing a robust education to students who are under more pressure to stay home when sick, Marla Silversmith, Burlingame School District interim superintendent, said her staff worked hard to connect students with their classwork while remote, whether through paper packages or online platforms.

Students who did complete the work were given attendance credit, helping to reduce the district’s absentee rate. Just more than 9% of students were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year, about 4% greater than the 2018-2019 figures.

I put "better than average" in quotes because having about 10% of all kids miss 10+% of school seems like a dire situation to me.  In a 180-school-day year, that's missing three and a half weeks or more!  San Mateo-Foster City, San Bruno Park, South San Francisco Unified and Redwood City were all above 20% -- or missing at least seven weeks of school!  Maybe instead of 87,000 new IRS agents, we should hire 87,000 new truant officers?

Interim Superintendent at BSD

In a mid-school year change, the DJ is reporting

Burlingame School District Superintendent Chris Mount-Benites is taking a leave of absence for an undetermined amount of time, leading to Assistant Superintendent Marla Silversmith to take on the role in the interim, officials announced in an email Friday.

“Ms. Silversmith has been with the Burlingame School District for five years and has acted as interim superintendent previously. We know that our community is in great hands under her guidance and leadership. We are grateful to Ms. Silversmith for stepping into this role,” the email statement read.

I wish Marla luck.  There is no lack of issues at hand at BSD from budgets to "workforce housing" to whatever the winter may bring Covid-wise to planning for major inflows of students from the roughly 1,500 new units of housing coming on-line in B'game.

School warning: Get protected

I have a bit of background in the computer security arena--just enough to know it's complicated and hard to defend oneself.  I also have some background advising various levels of government agencies on their technology decisions.  For the most part, they are trailing edge shops with limited budgets and older technology.  So when I read this Calmatters.org piece on schools being unprepared, I was not surprised in the least.

If Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest school district, can be hit with a ransomware attack, how prepared are California’s public schools for the increasing threat of cyberattacks?  It depends, according to experts working in the field of cybersecurity and information technology in the state’s public schools. Some districts might have a handful of cybersecurity professionals on staff, while others don’t have any. On top of that, there are currently no statewide guidelines for digital security at school districts.

Public schools possess confidential data ranging from Social Security numbers to health records and financial information. While the Los Angeles Unified attack has drawn national attention, Loftus says this prominent case is just the latest example of public education’s vulnerability to cyberattacks.   “Education is a mash-up of multiple different sectors,” he said. “We are transportation providers. We provide food and nutrition services. We have school nurses and so much more.”  And as school districts and the state took steps to close the digital divide during the pandemic, more students online means more blindspots vulnerable to cyberattacks.

The shame of the whole scenario is that BSD, SMUSHD and even the city of B'game and the county spend a lot of energy on things that are far less important.  Some of that is forced upon them like going to district-based elections.  But a lot of it is self-inflicted.  If we put as much effort into hardening our tech as we do forcing the march to an all-electric future we would be a lot safer.  I really hope our misplaced priorities don't end up costing the taxpayers a ton of ransom money.

SMUSHD: Suspensions Avoided, Litigation Continues

We have another page in the long-running saga of what happened between a Mills teacher and her student over a test and alleged threats to the teacher.  The focus shifted mainly to what the school and district administration did or didn't do about it.  You can read, and read, and read some of the background here starting last August.  The DJ is reporting on the maneuvers that go all the way to the Attorney General's office

Former Superintendent Dr. Kevin Skelly; Dr. Kirk Black, deputy superintendent of Human Resources and Student Services; and Pamela Duszynski, Mills High School principal, faced suspensions of their education credentials due to mismanagement claims brought by a Mills High School teacher.  Following an investigation, the Committee on Credentials, the investigative arm of the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing, recommended suspensions of 120 days for Duszynski, 30 days for Skelly and 14 days for Black.

But an appeals process that went all the way up to the Attorney General’s Office reversed that decision. In short, district spokesperson Laura Chalkley said in an email, Attorney General Rob Bonta referred the matter back to the CTC that then opted against prosecuting the administrators.

That's all a bit interesting.  The state's investigative arm finds cause for suspensions, but the AG picks up the flag and punts it back to the CTC.  Perhaps we will get some more details about that call.  If I were the investigator, I'd be feeling miffed right about now.  But the story isn't over

While the case before the CTC may be complete, (Mills High School teacher Patricia) Peterson said she is still pursuing her legal battle against the district, noting the core of the matter is the well-being of students.  “I’m disappointed and still seeking justice through litigation,” Peterson said. “I’m bummed that the AG’s decision condoned such practices perpetuated by the administrators. … It’s disappointing but we’ve got another case.”

With a lot of litigation moving at a snail's pace in the County, who knows how long this might go on?

"Mill housing" for B'game teachers?

Bad ideas tend to spread here in the Bay Area especially when the time horizon for revealing the flaws is years away.  "Mill housing" was a common approach to subsidizing employees' rents especially back in Massachusetts (my home state) in the 1800's.  Now we have the idea that the B'game School District can and should build subsidized housing for teachers.  A sample of 31% of BSD employees found plenty of interest in subsidized housing.  And why not?  You can find lots of support for subsidized anything when you are using OPM.  That doesn't make it a good idea.  The Daily Journal piece doesn't get to any of the flaws--just the cheerleading:

Workforce housing could be one of Burlingame School District’s next big projects but only if community members show support for financially backing the initiative, school board trustees agreed during a meeting last week.

Three sites were identified as being potentially feasible for housing, the 0.3-acre district office site at 1825 Trousdale Drive, a 2.8-acre lot of land between Burlingame Intermediate School and Franklin Elementary and a 4.5-acre undeveloped hillside above Hoover Elementary.  But after further review, only the first two would be developable, Jennings said, noting that the hillside plot is greatly sloped and has access constraints.  (Ed:  that's an understatement). Despite the substantial lot size differences between the Trousdale and BIS sites, Jennings said both could only welcome a 22-unit project.

At the Trousdale site, Jennings said units would be incorporated into a six-story apartment building with underground parking. Initial estimates show the development could cost the district more than $17.8 million.  Alternatively, about $15 million would be needed to develop 12 townhomes and a two-floor flat stacked apartment building with 10 units at the BIS housing site. That configuration would maximize the land use while adhering to single-family zoning policies in the residential neighborhood.

Funny how endangered the concept of "single-family zoning" has become in such a short time.  You can click through to the whole article if you want to read about the various funding options--none of which are realistic.  Instead, let's ask a few basic questions.  Why isn't the giant subsidized housing project wrapped in black netting on Park Rd. enough to handle the less-tenured teachers?  I thought that was the motivation.  Or we could take the view of this resident (whom I don't know) in a letter to the DJ:

Instead, let’s focus on ensuring district employees are paid enough to live here (if they choose) at market rate. They deserve the autonomy to make their own living choices. Let’s pay them a much better rate and stay out of the housing business.

Esther Kim,  Burlingame

Good idea especially with the Inflation Production Act about to kick in and construction and/or financing costs skyrocketing.  The Fed will make those million-dollar estimates look small soon.  Does the District really want to get into the prevailing wage debate?  Are they remotely capable of managing this without more high-priced consultants on board?  Heck, the election campaign to raise the funding probably costs more than it takes to assist a lot of teachers for a couple of years.  The last time I looked at the data (in 2020) it wasn't clear that staff turnover was much worse than it's been for the prior decade.

Lastly, what new wrinkles would school-subsidized housing add to school administration?  Who are the lucky 22?  If you remove an underperforming teacher, are you also making them homeless?  Who's got the huevos to do that?  Who is doing income verification?  Does a significant other's income count?  What about summer income?  Do we think all teachers sit by the pool all summer?  Is it ever smart to do what EssEff does?  I doubt it.  How about working on student achievement and figuring out where we will put all the new students in town while staying out of the housing business. 

School Budget: State Money Bailout?

As Alice Cooper sang "school's out for summer," but funding questions remain to be worked on over the summer.  The Daily Journal summarized the issue

Burlingame School District’s budget is in the red but officials are hopeful the small funding gaps will be diminished by additional state contributions to the public education system.  “I’m happy that the numbers are getting so close to balanced. Hopefully, I would presume, if some of the good news from Sacramento comes our way we can look at 2023 as a positive, as a black number instead of a red number which would be fantastic,” said Trustee Dan Devoy during the board’s meeting Thursday.

Here are the highlights of the budget as it sits for FY22/23

More than half of the district’s $47 million budget will go toward employee salaries next year with just more than $5 million covering services and operations and about $3 million covering supplies.

Meanwhile, the district is slated to bring in $35 million from the state’s Locally Controlled Funding Formula, $2 million in federal COVID-19 relief that’s slated to diminish over the next two fiscal years, $4.3 million in other state funding and more than $5 million from local revenue in the next fiscal year.

So it all tallies to a $631K deficit for the fiscal year and a shade more in FY23/24.  That leads to the hope that Sacramento will ride to the rescue

Given that state officials are still hammering out deals on how to spend the ($97B) surplus, Amanda Bonivert, the district’s chief business official, said district staff did not account for the proposed increases in the draft budget aside from the LCFF boosts out of concern the distinct would end up overbudgeting for money not received. Without the additional state funds, Bonivert noted the district would still receive a positive budget certification, meaning they will meet their budgeting obligations.

Fingers crossed that the cavalry arrives.

Rudy Benton, RIP

During the locked down, distracted days of the pandemic, the passing of Rudy Benton slipped by--not unnoticed, but not celebrated either.  That time has come and his daughter, Kathryn, notes this on Facebook

For those of you who knew Rudy Benton aka Mr. Benton, aka Mr. B, my dad, we are having a Celebration of Life for him on June 5th in San Pedro Valley Park, Pacifica.  He taught physical education McKinley, Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, Hoover, Franklin and many more schools as well. And of course he had his local Burlingame TV show "Moving with Rudy Benton".

The full SF Chronicle obituary is here and notes

"Mr B" has moved on to the big multi-purpose room in heaven from which he will continue to inspire all, no matter their abilities, to keep moving, to never smoke or do drugs, and always put everything back neater than you found it!  (Ed: and the admonition to "go to college")

For 46 years Rudy taught his own unique version of Physical Education. First, for ten years in Brisbane, CA, and then for 36 years in Burlingame where the emphasis would be on non-competitive sports and no activity where a student would have to wait their turn.  Rudy would spend many an evening planning activities for his classes. He was particularly famous for designing obstacle courses themed around movies, geography, holidays, Olympics etc.

RIP Rudy -  March 22,1937 - July 30,2021

Planning for a Rollicking Rollins Rd.

I’m very excited by the impending housing growth in North Burlingame that will end up bringing “thousands of new homes” to the Rollins Rd. industrial section of town.  The amount of planning that went into this decision by state and county officials, the City Council, the Planning Commission and city staff is impressive.  Here are the details:

Water:   I know the decision makers have a grasp on our dire water situation because they said so back in May  calling it “alarming”.  They also know the SFPUC cannot be trusted to keep the Peninsula’s water interests front-of-mind regardless of whatever “contract” we have with them, so the negotiations with the state to gain access to Bayfront land for our new desalinization plant (instead of a park) are to be complemented.  Desalinized drinking water is about ten times as expensive as water agencies buy now due to the energy costs.  Then there is the cost of getting rid of the brine, but the free land access will help the economics.  The new water tank on Rollins will ensure reliable water for the new neighborhood.

Outflow:  In the spirit of “what goes in, must come out”, the city study on sewage treatment capacity at the Bayfront plant will probably find a need for additional capacity, but we can be sure that raising the sewer rates to pay for it will be easy as we just saw this year.  Burlingame is a welcoming community, so higher rates will be fine with the public.

Power:  The decision makers’ extensive negotiations with PG&E to get it to strengthen the Burlingame grid are to be complemented.  Not only will the grid improvements supply the new desalinization plant’s load, but it will also ensure grid stability for the rest of the city.  Generous state and federal funding for new solar panels on the new construction and some existing Rollins Rd. buildings will help; as will a brand new grid-based battery facility.  Whoever got that big grant should get a promotion.  The natural gas pipes should be fine since there won’t be any natural gas allowed.

Schools:  Given the thousands of new homes coming, it was prescient of the city council to snap up a large parcel on Rollins Rd. and sign a long-term, low-cost lease with the Burlingame School District.  This will enable BSD to build a new school serving North Burlingame Eastside students.  The parcel may be large enough to also build a BIS Annex to cut down on car traffic to BIS.  I expect that the next school bond measure to pay for it all will pass easily as Burlingame is a welcoming community.

Traffic:  As we consider the extensive traffic study conducted as part of the General Plan update, it is gratifying to see that the Broadway grade separation project is now fully funded and we are ready to start The Big B'game Dig in 2022.  As today's SF Comicle notes:

The intersection of Caltrain and Broadway in Burlingame has the ignominious distinction of being the street-level train crossing most in need of fixing in the state, based on a calculation that factors in number of accidents, disruptions to local traffic and other overall safety concerns.  The busy crossing serves demand from trains, vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, a hectic mix that has resulted in 11 car-train collisions in the past five years, a number of near misses and some fatal accidents. It has also caused considerable traffic backups: The crossing gate is currently down about an hour per day, and the city estimates that will rise to nearly three hours per day by 2040.

The project should go fast as most of them do; and be completed in time to help ease the load on Millbrae Ave. and Rollins Rd. for the new North Burlingame residents.  Luckily, the city’s negotiations with Caltrain were also successful in getting the Broadway station to reopen.  That will make a big difference for local traffic through the B'way intersection over the next 10 years.

Of course, Rollins Rd. isn't the only part of town with strong growth so all of these impending improvements will benefit the whole town.  That's why Burlingame is a welcoming community.

I admit I was initially skeptical about a huge new residential section at the north end of town.  It seemed like many of the growing pains would be intractable problems, but with a lot of diligent work everything appears to be on track.  Many people are to be complemented.

BSD: 50 Years of Music Instruction

Doing anything successfully for 50 years merits notice, and the SF Chronicle has provided a nice write-up on Carol Prater's long career teaching music to B'game students.  You can read the whole piece here but a couple of my favorite bits are:

On a mid-November day in 2021, Prater smiled at her band and cued the first notes of “Jingle Bells,” complete with the squawks and squeaks that have peppered her entire professional life.  These fourth- and fifth-graders are likely among the last of an estimated 25,000 students Prater will have taught music to during her 50-year career in the Peninsula city’s public schools. She’s leaning toward retiring — but isn’t firm about it.  (I added the bold :-)

“I just don’t know about 51 ...,” Prater said with a laugh after a group of Roosevelt Elementary kindergartners had filed out of her music room after singing and dancing with her. Her husband, Doy Prater, who was also a music teacher in the district, retired years ago.

And a good testimonial is worth its weight in gold...

Phil Grenadier was one of her first students to hear them when he was in the fourth grade in 1972. He is now a professional jazz trumpet player in New York, touring and recording, and remembers how “Mrs. Prater” saw something in him.  “She struck me as a young lady back then,” he said, realizing 50 years has passed for both of them.  She taught him to read music, helping him understand the difference between 16th, eighth and quarter notes with her mantra: “Mississippi, candy, Coke.”

Gotta love that little timing trick.  If you click through be sure to note that BCE apparently has a new name, and we also have a new school (Jefferson) that I am not familiar with.  Congrats on 50, Carol, don't rush into any decision on next school year!

BSD: Sandra Day O'Connor Intermediate School?

According to the DJ piece today, the B'game School District Trustees are planning to kick the can down the road on changing the name of BIS to RBG Intermediate.  The article notes

Burlingame School District officials looked to San Francisco’s attempt to rename some school campuses as a cautionary tale when considering the renaming of one of its own on Tuesday, pushing the idea off until next fall while they update the district’s facility naming policy.

“I don’t think anyone is taking it off the table for future consideration of changing names of the elementary schools,” Trustee Florence Wong said. “The hope would be that come the fall, there might be more energy for that.”

The push, minor as it is, given how few actual B'game residents have signed the petition is supposedly driven by a need for gender inclusiveness since all the elementary schools are named after guys--very important guys, but guys nonetheless.  The renaming advocates claim

During Tuesday’s meeting, (Sari) McConnell argued that Ginsburg’s career fighting for gender equity before being named to the Supreme Court was reason enough to honor her, making her a perfect candidate for replacing the name of the middle school.

So let's use the Shoe-on-the-Other-Foot test here and see if they pass.  If we want to honor a female trailblazer with strong credentials and a towering record of Supreme Court achievement, let's rename BIS for Sandra Day O'Connor - the actual trailblazer who joined the court in 1981- more than a decade before RBG.  What say you, petitioners, are your stated objectives real or is there another agenda?