GET YOUR CARNIVAL TICKETS AT REDUCED PRICE

Still time to support Emerson and get reduced price tickets for the Carnival. You can still get Advance Tickets for the Carnival by submitting your order form and money to the office by Wednesday (forhand delivery at school only), buy them at the Farmer's Market Wednesday evening, or go to Carousel Stationary through Wednesday.

Starting Thursday the tickets will only be available at the Carnival. Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. With the ticket you get a wristband for unlimited rides on any one day of the Carnival. You can buy individual ride tickets at the Carnival for $3 to $5 per ride. If you have questions, contact Frances McChesney at 530-400-4672.

FREE ENTERTAINMENT AT THE EMERSON CARNIVAL!

LOCATION: Cannery Park, Covell and J Street, Davis

DATES: Saturday, April 12 and Sunday, April 13

All acts will perform on the stage at the south end of the carnival site, closest to Covell Blvd.

Saturday April 12

1:00 PM Willett Elementary Chorus
Over 50 third through sixth graders from Willett Elementary School meet to rehearse once or twice per week before school under director Claudia Krich, second grade teacher. The performance will include songs from stage shows, movies and folk tunes.

2:00 PM Pallen's Martial Arts Extreme Demo Team
An elite team of students from Pallen's Martial Arts of Davis, ranging in age from elementary students through adults, will present a dazzling display of karate moves, stunt fighting, and self defense.

2:30 PM Davis Fencing Academy
French-trained fencing master Simon Petfield along with students from the Davis Fencing Academy will give an informative demonstration of the Olympic sport of fencing. En Garde! You can also try it out yourselves at their demo booth.

3:00 PM The Vintage Jazz Players (VJP)
This group came together over a year ago in Davis to perform jazz, latin, and funk standards using their unique arrangements and an energetic but 'laid-back' attitude in their music. The group was founded by Calvin Handy (tenor), and Robert (Dr. Bob) Blake (guitar) with key players like Jeff Minnieweather (drums), Erik Larson (bass), and Shannon Ko (vocalist). The VJP performs locally for a variety of events including concerts, conventions, festivals, and
receptions and ceremonies, large and small. In 2007, VJP performed at the UC Davis Chancellor's residence on Picnic Day. Drummer Jeff Minnieweather anchors the VJP with his dynamic, diverse, and highly stylized play. Jeff has performed with many top professional musicians in a variety of musical venues. Jeff is the VJP's link to Emerson through Marilyn who is a member of the staff at Emerson. Calvin Handy is retired chief of police, UC Davis, Bob Blake is a language professor at UC Davis, Erik Larson is a UCD graduate student, and Shannon Ko is a UCD undergraduate math major. The VJP will feature Terry Tippie on keyboard for this benefit event. Terry is an accomplished player and a Davis resident. VJP's musical repertoire includes songs by great performers such as Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Mile Davis, Paul Desmond, Sergio Mendes, the Meters, Lee Morgan, Joe Henderson, and many others.

5:00 Emerson student Rowan McGuire (drums) and Holmes student Noah Wolfe (guitar) will perform original and classic rock numbers.

5:20 Doodle - former Emerson junior highers Will Raybould (bass, vocals), Erol Kavvas (drums), and Harry Greer (guitar, keys, vocals) play energetic rock music for driftwood, arctic surfers and imperial scum.

6:00 PM Butterscotch
Emerson alum Antoinette "Butterscotch" Clinton is a 21-year-old internationally recognized beatbox artist seen on NBC's number one hit show of the summer "America's Got Talent" as one of the finalists. Before her claim to fame, in September of 2005 she battled for the First International World Female Beatbox Champion title in Leipzig, Germany competing with beatboxers from all over the world. She also is the newly crowned West Coast Beatbox Champion beating 18 men to get to the top. Butterscotch is also a singer/songwriter/musician who incorporates beatboxing into her compositions along with instruments she plays such as the piano, flute, saxophone, bass, guitar and performs regularly at shows all over the country. She is heavily influenced by jazz, classical, hip hop and R&B artists ranging from Frederick Chopin to John Coltrane to Stevie Wonder. After high school she was accepted into the music program at California State University Sacramento as a Classical Piano Major but now is solely focusing on her music career outside of school. She hopes to return and create a Beatbox or Vocal Percussion Major and believes the art of beatboxing needs to be recognized as its own entity, instrument, even genre. On the side she loves photography and has her works featured at local galleries and up for sale. Sports have always impacted her life being a basketball and soccer player on competitive leagues giving her that combative edge to succeed in battles and competitions.

7:00 Speakeasy
A rock/blues band of three Emerson alums, Garrett Bevins on guitar, Erol Kavvas on drums & Richie Rehal on bass, will play original & cover rock & blues material.


Sunday April 13

12:15 Davis Klezmer Orchestra
Members of the Davis Klezmer Orchestra include Emerson parents and friends Moreen Libet on viola, Ralph Libet on fiddle, Julie Partansky on cornet, marimba and ukelele, and Elaine Fingerett on accordion. They will perform klezmer music, which is a traditional style of Eastern European party music with a Mediterranean flavor.

1:00 PM Rita Hosking and Cousin Jack
Rita Hosking (Emerson Social Studies teacher) and her band, Cousin Jack, deliver original mountain-roots music, from soulful ballads to bluegrass drive. "Her voice has that lonely, experienced voice of the mountain people, though her mountains were in Northern California." -the California Bluegrass Association. Cousin Jack will be Sean Feder on banjo and dobro, Bill Dakin on bass and guitar, and Andy Lentz on fiddle. Come enjoy local, acoustic Americana at its best!

2:00 PM Affection
Talented singers Amelia Wagner and Jen Palmer, ninth graders at Emerson, will perform cover songs and some original material.

2:20 El Trio is comprised of an Emerson parent and César Chávez Elementary School staff (Ana María Currea, Mariluz Holguin, Ximena Jackson), singing and playing guitars and tiple. They will perform traditional Latin American songs including Colombian, Chilean, Peruvian, Argentinean, and Mexican music.

3:00 PM Sax by Popular Demand a group of predominantly high school age saxophonists, with rhythm section and occasionally a trumpet on some tunes to add a little spice, will perform traditional Jazz as well as light rock and swing tunes like "Singing in the Rain", "Don't Know Why" and "Blues in the Night". Under the direction of Celia Cottle, this band will once more perform at the International Jazz Jubilee in Sacramento over Memorial Day weekend as it has the past 8 years.

4:00 The J Street Jazz Cats - An advanced jazz band of Davis junior and senior high players, under the direction of Celia Cottle, will perform big band swing tunes and famous Traditional Jazz songs such as "Stormy Weather","Night Train" and "Ain't Misbehavin' . This band will also be performing at the Jazz Jubilee in Sacramento again this year.

5:00 - Jazzamatazz - A band of Davis junior high musicians, under the direction of Celia Cottle, will perform jazz, latin, and light rock favorites including the Peter Gunn theme, the James Bond theme, El Gato Gordo, and Chattanooga Choo Choo.

6:00 You will feel like you are in India when you hear Aditya Sundaresan, Emerson student, on sitar, and his father Ven Sundaresan on tabla, who will perform Evening Raga.

6:20 Frances McChesney, Emerson PTA president and parent, will take us to the Highlands of Scotland with her performance on bagpipes.

DOWNTOWN FESTIVAL

Saturday, April 26 - Downtown Festival (E Street) - 3:00 pm

Downtown merchants will be providing services and selling merchandise and food in support of the Davis Schools Foundation. Contact Jean Thompson for more information (Jean@AnOrganizedSort.com)

DAVIS SCHOOLS FOUNDATION - PICNIC DAY PIE SALE

Saturday, April 19 - Picnic Day Pie Sale - 8:30 am - Lutheran Church

Volunteers are needed to bake and contribute pies that will be sold at the annual event. All proceeds will benefit the Davis Schools Foundation. Contact Dea Diamant (dadiamant@comcast.net) for more information.

ALL SCHOOLS RALLY - APRIL 16

Wednesday, April 16 - ALL SCHOOLS RALLY - 2:30 pm

Public school students, teachers and parent are invited to participate in this district wide event. Students will gather at 2:30 pm at the Solar Panels in Community Park. At 4:00 pm a march will commence down B Street to the Farmers Market. The purpose is to call attention to the need to raise funds to return teachers to classrooms. Rally t-shirts will be sold at the junior and senior high schools and at the Farmers Market beginning 4/5. This event is being organized by the DHS Blue & White Foundation. Contact Tracy Beckwith for more information (beckwithcasa@yahoo.com).

DAVIS SCHOOLS FOUNDATION - TOWN HALL MEETINGS

The DJUSD budget crisis affects all of us: parents, grandparents, employers, property owners and community members. The Davis Schools Foundation (DSF) urges all community members to attend one of the Town Hall Meetings scheduled in the following locations around Davis.

Representatives from the Davis Schools Foundation will provide information and answer questions about the budget crisis and the Foundation. Come and find out about the Foundation's Dollar-a-Day Campaign and "Buy-Back" plan and how, together, our community can maintain excellent programs for all Davis children!

• April 7 - DHS Performing Arts Building 7:30 p.m.
• April 14 - Harper Junior High, MPR 8:30 a.m.
• April 15 - Cesar Chavez Elementary, MPR 8:30 a.m.
• April 15 - Patwin Elementary, MPR 7:30 p.m.

Davis Schools Foundation will gladly accept donations at these meetings, in the DSF box in the Emerson Office, on the website at www.davisschoolsfoundation.org/, or you can mail donations to Davis Schools Foundation at P.O. Box 1154, Davis, CA 95617. Donations are 100% tax deductable, and they can be made as one payment or divided into monthly payments. Funds raised by the DSF must be presented to DJUSD by May 15.

APRIL 5 ARTICLE AT SACBEE.COM

"Davis school board votes against closing campuses"

SUBMITTED BY CATHY SACKS

I know it has been frustrating to want to give to DSF, but also feeling that keeping Emerson open is most important because its closure would affect every secondary student in Davis in very negative ways. However, the decision last night to keep the current secondary configuration for this coming school year gives us relief from our frustration so that now we can give our dollars generously to the Davis Schools Foundation and work hard to raise the $4 million to put all the positions and programs back in the schools.

I know you are as relieved and happy as I am. The Board and District staff will continue to discuss whether to change the configuration for the following year, but I am optimistic that the passing of the Parcel tax, DSF fundraising efforts, and a positive budget revise will ensure that all the junior highs will continue with the 7-9 configuration and we can look at some boundary adjustment.

I have been inspired by the caring and proactive community that I live in and am thankful to have met many of you during this challenging and emotional process. Keep up the good work to make our community the best it can be.

SUBMITTED BY CATHY SACKS

I asked Tracy Beckwith of the Davis Schools Foundation if there was any way the DSF could help us put our money toward ensuring that we have three junior highs. Here’s her response.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please feel free to share the following with families that may have questions about the Davis Schools Foundation and/or where to make their donation during this time of crisis for our community and schools.

Briefly, though, to give perspective to the Davis Schools Foundation and to lay out the basics, there are some 400 + education foundations in California communities where they have for decades, in some case, made the difference between the basic, minimum funding provided by the state and superior, high performing, enriched public education systems. We have been in place for three years. The Davis Schools Foundation is an all volunteer board composed of parents and community members. No one is paid or compensated,and, yes, we can fund teaching positions. We are a 501(c)3 and all donations are tax deductible.

The mission of the Davis Schools Foundation is to provide an excellent education for ALL Davis public school children through programs and the funding of teachers in grades K-12. With this unprecedented budget deficit, the Foundation is faced with a Herculean job, but we are focused and will relentlessly drive towards the goals prescribed in the "buy-back guidelines" found on the website (www.davisschoolsfoundation.org). The fund raising deadline is May 15th when the school district must report to the Yolo County office of Education the funds it has to operate/balance its 2008/2009 school year budget.

Prospective donors should know that the Davis Schools Foundation can and will send funds raised to the district with the attachments prescribed in the "buy-back guidelines." In other words, your dollars will go towards exactly the priorities set forth. The Foundation, does not, though have a say over how facilities are used. This is a function of the elected trustees of the BOE and state law. Likewise, we cannot guarantee a specific teacher will return to a particular classroom for the same reasons.

The monies raised, though, by the Davis Schools Foundation will provide flexibility to the BOE....flexibility that can ease pressure to consolidate classrooms, programs and school facilities.

This is an important message for all Davis parents, but Emerson/DaVinci/Montessori families in particular.

While there are no guarantees, the bigger picture and longer view is that even if classrooms and/or schools are closed, next year your/our/my children will be sitting in a DJUSD desk in a DJUSD classroom with a DJUSD teacher next year. Would hesitant donors/parents really feel better about sitting on their Dollar-A-Day ($365 per child) knowing that those classrooms could have been smaller, or that their child could have had a librarian or science pull out, or that more 7-12th grade class offerings could have been restored if they had given? In other words, our children will need to be educated no matter what.....the question is under what circumstances do we want that to happen?

Holding back on a contribution to the Davis Schools Foundation does not penalize the school district and/or administration. It penalizes our students - our children. Moreover, if folks don't approve of how the school board has managed its money in the past, please know that giving to the Foundation is giving to money that is pre-prescribed in its spending. Those guidelines were developed in consultation with parent groups (PTA presidents and site council leaders) and are an organic, parent driven message of funding priorities. The district cannot take the money the Davis Schools Foundation grants and use it as they wish. Thus, if one really wishes to hold the BOE accountable, donate to DSF and know that 41 teachers will return to class rooms and that our children's educational offering will be better/richer/safer.

Kirk Trost will likely be coming on the Board of the Davis Schools Foundation with the express job of verifying spending accountability at the district.

Thanks Cathy. These are difficult (and sad) times for our schools and community. I/we welcome any and all questions. I/we welcome any and all contributions which can be sent to the address below.

Tracy Beckwith
EVP/Davis Schools Foundation
P.O. Box 1154
Davis, CA 95617

530/400-8250

SUBMITTED BY JANN MURRAY-GARCIA

Closing Emerson May Put All Davis Tweens and Teens at Risk

By Jann Murray-Garcia and Jonathan London

This has been an incredibly difficult column for us to write. We feel there are a few things perhaps we can contribute to our collective dialogue in this critically important time in our children’s lives.

First, we want to be transparent: our children attend César Chávez Elementary. We both envisioned all four continuing on in Spanish Immersion at Emerson.

We both also strongly desire that our children attend a school where the labeling of students as “Gifted” or “GATE” is structurally de-emphasized. Emerson is the only junior high where there are accelerated classes, but no GATE-only classes wherein children are tracked and physically segregated from one another by this adult-initiated label. We know of no other school district that labels so many of its children as uneducable within a conventional classroom. Do you? Please name the communities for us.

Emerson has created a learning environment that doesn’t just “say” we expect all our children to be high-achieving. It is what the children live each day in the structure of the institution: Potential is fluid, the timing of cognitive development is variable, and we are not making a major academic and status-laden dividing line based on a 45 minute test when our children were 8 years old. Perhaps this type of less stratified learning environment is why Emerson enjoys a higher API than the other two schools.

This is not meant to be an attack on GATE or the other two schools, but a highlighting of what is at stake in closing Emerson with just a few weeks’ debate.

Emerson’s amazing garden program, junior high Spanish Immersion…programs like these might be transferable to other sites, but this will be the second very successful learning community that we have dismantled in less than 2 years.

This time of crisis requires that Davis re-envision what our core collective values are. We hope the Board would make their indescribably difficult decisions based on sound educational theory.

Please take all the time you can before you make the essentially irreversible decision to close Emerson Junior High. Our plea is not just about “my school” or “what I want,” or our individually-defined “utopias.” It will impact every present and future junior high or middle school age child in Davis.

Sound educational theory predicts that larger junior and senior high schools have their calculable and hidden costs. A summary of decades of research data predicts costly consequences, both financially and emotionally for our children. The educational policy institute WestEd links increases in secondary school size to:

• increases in school violence, substance abuse, and classroom disorder;

• decreases in student attendance (potentially impacting funding);

• increases in student dropout rates;

• decreases in achievement;

• decreases in extra-curricular involvement, including school clubs

• decrease in students’ sense of connectedness to their schools

In addition, WestEd emphasizes that poor students and “minority” students are most negatively impacted by increases in school size. This latter fact links the decisions in the next few weeks to years-long efforts to eliminate the achievement gap in Davis. Please specify how each budget decision will impact efforts to close the achievement and discipline gaps in Davis.

And yet, how can we get there from here? Our hardworking district staff are thinking way outside the box in offering our equally hardworking Board with solutions to this fiscal crisis. How about us as parents? How about us as California citizens?

Are we just rats in a cage, into which the Governor and State legislators have thrown a ridiculously small piece of cheese? Are we dumb enough to react only by fighting each other and our Board members for that cheese? Or can we redefine what our elected officials are supposed to be pursuing for us in this “government for the people?”

Resist, California! Help lead the way, Davis! We can’t wait for this “Education Governor” ! We can’t wait for Republicans and Democrats to voluntarily de-fund a lucrative prison industry that directly benefits in the form of future inmates from the de-funding of public education. We have to demand what we elected them to do.

• In early February, the Napa Valley Register reported that the Napa Unified School Board adopted a resolution to “reject across-the-board cuts that would damage our public schools, and protect voter-approved, minimum school funding law, Proposition 98.”

• On March 10^th, over 100 administrators rallied at the State Capitol. Reminding legislators of tax decreases (i.e. drivers’ fees) that have exacerbated the fiscal crisis.

• In Alameda this week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that 100 garbage cans were lined up and either a child, a teacher, or a custodian were placed in each. The message reflects what we are throwing away, or “trashing” in looking at a “cuts-only” budget balancing strategy.

California’s wealth, wealth-creating creativity and innovation, and our hopeful return to that are partly built on our K-14 school system, including junior colleges, and our public universities. Especially we 30-, 40-, and 50-Somethings are dependent on these opportunities being available to not just our children, but to this entire generation of California young people.

And please don’t forget to remind your children that the consistently number #1 industry in California is the agricultural industry. It is built and dependent on the backs of farmworkers, whose legacy we celebrate by recognizing César Chávez’ birthday on March 31^st.

NOTE FROM PTA CO-PRESIDENTS

We have been requested to explain how the Emerson PTA plans to use funds raised by the Carnival or other fundraising efforts. The PTA adopted a budget last fall that covers the PTA expenses (insurance, mailing costs, newsletter, etc), hospitality activities, 9th grade "graduation", and grants to teachers and the school to support student activities. These grants have included supporting the garden program, computers and video cameras, books for the library, PE equipment, and other teaching aids. The PTA has many outstanding requests from teachers for grants that could not be funded because there was not enough money in the budget to fund those requests.

As you may know, the Carnival was planned before it was commonly known that there was a budget crisis or that Emerson could close. Given that new information, the PTA will be considering revising the budget and will do so after engaging the entire Emerson community in that decision (as we are required to do according to PTA requirements and the bylaws). After the Carnival, the PTA could have about $20,000 in its bank accounts, maybe more. Just so you know, the PTA cannot directly support keeping Emerson open or pay teachers' salaries, but it can contribute to the Davis Schools Foundation. DSF does allow donations specific to secondary schools, but not specific to a school.

We invite the Emerson community to support the Carnival because it will be really fun and will support Emerson students and teachers wherever they may be next year. There will be lots of Emerson students/parents/teachers participating in events on Saturday and Sunday on stage at the Carnival and they can really use our support, including Antoinette "Butterscotch" Clinton - an Emerson graduate and internationally recognized beatbox artist; Jazz groups (Calvin Handy and the Vintage Jazz Players, Sax by Popular Demand, The J Street Jazz Cats, Jazzmatazz), bluegrass (Rita Hosking and her band - Cousin Jack), traditional Latin American music (El Trio), Emerson students (singers Amelia and Jen, Aditya on sitar, ), Willet Chorus, a Klezmer group, and bagpipes. There will also be lots of PTA-sponsored booths selling food and providing games. There will even be a birthday party booth for those who would like to celebrate their birthday at the Carnival.

4/1 SAC BEE ARTICLE about 3/31 BOARD MEETING

Link to story is HERE.

SUBMITTED BY ANDREA WEISS re 3/31 Board Meeting

Hello School Board Memebers,

I just finished reading all the documents related to tonight's board meeting. These are very complex issues and you have difficult decisions to make that will have long lasting implications on all the students in the district not to mention teachers and staff. Just as important, your decisions will heavily impact the economic heath and vitality of our community through implications for property values, recruiting faculty and staff to UC Davis, and quality of life issues that effect every citizen not just those of us with school aged kids.

Given the tremendous impact your decisions will have, I STRONGLY encourage you to give yourselves the time necessary to more fully study the implications of all the creative solutions being put forth. Choose to borrow from the reserve to keep Emerson open and the high school at 10-12 for one more year to give yourself the time to make a TRULY informed decision and allow the community to show their support of education by passing a parcel tax. The stakes are too high to make a rushed decision.

While the timelines outlined are nice in theory and I’m sure teachers and staff would do their best to meet them, the impact on all jr. high and high school students in the district should deadlines not be met or things don’t go as smoothly as hoped are just not worth rushing a decision. How often in life do things go exactly as outlined in theory, especially when we haven’t had time to think things through in depth or fully anticipate the unexpected?

Obviously, there are serious questions about the district's future that need to be answered by the Board: 2 high schools?, where does Di Vinci go?, How do we deal with a jr. high that needs modernization, how do we address declining enrollment?, how do we keep all the great programs?, What should become of the Valley Oak site? These questions all need to be answered but in a strategic, holistic approach with careful study and data behind the decisions. Not in a rushed, slash and burn approach to get the most money in the shortest amount of time.

Thank you again for listening,

Andrea Weiss

SUBMITTED BY GUSTAVO SOBERANO

Summary of the meeting with Gina Daleiden:

We met with school board member Gina Daleiden on 03/30 and these are some of the points that were discussed:

- Proposal H (from Emerson Teachers and Principal?) does not seem to be a viable option now (may be in the future), due to the fact that many Da Vinci students need to take additional classes at the DHS. Distance between Harper and DHS is a problem. Also Harper does not meet the standards now to be a second high school (it can be remodeled up to high school standards, but will cost a lot of money right now and presumably take too much time).

- Proposal G is being modified (not on the online documents yet) to either have the DVHS students at Emerson or at Valley Oak (without closing Emerson).

- The savings presented on proposal G are being revised since it does not include saving on custodians, consolidation of principals, etc. The school board will present a new revised economic analysis at the meeting on 03/31.

- If DVHS moves to Valley Oak, consolidation of principals (Patwin and Emerson) is a possibility.

- Vice-principal work at the junior highs (if only 7^th and 8^th) can be performed by counselors and/or teachers allowing more savings.

- DSIS can be moved to either DVHS site or Emerson (saving 0.5 principal cost).

- If Emerson stays open, we may need to choose between staying open and not being able to offer advanced classes (algebra, language, choir, band, etc.) due to low enrollment. Shifting of the school boundaries was brought up as an option in order to bring more students to Emerson. Another option is to bring more languages (Mandarin, German, Spanish, etc.) or special programs to Emerson (band, choir, drama, etc.), to bring more students from the other sites in town.

- A thorough demographic analysis, including density of children of different ages around town, will be reported shortly and will be part of the considerations.

- If 9th grade goes to the high schools, a WEB-style program (LINK at the high school) will be in place to help integrate them into the high school. They would also want to make sure that every student has a locker.

- If 9th grade goes to the high school, they may close the campus to 9th, and maybe 10th, graders (it's only open at lunchtime now, except for students who have an educational reason for coming or going , such as DSIS student coming for a couple of classes, or students who don't take 7 periods and therefore have a late start -- apparently, security knows all the kids who have business coming and going outside of lunch period, and other high schools have found this approach successful).

- Can't drop junior high 7th period now as another approach to saving money because of Measure Q. Changing that would require another vote in another election.

- Future construction of the University's West Village does not mean there will be a big increase in Emerson-district junior high students. The expectation is that that development will add only about 200 kids of all ages to the district.

-Selling DJUSD buildings would only support the facilities fund. However, leasing them would support the general fund that can be used for teacher salaries. There probably isn't enough time to work all that out before next fall, however.

- Safety issues and remodeling of Emerson will be discussed tomorrow (03/31) at the meeting.

- It appears that the meeting on 03/31 is just to hear community concerns, but it is unlikely that a decision would be made. The meeting on 04/03 most likely include some decision-making (9^th through 12^th consolidation, DVHS move).

Gustavo Soberano and Moreen Libet

SUBMITTED BY SANDY BATCHELOR ON MARCH 21 (AFTER PREVIOUS BOARD MTG)

Dear Board Members and Superintendent Hammond:

Thanks for the effective meeting last night. I appreciate that you did not close Emerson and seem to have genuinely listened to community concerns and ideas. Specifically:

Mr. Harris: Thank you for "looking outside the box" and pointing out that this IS a "rainy day." Perhaps we can put some money back into the "rainy day" fund with the parcel tax. The tax looks very minimal and do-able.

Mr. Taylor: I appreciate the frank manner and "right-brained" way in which you approach things, it's always good to have at least one person like that in the mix. I did not however, appreciate the fact that you re-iterated the backwards sentiment of the Enterprise editorial. The Emerson issue is not a "me first" issue. It affects all secondary education in Davis (half the kids!). One could argue that magnet programs, which serve a significantly smaller population are "me first."

Ms. Lovenburg: Thank you for asking for actual costs and savings of the options. Additionally, thank you for pointing out that without these numbers, not only can we not determine the best choice, we cannot weigh that cost with the potential negative ramifications of closing a school. I thank you for meeting with the parents of Emerson/Patwin and for obviously considering our thoughts. I also feel it is wise to look at where the next potential cuts could be so we can weigh those decisions with the current ones.

Ms. Allen: Thank you for suggesting that we need a facilities master plan--I cannot fathom why we do not have one already. This decision would have been a lot easier with that information. I believe there are other areas in which the Board does not have sufficient basic information with which they could make more informed decisions and promote good-will with the community at large.

Ms. Daleiden: Thank you for coming up with an option to save Emerson. You were the most responsive to my communications last week. I know you are all running around 24/7, but communication with the public is critical. Tempers only flare when we feel "railroaded." Thank you for bringing up the parcel tax, I feel this is very important and am greatly disappointed that the district missed the June deadline... was this a horrible oversight or are there other reasons? I like your approach of looking at the "whole system" as I feel we got into this mess by putting out individual fires as they came along in a very short-sighted manner. ( I think cutting off Emerson may become one of these "short-sighted" fixes).

The district needs to do it's "homework"...

1. A facilities master plan

2. A line-item budget, easily available, for the public, and a cost-benefit analysis of those numbers. I want to know how many children are in each class, in each school, to see if we are using every facility and staff resource. I want to know how much every program costs the district. I want an honest answer, backed up with data when I ask about a program instead of a cold shoulder that only raises suspicion. Then, I want the board, along with community input, to determine the priorities of the District and Board. The result; when inevitable budget cuts come, you know where it will hurt the least. More importantly, it will alleviate the "me first" tension that comes with lack of education and open, honest communication.

For example:
I did not understand why the district had to fund the DaVinci program once it lost it's funding and we found ourselves in a budget crisis, potentially cutting a neighborhood school. I approve of the program, and other magnet programs. I always support taxes/bonds which support our wide-range of programs in the district, no argument there, but it seemed fiscally irresponsible, in a crisis, to sacrifice basic education for "special programs". After attending the meeting (yes--I should have done more work before now), I realize that with a 9-12 consolidation, which I feel is reasonable and potentially preferable, we would be over capacity at the HS, so moving the DV kids out becomes a way to actually solve a numbers problem. Nobody ever explained this to me. In fact, I was treated as "divisive and unenlightened" whenever I asked questions. I have no hidden agenda to gut these programs, I just want all the facts and an equitable examination in times of budget cuts. Perhaps people are "unenlightened" because there is no way to really get this information, because of the defensive posturing around it, and because of the lack of basic studies as stated above, all leading to mistrust and suspicion.

3. Perhaps communication with the public needs to be improved. I did not realize we were in a budget shortfall previous to this January. Again, I take some responsibility, but I read the local paper, I publish the Patwin newsletter, you know where I live and my addresses, and this was not on my radar. On a side note, why was this deficit not addressed?

Lastly, please consider all the wonderful sentiments, ideas, and thoughts of my fellow "Patwinites/Emersonites"...(we float them around, you know)...people are hard working and have good thoughts and ideas, most of which I strongly agree with but should not address in one already-lengthy letter.

You will all be pleased to hear I will be away for spring break...see you at Emerson.

Thank you so much for all the hard work. Whatever the outcome, we need to know that this was treated with the discussion, research and integrity it warrants.