SUBMITTED BY TIM FAHLEN

Ideas for Creating Additional Revenue for DJUSD:

• Contribute money to the Davis Schools Foundation, which sponsors a Dollar-A-Day direct donation campaign. It also supports educational excellence in Davis public schools and promotes equitable opportunities between schools.
• Other individual, family, and corporate donations.
• Improve the district’s attendance –
1. Our ADA will remain the same or improve by keeping schools small, which reduces bullying and keeps kids at school, larger schools will result in greater bullying.
2. Educate parents of K-12 grade children that when their child is absent for five or more consecutive days that they should use an independent study contract.
3. As stated at the March 6, 2008 Board Meeting, the district is flat lining in enrollment over the next 10 years with a little declining enrollment, and the current projections show a significant drop in the year 2015.
• Measure Q, which has been supported since 1983, raises more than $4 million per year.
• Support and pass a new parcel tax in November.
• New bond measures or additional taxes.
• Rent space at school sites for Community College classes, like Korematsu is currently doing.
• Sell the Grande site.
• Sell the current district office site (perhaps move district offices to Valley Oak).
• Sell Nugget Field.
• Support the Carnival hosted by Emerson Junior High PTA on April 10-13 at the Old Cannery site on East Covell Blvd. Butler Amusements, which runs rides for lots of county fairs, will set up 15-20 REAL CARNIVAL RIDES, and there will be plenty of entertainment all four days.

Ideas on How to Reduce Expenditures for DJUSD:

• Golden Handshake – Offer a desirable retirement package for district employees that are considering retirement and offset the costs by retaining and paying lower salaries and benefits to less senior employees.
• Keep Emerson open – There needs to be a thorough cost-benefit analysis done before making a rush decision to close Emerson. As Education Code Section 17387 specifies: “It is the intent of the Legislature to have the community involved before decisions are made about school closure or the use of surplus space, thus avoiding community conflict and assuring building use that is compatible with the community’s needs and desires.” There are also many other legitimate reasons (This is certainly not an exhaustive list, just some of my ideas and some shared by other folks in the community.) to keep Emerson open:

1. So that the gymnasium can continue to be rented by outside groups. Currently the custodians open the gym to Davis Volleyball Club, Davis Hoops and sometimes DSHS basketball. If closed, there will be less availability of space district-wide.

2. Emerson is one of the most energy efficient schools in the district.

3. Emerson has also been upgraded recently. It has new carpeting, wall board, paint, new alarm system and other upgrades, and as stated by Bruce Colby (Associate Superintendent of Business Services) at the March 6 Board Meeting, $175,000 has been spent over the last two years, otherwise it’s been $25,000-$35,000 per year to maintain and repair. Additionally, Emerson is attractive with well-established gardens and landscape, and there is public art in the form of a large mural and many ceramic pieces that were created over a long span of time, and the gym has a beautiful, wood floor.

4. Lease portables (comes from restricted building and facilities fund, there are sufficient funds now) or transfer them from another site for proper sized, science labs instead of modernizing the school. Emerson already has the site prepared for additional portables (won’t need to pay in the $400,000 bottom-line range, one time cost for site preparation for portables that it would cost elsewhere as stated by Bruce Colby at the Mar. 6 Board Meeting) as there has been ten more portables (a total of 14) on site in the past. Emerson’s portable slabs are already prepared for water and electricity.

5. If Emerson closes, it will likely be vandalized, as with any vacant building, and people will skateboard and climb buildings on the premises, which will result in injuries and destruction, thereby likely leading to a large, expensive lawsuit. Alternatively, the district will have to pay and waste money for a security guard.

6. Davis Senior High School’s Grad Night is held at Emerson each year due to its unique layout and to ensure student safety and supervision.

7. “It is structurally sound” as stated by Steve Newsome, a district contracted architect, at a faculty meeting on Feb. 20, 2008.

8. Fixing Emerson is a possible solution and can be done for $1 million (with the existing facilities funds) as stated by Rey Reyes, Director of Maintenance, Operations & Facilities, on March 6, or it can be modernized for more money, perhaps from a potential future bond measure and currently from the $4.5 million recently recovered in state matching funds. See the link to “Understanding School Finance and the DJUSD Budget” on the district website (www.djusd.k12.ca.us) to get the answers to the question of what options are being explored to generate new revenue. It states that “the sale of the District owned real estate assets is a multi-year process. This is currently underway for the Grande property and just beginning for Nugget Field. However, by law, funds generated by the sale of these properties can be used only on capital expenditures not instructional programs. The recently recovered $4.5 million in state matching funds for the construction of Montgomery Elementary is similarly limited to capital expenditures, and is needed to modernize aging facilities in the District.”

• Use less expensive vendors. For example, Office Depot, one of our vendors, doesn’t always have the cheapest items.

Additional Comments/Questions:

• It was calculated by Gary Slizeski, a Science teacher at Emerson that it would cost the West Davis parents near $300,000 collectively to drive their children to Holmes or Harper. If you have 300 parents driving each day times an average of 10 miles roundtrip per driver times 50 cents per mile to cover costs of gas, insurance, maintenance and repair, it would cost $1,500 per day for West Davis parents. $1,500 per day times 180 school days = $270,000. Please consider the environmental impact due to more driving parents and the costs that will be transferred to them by closing Emerson.
• What are your priorities? Small schools? A new, high school stadium?
• Are any board members, district administrators or superintendents currently working on solutions to keep Emerson open? By the tone of the March 6 Board Meeting it seems like conversely all efforts are spent on the consolidation of the junior highs option. Small schools are the best for the safety and learning process of all students! One of the guiding principles of the Board that I’d hope you will abide by is that “the District will provide a safe and secure environment on every campus.”
• Would you please allow an opportunity for a facilitated community workshop in which we’ll all have an opportunity to help build a budget before making a decision to close Emerson?
• What are the costs to repair Harper and Holmes Junior Highs yearly compared to Emerson’s costs?
• I realize that your working under tight time constraints and that hard decisions have to be made. Please keep Emerson open, or, at the very least, give the Davis community more time to provide helpful feedback on how to create additional revenue and reduce expenditures, for the good of all city residents and workers, and most especially all students, for the long term. As Superintendent Hammond had said at the Mar. 6 Board Meeting, once the decision is made to consolidate the junior highs “it’s a point of no return, when we decide to do it”. Hiram Jackson, an Emerson parent, shared that the board is deciding to close Emerson in less than a month (in reality, only two weeks since going public), and that “in the rush to make this decision, it may later on appear that Emerson should not have been closed, but rather another campus. It will be additionally expensive to go back on that decision to correct it.” That will have a huge, detrimentally negative impact on West Davis homes and families in the short and long term. Harper and Holmes families alike value small schools, and don’t want their neighborhood junior high schools to have over 1,000 children attending them. Also, potentially, some Emerson students could be faced with four schools in four years. For example, 6^th grade at Patwin, 7^th grade at Emerson, 8^th grade at Holmes, and 9^th grade at Davis High School. That is unacceptable and one of many unintended consequences of making a hasty decision without time to think it through. I’ve only had a week and a half to process and research ideas since being informed by Dr. Hammond that the board is considering Emerson’s closure. By the time March 20, 2008 rolls around, the majority of the Davis community has only known about this huge, long lasting decision for two weeks. I will restate that as Education Code Section 17387 specifies: “It is the intent of the Legislature to have the community involved before decisions are made about school closure or the use of surplus space, thus avoiding community conflict and assuring building use that is compatible with the community’s needs and desires.” Please give EVERYBODY in the community a chance to help you before you make a rush decision!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME, ENERGY AND COMMITMENT!