July 4th, President's Message
CAAE Members and all employed in the Southern Section Adult Schools:
As we celebrate Independence Day and hopefully relax a little, I know many of you out there in the world of adult education are extremely worried, anxious and concerned about not only your futures but about the future of adult schools in California as we know it.
If we have not done so already, we all need to face up to the fact that this is the worst crisis for the state's adult schools in over the last 150 years of their existence. In our section, there have been summer school and program cuts in Grosssmont, major changes afoot in Sweetwater, and large program cuts in San Bernardino to name but a few. So far, in Escondido we have obviously had to balance our reduced budget, skillfully achieved by our Principal and past CCAE State President, Dom Gagliardi, but we have been spared any "flexibility" sweeping of our funds by our district. However, as many adult schools up and down the state we are introducing a registration fee of $30 for the ABE/GED/High School Diploma and ESL classes.
As for myself, I must confess an unhealthy but fascinating interest (given my economics background) in reading about the crisis and meltdown. In January, I was stocking up on SPAM and other emergency food supplies, much to my wife's annoyance. Now that I have six month's supply, I am feeling a little more relaxed. You may or may not want to take such actions, but make no mistake the worst is yet to come. There will be increasing unemployment in the state and country as the green shoots recovery is recognized as a pure delusion and companies engage in massive lay-offs. We know the the state of California is about to issue IOUs as there is no budget resolution with the $24 Billion deficit, about a quarter of the general fund, still staring back at our legislators. School Districts are in the process of negotiating pay reductions with teachers, and, shock and horror, there is even talk of reducing administrators salaries, so you know things must be bad!
It is important for us to us to rapidly move, like the five stages of grief, through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally to acceptance of these new realities. Current events form future trends. Many adult schools have had budgets severely slashed. Even Berkeley Adult School, with such an excellent advocate as outgoing Principal, Margaret Kirkpatrick, has had massive reductions in their budget.
I have accepted a second year as your Southern Section President as approved at our last Section Board meeting held in Temecula on May 30th. What do I have to offer you in this coming crisis year? Information, insights, updates, and a little inspiration will be my goal for all in adult education along with our core mission of advocating on behalf of adult eduction, awards and recognition, and professional development. Regular postings on this this blog will be made. Old entries from last year have been deleted. This is a new year and a new start.
I very much encourage your comments, feedback, information, and updates from your school and district. Let's make this blog a place to share in the Southern Section and indeed throughout the whole state as we hold on to our hats and ride through this hurricane year.
I am off next week to the State Board Meeting in Sacramento on the 11th and will bring back news our Section Meeting to be held on Saturday, July 18th. I spent a hot Monday afternoon scouring Temecula for a new venue for our section meeting which will be announced soon. It was quite a shock to find that our longtime meeting place of Mexico Chicquitos Restaurant had shut down. Another casualty of the recession and indicator that things are not the same, I reflected!
My Very Best Regards
Enjoy the burgers and fireworks today.
I will be posting again soon.
Your Southern Section President, 2009-2010
Brian Head
Escondido Adult School
bhead@escondido.k12.ca.us
A brilliant analysis of the current sutution. At first, I thought my husband was nuts about the six month food supply, but now I consider myself very fortunate to have a husband who is both an economist and a realist. Lynne Head
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I agree with Brian. We are facing hard times now, however it will get worse before it gets better. We all need to keep in touch with our legislators in order to keep further cuts from happening to the adult school system in our state.
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