With 100% of precincts counted, Measure O fails.                                        Board of Directors just wasted half a million dollars of taxpayer money on this election.                                        Criminal complaints against the district will continue to be pursued.                                        Criminal and FPPC complaints against the Astro-Turfers will continue to be pursued.                                        Your property taxes based on indebtedness will now go down, as they should.                                        

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!


I'm sure the Board hopes you never see this.

Under the humongous California Education Code, every public school in the state must produce a School Accountability Report Card (SARC) every year. The SARC has four sections -- A. Conditions of Learning, B. Pupil Outcomes, C. Engagement, and D. Other SARC Information.

Under Section A, there is a School Facility Conditions and Planned Improvements subsection. Because I know you're busy, I've reproduced that subsection from the most recent SARC (January 2015) for every one of the schools.

For each school there is a grid that reports on categories of things that the inspection covers. Every single school has an identical grid. Every school was rated 'Good' the highest rating in every category. Not a single school had a comment in the Repair Needed section.

For an exemplary example of dishonestly, I give Walnut Valley Unified School District my top rating: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. Folks, you're being conned. In the real world, every one of these people would likely be charged with fraud and extortion. Either the Board is lying in Measure O when it whines about all the needed repairs and safety issues at the schools or every one of these reports is a lie. Both can't be true.

February 2, 2016 Update

Everything is perfect in Walnut Valley. The Board just wants your money because it's bored being perfect.

The new SARCs have finally arrived. Perhaps the Board didn't read this critique the last time around. Nearly to a word, they are identical to the previous year's report cards. All the overall ratings are the same -- Good or Exemplary. All the inspection categories in the grids for each and every school are also the same as last year -- Good. Not a single repair was needed or made across the entire district. Everything is perfect in Walnut Valley. The Board just wants your money because it's bored being perfect. Just as there was the previous year, there is not a single 'Planned Improvement' for any school. Where exactly, then, have all your taxes for bonds gone?

2013-14 School Accountability Report Card
Published During the 2014-15 School Year
School Facility Good Repair Status (Most Recent Year)
System InspectedRepair Status
Good Fair Poor
Repair Needed and Action Taken or Planned
Systems:
Gas Leaks, Mechanical/HVAC, Sewer
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Interior:
Interior Surfaces
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Cleanliness:
Overall Cleanliness, Pest/ Vermin Infestation
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Electrical:
Electrical
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Restrooms/Fountains:
Restrooms, Sinks/ Fountains
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Safety:
Fire Safety, Hazardous Materials
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Structural:
Structural Damage, Roofs
[X] [ ] [ ] 
External:
Playground/School Grounds, Windows/ Doors/Gates/Fences
[X] [ ] [ ] 
 
2014-15 School Accountability Report Card
Published During the 2015-16 School Year
School Facility Good Repair Status (Most Recent Year)
System InspectedRepair Status
Good Fair Poor
Repair Needed and Action Taken or Planned
Systems:
Gas Leaks, Mechanical/HVAC, Sewer
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Interior:
Interior Surfaces
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Cleanliness:
Overall Cleanliness, Pest/ Vermin Infestation
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Electrical:
Electrical
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Restrooms/Fountains:
Restrooms, Sinks/ Fountains
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Safety:
Fire Safety, Hazardous Materials
[X] [ ] [ ] 
Structural:
Structural Damage, Roofs
[X] [ ] [ ] 
External:
Playground/School Grounds, Windows/ Doors/Gates/Fences
[X] [ ] [ ] 

Update February 1, 2016

Have you ever been frustrated? Dealing with the District appears to be a never-ending exercise in frustration.

Knowing that the Board had already decided to put another bond measure on the ballot, I had been awaiting the new School Accountability Report Cards, which were due by February 1, 2016.

SARCs are coordinated through the California Department of Education which provides the same tools to every district in the state.

My first frustration was when I checked my links on the 2013-2014 SARCs for the District. Sure enough, between October 12, 2015 when I put up the links below and today, every single one of the links had changed.

Example Link on October 12, 2015:
http://www.wvusd.k12.ca.us/ourpages/auto/2008/11/20/39255843/_2014_School_Accountability_Report_Card_Castle_Rock_Elementary_School_20150130.pdf

Example Link on February 1, 2016:
https://d3jc3ahdjad7x7.cloudfront.net/BqRptrgkNWzM5kEdaW8V620PoPlIkgIE10f7rfNGPUUG9a4i.pdf

Big improvement, right? To top it off, the reports for two of the schools (for C J Morris and Ron Hockwalt Academies) were completely missing. Some highly paid clerk must have gotten bored. Quality control? Are you kidding me?

This is further evidence of the complete incompetence of the district staff in charge of technology. These are the people who want you to give them millions of dollars to implement new technology for students and they can't even get their own technology house in order.

Getting back to the deadline, the district has had seven months to produce the report card for the school year August 2014 through June 2015. It only has 15 schools. Other districts have done it. The Education Code requires it. There's that pesky law again! This is the culture in the district. Drag your feet and do whatever you can get away with.

I wanted to make sure that I wasn't being too hard on the District. A news story of a trustee fight at Morgan Hill Unified in Santa Clara county came to my attention today. I went to its web site. Morgan Hill had a news alert, dated January 28th, right on its home page advising that the new SARCs for the district were available. I clicked on the page. Below you'll see what the Morgan Hill site displayed and, for comparison, what the District displayed.

Morgan Hill Unified 2014-15 SARC page.
Morgan Hill Unified 2014-15 SARC page.

Walnut Valley Unified 2013-14 SARC page.
Walnut Valley Unified 2013-14 SARC page.

I can say this about the District. It doesn't care one whit about the value of your time. Compared to the Morgan Hill page, which lists the schools alphabetically and identifies the language, the District page looks like it just threw the files in a trash can that you can pick through to find what you're looking for.

I was expecting to update this page with the latest SARCs. That will have to wait until the District gets around to complying with the law. I've kept the original links for reference so you can see what happens when you click on them. (The District could have had the old link forwarded to the new link, but that would have been a best practice. Much better to break links so that other references to these files around the web are broken for all eternity.)


With respect to school facilities, here is the report card for each school along with its overall rating. Each school's name is also a link to the actual SARC, just in case you want to check it out for yourself.

You may notice that, while the inspection date for each school is August 2014, the fiscal years vary. Obviously, it must be very boring for some clerk to take the previous year's report and update the changes. You may notice other things that appear to be errors. Trust me. The following is copied verbatim from the reports, errors and all.

 


Copyright © 2015, Richard Michael. All Rights Reserved.