Features

Deputy superintendent Eric Smith presented board members of the Berkeley Unified School District with information on the governor’s budget for fiscal year 2007-2008 on Wednesday. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger presented his budget proposals for 2007-08 on Jan. 10. The K-12 budget funds the cost of living allowance (COLA) and helps to neutralize the effect of declining enrollment.  

Currently, the growth rate of students in California schools is negative on a state-wide basis as the state’s birth rate has been going down consistently since 1990. This issue was presented by Smith with the help of a graph titled “Where Have All the Kindergartners Gone?” 

Smith also said that more than half of California’s students are now in districts that are declining in enrollment. 

The Governor fully funds the 2007-08 statutory COLA, estimated to be 4.04 percent, which applies to revenue limits, special education and virtually all state categorical programs. The exact COLA will be known in April 2007.  

The budget includes two controversial proposals: 

• shifting all state support for home-to-school transportation from Proposition 98 to the Public Transportation Account (PTA). This shift of $627 million would be followed by a downward re-benching of the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee. 

• The state administration has proposed that $269 million in funding for the Stage II CalWORKs Child Care Program be paid for with Prop. 98 dollars. Historically, these expenses are funded outside of Prop 98. 

Prop. 98 guarantees that a certain percent of revenue from the state of California be dedicated to education every year. Smith said that there would be huge lobbying against the proposals from the education community. 

Lunch program 

The Berkeley school board was also received a report on the Free and Reduced Lunch Program which will help to review the success of the program. LeConte Elementary School topped the list for the most number of students receiving free and reduced price lunch in elementary schools for the 2006-07 school year (65.30 percent), and Longfellow (56.45 percent) topped the three middle schools. 

B-Tech recorded 53.61 percent students for the program and Berkeley High School 27.49 percent. 

Student board member Mateo Aceves said that he was curious to know why the numbers in the BHS program were less compared to the rest of the schools, given that the population in the different schools were the same. 

School Superintendent Michele Lawrence said that the numbers were significantly less at BHS because the kids were “self-reporting” at the high school level. BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan said that there was a certain stigma attached to the lunch program for high school kids.  

BHS advisory program report 

BHS principal Jim Slemp also presented the school board with the Berkeley High School Advisory Program Report. The high school has been trying for a few years to start a school-wide advisory program which will be implemented this fall. 

Slemp said that this program would have some scheduling implications that would modify the high school bell schedule. 

Some of the aims of the program are to personalize the BHS experience by providing a safe and caring community that evolves over four years and to provide students with adult advocates. 

By their junior year, students will develop a five-year plan which will help take them through graduation and post-secondary education.  

Adult school 

Board members also approved the Adult School BSEP Site Plan for 2006-07. The Adult School, located on San Pablo Avenue and Virginia Street, was upgraded recently with a grant of $3 million.